Dear Radkatar,
To build a site that is a retail store, and to promote it to search
engines, you would need to have these kinds of things:
A website (big enough to handle products - typically $15 - $40/month)
A Shopping Cart - it lets you put your merchandise in the store, with
prices. And it lets people coming to your store put each item they want
into their cart while they continue to shop for other things in your store.
Then it lets them place the order. (typically $20 - $100 per month)
A Merchant Account - so you can accept credit cards and get paid.
(Generally through a bank, typically $19.95/mo)
A Credit Card Gateway - to process those credit cards securely.
(AuthorizeNet.com or others, typically $25 per month) (PayPal.com is free)
SEO - Search engine optimization - either get software, or do a LOT of
reading, or hire an expert to optimize your pages.
(software could cost $25 - $200 or so, expert perhaps $50 per hour and up)
Then, of course, someone needs to design the site. It's not as easy as
you might think, to set this up on your own. If you're not a pro, each
single page you do could take you 2-3 hours. (Believe me, I know. I have
a LITTLE experience. Yet each time I put up a new page, I see things
I should have done. By the time it looks right and it formatted right,
I look up and hours have passed.)
Recently, I found one company that is making a campaign of taking all
those things you want, and rolling them into one package - remarkably
inexpensively. For about the cost of the website hosting alone, Ken
Evoy had put everything you need into one package.
It's called Site Build It
http://buildit.sitesell.com/main/index.html
It includes your hosting
It includes getting you your domain name - and renewing it each year
It includes the shopping cart
It includes your payment processsing (through PayPal)
You can deal with getting a merchant account later, if you want to
Then, it will integrate with your merchant account
It teaches you how to do the search engine optimtization for each of
your site's pages AND sends them to the search engines for you.
It has built-in templates for your site. All you do is fill in the
words and add the products and prices. You don't need to know how
to write HTML or how to program. It has built in graphics you can
modify to make your site look customized. And when you change the
graphics (on your logo or master template) ALL the pages are changed.
(Talk about a big time-saver.)
In addition, it has a built-in tool to let your shoppers join your
mailing list. You can e-mail them regularly and stay in touch.
You can create newsletters with the system, easily. (paying for a
newsletter database, alone, costs me about $300 per year.)
It has autoresponders - these are messages you can set up in advance
and when any buys things in your shop, they'll get a thank you, or a
follow up about specials or a reminder to come back and visit - whatever
you want to say to them.
It has a spam-check tool so that you can screen your own mail before it
goes out. This way your customers WILL get your e-mail.
There are many other nifty things in this system. But one of the most
useful, after your site is done, is the tool that helps you advertise
your site to the various reputable search engines, for the least amount
of money.
Why am I only giving you one recommendation?
Because you sound as if you've never done this before and Site Build It
puts all the things you need in one place. You don't have to try to
buy different software and hosting, and then try to get them to work
together. Often they are not compatible.
SBI will not only take care of all the things you need, it will
teach you how it all works and help you get customers coming to
the site.
Their customer service is excellent. And they are focussing all of their
energies on making this tool the very best website system possible.
You will find more design and marketing tools added each month.
When I heard what they had started to do, I immediately went and set a
one of my new sites through them. It was quite easy. (And any glitches
I came across, back in May have been fixed long ago. Yes, they listen.)
Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions.
Best wishes
Your TaxMama-ga
P.S. One excellent way to build a client base is to use an affiliate program.
That's where other people with websites put a link to yours and only get paid
if one of their referrals shops from you. (I pay $69.00 per month for that
for my primary site.) SBI has a built-in affiliate program.
P.S.S. You may want a custom logo - these guys do a remarkable job for $25.00
http://www.gotlogos.com/ |
