I'm selling a few boards here and there, and crew these days always ask......"have you got a website?", as if they won't buy anything until they see a website!?
It only needs to be basic, an intro page with bit of info about me...photos page of different board models...some shots of my boards being used....contacts page..
well something like that anyway?
I'm fairly computer illiterate, so when I started looking into getting a webpage, I was totally confused with, designers, then hosting, then domain name aggghhh!
anyone know of an easy online webpage company thats pretty cheap and easy to use?
Where you located? Maybe you can just do a blogstyle thing. I see lots of guys doing blog style pages to get board images out there and show an online presence. If you want a blog style you can do it for free. I use blogger.com. Matt Biolos uses posterous.com. I you want more of a site let me know how much you wanna pay and I may have a guy for that. My blogger site is crappy but you can check me out at www.startsurfingnow.blogspot.com
I do this for a living (well coding in general). If you want to have a real web site, try hostmonster.com for a hosting service. They are very good, not to say that others aren’t but I have used them and their support is very good. That will establish a presence on the web (you will have to buy a domain eg. “martysboards.com”, so you can be found), but they provide that service as well…
From there you need to code up a set of pages. That can be as simple as just html (text that the browsers interpret into a page to display) to as complicated as php or java (actual code that emits the html for the browsers). There are html templates, that you can get for free via a google search, which will give you a basic page that you will have to edit to make it yours. You can get so far into this that it is overwhelming (eg. Drupal and other CMS systems) or just keep it simple.
If you want to do it yourself, get the Oriely HTML book and a free template off the web. You can setup a simple development system on your local PC with XAMPP (another free download), that will allow you to hack your page and test it before ftp’ing it to the server for everyone to laugh at.
You can also spend a fortune on web developers or find a kid who will do it for a board.
I use GoDaddy Website Tonight - template website, cost is minimal, self explanatory (but you have to spend some time playing around with it) and a little html knowledge helps, most html commands can be looked up on internet in a few minutes.
I second the blog style web presence. An easy way to post pics etc. You would just need to keep the content fresh. Free too. Easy to integrate into facebook etc. Where are you located?
I dont like the blogs because as you post and post the original stuff goes backwards so if you want an opening page it gets lost down the page. Or maybe Im shite at it.
I will follow up bartts and Hucks advice, thanks fellas.
A while ago I set up a photography website for my wife. I bought a domain name from GoDaddy (without the hosting option), which was about $10 for a year. Then I set up a free website using Google Sites (http://www.google.com/sites/overview.html). Google sites provides a very simple framework for creating a website – and it’s free. Initially the site that you create has a URL that looks something like http://sites.google.com/mysite/. I went into the settings on my GoDaddy account and changed it to point to the google domain name, and that was it. I had a website that only costed me $10 a year.
Note that there are traffic limitations for the free Google Sites service. If your site gets to be too popular then you will have to start paying Google.
If you later decide (like I did) that you need a more powerful web hosting service, then you can easily change your GoDaddy account settings to point the domain name to somewhere else.
Good point Swied about the URL. Godaddy also has free websites (5 pages max) with a similar URL. Once you start researching website maximization and showing up on the search engines, you realize you need a proprietary URL for that, a re-direct or portal-type won't do, IIRC.
So the free websites are good for pointing people to (like in an ad, on a business card, etc.), but if you want people to find you by searching the internet, your chances are much better with a direct URL (like www.mysurfboardwebsite.com).
Theres a bunch written on website maximization, and its not a pure science, in fact the optimization companies don't guarantee anything except the money they'll take LOL. I took my website to a certain point, then quit worrying about it. If you type "bakersfield remodeling contractor" into just about any search engine, I'll usually show up on page 1, and usually at the top of the page, and that's good enough for me. I get a few calls a year off my website, sometimes I'll actually get a good job from it, but right now of course its all dead.
I get so sick of sales pitch emails and contact form abuse from "website optimization" clowns, I finally took my contact form down from my website. I got tired of writing and telling them that my contact form was for my customers, not theirs. If their website optimization is so red hot why dont they set up their own mega-traffic website and just respond to all the requests they get, instead of stalking people like me LOL.