# what should be my first step?



## nromano1212 (Feb 10, 2007)

Hello...I am looking to finally get a website off the ground. I used to have a small website i created myself in frontpage, NicksSigns.com but never knew how to get it up on google or anything like that and i hear front page is a terrible option for creating a site. I know my first step should be finding a domain that is suitable for not only decals, grapahics and truck lettering but also t shirts. so a few questions:

1.) where would be the best place to Obtain a domain name? Do you think GoDaddy is a good place?

2.) what should I do to create a website? Volution I hear is good but it's going to run me $80 a month, plus $25 a month for a shopping cart, and $80 a year for security. Im not really in a position to pay that much money for a start up? Is there alernate routes I can take that are more cost effective?

3.) I am shutting off my Ebay store soon because im not selling anything but the same 3 products so i think im going to just run weekly auctions on them and stop advertising everything else. This should free up some of my funds towards a site. 

4.) Do i build the site and then add in the shopping cart? 


I would really like something that is user friendly. Im not really sure what to do but i need something up and running in the next month. Any help with this would be so much apprecited...thank you..Nick


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> 1.) where would be the best place to Obtain a domain name? Do you think GoDaddy is a good place?


Sure, godaddy is fine. Just don't get sold on all of their services/upsells during the checkout. 

They make them sound like "must have" items, but just go for the domain name 



> 2.) what should I do to create a website? Volution I hear is good but it's going to run me $80 a month, plus $25 a month for a shopping cart, and $80 a year for security. Im not really in a position to pay that much money for a start up? Is there alernate routes I can take that are more cost effective?


Volution is definitely not the solution for everyone. It totally depends on what you need. Your website may not even need ecommerce. 

If you check out the post I made in that same thread that referenced Volution, you can see some lower cost alternatives.




> used to have a small website i created myself in frontpage, NicksSigns.com but never knew how to get it up on google or anything like that and i hear front page is a terrible option for creating a site.


If you still have that domain name, then that's a good place to start 

FrontPage is usually not recommended because of the special "markup" it uses to create pages. So if you want to stop using FrontPage, it makes it just a bit more difficult for others to help edit your website.

But if that's the tool you have and know how to use, there's nothing wrong with starting there. I know people who have very successful websites making thousands of dollars a month that were built on FrontPage. It's just a tool, and like most things, people have preferences over which tools they want to use.

You can get a website hosted for $80-$120 per YEAR with places like dreamhost.com, lunarpages.com. Some of them will have shopping cart software included in the hosting package.

If you need a shopping cart, check out the many threads on cubecart or shopping carts to see some lower cost (and free) alternatives.



> 4.) Do i build the site and then add in the shopping cart?


You could do it that way, or all at once.

If you want your shopping cart to look a certain way, you may want to create the "look and feel" of your website design first and then install the shopping cart and edit it to match your site design.


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## nromano1212 (Feb 10, 2007)

Thanks Rodney...I appreciate the help. I will check out the cheaper alteratives and if i don't like it maybe ill just get another domain and upload my old site and add in all the tee shirts into it...Thanks again, Nick


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## T-BOT (Jul 24, 2006)

Rodney has already provided some good resources and info.

*what should be my first step?*

I think finding a good dependable host that offers the tools for ecommerce at a competitive rate would be my first step.

Then I would need to sit down and decide how much of the site building and maintenance stuff my time would allow. These days it's almost a full time job to manage a selling site in order to make it profitable. This is something to consider i think.


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## nromano1212 (Feb 10, 2007)

T-BOT said:


> Rodney has already provided some good resources and info.
> 
> *what should be my first step?*
> 
> ...



well right now this business is pretty much a fulltime thing anyways. I do some work locally and i do some via car forums. (mostly decals) but the tee shirt thing has become popular with them. I got laid off from my job about a year ago and couldn't find work so i started doing this while going back to school to finish up my degree. I have pretty much all the time in the world to work on it but im having trouble finding the right approach. At this point i wish i could just pay someone to do it for me but I know im probably not even going to see sales from my website for almost a year anyways until i get my page rank up there...

Could you guys give me some ideas on your sales and page rank...

for instince: If you page rank is a 2 how many sales do you typicially do in a week and how long did it take you to get there? thanks, Nick


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## T-BOT (Jul 24, 2006)

nromano1212 said:


> for instince: If you page rank is a 2 how many sales do you typicially do in a week and how long did it take you to get there? thanks, Nick


 
There is some good info at google webmaster board and at World Wide Web Consortium.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> for instince: If you page rank is a 2 how many sales do you typicially do in a week and how long did it take you to get there? thanks, Nick


Page rank and sales don't really have a correlation.


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