Need help with building a website

@John

You could make a Storyline website although it has some drawbacks.

Otherwise I would buy a domain name on godaddy.com and then purchase a 'Pro Account' through Weebly.com.

That would be the cheapest option and you can easily build a site and it has templates etc.

I would say it depends on the cost and what you need your website to do. But that would be a fast and cheaper option.

(Sites built in Storyline come across as fun and engaging though.)

Nicholas

@John.

You need to ask yourself one question first:

"If I build a site - will it represent the personal brand and image that I want to have for my products?"

In other words - if "super-expensive" allows you to sell enough to make a healthy profit, that is good - that's called a sensible investment.

If "I built this" puts people off - then it is a false investment.

Of course - you should have already done your market research re your products in order to be able to answer this question.

Once again (like selling freelance services...), cost is only one factor; you need to consider brand (yours and your product brand), image and competition.

The internet is full of badly-built websites which have owners wondering "I built it - why didn't they come?"

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your answers, guys.

I'll take a look at Storyline and Weebly.com One of my friends also recommended me to use Adobe Muse. Have you heard about it? It has some templates as well. Something like this: Musetemplatespro.com . Do you think it is wise to invest into one of these (even though it's just a few dollars per template)?

John.

It's wise to invest if you think you can make a decent margin on what it cost from selling your products!

If you run everything through a company, it will probably all be tax-deductible anyway, so nothing will "cost" anything, it will just mean you pay less tax on your eventual profits.

If you want to sell things, and have complete faith in your product, it is often beneficial to start thinking in commercial terms, not like someone with an income-generating hobby.

@Bruce

Would you say designing a website I.e as a freelancer should be included as part of the overall business strategy?

So, therefore carefully thought out and implemented correctly.

I found your posts helpful as well.

Nicholas

That depends on your strategy. It's your call as the business owner.

@Bruce

Thanks. I'll consider that.

Nicholas

Hi John,

I just recently launched my first website and I can recommend using a Genesis Wordpress theme from Studiopress.  I used the "Prose" theme and was able to do a lot of customization pretty easily.  There are a lot of themes to choose from.  You have to buy the platform and the theme, but at less than $100, I believe it was very worth it for me.

http://my.studiopress.com/themes/

Hi John,

I'd highly suggest researching Adobe Muse. I know NOTHING about code (nor do I care to) and I was able to easily design my website using it (Tim-Slade.com). There is a small learning curve, but just like using Storyline, you'll be up and running very quickly.

On the other hand, as others have mentioned, you can use WordPress. At ArtisanElearning.com and ElearningUncovered.com (the company I work for) - we use WordPress for these sites. Managing them is fairly easy; however, I don't find them as versatile from a design standpoint. 

Let me know if you have any questions about it! For me, Adobe Muse is to web design, as Storyline is to eLearning design. 

Tim

+1 for WordPress from me. I just wanted to build a simple blog and don't be bothered with coding or a custom theme. My ISP provides WordPress with their hosting packages, all I had to do is 'turn it on'. See here: http://blog.keypointlearn.com/

I tried Adobe Muse and it worked perfectly fine for me. Thanks everyone

I also found some free muse templates online, so it was a very cheap solution for me. I could strongly recommend this to everyone. If anyone will be creating a website with Adobe Muse, you can have a look at free templates that i used here: http://www.musetemplatesfree.com

Once again, thanks everyone ;)

I'd also add my weight behind WordPress for presenting an easy to manage webpage.

I built my website in Joomla using a template I bought from yootheme.com  www.pinchedhead.com

I don't know what kind of products you are trying to sell but you might want to consider hiring a web designer to create your site for you.

Glad Adobe Muse worked for you! I first heard about this technology through Tim, and I have to admit: it's pretty neat!

My site operates on a Wordpress platform; I knew I wanted to go with WP because I've used it in the past, it's easily integrate-able, and there are tons of plugins and themes available (and a large pool of WP designers/developers out there to help you out).

@ John : What exactly are the products you intend to sell? If it's not e-learning or your business model does not include services of any kind, then a simple landing page template (or two) and a good shopping cart would suffice.

If this is true, then ecwid is by far the best and easiest choice IMHO. It is subscription-based though, so Bruce's comments above are applicable here.

Hope this helps,
Alex