Making a Website

[Traveling Woodsman]

I am getting together some ideas for making a website for my restorative forestry/logging business and was curious if anyone had any thoughts on making a professional looking website. There probably isn’t much about making a website that is unique to the draft animal community, but I thought I still might get some good ideas. Some points I am thinking about now include who to publish with, how much info to include, and if I should just go simple and do it myself or hire someone to design it. I am leaning towards doing it myself, and maybe trying to go with a low budget provider where I can get my own domain.

I’ve heard that you should design your website around what you want people to do after looking at it. I guess this would be deciding that a low impact, restorative harvest is the best thing to do for their woods, and then contacting me personally me so I can get on the ground with them and discuss the options. I was thinking maybe a short video, pictures, FAQ, background, bio, etc.

I am not particularly into computers, just use them as a tool to help in the process of making a living in the modern world. So I imagine there would be a little bit of a learning curve in making a site myself.

Any ideas?

[lancek]

The way I understand it you are better off doing it your self than hireing it done . I heard that a lot of these profesional guys/gals put a creative lic. on your site and then come back and want to charge you more and more for there services! Be sure to cover your backside if you use a profesional! Lancek

[Robert MoonShadow]

If there’s a college nearby that teaches webdesign, offering to be a class-project or alternatively, hiring (very low cost) a student to design it as part of their class work, can yield good results. I did this with an ad campaign for my landscape business – cost me about 3 restaurant meals & $100 (mostly in beer – hey, they’re college kids) & increased my sales by 31% that year. {Also hired a business ed major to track the ad responses).

[Traveling Woodsman]

Thanks for the input and ideas.

[Carl Russell]

Hey Ben, there is no doubt that you can handle all that is involved in putting together a site, but I have had pretty good result from our web designer. I am pretty much a do-it-myselfer, but I was dead set against using the internet for anything up until about 2 years ago, so I really didn’t have a good sense of where to start. It may be difficult in this day of the professional designer to find one that will educate you while designing for you, possibly a college student, but in Vermont there are several designer companies that advertise making a personally accessible website for you.

I just like to browse through other websites looking at what other people do. It is really important though that you are able to edit your site easily because I find myself constantly tweeking what I just did.

Good luck, make sure you send us a link when you get it on-line.
Carl

[Anonymous]

Has any one used my space or face book as a way to do a small buiness web site. I’m not the saviest computer guy but you can post photo’s and text its all yours and its free. Just a thought it was what I was thinking of for my vegatables and the little bit of grass fed beef I raise, that I was looking at trying to market. I havent gotten to it yet gotta get my spring farming done first.

Russ5099

“Respect those who seek the truth, be wary of those who claim they have found it” Mark Twain

[Author]

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