Websites

[plantagenon]

This is not an advertisement but just a record of my recent experiences.

I have been trying to get a website for my pens. I received some great advice from members here but unfortunately I am not tech savvy and couldn't follow the directions from some of the sites suggested. As they say, when in doubt Google it. I eventually found a crowd called Fat Cow. After a day of messing around I built my website using Fat Cow and a tool on their site called Weebly. It really is for the info tech iliterate and is very easy to use. More to the point when I ran into a problem they offer direct advice free by clicking a live chatline. After sorting many issues, like having to log into Google to get it to register and accept your website I am up and running. For under $100 I am on Google and the net. I still have not perfected the content such as lighting for the photos I have put on but I can do that as I go along by using Google Picassa, also for free. Check it out at www.artisanpens.com.au (http://www.artisanpens.com.au) and offer your comments.
Greg

[edblysard]

Looks good to me, hope it is a great success for you.

[Nai84]

Hey Greg very nice mate well done love the site hope you sell some of those lovely pens mate Ian

[Paulphot]

Greg,

Well done on getting a website done, it's something I am still some way off doing (time poor mostly). I noticed on the home page the following paragraph:

If your choose a distinctive pen simply contact us at [email protected] and we will help you select the type of timber and pen style you prefer from our wide range. Artisan Pens will create a work of art unique to you.


May want to edit your to you. Other than that, looks good.

Cheers
Paul

[Scott]

Hi Greg,

Great effort, overall the site is easy to read and the pictures are large and don't take much time to load. You may want to warn your visitors and potential customers that if you add an item to their cart that they will be taken to "paypal" and have the option of using their credit card directly and don't need a paypal account. Wishing you all the success with your new venture!

Cheers

[Pac man]

Have you thought about a page which has a picture of you and describes the passion you have for making pens so the customer can establish that there is a human face of the business?

My 2c

[thompy]

yep Greg awesome job, site looks good, pics look great, have you thought about putting in a page for the pen care or refil replacement like Ian has? a bit about you would go down well too i rekon, but thats just me. top job, hope it works out for you mate.

Neal.

[Grommett]

A good looking site, congratulations. I would agree with the personalize it a bit and adding something on pen care, changing refills etc. Hope it is a great success for you.

[Dorno]

I agree with most of the comments alreay made especially the last 3 or 4 because if there is one thing I miss with my website it is the fact that I don't have things like a care of pens page also a page about myself and my company. that is why I currently have my son looking into building me another website a bit more manager (Me) friendly so I can do that sort of thing.

Cheers
Ian

[plantagenon]

Thanks very much for the very helpful replies. I must have read that script on the front a hundred times and still didn't see the error. Thanks Paul, I will fix it up. I will also take on the other comments and place a page on about care of the pens and refills. As soon as I get my new shed setup I will put a page on the website to personalise it a bit. I hadn't put anything on before as I read an article about websites and it recommended targeting the client and telling them what they will get without trying to sell yourself too much. Now that I am on the bottom of the list on Google and Bing under about a hundred thousand other pen websites I have to work out an inexpensive way to get it progressed further up the pecking order as most people don't go past page 1 or 2 in a search. I might just have to sit up all night and keep entering a search for it into Google, if that works which I have doubts about.

[gawdelpus]

Not too sure on website design or google search, but some sites have a hidden page with a whole stack of keywords relevant to the site, most bots scan this as a matter of course and the info is added to google search or whichever search engine is scanning at the time :) cheers ~ John
One day I will get this website bug hehe.

[Treecycle]

Site looks good Greg. Nice and crisp and clean.
Not sure if you have the correct photo for the Sedona on page 1?
It takes a while for your site to make it up the search engine list. I made one for our wood club with no prior knowledge of site building. I kept changing the wording of keywords until it eventually appeared on page one of a Google search. Good luck with it all.

[Perfect Pens]

Hey Mate,

Not a very easy thing to do these days with websites unless you wanna pay some decent $$$$, its all about SEO these days Search Engine Optimization. Plenty to read about on google, but not that easy to understand.:2tsup:

Cheers
Tony

[plantagenon]

Tony

That's a very professional website you have running. Mine is an on the cheap with the hope that it might sell a few pens as it is still really is a hobby for me and I have so many to make and so much to learn.

greg

[Perfect Pens]

Greg,

Mine was done on the cheap too :D done it myself. I had never done anything like that before, so learnt as I went.

I did have to buy my domain names, not that they were too expensive and I pay yearly for hosting.
Being honest my site has been running for some months now but really has not generated much in the way of sales. my sales so far have been word of mouth, friends and work colleagues, but you do have to start somewhere.
I do believe a website and google rankings can take some time unless you are prepared to pay for it.
It will never make us rich but if it pays to keep you in the hobby and to keep trying new things thats got to be a good thing as most other hobbies will normally suck you dry.

Good luck with your site.

Cheers
Tony

[benupton]

Looks good, How does the shopping cart work do you just connect you paypal account

[benupton]

Also how did you get .com.au at the end of your site name? Where is the option to do so?

[Dorno]

I am by no means an expert on this but I believe you buy the website with .com.au included but to do this you must have an Australian ABN (Business Number) otherwise you can only get .com Domain Names.

Cheers Ian

[Scott]

I am by no means an expert on this but I believe you buy the website with .com.au included but to do this you must have an Australian ABN (Business Number) otherwise you can only get .com Domain Names.

Cheers Ian

Unfortunately you can't get a .com.au TLD with an ABN, you must be a registered business which can be done through your state government. Does cost money though (like anything from the Government).

[Scott]

Looks good, How does the shopping cart work do you just connect you paypal account

Sort of. You (obviously) need a paypal account then create a button on paypal. You then need to copy the code from that button into your HTML. You can find a little more info here Bupton:

https://www.paypal-australia.com.au/personal/sell-online

[BoomerangInfo]

One thing I'd suggest you try to do, is to get away from using Hotmail for your email. I know in the recent past, many spam filters throw out a lot of stuff from hotmail because it has been so abused.

I suggest you at least go to gmail, but talk to your web hosts and see if they can provide a custom email address for your domain. You can have it redirect to whatever email system you are using, so you don't have to change providers yourself if you don't want to. I current have about 5 different web sites, and all my emails from them go via my one gmail account.

Russell.

[plantagenon]

I got an ABN through the Australian Tax Office. It only takes a couple of minutes to fill out the form and doesn't take them long to send out the number. An ABN is free. I registered a Business Name with the State Government (Office of Fair Trading) and that was the most expensive part of the entire exercise (around $120 for a year). It really does nothing other than ensures someone doesn't steal your business name and like most government costs is a rip off..

I just used Net Registry to register a domain name at around $12 for a year. You have to have an ABN to register a .com.au name. You don't need an ABN for a .net name. Its probably an idea to register .com .com.au and .net again to stop someone stealing the name but that's all money of course.

The web host I use provide you with an email address when you set up your site. There is a tool on the program which allows you to automatically divert any email or enquiries received at the site to any email address, There is no limit on the number.

When I used the Fat Cow webhost with their Weebly drag and drop webwsite tool there is also another program on the main control panel that provides the click on "Add to Basket" or "Buy Now" icons. They will appear automatically and cost $2-95 a month to use - doesn't matter how many you use its just the one low cost. They link into PayPal. If you have a PalPay account it does the rest in terms of collecting any money. It is an idea to go for the business PayPal account rather than the individual account as you get more choices, including sending an automatic reply confirming an order. It doesn't cost anything.

Hope this helps and sorry for the delay in replying.

Greg

[BoomerangInfo]

When I used the Fat Cow webhost with their Weebly drag and drop webwsite tool there is also another program on the main control panel that provides the click on "Add to Basket" or "Buy Now" icons. They will appear automatically and cost $2-95 a month to use - doesn't matter how many you use its just the one low cost. They link into PayPal. If you have a PalPay account it does the rest in terms of collecting any money. It is an idea to go for the business PayPal account rather than the individual account as you get more choices, including sending an automatic reply confirming an order. It doesn't cost anything.

Hope this helps and sorry for the delay in replying.

Greg

That's a bummer they charge extra for Paypal linking, as it's simple to set up if you know a little html, and costs nothing to do, but I understand not everyone can edit their own pages.

As for the business Paypal account, yes that's the best way to go, but do realise that if you do that, you are still hit with their fees even if you want to do personal transactions, unlike an individual account, and from memory, it's against their TOS to have both an individual and business account?(check though, I could be wrong or they may have changed).

Russell.

[plantagenon]

Russell

How's your website going? I remember you set it up only a short time ago. Are you getting much work from it?

Greg

[BoomerangInfo]

Russell

How's your website going? I remember you set it up only a short time ago. Are you getting much work from it?

Greg

I assume you mean the craft supplies one? I've had a couple of orders, but that has been more from forum friends that cold hits on the website. I don't really expect very much from people doing Google searches I'm afraid. The days of Google being your best friend for marketing have long gone. Our hobby is too niche for that, and Search Engine Optimisation used to be all about stuffing your web page with keywords, but they wised up to that ages ago and it no longer works.

If you do want your website to be popular, you have to have ongoing, fresh, meaningful and targetted content, and get out there and sell, sell, sell via twitter, facebook etc etc to those who may be interested. I don't have the need or the desire to do that at the moment, and I'm a terrible salesman.

As for the pen sales side of my website, I had several orders not long after I set it up a couple years ago, but have had nothing since. Mind you, I haven't done anything to promote it, and haven't updated it in a long time.

Sorry, not trying to discourage you, just trying to point out the facts. You need a web presence if you want to do anything these days, but just having a presence is not a goldmine, it's simply your shop front. You still have to do all the marketting any business needs to do, to make a profit out of it.

Russell.