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Looking for some help with website design ideas
emmittryan
Posts: 8
Joined: 20 Nov 06
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20 Nov 06 9:39 pm

Looking for some help with website design ideas

Hello everyone. First off, my name is Shane, and I have a website name, and a hosting service, and lots of other stuff, but I don't know what is a good way to start off. I have an ebay account, and I would like to sell ebooks and I have a salehoo account, and I would like to sell chinese merchandise. I have a shopping cart (cubecart) proprietary service on my hosting account. I have a homepage but it sucks, because I am in a rut? i think. I have dreamweaver, so I can make a stab at design, and I am going to college for computer science, so I am not totally foreign to a computer. I just need to get a site going, and I need to make it a professional one, what to do first? I am not good at organization so if someone has the plan to get this ball rolling, let's talk. What is the quickest way to find that spark of inspiration(money) that keeps you building onward? All replies are greatly appreciated. Shane.
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chatyak86
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20 Nov 06 10:39 pm

 Hi Shane,

Welcome to Affilorama. Have you followed the tutorial videos on setting up a website? Do you know any HTML or basic things such as that? That should be enough to at least get you started. I see you want to do a lot of things off the bat here which is a good motivation to keep. Although I strongly recommend focusing your efforts into just one area, otherwise you are going to find yourself becoming frustrated with three different ideas and sites and not one of them performing. Once your first idea is up and underway, then slowly start to work on the next two.

As for design... it is best to keep things simple with text and a few images. If you want to have your site ranked in the results you are going to need to follow the proper on and off page factors of SEO. Please see the 90 day plan for this.

Adrian,
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emmittryan
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20 Nov 06 10:48 pm

 Yeah, thanks. I have started the lessons, and will reserve further questions until I see what I get from that. What do you think about ebooks though? Do you think that is a fairly simple place to start at? Thanks for the speedy reply last time. Later, Shane.
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sean06
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20 Nov 06 11:54 pm

 What sort of ebooks are you looking to sell? I'm sure once you watch the 90 day plan, you will have more of an idea on how to do this.

Let us know when you've got some more questions.
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chatyak86
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21 Nov 06 12:03 am

 How many ebooks do you plan to sell and what are they about? Are they all on the same topic? I would try to keep your website focused around one topic as well.

Adrian,
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alvin
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21 Nov 06 1:09 am

 Shane,

Here's a great place to start to get design ideas: http://www.oswd.org where designers share their designs and its all free to use, provided you keep the credits. You can easily use one of the designs to 'skin' CubeCart.

If you're doing everything yourself, I would recommend locking yourself away for a week and focus on Web Development, finding you way around your hosting panels, uploading files, etc. Because once you've mastered it, IT'S YOURS! And you can replicate it many times over irregardless of what you're selling.

Finding your niche on what to sell, be it ebooks, software, etc will all fall in place once you have the "delivery platform" - your website.

Dreamweaver is a good software to start from. Develop a long-term plans. Its usually very exciting when you start thinking about the sales, but stop and build you chops first. (Unless you're prepared to pay others to do it for you!)

All the best.
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davmontrose
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21 Nov 06 1:34 am

 Hi Shane, ya, pay special heed to Adrian's advice on trying to keeping the theme around one topic. I had to split my site into 3, when I realized that even though, they might of been related topics, they were far enough apart as to really get a theme across, for the search engines.

Which means that I'm now having to recreate a lot of the content, since the site was split to 3 sites. It may be fine in the long run, because I have 3 sites to build on now, but I think I created a lot more work for myself that way. Something to think about.

I made this mistake because I had already been creating before I joined Affilorama, but I've been set straight. Thanx Davin
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emmittryan
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21 Nov 06 4:35 am

 Thank you everybody. I have decided since I already have the cubecart software, and the salehoo account, maybe I can incorporate the two together and sell imports, and ebooks about dropshipping and reselling imports. I don't really have faith in the importing and reselling, though. Does anyone here make any profit from that sort of business? If so, that would be inspirational to know. I think eventually I would like to have an ebook site that creates a decent size community environment, and is a full time affair like a business should be. A site that can evolve with trends and has updated content for repeat visitations. I think ebooks will be just as popular in the future, as long as people retain the ability to read that is....so for now I going to do some more keyword research. Thanks again, and have a great day!
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markling
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21 Nov 06 9:06 pm

 Really good advice here guys. Just remember, Shane, that Affilorama doesn't teach eBay or selling your own products -- we're all about the affiliate sales and the marketing side of things. (Of course a lot of this info will be absolutely relevant to your business too.)

Regards,
Mark
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emmittryan
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21 Nov 06 9:36 pm

 Thanks, I will keep on studing the lessons.
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