Cheap websites – how to build one and how to get it up-specced

By Nicola Pitt: www.boudoirbazaar.com

My website was one of those really scary learning curves we have from time to time. I thought I knew lots about building and maintaining them until the time came to learn about shopping carts.

I went along to the newsagent a few years ago and bought this great little budget book about building websites and free trials of shopping carts, brought it home and thought – goody! How wrong was I?

First, when I started looking around I was daunted by the price of lots of the commercially available shopping carts – I wondered how could they be that expensive? Starting from hundreds and going up to thousands – the budget for the business would have been well and truly blown just on the website.

So I started searching for free shopping carts. Yep there are a few of them about. I tried one and couldn’t even work out the most basic of instructions. I slogged for 2 weeks and gave it up as a bad joke. Then I stumbled onto something truly amazing. Many companies that offer hosting have this great little package that includes a couple of shopping carts. So I tried them all to see which I thought was easiest.

I did eventually settle on one I thought was easy to work with. And from that day on I have not looked back. With a little research, I found out that there was a specific forum too that dealt with that cart program. Offering lots of free advice and details of very good developers that offer to help with coding issues through to modifications, it was cheap and effective and extremely good value.

The original program was free, and since then I have added skins, to make my site look amazing. I have added a Search Engine Optimizer, and numerous other modifications. The most I have paid for one of these is about $AUD30 and everyone has been well worth the hassle and bother. These developers also have an internal form of assessment, you can leave feedback for them on their work, their professionalism on the forum and you can find out who to trust and who not.

All up, not including the hosting of my site, the actual website has cost me about $200 all up. It is quick to load and it doesn’t matter if people are using Firefox or Internet Explorer to check out the site. It is super easy to maintain and I can do what needs doing daily – oh and best of all I keep even keep an eye on how many times I have logged in and who is on the site (and how long as well as what they look at.)

I used the forum, which is cart specific to help me with aspects of adding my logo, applying my secure credit card service (which can be tricky unless you know what to do – and the settings information was shared freely) and my PPC (Pay Per Click) registration for my site, which took ages because there was a glitch on the side of the company. Lots of help offered freely, the only thing that is asked, is that if you have expertise in the area, be free to share it when you can.

The biggest downside I have experienced with having a private shopping cart was finding a host who knew enough about the program to help me sort out issues. This is something I learnt the hard way after trying to have a Secure Site Certificate applied….long and messy story but in short – check on the forum that your host can provide the service you require – or check out one of the great developer sites around – to get an honest appraisal.

So when you are looking to build your site, do a little research:

• There are several very good shopping carts offered free.
• Many of these can be modified very cheaply to reflect what you do, sell or service offered.
• Consider getting any modifications done before you go live.
• Many have cart specific forums that give free advice to new users.
• Many of the developers who work with those specific cart programs are listed on these forums.
• Many free and cheap modifications can be found on these forums, and some developers participate in a form of feedback.
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions on the forums before you choose your shopping cart.
• Check that you have a host who knows about the code you will be using (in my case PHP – and this continues to confuse me) and that you can call on them when things go wrong.

But don’t be frightened. With patience and persistence, you too can have a great online shopping site that you can afford. You don’t need to spend millions, just some time.