Help with website

[jinx13]

 Thought I would see if any of you guys know someone that does website design, I desperately need a good website for my business, my brick and mortor is getting killed by internet competition, I need to do some e-commerce.

 I hired a Russian guy that designed the site of an agency I used, and he is very talented, but not very focused, I can't seem to get a straight answer as to when the site will be completed, it's already been 5 months, and I have only seen a couple snapshots of his plans for my site. He is in Russia, so communication with him his bad, I offerd to call him using Skype, but he said he will call me, and he did, twice. He is a good guy, and I haven't payed him anything yet, he refuses to take anything until he shows me a complete example of the working site...but it's been 5 months!

 I need to get this thing going, my business is hurting, cashflow is a problem so I need it done at a cheap price, but I want something that is fully functional too. You guys know anyone? I wonder if Bruno the gardener does that kind of stuff  ???

[SANDRO43]

Thought I would see if any of you guys know someone that does website design, I desperately need a good website for my business, my brick and mortAr is getting killed by internet competition, I need to do some e-commerce.

A few additional details would be helpful, such as approximate number of pages, and type of interactivity required (such as just receiving/sending emails up to getting credit-card payments for selling your bricks and mortar via the site ). In general terms, the less interactivity, the lower the cost.

[LEGAL]

Jinx Maybe talk to Turbo. His website look good.

LEGAL

[Turboguy]

Thanks Legal.  I don't know anything about it but I did do that myself and have a number of other sites as well.  That one is the main one and I do have e-commerce on it.

Jinx, there are a number of programs that are WYSIWUG and fairly user friendly.   I use FrontPage to create mine.   It is a simple program that you can learn to do in minutes.  The other that is a little better is Dreamweaver.   The disadvantage of FP is that it inserts extranious code.  That has never created a problem for me. 

What I do beyond that is go to a place and buy a neat looking template to build on.  The place I go is www.pixelmill.net    They do have templates for both FrontPage and Dreamweaver.   You can also get e-comerce templates. 

There are some e-commerce programs you can buy that will intigrate well.  I am a cheapskate so I went with Mals-e which is free. 

Here are a couple of my sites if you want to see how they turn out doing it that way.

www.turboturf.com
www.turfsprayers.com
www.icecontrolsprayers.com

Running a program like FrontPage you just delete out the existing text and add your own and click insert photo where you want your photos.  There is nothing to it.  I won't say it is not a bit more than that but not much more.

Microsoft is eliminating FrontPage and replacing it with a new program I have not tried.  You could pick up a copy of FrontPage on Ebay for less than $ 100.  Get version 12 or 13, nothing older.

Some of the others are much more expert than me. 

[jinx13]

 Sandro,

  Well it will be a full e-commerce site with the shopping cart and we will accept credit cards of course, as far as how many pages, somewhere between 50 - 60 should cover it.

 The Russian designer wanted it to be very interactive, he even wanted to put a forum on my site! Great, that's all I need is to be like Dan and regulate a forum   He said it would be good for search hits and create more traffic. He also was setting it up with customer login to send and receive messages, also customer account, certain people get better discounts for spending more, etc. So, the way it was going, it was VERY interactive, but I don't mind cutting out some of that, especially the forum.

 I looked to Russia to get it done because they do great work at a very reasonable price, and I wouldn't mind working with another designer from the FSU, but it has to be someone I can openly communicate and exchange ideas...I don't have that with my current guy, I am left waiting and waiting with no answers..get's frustrating.

 Legal,

 Yes I saw Turbo's website, looks very nice and professional, everything loads quickly, but i'm guessing it wasn't cheap. Turbo's budget is probably significantly higher than mine, but I would like to hear from him.

[jinx13]

 Turbo,

 Sorry, I posted before I read what you had to say, now I can see I was wrong and you didn't spend the big bucks, I am going to check out those templates, maybe I can do it myself.

 Nataly actually has a website design class she is taking now, just the basics but maybe she can help too, could be fun 

 By the way, my site will be located at www.playathome.com, I sell billiards and game room furnishings, ya know pool tables, darts, foosball, air hockey, jukeboxes, bars, casino games...all that fun stuff.  High end retail doesn't do well in a bad real estate market, so business is off, hopefully I can kick start things with this website.

[Turboguy]

I think you will find it is easy to do it yourself.   If you have problems a great resource that I used to use a lot but have not visited in ages is www.frontpagewebmaster.com

I paid $ 50 - $70 for the templates and other than that just pay for hosting which is cheap, Often $ 10-15 a month.   I do have another site with a forum.   I actually donated that to the hydroseeding association now though but do the site and moderate the forum.  If you want to see another of my sites (done with a pixel mill template) it is www.hydroseeding.org

[timothe]

You're in Beaver Falls, Turbo?  One of my best customers is Geneva College.  I'm scheduled to visit them in June, in fact.  (shortly after my next trip to see my ladyfriend)

If you don't mind, maybe I'll look you up.

[Turboguy]

Hi timothe,

Yes, Geneva is in Beaver Falls not much more than a half mile from me.  I would enjoy that.  Feel free to do that.  I will even buy lunch if you hit at lunchtime.   Hopefully if it is June you can even meet VWRW (I hope, darn NVC)

Jinx,  Too bad you didn't post that a few weeks ago.  I was just out your way with a lot of time to burn.  I could have brought my copy of FrontPage and had you find a template in advance and we could well have had you up and running in a day with enough instruction to do the rest yourself.

One of the things I really like about doing my own is when I need to change something, prices, new model etc I can just do it and not have to worry about someone else doing it when they get to it.  The other thing I like is that when you do it you can just play with it until you get it the way you like it.   Sometimes I sit there and play with wording or photos for quite some time until I am happy.

[Zadan]

I used to do web design but have since moved on to greener (now a sw engineer doing firmware) pastures. I have little free time as it is, so wouldn't be interested in this kind of work, but certainly could offer some advice.  Firstly, the FSU probably isn't a good starting point for hiring an employee in your situation due to the difficulty in finding someone with adequate english skills. 

I would start by looking in the Philippines, particularly in the Cebu and Manila areas.  How?  Try craigslist, and offer up a well-thought out contract and wait until you find someone you like that you can use Skype or IM with.  Expect to pay around $400/month for a relatively recent graduate with a BS in Computer Science, and obviously more for someone with experience or an MS.  Look for someone who can show you something that they've already done and can tell you exactly how they're going to do it, and make sure you have control over all the data and code they produce--and not just a shiny website you can view somewhere (this perhaps goes without saying, ...).

Keep in mind that you may get many candidates who already have full-time jobs doing something similar as their day job, and they might be trying to do this on the side to make extra money.  That might be fine for you, and you might be able to find someone very good who already does it for a living but could only devote themselves to it part-time.  Just be aware of the possibility of them misrepresenting their ability to work 'full time' if thats what you want, and keep that kind of question in mind when you interview them.  Also for that reason you might not want to make the pay hourly (or time based).

For something short-term like this, you could also try going to a nearby University and put up a simple advertisement in the Comp Sci bulletin board looking for someone to work on your 'local ecommerce' site or whatever.  May not even cost much more money, and you may be able to find some starving graduate student who has a fair amount of short-term time flexibility (takes a long time to do research and finish a thesis, etc ...) to devote to you and be local.

[catzenmouse]

jinx,

 Before you go live with a website aimed at customers do some usability testing on it to make sure those people you are trying to attract can actually use the site and that it makes sense to them.

 Plenty of web sites out there have great information or great products etc. but are designed in such a way as to be totally useless for the average user of the internet. You only have about FIVE seconds to catch a user before he clicks the next link in their Google search! You can look at the site and know exactly what to do, what the terminology means, and how to go from finding a product to buying it in a flash. The developer knows how things work and what buttons do what so he can also go from start to finish in a flash. Great! You have the two people who know the site inside and out thinking that everything is great and will be a big hit with the public!

 This thinking is dead on wrong.

 Write out a list of some of the tasks that a typical customer would do. Searching, comparing items, selecting colors and styles of a table, buying something, setting up an account and using a payment option, logging in to their account to check the status of a purchase/order, etc.

 Find some people off the street. Different ages, computer abilities, familiarity with your type of products. Give them a few bucks to run through the tasks and mark down any problems or anything they did not understand. Talk to them about why this or that didn't make sense to them.

 Find out what confused the user and fix it first. In the long run you will make this money back dozens of times over in the first year of being live. Plenty of studies out there to support this and plenty of information out there as to how to set up a test and how to adjust your site to be workable.

Ken

[SANDRO43]

Jinx, I would have some even more basic questions :

1. Are you certain that an interactive website may improve your business ?
2. Are your competitors (with comparable business volumes) using such websites, and how much do they benefit from them ?

I am not a typical customer (wouldn't know where to fit a pool table in my flat), but were I to consider buying one, I would imagine myself visiting a shop, touching the green felt, maybe asking the vendor to let me try a few shots and see how the cushions respond, possibly reminiscing about Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, etc.

In other words, the personal touch. I would only bother visiting websites to compare prices and merchandise, and finding a conveniently located shop to do the above.

Just my two 8-ball's worth .

[jinx13]

Don't you hate when you write a long post and then for whatever reason it doesn't go through and you lost it and have to start over  ???   

 Anyway, Thanks for the advice and suggestions guys, I am taking them all into account, and sorry I didn't post earlier Turbo Guy, would have been nice to meet you when you were out in my area, and picked your brain about creating a website.

 Ken, I agree with you about keeping it simple and easy to navigate, I am all for that, but the Russian web developer keeps bringing up this forum thing, and I can see his point, it creates interest and more search hits, and people do love to discuss things they are passionate about, and there are some people Really into pool believe it or not, but sounds like it would be a pain to moderate, and I have better things to do, I don't want Dan's job 

 Sandro, the site isn't really for selling pool tables, although I will sell my imported line there, but it's mainly to advertise my American made pool table lines, and to sell everything else connected with pool and gamerooms...cues...balls...darts...barstools...foosball...game room art, etc...mostly small stuff, but you would be surprised at how many people will spend thousands of dollars on something they have never seen or touched in real life. Net sales have been increasing dramatically for years, and I really noticed it this past Christmas, the crowds just weren't as bad, only the last minute shoppers are what saved most retailers, but many people did most of their shopping on-line and were done even before December.

 I'm going to write to the Russian guy today and give him a deadline, I need to know if he is serious or not about completing this website, i can't just sit and wait forever...in the mean time if anybody here knows someone who is talented, doesn't charge an arm and a leg, and is RELIABLE, let me know. Thanks

[jinx13]

For something short-term like this, you could also try going to a nearby University and put up a simple advertisement in the Comp Sci bulletin board looking for someone to work on your 'local ecommerce' site or whatever.  May not even cost much more money, and you may be able to find some starving graduate student who has a fair amount of short-term time flexibility (takes a long time to do research and finish a thesis, etc ...) to devote to you and be local.

 Thanks Zadan, good idea...I will try this too.

[Turboguy]

Jinx, I almost PM'd you when I was out your way and wish I had.  I was supposed to meet a friend from SF who was on Jack's tour with me but he had his kids that week end. 

If you want to try a Forum with no effort to set up and you could dump it in a second, check out ezboard.  All you have to do to have it is fill out a form and then put a link in your site.  It is free but you do put up with banner ads unless you want to pay a small fee.  They also drive some traffic to you.   I started out that way and when it took off a bit changed to a better board.  Most boards won't be as active as this and you can always find moderators.  I have two so I don't have to watch as close.

There is a lot of cheap talent out there.  When I was first thinking about doing my main site I was chatting with someone who quoted me a good price and had a portfolio of some very decent sites he had done.   I asked a question about his life and he came back to me and said "This is all I do other than being a student.  I am only 13 years old.    Web design can be child's play I guess.