Website top tip

[AnthonyG]

Guys - I stiumbled across this.

www.moonfruit.com

Inexpensive (free if you want) and excellent at knocking up a good site. Also do a google search for 'Free logo design' hey presto, you marketting is complete!

[DJWilson]

moonfruit doesn't give you 'full control' over the site tho.

[JDB Entertainment]

I await the Website Guru's amongst us to make this thread a Website "so not a" top tip.

:P

[discomobiledj]

Great if you want to load your site with animated gifs!

Spend £30 a year on hosting and do what you want with it.

[Vectis]

I am getting so fed up replying to "do-your-website-on-a-shoestring" threads on here that I'm not going to do any more.

It's almost 2010 folks - your website is your shop window. Take a look down any high street in the run-up to Christmas and find me a store who spends £30 on the window display :callumburns:

You'll happily spend thousands on gear, thousands on music (well most of us, anyway), thousands of hours working hard building up your reputation, networking and talking to clients, but you want to approach your most important marketing tool with a view to doing it for next to nothing? :eek:

It's time that a large proportion of folks on here start thinking about running a business properly. It's no wonder that as an industry we continue to propagate our stereotypical image :no:

I'm always happy to advise anyone who's serious about marketing their business effectively - but that usually means putting your hand in your pocket I'm afraid.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I am getting so fed up replying to "do-your-website-on-a-shoestring" threads on here that I'm not going to do any more.

It's almost 2010 folks - your website is your shop window. Take a look down any high street in the run-up to Christmas and find me a store who spends £30 on the window display :callumburns:

You'll happily spend thousands on gear, thousands on music (well most of us, anyway), thousands of hours working hard building up your reputation, networking and talking to clients, but you want to approach your most important marketing tool with a view to doing it for next to nothing? :eek:

It's time that a large proportion of folks on here start thinking about running a business properly. It's no wonder that as an industry we continue to propagate our stereotypical image :no:

I'm always happy to advise anyone who's serious about marketing their business effectively - but that usually means putting your hand in your pocket I'm afraid.

Whilst I agree with your sentiment, it is not always the case.

My site is a template and no-one has ever guessed that, apart from the people who have the same one! I have decent content and pictures and it is well optimized, so works pretty well for me.

However, I know I need to have it designed 'properly' to uphold the pro image and I totally understand where you are coming from.

I spent a lot of time reading about SEO and it worked for me and really started to drive my business.

[jc light and sound]

I am getting so fed up replying to "do-your-website-on-a-shoestring" threads on here that I'm not going to do any more.

It's almost 2010 folks - your website is your shop window. Take a look down any high street in the run-up to Christmas and find me a store who spends £30 on the window display :callumburns:

You'll happily spend thousands on gear, thousands on music (well most of us, anyway), thousands of hours working hard building up your reputation, networking and talking to clients, but you want to approach your most important marketing tool with a view to doing it for next to nothing? :eek:

It's time that a large proportion of folks on here start thinking about running a business properly. It's no wonder that as an industry we continue to propagate our stereotypical image :no:

I'm always happy to advise anyone who's serious about marketing their business effectively - but that usually means putting your hand in your pocket I'm afraid.

Well said that man.

[Vectis]

Whilst I agree with your sentiment, it is not always the case.

My site is a template and no-one has ever guessed that, apart from the people who have the same one! I have decent content and pictures and it is well optimized, so works pretty well for me.

However, I know I need to have it designed 'properly' to uphold the pro image and I totally understand where you are coming from.

I spent a lot of time reading about SEO and it worked for me and really started to drive my business.

Nothing wrong with templates per se. Quite a few of my sites, especially at the cheaper end of the scale, are template based. As you quite rightly point out, it's what you do with them that counts :)

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

NQuite a few of my sites, especially at the cheaper end of the scale, are template based.

Why should it matter that they are at the cheaper end of the scale to use templates?

I am certainly not 'at the cheaper end of the scale' and I use a template!

[Vectis]

Why should it matter that they are at the cheaper end of the scale to use templates?

I am certainly not 'at the cheaper end of the scale' and I use a template!

It doesn't. It's just that starting with a template cuts the development time and therefore cost. If the saving is re-invested in SEO or further development which might not otherwise happen then that's cool by me.

[rob1963]

I am getting so fed up replying to "do-your-website-on-a-shoestring" threads on here that I'm not going to do any more.

It's almost 2010 folks - your website is your shop window. Take a look down any high street in the run-up to Christmas and find me a store who spends £30 on the window display :callumburns:

You'll happily spend thousands on gear, thousands on music (well most of us, anyway), thousands of hours working hard building up your reputation, networking and talking to clients, but you want to approach your most important marketing tool with a view to doing it for next to nothing? :eek:

It's time that a large proportion of folks on here start thinking about running a business properly. It's no wonder that as an industry we continue to propagate our stereotypical image :no:

I'm always happy to advise anyone who's serious about marketing their business effectively - but that usually means putting your hand in your pocket I'm afraid.

An excellent post, Vectis...so no change there, then!

:thumbsup:

[Marc J]

I await the Website Guru's amongst us to make this thread a Website "so not a" top tip.

So not a top tip, imho.


I am getting so fed up replying to "do-your-website-on-a-shoestring" threads on here that I'm not going to do any more.

It's almost 2010 folks - your website is your shop window. Take a look down any high street in the run-up to Christmas and find me a store who spends £30 on the window display :callumburns:

You'll happily spend thousands on gear, thousands on music (well most of us, anyway), thousands of hours working hard building up your reputation, networking and talking to clients, but you want to approach your most important marketing tool with a view to doing it for next to nothing? :eek:

It's time that a large proportion of folks on here start thinking about running a business properly. It's no wonder that as an industry we continue to propagate our stereotypical image :no:

I'm always happy to advise anyone who's serious about marketing their business effectively - but that usually means putting your hand in your pocket I'm afraid.

:agree:

:bang: (I know this smiley's coat is on a very shaky peg, but might as well use him while he's still here)

[AnthonyG]

Woooow there young filly - Righto, my response!

Website design is daunting, i've been in this game since 1996-7, if you are not a techy, have no knowledge of graphic design and find even the most simpliest of IT tasks challenging, then you can become wiser and competent within a tool such as Moonfruit or similar is a fantastic confidence boost.

Additionally, outsourcing such design & development work again requires significant bottle and cash. If you wish to develop 'your shop front' on a budget, that only affects your business, no one elses! Personally, i am very happy to let a 'template driven CMS' do the hardwork for me. I have a very busy fulltime job and a very important family - but really enjoy my time DJ'ing and am trying to build this into a nice retirement career.

Therefore for those on both a lifesytle and financial budget - Top Tip. For those on a corporate budget (i suspect there are few on here with allocated marketing budgets????) probably not.

Finally for those that immediately poo poo a genuine piece of advise (and my intital post was just that). Reading between the lines to perhaps advertise their own 'Webdesign business' and influence those not so much in the know. shame on you! The Web is a far greater resource than any single company entity will ever be - just google website design! #1 is an inexpensive online Template driven CMS - Cuz thats what the general public and small business are using today.

Be honest, when was the last time you had a development issue and used the internet for advise/browsed to a site you knew had that functionality and learnt from their experiences??

C'mon chaps, this is not about making the disco/DJ talent look cheap, its about sharing and offering the best of our advice...... in some case not all can afford or are capable to reach out to 'Marketting Luvvies' at design agencies. Perhaps your advice is best shared in making our colleagues/counterparts and friends on here websites better. I'm more than happy to share my experiences/knowledge.

If one person looks at moonfruit and makes an awful site better, doesn't that improve the look of the profession...?

Anthony

[Marc J]

Woooow there young filly - Righto, my response!

Website design is daunting, i've been in this game since 1996-7, if you are not a techy, have no knowledge of graphic design and find even the most simpliest of IT tasks challenging, then you can become wiser and competent within a tool such as Moonfruit or similar is a fantastic confidence boost.

Additionally, outsourcing such design & development work again requires significant bottle and cash. If you wish to develop 'your shop front' on a budget, that only affects your business, no one elses! Personally, i am very happy to let a 'template driven CMS' do the hardwork for me. I have a very busy fulltime job and a very important family - but really enjoy my time DJ'ing and am trying to build this into a nice retirement career.

Therefore for those on both a lifesytle and financial budget - Top Tip. For those on a corporate budget (i suspect there are few on here with allocated marketing budgets????) probably not.

The thing is, even with any "sitemaker" type deal, you'll have to learn a certain amount anyway. How to use their system, which will be advertised as a "super simple WYSIWYG" system when the reality is (for a novice) far from simple. Yet for all the time and effort you put into learning their system, all you get is being tied to their system, with a website you can't move and skills you can't use elsewhere.

This same amount of time and effort would be better applied learning even the most basic HTML package (Nvu for example, or any of the vast array of other free options). This would give you complete control over your site, and the ability to move it elsewhere should you want to do anything more technical or become unhappy with the hosting for any reason. It puts you in complete control of your site and where it's hosted.

There are loads of threads on here asking how to do the most basic stuff like inserting specific meta tags (for example <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">) in these moonfruit / webeden / sitemaker type sites, or any .htaccess trickery (for example automatic watermarking, 301 redirects etc). Stuff that is just not possible with their system - or if it is then far more difficult than it should be.

Yes, you get up and running quickly and on the cheap, there's no denying that. But you will likely at some point in the future outgrow it or want to do something that you just can't do within their limited system. And when you move on, everything you learned there is useless.

That's not to mention the fact they are mostly all flash with very poor noflash alternatives (again, discussed many times here). You can apparently put the time and effort into making the noflash one look good - but again that time would be as well spent on a proper (imho) solution.


Finally for those that immediately poo poo a genuine piece of advise (and my intital post was just that). Reading between the lines to perhaps advertise their own 'Webdesign business' and influence those not so much in the know. shame on you! The Web is a far greater resource than any single company entity will ever be - just google website design! #1 is an inexpensive online Template driven CMS - Cuz thats what the general public and small business are using today.

For the record, I'm not trying to get any web design business from here. I get loads of PMs asking me for pricing etc. but 99% of these get told I am too busy, and the ones that i do take on have to wait a while. I specialise in setting up large eCommerce / Corporate websites and intranets and that keeps me busy enough. If you look back my posts I regularly recommend CMS systems (CMSMS, Joomla etc), I use them myself sometimes, but they are completely different to moonfruit et al in that you still ultimately have complete control over them. I normally only host design client websites and vice-versa but yes, I do offer to host MDD member's sites on my server and this offer has been taken up by many members, all very happy with the service I provide.


If one person looks at moonfruit and makes an awful site better, doesn't that improve the look of the profession...?

Agreed, but that same person can make an awful site better without moonfruit...

[Vectis]

:agree: 100% with wot Marc said :)

I analogise the whole proprietary sitebuilder -vs- standards-based HTML/CSS with buying non-DMX lighting "to get you started" knowing full well that in a couple of years you aspire to a DMX rig. Why not spend a little more today buying standards-based kit?

I'd much sooner look at a standards-based simple 3-page HTML website than some excessively bloated, unwieldy flash site laden with adverts for companies that are nothing to do with the site owner.