You can actually set up a website by yourself for free, or very little money. The internet has evolved so much. Now anyone can have a website. Setting up a blog has become as common as using a word processor or sending out emails. Sharing photos and videos has become easier than ever because there are many sites that allow users to post their photos and videos for free. With a little effort, creativity and basic internet skills, you can set up a website by yourself, for free or at a very low cost. This site would be just good enough to showcase your products and services to friends and family members who may be your first few customers. It may be just a temporary site and you can always hire a professional web designer to design a real website for you once your business starts making money.
I’m talking about online services like www.flickr.com, www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.com and www.youtube.com. There may be other new sites that offer similar services but I’ll just list these few for now.
You can post up your product photos on Flickr.com and it would be like an online catalog. Instead of uploading pictures of yourself and your pets and your vacation photos, you can put up photos of your products. For instance, you could take photos of your handicraft work with a digital camera and then put it up on the website together with a product name and product description. Then you can email your friends and potential customers the link to that page so that they can see what products you have to offer and if they are interested they will order from you.
This is good especially for people who are just starting a new business. Perhaps you are thinking of baking cookies or selling handicraft work as a part time business to supplement your income while still holding on to that full time job. Maybe you are a housewife starting a home business or a high school student or a retired uncle thinking of ways of getting side income by selling stuff.
Cost is always a concern when you are just starting a new business, especially if you are not sure if this business is going to make money. So the best option would be to create something like a temporary or draft website that you can set up very quickly by yourself for free. That way you don’t have to decide on a business name or think of a domain name. Also, you can just take down the website whenever you want without worrying about wasting hundreds of dollars spent just to set up a website.
I find that people who are willing to pay me to design a website for them are those who are already somewhat established in the business. I have designed three websites for women who make cakes for a living. They bake and decorate cakes for children’s birthdays and other celebrations. These ladies are so creative they can make cakes with Barbie dolls and popular cartoon characters. When they approached me to help them set up a website, I found that they have already been doing this cake decorating business for quite some time and they had many photos of the cakes that they have done to put up on the website. One of them had more than a hundred photos that she wanted me to scan from her photo album. Another client had already set up a basic webpage to put up her photos using a free web hosting service and wanted me to set up a proper website for her. So, since they already had a lot of materials and content, its easy to set up a website with at least ten pages with lots of photos to look at.
Take a look at this link : http://www.flickr.com/photos/specialcakes
I actually got the idea that Flickr.com can be used as a catalog from one of my clients Tracey from SpecialCakes.net. After designing specialcakes.net website for her, I helped her to update her website every month, to put up new cake photos. After a few months, I couldn’t continue updating her site so she decided to put up her cake photos in Flickr.com. She had a link in her website pointing to her Flickr.com website. By the looks of it, she’s doing very well because now she has over 300 cake photos. Its working well for her because she has more control of her site and she’s saving a lot because if I were to update the website for her I would have to charge her to upload all those photos into her website. So, be creative and resourceful like Tracey. In fact, I already recommended this idea to another cake client, Chloe. She has started her own Flickr.com account and has several photos uploaded.
You too can start uploading your photos and make your Flickr.com account into an online catalog. Its free. I’m not trying to promote Flickr.com. Just giving you some ideas on how to save money. You may be wondering why am I telling you all this, then no one would hire me to design a website. It actually makes my work easier if you already have a website because, I can see the scope of work when you show me the stuff that you already have, and I can cut and paste information from that website instead of starting from scratch, so, saves me a lot of effort and it will usually cost less to redesign a website, rather than starting from nothing.
For those who are not selling a product and do not intend to put up a lot of photos, you can set up a free blog at Blogger or Wordpress. Just cut and paste all your text e.g. your company profile in one blog post, your list of services in one post, your past projects and track record in another post, and most importantly, your contact info and email address. There are many blog templates to choose from so you can select a design that suits your corporate image. You can even get stock photos at a low price from istockphoto.com or any stock photo websites.
You could even combine all these elements together to get a somewhat complete website. For instance, set up your catalog at flickr.com and then put a link in your blog. Then visitors who want to view your catalog or photo gallery can click on that link. Its all about being creative and resourceful. With a little effort, creativity and basic internet skills, you can set up a website by yourself, for free or at a very low cost. This site would be just good enough to showcase your products and services to friends and family members who may be your first few customers. It may be just a temporary site and you can always hire a professional web designer to design a real website for you once your business starts making money.