beardiepaw on mon 13 nov 00
Thanks for the advice on websites. I have several options to look at. I
appreciate the answers. sherry morrow
Gary Elfring on thu 28 dec 00
At 12:00 AM 12/28/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Finding a single site on the internet is like walking into the main branch=
of
>the New York Public Library hoping to find one sentence in a book that you
>don=E2=80=99t even know the title of. Even if you know the book is about=20
>pottery, and
>you have a computer to seach with, you still have very little chance of
>locating that particular sentence.
>
>Your site, standing alone, is effective if you already have a customer base
>to refer to the site. =C2 If you do a lot of Craft Fairs for instance, it=
is a
>very handy place to send clients to get more information or to re-order.=
Make
>sure all of your business cards and handouts have the site listed in large
>print.
I own 5 different on-line web stores, and it is fairly simple AND=
inexpensive
to run a web site. It is also not that hard to get your web site listed in=
the
major search engines. Finally, you can purchase advertising (to attract new=
=20
customers)
from sites like GOTO.COM and FINDWHAT.COM inexpensively.
Most of the web sites I visit (to see what others are doing) make the same=
=20
basic
mistakes.
1) The first page takes too long to open because there are too many=20
graphics on it. A simple rule of thumb- the opening web page including all=
=20
graphics and java scripts can not total more than 50K in size (30K is=
better).
2) There is no easy and consistent way to navigate around the site. Think=20
of your web site as a house- you open a door to go to another room. When=20
you are in that room, can you go back through the door you just came in? Or=
=20
do you have to do something different? Another thought is to add a search=20
engine to your site. Atomz.com offers free search engines for any web site=
=20
with just a couple of lines of html code.
3) The web site is not search engine friendly. (Neither of the sites listed=
=20
in your example were.) The general rules of thumb state that if you want to=
=20
get listed (and listed high) in a search engine, your site needs to a) have=
=20
a title directly related to what it is about, b) have separate meta tags=20
for the site description and site keywords, c) the site keywords had better=
=20
appear in the text on the main page. (You can see all of this at any web=20
site by clicking on View Document Source in your browser.)
4) You are paying high fees for services you don't need. A basic web host=20
for a low traffic pottery shop should cost from $15 to $20 a month (not=20
including an ecommerce link, which you don't really need). I pay Pair.com=20
$18.95 a month to host 4 separate web sites. That's not a bad deal. I pay=20
another $50 a month for a site with a lot more traffic and that includes=20
special programming languages so I can process software orders in real-time.
5) They waste money on banner ads. Unless you can find a very targeted site=
=20
(say, potterlovers.com) there is no point in paying for banner ads. Spend=20
the money paying for visitors at GOTO or FINDWHAT instead.
For examples look at:
http://www.elfring.com
http://www.barcodingfonts.com
http://www.barcodingfonts.com
http://www.micrfonts.com
http://www.micrfont.com
Gary
ge@elfring.com
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