best webhosting site with templates
printer6km
subscriber Posts: 1
I am looking to build my own website for a small printing company
specializing in personal, business notepads - I am wondering what the
best webhosting service is - I have been looking at Homestead, yahoo
small business, Webstarts (I actually starting building a free site
(page acutally) here but it took like 3 hours and looks very bad - I
hate to see how long it would take to make a nice website - I am a
small business owner/graphic designer - so I know quite a bit about
photoshop, Illustrator etc, - Has anyone found a good template based
site - I would appreciate any kind of direction - I have researching
for several weeks and the more I look the more confused I become -
please email me directly if you can at [email protected] - thanks for your help.
edit
specializing in personal, business notepads - I am wondering what the
best webhosting service is - I have been looking at Homestead, yahoo
small business, Webstarts (I actually starting building a free site
(page acutally) here but it took like 3 hours and looks very bad - I
hate to see how long it would take to make a nice website - I am a
small business owner/graphic designer - so I know quite a bit about
photoshop, Illustrator etc, - Has anyone found a good template based
site - I would appreciate any kind of direction - I have researching
for several weeks and the more I look the more confused I become -
please email me directly if you can at [email protected] - thanks for your help.
edit
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Comments
I know you may want to get this up fast... but it would be good if you did a little planning (you may already have). What is the purpose of the site? Just a informational / business card site? or will you sell something online or allow users to upload graphics/files?
Do you have a budget or are you committed to a DIY site?
~Roland
I went with Yahoo Small Business and their Sitebuilder software. Sitebuilder has many templates, but I went with a very simple template. It has very little graphics. I use my site to refer potential clients to so they can review my writing and training samples. I like Sitebuilder because I can go in and edit or update my site without having to pay someone else to do the work. You can also import photos from other sources besides SiteBuilder`s graphic selection.
Hope this helps.
You might consider a couple of changes to make the process more customer friendly...
Instead of requiring the customer to print out the pdf file, complete it and fax it back to you, have an online form. Alternatively, you could use a pdf form that they can complete online, then print and fax or email back to you.
If you throw up hurdles in front of people who are trying to buy online - they will just go somewhere else. So, you want to make the process as user friendly as possible. The success of your online venture is affected not only by your products / service but by how the user interacts with your website.
Re: payment - you can use PayPal to generate and email an invoice (and process credit card payments).
~Roland
vwebworld4/26/2009 8:35 AM
Remember, too that with the internet you are selling to the entire globe - with the calling there could be time zone issues (when to you call the Aussie back, someone in Japan, Europe?).
Give your customer an on-line form to fill out. Allow them to upload their image, and use Paypal, or set up a merchant account (all of this is standard fair for websites). Email your proofs back in a PDF fromat.
Don`t get me wrong - I think offering you clients the ability to fax information and contact you directly is a very good idea - but I think you will lose sales if you don`t make it possible for your clients to complete the orders via the internet and email.
Good luck -
Please don`t. This is a discussion forum and many of us on the forums can benefit from seeing the ideas presented.
Look at how your competition does it. I`ve used Vistaprint for years, and one of the SUN members is an online printer (the name escaped me for now, look in the SUN Marketplace).
If you could design a knock your socks off web page in Photoshop, then look at SiteGrinder by Medialab (they advertise regularly in Layers and Photoshop magazines). I`ve never tried it because I think the price is too high. At least for my purposes.Videography5/5/2009 11:34 AM
http://www.bestofjoomla.com
http://www.learnjoomlafast.com
If you like the look of that site, click the link in my signature for a 45 minute tutorial on how to build it from scratch using WordPress and BlueHost. Total cost = $5/month
http://thishdreamz.com/