Building a Website

Fatloss08

hey , my father has his own business and no website

so i was thinking of trying to make one for him

im not trained at wed-design etc

im fairly decent with computers , in that i use one 8 hours a day for 8 years

so my question is this .....

is it hard for a novice like me to start one ??

can i add items to an online shop sort of thing ??

basically i want to create another avenue for him to do business , via over the website , people log on browse and see items they wanan buy , buy them , pay with paypal etc

anybody with useful help id be really happy

cheers

Evil Phil

Setting up a brochure site wouldn't be difficult if you went with a template for joomla or something, dunno about ecommerce stuff. But the site probably won't look unique.

But, tbh, if you're serious about opening up the business to the online world then I'd recommend you hire a company to design and develop the site for you. It will very much be the public face of his business. If you do it yourself, and I may be underestimating you here, but there is a chance it will look like he got his son to do it as he's good with the computers. That just won't cut it in today's online world.

Fatloss08

cheers for the reply

problem is he wont bother his ass

he'll never get it done if he's left to do it

but sure it would be nice for myself to know how to do it anyway

samhail

Im sure there are studies done or experience on these boards that if your father does expand into the online selling world he will make a bigger profit. if you can make him realise that then better for him.

i agree with Phil, it might cost anything up to a couple of thousand to create an OK website, shopping carts, descriptions etc - but if the first impression that his clients get is a first attempt at a website (no offence:)) his clients might be put off.

though its still better than nothing in todays age.


depending on what kind of business he is in of course.

conordarcy

My advice would be to go to a reputable web design company. Basically you get what you pay for although there are exceptions to every rule. The cheapest option is usually the worst.

There's more to it than you think and like every thing else there's a right way and a wrong way. too many people believe that you just have to create a website & the money'll start rolling in.

Find a good web company, listen to their advice and pay them the money. Its the only way to have a chance.

tricky D

conordarcy wrote: »

My advice would be to go to a reputable web design company. Basically you get what you pay for although there are exceptions to every rule. The cheapest option is usually the worst.

There's more to it than you think and like every thing else there's a right way and a wrong way. too many people believe that you just have to create a website & the money'll start rolling in.

Find a good web company, listen to their advice and pay them the money. Its the only way to have a chance.

So true. There's a helluva lot more to websites than you might think - from security to graphics to legal issues to typography and so on - the list is long, very long and expanding all the time. Some people think that doing a small basic site qualifies them as web designers/developers - it doesn't. One such person was recently spouting about how easy it all was, yet was unaware that his site contained some basic copyright infringements among many other faults. I've also seen some truly frightening methods for handling payments that were insane security-wise.

If you were just doing a brochure type site you might be able to put something half decent together though I would bet against that. However trying to do an online shop as your first site is asking for trouble for you and the business.

Good luck

Liam Byrne

samhail wrote: »

but if the first impression that his clients get is a first attempt at a website (no offence:)) his clients might be put off.

+1

though its still better than nothing in todays age.

-1

If you don't do it right, don't do it at all. Better to give no impression than a bad one.

p

I wouldn't try to learn how to build websites & use it on your dad's website as a first project. generally most people's first 10 websites are a pile of crap.


However, there's plenty of sites out there that offer one-stop solutions for web shops, where they have nicely designed templates, and you pick & chose things. This would be something you could reasearch and set up for him. There would still be enough work that it's a challenge, but would result in a good solution for him. g'luck