Web Site

[IggyFlowers]

Ok... I don't have a web site for my shop. What is the best way to go about building one... is there something I can buy that will help me design a site? Would it be better for me to hire someone to do this for me? I have not done this sort of thing before so I am not at all sure where to begin... Any suggestions?:hammer:

Iggy

 

[Bigted]

We use Media99 and are very happy with them.

www.media99.com

 

[twiggy]

Iggy, I'm going with media99 at www.media99.com I had looked at developers locally and they wanted a mint ($1700).. with no shopping cart. media's prices are very competitive. and a few other flowerchatters use them also.
Twiggy

 

[Gigi]

Beware

All I can say is don't hire someone you know/friend. Our website was under development since June-so I thought. My guy kept telling me he was working on it but I couldnt figure out what he was doing cause we had given him any photos and no written info. I continuously asked for a meeting and he kept putting it off. Keep in mind that this guy lives pretty much in my backyard and I use to see him almost everyday (I havent seen him in at least 2 months now) I have sent him a registered letter and filed a complaint in small claims (wish I could go on Judge Judy). He has taken $800 from us but worse, he stole our dream.
We are now actively looking for someone else to help us put all our ideas together so this thread is useful to me as well. At least the delay with our site has given us more time to try and perfect the art of photography (we would like to use our own photos for the site).
Good luck and don't forget to have a contract signed!

 

[LORRIE]

Our new site is with Media 99 too. They have been very nice to work with and very patient with my lack of computer savy.

 

[CHERYL BAKIN]

media 99 is our webmaster/host also. We cut the cord from wire services 1 year ago (december), and have been very pleased. Lorrie & her crew are very easy to work with, and very patient. Things that need changed get changed immediately......not weeks or months later.

I find that our order volume has increased, and the overall fee structure that she charges is affordable.

Just keep in mind that after they build your site, there is still a lot of work that you must do, in terms of activating products for each category, and setting your prices. Very time consuming....plan on bringing in a good high school kid/college kid to do this. They are must faster than I was!!
I could then just take a quick look, and say yea or ney.

Good luck....hope it works out for you.

 

[Eric S]

Our site is a yahoo hosted site.

With a yahoo hosted site there is no limitations at all. They have a free site builder tool that is very easy to use and you can actually download the sitebuilder tool for free before you even sign up. This gives you a way to begin to understand how to use the program and have much of your site built before you even sign up. There are many 3rd patry tools that work well with yahoo's program. With the standard hosting package it cost $99 a month and the best part is you can actually have the orders faxed to your store that way you can input your order into your POS just as if you were taking a customers order over the phone and not have to deal with another company processing your orders.

Remember that whom ever you decide to use for your website it will take time before the search engines take your site seriously. Usually takes up to 3 months and sometimes longer before you start to get decent traffic to a new website. You can jump start your website by making sure that any directories you are currently using have your new or current URL. Yahoo also has a submit express program that has your site listed within 48 hours and will be refreshed every 48 hours keeping your fresh content with the yahoo index. PPC is also another option to jump start your new website however be very careful as this has become very expensive.

If you are seriouly considering launching your own website you should have your images ready. If you are going to use your current WS images that is fine however you will find out that your customers will be more interested in your own images.

Having a independent site compared to a WS site is not a instant increase in sales. What you do to promote your site is the key. It is possiable to generate the same amount of sales to your existing WS site however with the rising cost of hosting and per transaction charges it has become more of an issue of cost then the amount of sales. If you are not getting a good amount of sales to your existing ws site most likely you are not promoting it well and will need to make more of an effort if you really wqant to increase the amount of website sales.

A little over two years ago we had a TF hosted site and the traffic and sales where good. We just decided to go with more of a custom look and not be limited to relying upon someone else to do the work for us. Its a long a time consuming road ahead however the longer you wait longer it will take to get up to speed.

Goodluck with your decison.

 

[Gigi]

Having a independent site compared to a WS site is not a instant increase in sales. What you do to promote your site is the key. It is possiable to generate the same amount of sales to your existing WS site however with the rising cost of hosting and per transaction charges it has become more of an issue of cost then the amount of sales. If you are not getting a good amount of sales to your existing ws site most likely you are not promoting it well and will need to make more of an effort if you really wqant to increase the amount of website sales.

This is why we chose who we chose to do our website. He specialized in marketing the site, getting us up on the rankings.
My concern about media99 is they seem to promote a very cookie cut style. Even the customized ones look pretty much the same as the others. We are looking for something a little more on the artistic side, something promoting our style and our work.

 

[Eric S]

My concern about media99 is they seem to promote a very cookie cut style. Even the customized ones look pretty much the same as the others.

I agree but I don't think its not as bad as a WS site.

I'm sure there is more that you can do with Media 99 in terms of customize. If your able have media 99 add images to the layout of their sites I would work on creating your own GIF images such as borders backgrounds and banners. This would create a different look to the overall site. I would think they would also have people that could create a custom look.

I am sure you have a vision of what you would like your site to look like you just need to figure out a way to create it yourself or fiqure out a way to translate it to media 99.

That is one of those things that made me look at our current hosting company. I have the freedom of creating everything myself . I just needed to start practicing and learning how to do it.

 

[CHR]

We had a wire service hosted website until 2 days ago. It did fine for us on many levels but we outgrew the capabilities, the site structure and the reports.

If you've never had a site, an off-the shelf template can be a good starter. Eric is right, there's much more to do on some independently hosted sites. Generally, you have to update the content instead of having it automatically added. You also don't have to worry about your hosting company throwing up products you don't carry at the prices of their choosing.

Make sure to ask whether you can add products/pages/content on your own or if you must hire the webmaster for each change. Those fees can really add up.

Some hosting companies have 'per order' fees so be sure to add those into your anticipated cost.

Eric gave some great advice, especially about featuring your own products.

Anyone that wants to see our new site can just click the Florist in Anaheim link in my signature. (There are still a few areas under construction, more pages and a few bells and whistles to be added but it's working well already.)

 

[goldfish]

In many aspects, your web site is just like your second store front. General precautions before opening a second store should apply. If you jumped into it just because everyone said you should, you might end up regretting your venture.

On the one hand, your web site could increase brand-recognition of your business and could capture new, especially non-local, customers who are otherwise unavailable.

On the other hand, just like opening a second store, it is not realistic to expect a positive ROI (return on investment) right away. You would be very lucky if your web site "paid off" itself in the first year.

Your web site is an on-going venture that requires almost a constant attention day after day, just like a second store front. Because of that, it incurrs a significant maintenance cost; some people don't realize this. If you just launch and don't maintain at all, your web site will quickly become a cyber-space equivalent of a dusty old store in the middle of nowhere with broken windows and spider nets.

If you are not computer savvy, I would suggest you start with one of those WS-hosted templates. Yes, they are boring, but will get you started with an acceptable risk. Also, these sites usually rank well in search engines. Then you wait a few months or more, and see if this cookie-cutter site is generating enough sales to cover the monthly cost. If it does, good news. It means that, if you launch your own customized site that ranks as well in search engines, it will most likely be even more proffitable.

If your WS-hosted site doesn't generate enough sales, potentially a bad news. It means that your locality may not be able to support the "second store front" even in the cyber space. It could be because of too much competition or perhaps because population is too small. Either way, in this case, even if you build an awesome web site, it's like opening a grand super-store in the middle of corn field.

 

[IggyFlowers]

Our town is small about 3000 people. If we do a web site, it will not be used by the locals, they just call me (even at home), but more by 'outsiders' trying to send here. I currently have 800flowers for a WS, but not on my computer. I don't send that much and recieve even less and for now 800 is still making money. I recalculate evey month I don't know if they have web sites for individual shops. I was thinking that maybe I should just do a site with my toll free # and some pics of my work and not do a page with a shopping cart yet. Is this a bad idea?

Iggy

 

[Eric S]

There are many ways of just doing a single page website. I think superpages offers somethig like this. Check your yahoo listing and I think they even have a free single page website. Here

Even the yahoo hosted program offers a small deal for about 9.99 a month. You can use the yahoo sitebuilder and build a non ecommerce site that can feature your arrangements and pictures.

If your looking for a single page deal I would look at superpages or yahoo.
Remember you want something that can be indexed and thats why I am suggesting the two.

 

[mlou]

...Remember you want something that can be indexed and thats why I am suggesting the two.

I don't know of any single page websites being indexed...

Eric is right, if you just want a single web page , you will need to make it part of someone's website that is indexed.

IMO, 10 web pages seems to be the magic number for indexing by the search engines.

Why not buy your name (URL) and hosting thru Ryan...bet it can be done for less than $150.00 per year.

Then put up a small website about your flower shop and local town information...easy coding in simple HTML with no shopping cart.

.

 

[goldfish]

Our town is small about 3000 people. If we do a web site, it will not be used by the locals, they just call me (even at home), but more by 'outsiders' trying to send here. I currently have 800flowers for a WS, but not on my computer. I don't send that much and recieve even less and for now 800 is still making money. I recalculate evey month I don't know if they have web sites for individual shops. I was thinking that maybe I should just do a site with my toll free # and some pics of my work and not do a page with a shopping cart yet. Is this a bad idea?

To build a custom-made web-site that is visible by web surfers (i.e., showing up in the first pages in Google/yahoo/MSN), you would have to spend at least $1,000-2,000 to start with, including a fee for a web designer and also a charge for SEO (Search Engine Optimzation). This is a sunk cost, i.e., unrecoverable expenditure even if you decided to shut down the web site later.

Web-hosting itself probably costs about only $100-$200 a year. This is a recurring cost. If your site can generate an additional sales of $500 a year, you can pay for the recurring cost. Perhaps one or two orders a month, which is quite possible.

So the only consideration here is to minimize the sunk cost. If you know some friend or relative who can develop your site and do SEO for free, that's one way of minimizing the sunk cost.

Otherwise, I would look for an inexpensive template designed for florists (usually around $50) and hire someone to customize it. This way would be lot cheaper than building a your own site from scratch. Just a simple web site with information about your products and services.

After your web site is up and running, you should come back here and ask questions about how to do SEO. That's critical, otherwise, your site would be invisible.

I wouldn't spend more than $500 for the sunk cost if I were in your situation, i.e., a small town where everyone already knows your work and a potential for incoming orders is relatively low.