If you really MUST make your own website
Here’s the easiest, most effective solution:
Get some cheap web hosting that supports WordPress. 123-Reg are probably as good as any – at least, you will be able to move the site elsewhere in future if you want to. (From £2.50 per month).
Now choose a free theme from the hundreds out there and start playing around – or go with the standard but highly customisable TwentyTen or TwentyEleven themes and change them to suit. Check out a few WordPress tutorials on Youtube or download a free manual.
Make sure you back up all files and your database regularly and you will easily be able to move the site later if your current host seems restrictive in any way. I recommend this plugin to back up your database painlessly by e-mail.
I’ve created a short tutorial on the basic basics of WordPress starting from a clean installation with the 2010 theme:
It’s not the slickest tutorial, but will give you some idea. One day I will remake this and continue the series . . .
Anyway, WordPress is the easiest industry-standard platform, easy to keep up to date, easy to transfer between hosts and easy to customise to make do whatever you want to to do. The ability to upload new themes which keep design separate from content means you can at some future date get a theme professionally designed if you so desire, move the site to another server, allocate permissions to allow others to update specific sections of the site or install and use plugins to extend the functionality of the site.
Good luck.
E-commerce – A Vital Decision
Just how easy / affordable is it to get into selling online? Probably easier and cheaper than you think, but there are pitfalls for the unwary.
There are a whole host of dedicated shopping carts out there, some free and open source, some expensive. Some are hosted, some have to be installed on your web server. Which to choose, which way to go?
Firstly, don’t expect impartial advice from a web design company. They will probably have a lot of r&d time and energy invested in one or two particular packages, and will tell you unequivocally that this or that particular package is the only way to go. Be assured, it isn’t!
Secondly, if you have a limited budget and a lot of products, aren’t too critical about the look or branding of your site and don’t want to employ a web design company then have a look at hosted solutions. At the budget end we suggest:
Actinic - from £19.99/month (for up to 100 products)
EMPowershop - from £19.99 / month
If you have a bigger budget then just Google ‘hosted e-commerce’. But – do be aware that although these systems all boast of being incredibly easy to use and unbelievably versatile they will, like any computer programme or application, have their limitations. It will take you quite a while to get familiar with the interface and you will at times be frustrated because the software will not do what you want it to. You may find yourself spending a lot of time on forums asking for help from other users – so check that this feature is available.
If you go to a web design company ask them what software they propose using and check it out. We used osCommerce for some years, but no longer recommend it for the average small business. While it has the advantage of being free it is in our opinion a clunky, camel-designed bloated monstrosity that is hard to customise and keep secure and up to date. Offshoots of this include Zen Cart and OscMax. These are better, but be very sure that the web developer you are using has complete mastery – check their portfolio, ask their clients – and make sure you get a price for the regular security updates that these systems always seem to need.
There are dozens of other less well-known shopping cart systems. Each has its supporters, each will have some merit, but most will also have drawbacks in terms of design and template limitations, ease of use, security and ease of updating. There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution and it is worth doing a lot of research before committing yourself to any one system or designer. In particular, you need to know how easy is it to install software updates, and whether there a facility to make complete backups including the database.
One of the popular e-commerce solutions nowadays is to use a plug-in for WordPress. There are several available, some free, some charged for but generally not expensive. Some work better than others, and each has a different range of features. Here are two WordPress sites we have created that use e-commerce plugins:
Sledgehammer Simple - uses the Wp E-commerce plug-in
Paradise Kitchen - uses the WP Simple PayPal Shopping cart
These plug-ins are great if you want to be able to add products yourself and have all the functionality that WordPress gives you.
But do you need a dedicated shopping cart system with its built-in set of features and limitations? If you only have a few products to sell then sometimes it is more satisfying aesthetically to integrate a basic PayPal shopping cart into your existing website. Combine this with a clever piece of software that can deal with downloadable products and you have a very versatile system with a unique look. Have a look at the purchase page from this site we recently created for an author and publisher. We have been able to give the site a unique look and feel yet it has the ability to sell both physical and downloadable products.
Whatever your eventual choice, make it an informed one. The success or failure of your business may depend on it.
Why WordPress?
Using WordPress For Content Management
For many years we encouraged clients to steer clear of content managed websites. Too many content management systems were either cumbersome or required frequent complicated security updates or took up too many server resources and were very slow. Many clients did not need the complexity of a CMS when all they required were occasional updates to prices or details that we could do for them at no cost in any event as part of their hosting and support package.
Finally, we have our own WordPress blog!
We have been using WordPress for our clients for about eighteen months now, but our own blog – which so far has been rarely updated – was a poor thing hosted by and created in Blogger, a proprietory alternative to WordPress. Finally, as one of our New Year resolutions, Webcraft has its own WordPress blog.
We are very excited about WordPress at the moment. After years of dodgy content manageent systems with security loopholes and tortuous upgrade paths WordPress is something we are happy to recommend, host and set up for clients.
In fact, we are so confident that we are offering a complete package – hosting, set-up and training – for just £299. Why not get in touch today?