O/T Starting your own .com website How do you do it?

Im thinking of starting my own website for selling John Deere Parts, ive only ever used eBay before, Do I need to get software, or pay someone to do it or? Whats the process of starting my own site? Any ideas and thoughts would be appreciated.

Try Yahoo Geocities they have info. on web building

Do a search for 'web hosts'

He needs a wepage(s) first!

I am currently enrolled in Website Development at my local community college. Websites are something that it is possible to learn on your own just by buying a book. The html is easy, but its the css that takes more skill to make it look pretty. No, you don't need anything more than a simple text editor to write web pages, which every new computer comes with such as Notepad.

You will need web hosting, which there are many companies out there that will do that for you, some will even help you with your domain name, but don't worry about that until you actually have a webpage(s) to put up. Webpages are constructed on a computer just like the one you have and then the files are transfered to a host server.

The quickest and easiest way would be to pay someone to construct a website for you. There is quite a bit to doing a good webpage, especially one that will validate. While it is not absolutely nessesary to validate a webpage, it may not display correctly on all browsers if everything isn't up to standards.

There is more to building webpages than I could write in one night, nor do I care to write that much! Basically, I would suggest either trying to find a website development class or hiring a competent web developer. My Website Development book is about 650 pages long and then there is a Website Development II class beond that.

I'm on our third website / upgrade etc. The first we did ourself with the help of some high school kid. It was hosted through our regular internet provider. It was crap.
Then we went to a web design company, paid way too much money, and had many random problems over the next two years.
We then started talking to other companies. They said our site was just a template (and not a great one at that).
The new company showed us a bunch of different templates, which were much better, easier to change and off the shelf. A week later we were up and running. We did have them do some custom changes / colours etc. Total cost were about $500. The basic off the shelf template charge was about $250.
Look around for websites which look good and tell your website designer this is the style you are looking for. Website designers / hosts can be found in yellow pages, or ask local busineses who they use and like.

This is what mine looks like. Grant
Yellow Point Cranberries

I have a website business that's been working well for me www.millerswoodcutting.com
I too started out with a simple one built by a high school kid. Contacted a local web hosting company and talked to them. They set me up a template and do the updates for me as I send them stuff. Initial set up was about 500, with 215 a year hosting fee and monthly optional program for increasing the searchability of the site. This last one more than pays for itself.
The company I used is out of Billings MT, www.zcreative.com
having it done professionally is your best bet. Especially if you plan to take orders, payments, etc online.

The big question is. What do you want the site to do?
If you just want a place on the web were you can let people know about you and show your products.
Then have them email or call to complete the sale.
You can learn how to do that your self in just a few hrs spent. My site that I built my self and just for my and your enjoyment. I pay $5 a month for.

Now if you want a site that can show inventory and sell and take orders on line. Credit card transactions, run data bases ect.
You best hire a pro for that. But unless your talking higher volume. Might not be worth all that.

Here is my site:
http://www.mnfarmall.com/

Here is where I have it hosted:
http://www.startlogic.com/startlogic/index.bml

With them you can be as simple as you want or they can do it all for you.
I can vouch for the simple hosting because thats what I use.

If you feel like trying to do it your self 1st before you dump out the money for some one to do it for you.

Buy a old copy of Microsoft office 2003. Can find on Ebay. What you want off of it is the program Front Page.

Then you want a copy of Front Page for Dummies. Can also find on Ebay. This book will guide you through the whole process of building and posting a web site.
If you can use Microsoft word and know how to copy/paste. You already know how to use Front Page. Knowledge of HTML is not needed.

Practice creating a few web sites. Try them out on your computer until you get what you want.
Then go find a host.

Hey thats a nice web site. They did good work for you.

Question. When some one orders online. Does your host take care of the credit card processing. Or do you just get a print out and manually processes the order?

Just looked on ebay for Front Page. They want to much money for FP2003. Front Page 2000 would work fine and can get for $20. Also saw the FP2000 for dummies on there.

you might try ecrater dot com It's a free store service that is searchable.

I'm too thick headed, but my wife makes it look like cake (she's a little thick headed too). She did 3 for us (one is linked at the bottom if you are in modern view) and a couple for friends. She says it's not so hard as it is time consuming, but once you're done it's just upkeep. Not trying to be funny, but the dummies and idiots books aren't too bad.
Like someone else mentioned, try the yahoo free route and see how you like it. You can always spend your money later.

Good Luck,


Dave

Your question has pretty much been answered by the fellows (and gals?) about building a website. It can be as complicated or as simple as you want. I used yahoo (geocities) for hosting 2 of my sites and I used nomonthlyfees.com to host our club site. The nomonthlyfees.com has a life time fee of $200 and then $20 per year after that and it has been working great, have been with them for 8 years now. Like has been mentioned, you need to design your pages first on your computer and then upload them to the host of your site. With our old tractor club being a non-profit org. I was able to purchase Dreamweaver at a reduced price, which is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get software. Has lots of bells and whistles, but I have learned to use just what I need to get the job. My kids said that they never thought that this old farmer would learn to run a computer let alone learn to do websites. I did take html classes over a 2 winter period which helped alot. It is a time consuming job, but I do it during the winter in spare time.
Le Sueur, Mn. Pioneer Power Show

Hart-Parr Tractors

Eagle Tractors

paypal does it all.

You could contact your current internet provider and they could help you out or at least give you some leads...Charles

(quoted from post at 20:12:39 03/03/09) Im thinking of starting my own website for selling John Deere Parts, ive only ever used eBay before, Do I need to get software, or pay someone to do it or? Whats the process of starting my own site? Any ideas and thoughts would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

Oh man, so many different ways to start up...

Some sites to check out:

http://www.shopify.com - for inventory tracking, setting up online store, shopping cart but CC processing needs to be done by a third party. If you have payment gateway setup with your bank then you can add your payment gateway and process credit cards. The drawback is shopify costs a premium to use- something like 30 bucks a month or something, I forget.

http://www.paypal.com - for CC processing

http://www.google.com/checkout - for CC processing as well.

Good luck!

c

I moved away from ebay and went to e-crater. It is totally free and ecrater posts your items to Google automatically. Come on over, join the crowd. There is quite a few of us selling tractor parts over there, and yes, we are selling things.

First figure out what you want for a domain name....

Second find a good hosting company. I use Inmotionhosting.com they are rated one of the best of 2008 and offer a lot for reasonable pricing. To do online sales you'll need the tools to do it. A business plan generally includes those, you just have to install the scripts and incorporate them into your website that you or someone else must build.