website?

[dclevinger]

For those of you that have a website, do you get enough work from it to justify the time and expense required to maintain it? I've been thinking of setting one up for quite a while now and am about to take the plunge. I just want to make sure that it's not a huge waste of time and money. Would love to hear the opinions of those without a website as well. Thanks.
David

 

[Tira]

Hello David,

I have had great luck with my website which I have had up nearly 10 years now. It brings in almost all of my motorcycle business and has been slowly bringing in other types of business now that I have many different types of pictures displayed (guns, bells, wrenches, etc.). Having said that, I have a very good web address that many people stumble upon and my husband manages my web site so I have never had to pay development or management fees. The site is built from microsoft frontpage software.

One thing that may make your decision easier is marketing. If you are out somewhere, at a dinner perhaps, and speaking with a potential client, it's great to be able to say "If you would like to see my portfolio you may see it all on my website www.davidsart.com" (or whatever you will call it). Many times I have people go home and look it up and then e-mail me. It seems to pique their interest when they can go home and research it on their own time in the quiet of their office. Now with the portable web accessible phones people can pull up your site anytime.

Some other advice would be to pick a domain that is easy. (www . whatever . com). If you set up a site that has 27 backslashes ex: (www . engraver . com/guns/pistols/chrome/home/davidsart.htm) people will loose interest and not spend the time writing it down or typing it in.

Finally, and I know Sam will agree with me here, your pictures need to be clear and neat. People loose interest fast if the pictures are blurry and too small, etc. Just my 2 cents.

Good luck, TIRA

 

[fegarex]

Of course, the fact that you had the brains to grab engraver.com before anyone else was SO smart!

 

[Tira]

My kids asked once how I got that address. I told them that I was so old that I was alive at the dawn of the internet so it was possible... Truthfully, however, I would never have thought of it if tira.com had not already been taken. I was so bummed that we tried everything we could think of and then my husband typed in engraver.com and that was that.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

David

Do it..................Tira has said it all. Think of it as a permanent brochure of your work that can be altered at any time.

FrontPage is a very easy programm to use (similar to word) and it's well worth the effort of you learning to get to grips with it. There are better ones out there but FrontPage is easy and intuative as you don't want anything with whistles and bells.

You won't regret it!!!

Cheers
Andrew

P.S. The best book on FrontPage is called "Easy FrontPage 2000" It explains it simply and with pictures and takes you through all the steps and is pretty bullet proof

 

[vilts]

I believe in current age it is absolutely necessary to have website. Just like Tira said, people like to do their research and shopping at home behind their computers, so if you've nice site with enough interesting information and photos to keep people interested, they probably bookmark it, come back later and will use your services.

As of time and money. No, you don't need to spend a lot. If you can do little research you could probably get your site up and running for free. Yes, for free.

First you'd need design - google for "free website templates" and pick what you like, there are some really good designs out there.

Second, html editor. FrontPage is possibility. I don't know about the last ones, but some time ago they were not so good, to put it mildly. Yes you get your website, but behind the scenes it was awful, page code was big, slow to load, wasn't standard compliant, which meant that IE showed it like it should, other browsers didn't. I've seen my share of blank white pages, which were OK in Explorer. I use Dreamweaver and pure text editor, but it's question of taste and requirements.

Site hosting. Again, google for "web hosting". Prices start from $4/month.

So, probably you'd need some time to set up your site and then just $5 bucks or so for monthly hosting fees.

 

[jmcutting]

Web Development now here's a topic I live and breath daily... I manage a marketing and web development department for a consulting company and regularly deal with companies determining whether or not a web site is for them or not. The big question is what do you want from the site.

1. Do you want to grow your business from your site?
2. Do you want to provide an Internet presence and showcase your work?

I recently dealt with a custom car builder who builds 3 or 4 cars a year. He then sells these cars at major auctions and they bring anywhere from $20k to $100K +. He came to me because his son had ben bugging him that he needed a web site. So in our discussion I asked him did he want to gain more business from his site. His immediate response was no... he couldn't handle anymore work and secondly didn't want to grow the business. My response was then if you want a site you will be better off building a simple site that shows who you are and what you do. We ended up going that route.

The project was more of a marketing plan since we developed a web site design, brochures, and business cards. The design flowed similarly amongst all his materials. We developed the business cards and brochure to push traffic to the site. He also added his web site to every online listing that mentioned his business. The site then was a simple 3 to 4 section site that informed visitors about who he was and showcased some of his better work. These cars that we showcased had about 30 to 40 pictures each to show the detail that he puts into his work. We developed the site so that he can update and maintain the site himself without having to be a web developer. This type of site doesn't require a lot of updating but when he chooses to he can.

Now I know non of you are looking to rebuild cars but the process is the same. A web site can only hurt you if it doesn't reflect the quality of work that you are creating. What you don't want is to say "Hey check out my web site and look at some of the work I've done. The site isn't very good but you can get the idea" You don't want them thinking well I don't want him doing my engraving because maybe it isn't very good but you can get the idea. I say this only because if you show people your web site but it doesn't provide the professionalism that you would in person then what good is it doing you. Your site should be an extension of your business.

Now that I have rambled on... Here is my suggestion.

If you are artisticly inclined as I am sure you are you can probably with some direction design what you want yourself. My suggestion is to search the Internet and find about 5 to 10 sites that you like. Determine what you like about them and look to incorporate similar pieces into your design. There are many template sites out there where you can purchase a web site design very resonably. templatemonster.com is a good example. Then if you follow Vilts' suggestions there are ways to host and develop your site without a lot of expense.

I hope that this sheds some light on the topic and feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions. I would be happy to help answer any questions you may have.

-justin

 

[Sam]

All of our sites are hosted on Pair.com which has an uptime of 99%+. I rarely have a problem with them, and have been a customer for years. Their prices are very reasonable and the quality and service is stellar.

I used Frontpage for many years, but now that I'm on the Mac, I use Dreamweaver for site design. Dreamweaver is absolutely fantastic and very powerful.

~Sam