I would like some input from CT members on the in's/out's of creating a personal site for the purpose of displaying Coins and Numismatic Literature for Sale. Yahoo has an offering for such service. Your ideas and suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
freewebs.com isn't too bad, they have template makers for you. But you have to pay for a www.whatyouwant.com, but they give a free www.freewebs.com/whatyouwant
I've had a few websites done the one I currently have live is http://coinspace.com/. The first thing I'll recommend is choosing a domain name very carefully I made a mistake with this early on. Coinspace.com was not available and ended up using CoinSpace.org initially which had negative search engine results to make a long story short I ended up having to seek the owner and purchase the .com domain name for a huge premium so you must have a dot com domain. I've used yahoo domains but would recommend Go Daddy they are much cheaper initially along with the annual renewals. If you're going to use a web developer to build the site then I recommend putting down on paper exactly what your vision is for the site and then interview at least 3 companies. I used Heritage Web Design now Hit Webdesign they have very resonable prices but very slow at least 3-4 months to go live. Also keep in mind that whatever price you settle on will probably end up costing you an additional 10-15% as things come up in development additional options or upgrade features that you may want to add like ad banners etc. Also during development DO NOT approve anything until your absolutely satisfied as any changes after your approval will cost you extra. Hope this helps if you have any other questions please PM me I'll be glad to help. :smile
My entire site cost me 20 bucks for this year. First off I use Dreamhost and buy a one year subscription unlimited hosting. I then apply there 97% off coupon and use one of the free domain registration they give you when you use them to host. now for creating the web site I use Dreamweaver. Image rendering I use photoshop. And finally filezilla as a ftp program. so dreamhost 20$ "Unlimited bandwidth" One domain registration FREE Fillezilla FREE Dreamweaver and Photoshop Free "if you know how" there are alot of free alternatives for Dreamweaver and Photoshop but none that will give you the versitality. The two programs are for web desinge as ying and yang
These are based solely on my own personal experience Stay away from Yahoo, expensive and you can NEVER get through to them for help. I have about 7 Godaddy sites and find no fault and they are inexpensive. Been wih Network Solutions and they are way over the top expensive. Had Virtual Private Servers through ipower and was less than satisfied with the service. Don't like Register.com Now use and will again fatcow.com for about 7 or 8 sites if you do a coupon search you can get it for about 4.95 a month with a lot of bandwidth and free domain name. Others will differ on the services so in the end you have to decide. As stated think about your domain name and find one that is at least a .com or .net. I usually buy up both. Good luck. Oh and most of these services have templates you can work with on your own or people to help you build.
My suggestion is concerning content/security. I would recommend you get a P.O. Box so you do not list a physical address, since that could invite trouble. Ribbit Ps: If you aren't into building the website yourself, advertise at a local college for a graphics artist/webmaster. You can get an awesome website for a fraction of what a professional outfit charges.
Either that or definately get the privacy service offered where your name and address are never used in conjunction with the listing , it is listed under your service providers info, that are out there concerning your website. Cost 8 or so dollars a year
Two cents is too much. Coinman, I actually pay a bit more, around $10 per month for $120 per year. My ISP is a little company in a little town we used to live in. The boys try hard and do a good job. I feel better about that than paying less to a larger business whose prinicpals I do not know. So, there is that. I agree that paying a designer is worth the investment, whether you go to a college student or someone who actually works at this. My personal website is here: www.washtenawjustice.com The site I webmaster for is here: www.michigancoinclub.org. I work in MS FrontPage, which is old, but I have not upgraded is all. That's next for me. I interviewed about a dozen coin club website people over the last six months and the range of skills is pretty broad. Many of them are old coders, old programmers who actually like Notepad as a development environment. They write HTML directly. Myself, I click and pulldown and place and then upload the finished product via FTP into UNIX environments where I work at the Command line (c:/prompt). So, I am in both worlds. Also, I am not a graphics designer. I have a long history with print... which probably explains why my pages look that way compared to the much cooler pages cited by others above.
I would like to add one note - on domain names.... In once way it doesn't matter if you have a .com/.net/.org - if you put good stuff on there people will find you and spread the word. If you are planing on making alot of $$ off the site then yes, go for a .com or .net - In alot of cases a .com is already taken, but to tell you the truth, I have let more .com domian names go than any other that I have owned in time past. Right now I'm holding less than 5 4 domain names, I used to hold over 20. Unless you have a very definded market, and know how to market it, then a domian name isn't worth 1cent. If you are wanting a domain someone has already brought, research the value. Then find out how many people are really trying to get it. If you are the only one the I would say the value is very little - now if you are one of 2-3 people trying to buy it, then the value can shoot the moon. Speedy
Ok - I've got time now for some added thoughts - I would check around for someone local that provides a good website/hosting package - around here we provide a packege where people get a CMS and a good hosting package. They look over the free templates and pick one - we can change the colors, add a logo, etc and put it online. With the CMS they can edit, change, and work on the website without learning alot of HTML. All of that would be one monthly charge - in alot of cases under $20. Find out that will provide SUPPORT - and that understands that YOU need to be happy with YOUR website. Don't fall for these companies like Dreamhost that provide nothing for nothing - sure they sound good, and for the time being they are providing the "service" they say they will, but if you would like to see, try to use the UNLIMITED space or bandwidth that they say you get....HA! Alot of the big companies got big, and are getting big, by OVER SELLING. I wouldn't want to be a client of theirs when they get caught and can't provide good service any longer. Speedy
A poor workman blames his tools. I said above that I work in Microsoft FrontPage. For my ANA column earlier this year, I interviewed several coin club webmasters and I was surprised -- shocked, I tell you -- at how many work in Notepad, coding HTML directly. What are other people using? For the MSNS club site, there are a few things in PDF that I do not like, but it is just about all in HMTL. For my own website, some of the links open up Word Documents. Those are academic papers with footnotes and other formating that I did not want to mess with. Just about all images are JPEGs. Just about all of the buttons are GIFs. I had someone complain about my lame attempt to do frames via Microsoft. I actually tested the website with several browsers, but apparently not whatever he was using. The point is to test your work both for Mac and PC and cross-platform if you can. (At my university, the graduate office runs Macs. I had a bear of a time getting forms to display and load on my PC, even with their browser from Apple for Windows installed here. So, I went to their offices and did the work.) You cannot test too much. Agreed that if you have someone else do the work, you must tell them what you want. If you cannot rough out an idea with common computer tools, then draw it. If that is too much work, then you do not have an idea worth pursuing. (Honestly: you have to be invested in your efforts.) Agreed, also, that kids in college are talented and cheap. They are cheap for two reasons: their talent is not tempered by experience; they do not put you first. I think of the old AT&T internet commercial where the old businessman says "I want order entry tied to sales and purchasing with realtime updates for billing." And the kid says, "I can give you a flaming logo or a spinning logo." When it is finals week, what are your chances of getting anything from them? Just to say... May be you have seen the sign: PICK TWO GOOD FAST CHEAP
As to security you really, really have to be carefull out there. As an example of something NOT to do is that web site with photos of the individuals involved in coins. Any mention of real names, photos of individuals, addresses or phone numbers leaves individuals open for possible robberies and/or much worse. I know there are numerous individuals in areas of low to almost no crime on these coin forums and they really don't understand who or what is watching. Once you've lived in an area where stores have thier doors and windows covered with bars at night, houses have numerous locks of all kinds on doors and windows, you really become aware of all the possibilities of crime. In my area we have an approximate 50,000 autos a year stolen. Murders are so many that it is almost a game to try to estimate the years totals and some make pools for that. Home invasions around me are as common as going to a store for food. Be carefull with any web site that gives out to much information. It's always better to be safe than sorry.
