# Show Us Your Website



## TedW (May 6, 2012)

... and tell us how you made it, how you SEO it, what tools you used….

I need some ideas for making my website, doesn't have to be anything fancy, to display and sell my woodworking products, and I'm sure a lot of others here would be interested in this as well. I would like to have a simple gallery and/or catalog, a way to receive payments, such as PayPal or 2Checkout, and a few other pages such as about, contact, and the typical things you would see on a small, home made website. This is not for a large production cabinet or furniture maker, and I'm not really into blogging (but that could change) but I'm sure others would like to know about more advanced websites as well, so pretty much all kinds of websites would be of interest here. Things that would be of interest…

The editing tools you use
How you achieve a unique style
How you promote your web presence
Costs
Hosting and other services you use

Inquiring mind want to know!


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

Hi Ted
Mine is not that fancy and I did not put it together my son did. He's in the process of redoing my furniture section.

http://artisticwoodstudio.com/


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## nomercadies (Dec 31, 2011)

http://chancefour.sharepoint.com

This site used to be the free one run by Microsoft. It costs $6.50 per month after six months free for the limited service I get. I offer a free class to students from special needs divisions of high school that have graduated and have found nothing to do and no one to help them. They find wonderful opportunities to do valuable things with wood and other media if they "want to work." I have eight students now and love the idea of doing it on my own. The students love it and like to show off things they have done and do now. The site helps accomplish that. The need to sell things from the site and advertise to the world isn't necessary. The items made are almost always sold before they are completed. The proceeds go to the students. Last sale prompted the student to say, "Now I can make a payment on my glasses." There are all kinds of valuable people out there that have been thrown away. I think I have found a way to tap into that power.

The site doesn't have a very strong English speaking support staff, but for my needs, I muddle through. I would be happy to learn more.


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## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

Mine is hosted by Inmotion. My software is Serif. Great tutorials. You make all the decisions ….....and mistakes. I use Square so I can take any credit cards. That alone probably doubled my business.


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## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

If you are up on Facebook, several LJ's use it. I have been trying to figure it out. It's free if you do. My hosting is $6.00 a month. Serif is from the UK. They are great to work with. But I am from the Monty Python generation so I want to laugh when I talk to them.


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## dkirtley (Mar 11, 2010)

You have to make a decision on if you would rather be spending your time woodworking or as web designer/maintainer. It is an ongoing project to keep one working and keeping out of trouble with people trying to break into it (especially if you deal with money.)

Two points:

Most Search Engine Optimization is garbage. The search engines explicitly work at filtering out the optimization and will in fact score you down for having. It is seen as "gaming the system". Just good plain text tags and content is enough.

As far as the blogging, It is a lot of work to keep content fresh and interesting. I played with it a while but it was more than I wanted to deal with. Nothing worse than stale content. Mine sucks miserably. Plan on at least a post a week to make it worthwhile. Much longer than that and people wander off. Much less than that and you will be spending all your time blogging and little else. Try keeping one here and see if you like doing it. You are not going to find much friendlier software to start with and you don't have to deal with maintaining it.


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## donjohn24 (Oct 15, 2010)

Hi Ted,

I run a few websites:

My own Don Johnson site - I'm not really sure what it is for - originally I suppose to try to sell my book 'Billy the Bit' (I did sell a few - but it never made the Best Seller lists! LOL), but I add bits to it from time to time. It is also useful as a place to put files for people to download - such as instructional videos created by *Jing * e.g. Racenite Program

John Smiths site, which uses Paypal for selling. The code for inserting into the 'Ordering' page came from Paypal. John wanted something simple that could be navigated easily by inexperienced web users.

Chedzoy Village Hall

Somerset Woodturners Club

The first three use much the same layout, which I created using Namo Webeditor 2006 - rather old-fashioned now but I'm too lazy to change to a free editor or too mean to buy the latest version!

Regarding 'promoting' a site, I understand that the search engines - like Google - look for links both TO and FROM sites when 'ranking', so it is good to have plenty of links of both types.


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## 1978 (Jul 8, 2008)

Just started mine, nothing much on it yet.

www.thewoodenboxes.com

I use vistaprint.com, it's cheap and easy to use.


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## Stephenw (Nov 14, 2011)

This is my website…

http://shopngarage.com/

It costs $9.95 a month.

I use WordPress. I shoot my pictures and video with an iPhone4. I process my pictures with Photoshop Elements 8.0.

I took a basic theme and heavily altered it to make it my own. You have to get into the page templates, CSS, and a little PHP to do this.

I don't do anything as far as search engines are concerned. I'm shocked at how many things I find I am on the first page of a Google search for, things like "Fluke Multimeter Repair".

My site is just for fun (a hobby). Traffic varies; slow right now with the nice summer weather.


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## TimC (Sep 17, 2009)

I run asliceofwoodworkshop.com. It is ran through godaddy.com and is hosted by wordpress. It is a blog, not a traditional website, however you can use wordpress like a website. Fairly easy to use. I also have  facebook which I promote my stuff on.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*Dave*, your son did/is doing a fine job on your site. What I like most is the Design Process page, great idea to outline the steps in a simple matter like that. I bet that page alone accounts for a big chunk of any new business generated.
*
Monte*, I'm on facebook and have made a facebook page (as opposed to the standard profile page) just for kicks. I can see using it as a woodworking website, and for hooking up with other woodworkers and/or customers. But I would tend to point all the visitors to a separate website, under it's own domain.

*4*, I bet you have a blast working with those young future artisans. It's also a noble contribution to society providing them a good outlet to focus their energies.

*David*, I see a lot of woodworkers do a lot of projects and maintain a nice website and/or blog. Personally, I'm not really into blogging. I would like to just make my projects and put some of them up for sale in a simple online catalog.


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## dkirtley (Mar 11, 2010)

Ted

I am not saying not to do it. Just pointing out the gotchas. Many people jump into it without knowing the ins and outs and make some problematic choices in the beginning. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there hawking SEO that is worthless for the most part. Creating a website is the simple part. Maintaining it is the long term job. Especially if there is a payment component. Unless you are making a large quantity of small and easy to ship items, you might be better off using it as a showcase for your work more than a point of sale.


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## LepelstatCrafts (Jan 16, 2011)

Hi all:

Mine is http://www.termitecrafts.com

It is really more of a personal site that has opportunity for commercial applications. Free hosting with a $35 for 5 years registration fee. I used Dreamweaver for this design, but I am working on a new layout too.


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## oldworld124 (Mar 2, 2008)

I made up my website using Yahoo. It was quite easy and mainly made it to show projects with a description of my experience.

http://oldworld-construction.com/


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

My fun site : http://plans.testsitem3.info.
It sits as a sub domain on one of our test sites until I get the new site completed, Then it will have it's own stand alone tld domain.

It was built and edited from scratch in Microsoft Expression Web 4

All the images, other than the plans images, were built in Photoshop CS5 and Image Ready 7.0 and optimized for the web in both programs. It also has some work done on it in CorelDraw x14 and Corel Paintshop Pro X2.

It's hosted with KVC and has 2 MYSQL databases running behind it.

It also has a CMS attached to it call Content Seed so parts of it can be edited by my wife if I have another set of plans completed and don't have time to upload them myself.

I'm not going to SEO the site until the new site is completed. SEO does work if you do it correctly and have patience. Ted speaks the truth, there are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there calling themselves SEO specialist…run away from them.


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## GenerationWW (Mar 29, 2012)

Hey Ted, Check out my forum www.generationwoodworks.com/forum/. The forum was just completed but click on the banner at the top. I think hands down they have the best hosting and great packages. My whole site is run from them and they have everything on their c-panel.

You could also list your stuff on my site or free. Set up your own store there until you get your site off the ground. A food for thought


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## renners (Apr 9, 2010)

I'm glad you posted this. I have put off and put off doing a website until now and I have someone lined up to do it in the near future (unless someone can walk me thru posting a site with iWeb which I can do myself).

About a year ago I posted a thread on LJ's asking "Do websites work" - the feedback on that was basically that as a window onto what you can do, then yes, they certainly do, but don't expect sales to shoot up as a consequence.

However, I have spoken to another local cabinet maker and a joiner with websites about how their websites worked for them and the responses have been more than favourable (not many customers, but good customers).

Before I started woodworking full time I was a retoucher and Mac operator so I'm familiar with all the image editing software and graphics packages, I have designed my website (more or less) but just need someone to do the things like slideshows etc. and get it published.

I just have one question for now regarding domain names - if I use a .ie domain (Ireland) will it show up before a .com domain if someone is searching for cabinet work in Ireland?

If anyone has any tips on making the most of a website, I'd be really interested.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

Google cabinet shops in Ireland and you'll see .ie and .com sites listed. It helps to have your site hosted in your area and SEO it for your area.

We do a lot of local area SEO for mom and pop businesses on the sites we build for them. I plan on giving a show and tell here how we do it successfully just as soon as I get the time.

It also helps to buy not only the .ie domain for your site but the .com too if it's available. The domain prefix that you don't use as your tld (top level domain), just use a URL Gripper and point it to your site tld.

In our business sites and having web sites for them from many years ago we own all the top three domains to help protect our brand.
.com .net and .org. The .net and .org we redirect to the .com sites with the URL Gripper at our domain registrar, but you can also do it in your cpanel if you can add on other domains with your hosting package.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Bruce (or anybody), What do you think about .bz .ws .mx and other less popular domain extensions? Of course, they're not a memorable for humans, but do you think it matters to search engine?


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Renners, I kept meaning to get back to your questions but as you see in my signature.. I'm easily distracted 

Looks like Bruce already answered your main question, regarding top level domains (.com or .ie). What he says makes sense. Be sure to post any other questions you may have regarding your woodworking website. That's why the topic is here.


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## thehammer (Jan 31, 2009)

I don'r really have a web site but rather point my customers to look at my things at webshots.

http://community.webshots.com/user/jahness

I really need to update it.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

Bruce (or anybody), What do you think about .bz .ws .mx and other less popular domain extensions? Of course, they're not a memorable for humans, but do you think it matters to search engine?

As the world gets more populated so does the internet. Recently there has been a lot of discussions on the three top level domains in some of the developer seminars we attend…..com, .net, and .org. It seems we're running out of those three with the keyword domain names and that's the reason more domain extensions are being brought into play. By keyword domains I'll use a few for an example. bank.com, host.com, sugar.com, etc. Per say each one of those domains is a direct keyword for multi billion dollar industries associated with those products, and the list goes on.

The average internet surfer looks for .com first. Many people still associate the .org with organizations and .edu with education, etc.

We have several clients that had to get a .biz because their business domains were already taken by someone else. SEO for them? We're just getting started with them but feel like they'll rank ok in the search engines after we've had some time to experiment on how we need to present them to be crawled by the search engines.

We use a lot of .info for our test sites. Why, because we buy them cheap and have no intentions of doing any SEO work on them. They're for site test purpose only. We do have several .info small business clients because they could not get one of the top level domains in relationship to their businesses either.

We've been able to get them ranked fairly well in the search engines for their local areas because of how we presented their businesses to the search engine spiders for their given area. As far as international on the .info and .biz I can't give any info because all of our clients that need international search engine exposure have .com domains.

Once again I suggest that everyone buy the three top level domains for their web sites to protect their brand or someone could shoot you down doing some smart SEO. My thoughts are, if you own your three top level domains then you have better control over your business name, products and reputation in the internet.

I own the three top level domains on the name of a large and popular stream where we live. I also have them on WHOIS Privacy. I get emails all the time through my WHOIS Privacy company asking to buy the domains.
They're not for sale and all my neighbors and friends here thank me for that. I'm protecting our beautiful stream and our little community from the thugs out there that could make us look bad here or use them to make greedy money from.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Nice photos, John… but that webshots sure does pack in the advertisements.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Bruce, does your team focus much attention on mobile devices? I see a lot of joomla and wordpress designs include mobile versions, and a lot of 'responsive' designs coming out lately. I'm not sure how important it is for a woodworkers website, probably not a high priority.


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## Remedyman (May 20, 2012)

I created a website a few years back that was very basic in flashiness but worked beautifully. It was database driven with a php backend. There were no limits to the number of items you could list. You could have a small image and a large image that was clickable and everything was setup to use paypal. Worked quite nicely. I am a software developer so the bones of the operation were smooth, but I am not a graphics person so it just wasn't eye catching. I could dig up the code if someone is really interested.

Unlike some people, the money side was VERY easy to maintain. If they clicked to buy something it was added to their paypal shopping cart. So paypal handled all the finance side of things. I would get notice from paypal for the order and fill it. Pretty simple if you let the companies that spend the time and money to specialize handle their parts.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

Ted we started about a year ago getting ready for the mobile's out there. We have one girl that's working on it full time now. You might be surprised at how many people surf the web now with mobile devices.

I just looked at the stats on one of my woodworking sites and it had 32 hits today from mobile devices. 
So, the new toys and gadgets are beginning to make their name be known in the internet would be my thoughts.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

That's 32 potential sales today, not something to scoff at. 

RemedyMan, funny you should mention PayPal. I'm looking at their developer sandbox trying to figure out how it works. I guess I can add Buy Now buttons to my web pages for testing, but they don't actually work-if somebody clicks it seems to work but doesn't actually process the payment. PayPal definitely makes accepting payments a lot easier. There are other options, like 2Checkout, but PayPal has all the tools that one can basically insert into their webpage and they're good to go. I think Google Payments also has a lot of useful tools for selling online.

I like the idea of making a single page for each item, as opposed to a full featured catalog, since the woodworking projects I'll be selling are each one of a kind. It doesn't make sense for me to have a catalog. I'd rather make a page for the item, add a paypal button, and when it sells it will be sold. The page will still be there, but nobody will be able to buy that item again. Not sure how that works… maybe the buy button turns to a sold button? Soon as I get their sandbox figured out I'll do some testing.


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## Puzzleman (May 4, 2010)

Hello TedW. My website is in my signature at the bottom. I use 3dcart.com for my website. They have many different templates that you can customize to fit what you would like. They also can set up a Facebook store for no extra charge. They have a lot of automation features that I like. Like sending emails when the order is received, the order is being processed, the order is shipped and a follow up for their online review.


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## Doss (Mar 14, 2012)

I don't know if this is going to be much help to you, but Wordpress offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to site development. It's not just for blogging (though that is what it is known for). My wife and I pay for our own server and hosting. The site (it's mainly her's) is:

Southern Sprout

You can pretty much mold Wordpress into any arrangement you want if you're clever enough (or if you feel like just paying for a prepackaged theme).

I'm a software engineer so my advice on what is easy may not apply in your case.

As far as payments go, there are plenty of easy to use methods from PayPal, Amazon, Square, etc. The problem is how much are you willing to pay for that convenience.

This isn't to be rude, but it seems like with your recent posts you're just asking for a way to do it without actually having to do the work. That's not going to be the case unless you don't mind paying for someone to handle it for you. My advice is stop asking (again, I'm not saying that in a condescending or rude way) and just start doing it. You'll learn a lot along the way… trust me. We can only help so much unless you come in with some specific questions. I have no real way of determining how much knowledge you have so I don't really know where to start and what to leave off. Understand?

And on to the opinion section of the post: Nowadays, I think it's necessary to have a well-sorted, user-oriented, well-designed site. That's just my opinion, but I know if I go to a site that looks like it was made even from 2001 I usually immediately exit.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

May I ask, why you immediately exit it because it was made in 2001 or looks like it ?


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## Doss (Mar 14, 2012)

May I ask, why you immediately exit it because it was made in 2001 or looks like it ?

Good question, so I'll clarify. If it looks like it was made in 2001 (because 2001 is old to me and I think sites from that era were poorly designed for the most part) *and* I'm trying to buy something, I'll leave because they have a higher probability of being difficult to navigate, not providing enough information, or have owners I don't like dealing with.

Guess it's somewhat of a habit of my generation… everything now and avoiding things that seem inconvenient. My friends do the same thing. If it looks old, it probably isn't selling anything new or useful to me now.

I've had experiences in the past with those types of sites that left a bad taste in my mouth. Mind you, this doesn't mean everyone with a dated-looking site is bad to deal with, just almost everyone I've dealt with has been. So, it's easier to just avoid them.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

I would probably be old to you too and thank your for answering my question. I seem to be having more problems with the new age of sites than the "older ones".

I'm going to take up for some of the older sites, especially the mom and pop sites. My wife's favorite restaurant site was built in Frontpage 2000 in about 2001. Awesome place to eat and one of the most popular in our area. They still use that site except changing the menu and wishing their regular customers Happy Birthday on it. MY wife offered to build them a new site several times for free and they would say to her..thank you honey but everyone tells us they love our site just the way it is..and I love it too because it was built by themselves. Looks and works the same in all the browsers They also get many young adults telling them they found them through their site. So undoubtedly they didn't exit the site because it is old.

I have several vendors that have "old sites" and they seem to have more people visiting than exiting their sites.They also built their own sites back in the early 2000's. So far as I know no one has ever gotten any diseases from visiting their old sites.

We do many sites a year from small business to corporate and most all of them tell us they hate the new sites and build their sites to match their company profiles, and this is what we do.

I have no problems with the new sites other than most of them look cluttered and my eyes get tired of scanning their home pages trying to find what I'm looking for.
I think Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal are great for the average person that wants, need a site for their personal or small business use. More people than not cannot afford to pay a web development company to build and maintain their sites for them.

In a recent developers seminar we attended there was a young girl sitting next to my wife that is a web designer. The keynote speaker asked..where would the net be now without all the pre made themes we're seeing? The girl told my wife..I would be without a job.

I've made a link to four sites we're working on now..these are their home pages…sure they may look old to you but the clients love them. The designer of these home pages is 30 years of age and has a master's in computer sciences. She is also our database coder.

But, I understand where you're coming from and I mean no pun intended by this post.

http://www.m3sitetest.com/temp3206.html


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*PuzzleMan*, now that's a professional looking site! I'm really impressed and if I had a kid or 2 or 5 you would be getting some sales from me right now. In fact, I'm going to mention your site on facebook as soon as I'm done posting this. Thanks for sharing! I have heard of 3DCart but never looked into it.. I will now.

*Doss*, I don't find anything you said to be rude. I appreciate an honest opinion and thank you for sharing yours-that's what this topic is about. I'm not looking for specific answers to specific questions but, rather, lots of answers to no particular questions other than what is your website and tell me a bit about it.

Regarding websites over 10 years old, I spend countless hours browsing the web, just looking at different websites… some for inspiration, some out of curiosity, some to find information or advice. I find that it makes little difference how old a website is. Many newer websites I find absolutely confusing, obviously having traded simple navigation for sleek design, while others manage to merge the two quite nicely.

Some older websites are obviously outdated, giving the impression that the company behind the website doesn't care and, thus, might not take business seriously. Conversely, many older websites are like a vintage piece of furniture-well cared for over the years, reflecting a sense of continuity and personal devotion-something which too many businesses lack.

I am not easily impressed by a sleek new websites, which anybody can buy or build on a whim. I'm impressed by the content and the character it portrays. Don't get me wrong… I like a modern sleek design. But that's just the cover of the proverbial book. Like people, it's the character that matters most.

You say your you and your wife pay for your own server and hosting. That seems a bit redundant. Surely you don't pay for a dedicated server for a single wordpress blog, do you? and the And Hosting part.. which is it, server or hosting? Sorry, but that statement is confusing. If you have a server, why pay for hosting? And if you have one wordpress blog, why pay for a whole server? Anyway, your wifes blog looks nice but it takes too long to load… too much stuff on the home page. But then, blogs are generally personalized by nature, so if that's the way she likes it then more power to her. I like it too!


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## Doss (Mar 14, 2012)

*Ted* and *Bruce*, thank you both for not taking what I was saying harshly. Going back and reading it, I know it could've been taken that way.

*Ted*, we pay to have our site hosted. I often say server and hosting because it's what we say around the office. We have several of our own servers and that's just what we say when someone else is providing the hardware and connection… I don't know why, but we do. Well, I guess I do know why. We build a lot of intranet sites. That's part of it. Plus, a server means nothing if you don't have an external connection to the world. Also, it was to make a distinction between Wordpress sites. There are two main types 1) hosted by Wordpress.org or 2)on your own server (or rented server). And thanks for the compliment on the site.

Let me clear up a few more things.

1. Any website is better than *no* website… well, almost always. As much as I hate placeholder sites, they at least show people that you plan on putting something up.
2. If you have a successful business (especially one that doesn't depend on the internet), chances are most people won't care what your site is like.
3. If you have something that just works and people are used to it, it also doesn't matter how old it looks (take craigslist for example).
4. There is a difference between a slick-looking and an actual slick site. My opinion is that design of a site should depend on what you are trying to accomplish: conveying information, forums, selling, promoting interaction between members, promoting interaction with your company, etc. They all have different design needs. All the Flash, Flex, Javascript, and Silverlight won't help you if your site it too confusing to use.
5. I'm not that young, but I'm not that old either 
6. Don't take anything I say about websites too seriously. I don't hold any of this (well, apart from good design) too close to concrete. There are exceptions to all of this and many sites that do well in spite of this. It's all just my opinion.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*Doss*, thanks for clarifying… I'm easily confused and need all the help I can get 

I should clarify that my reason for starting this topic was to A) get some random ideas and inspiration, and B) so others may get some ideas and inspiration. Fact is, I have considerable knowledge about building websites, hosting, servers (Linux, cPanel, etc..), but I haven't put much of it to practice in the real virtual world-the reason being that I have mental blocks. I get stuck on one little thing, say a design element or exactly how to word some content, and I can't get past it. That's why I need ideas and inspiration from others.

Note, however, Bruce is leaps and bounds ahead of me in the know-how department. Whereas he is fairly knowledgeable about the language of the World Wide Web (PHP, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery…), I am just good at figuring out how to mix and match code provided by others, mostly the free open source stuff because that's what I have to work with. I am quite proficient with Joomla! and WordPress.

I am working actively building a website. Except for a couple of errands I have to take care of today, I have the rest of the week off so I can focus my rather narrow attention span and, hopefully, finally, get it launched.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

SEO plugins, google love, slugs, web 2.0, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
information overload. And I am loving it.

I need a chat forum tool or page. Any ideas for wordpress?


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

What you want is bbPress. You can install it directly from the admin section - plugins, add new, search for bbpress and it should show up near the top of the list. Then just click the install button, then activate it. I think it even adds the menu link, so you don't have to.

bbPress is pretty limited in functionality, but it works. Wordpress is seriously lacking in any decent forum integration. If you want more advanced forum, let me know and I'll try not to throw too much at ya to quickly, lol. But if you just want a simple message board, bbPress should work. Glad you're enjoying it.


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## Remedyman (May 20, 2012)

I am a software developer so design is NOT my strong point. But I am good with a database and I do love to make code run as efficiently as possible. The site I had was basic in design, but it was dynamic. The only graphics on the site were of things I was selling.

Ted's idea of one page per product is a GREAT idea for stuff that you only do once. And you can keep it up there so people can see samples of what you have done. I would do that myself this weekend if I wasn't up to my ears in other projects at the moment. And it would be no challenge at all to store a flag in the database for in stock or not and if not then don't show the paypal (or other) button.

If you are using a database (and I see no reason not to) and/or php and have some issues, feel free to ping me. I am more than happy to try to help.

But if you want to talk about colors and pictures and all that flashy looking stuff, I am not your man. Query tuning. Load timings. Those are the things I live to do. Really not sure how woodworking has worked it's way into it, but hey, I enjoy it.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Ted you are the man! bada boom!


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## JAAune (Jan 22, 2012)

I've built one site and am working on a second one. The first was done for my employer using Wordpress and a professional theme that was purchased from Theme Forest. I picked out a theme that was very close to what I needed then did some minor visual tweaks. It is hosted by Hostgator using one of their webserver packages. Total cost to startup was about $150.00. Annual fees will be around $120.00.

Custom Church Furniture by Remmert Studios

I chose Wordpress since it's very easy for people with limited computer skills to use and update. That means I don't have to add all the content personally and can easily train others to make blog posts, add pictures and make new pages.

To get all the functionality I needed required many plugins. Most of them are for security and other administrative functions but there's also a NexGen gallery plugin to handle portfolios and picture organization.

SEO is pretty simple but it's not easy. First, the theme has built in SEO functions that let me choose what page titles and page descriptions search engines will display if they show up in the results. The trick is to build page content that fits the keyword phrases I want to target. Then page titles and descriptions are made to accurately reflect the content.

The second aspect to SEO involves making plenty of pages for search engines to find. The more content the better. Just organize it so viewers don't get lost and that all of it is unique. Pages with duplicate content are a waste of time and may hurt a site's rankings.

I wear too many hats at work and am therefore strapped for time. Because of that I use a lot of pictures in place of carefully handcrafted pages. Good quality pictures get a lot of mileage. On that note, the site is still a work in progress (always will be too) and there are plenty of older photos that badly need updating.

Since I've started working with our website (approximately a year) the traffic has picked up notably. It now places high on many important search terms whereas before it was impossible to find.

*Second Website*

This one is still under construction and isn't close to being complete but it's built in the same manner as the above. It's for a part time business venture I'm working on to target a tiny but growing customer base.

Altar Rails and Traditional Church Furniture

The content is lacking at the moment since I still need to do some more writing and get the pictures and web graphics done. I do have a blog hosted under a subdomain (run by someone else) that attracts a crowd from a potential customer base though. The best part is that I get over a 1,000 visits a month and I haven't even started promoting my website yet.

I probably won't "officially" go public with that business and website for another four weeks or so. However, when I do, high quality pictures and video will be an important part of the marketing strategy. I'll be investing plenty of time and money into photography.

In the long term future I hope to build a couple more websites as subdomains to promote different product lines.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

JAAune that was impressive.


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## JAAune (Jan 22, 2012)

Thanks.

I forgot to mention that those "fancy" pictures in the slideshows were done using some simple techniques in GIMP (open-source Photoshop clone). They're fairly quick to make now since I took the time to create some templates that are exactly the size needed and have the layers already setup.

The hardest part is making sure I have all the pictures needed. I'm still kicking myself for neglecting to take proper pictures of most of my own work and some of the Remmert Studios stuff as well. Nowadays there's always a camera on a tripod in the shop. Soon I'll setup an area to do formal studio photography so I can completely document every finished piece.


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## devmehra (Jun 22, 2012)

My website is http://www.steelrollingmillmachinery.com/

I don't know how to do SEO for it.


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## Brohymn62 (Mar 23, 2012)

www.southeastcities.org

This is a website I'm running for a Relay for Life event in my area. I used Joomla to create and maintain it. Pretty straight forward once you get the hang of using it.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Check out my site on a mobile device. www.chiselandforge.com


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

No problem Dave.. can I borrow your mobile device?


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*Chris*, Joomla is by far my favorite platform. I find it a lot easier to use than WordPress, and far more useful for almost any type of site. I'm working on 2 sites right now, one using Joomla and another using WordPress multisite. The later will be for fellow woodworkers to create their own website (official announcement coming soon) and the Joomla site will be for woodworking articles and such.

Your site looks nice - clean and easy to find ones way around. Thanks for showing us.

*Dev*, your site looks awesome! Almost makes me want to go into steelworking  I'm no SEO expert but I see you have descriptive title tags and description tags. I think everything beyond that is just getting back links, fine tuning and stuff like that. An SEO expert might pick away at every single page and tweek everything, but I think you're on the right track.

*JAAune*, I looked at your sites the other day and kept meaning to comment.. they both look pretty good albeit still under construction. I like the church furnishings and will spend some more time looking through your site when I get the time.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

I learned meta tags today.
Ted where is the new site?


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Then you probably learned that the title metatag and the description metatag are the most important. Keyword metatag is not so important, as Google, Yahoo and other major search engines don't pay attention to them any more.

I can't say where the new site is until it's ready, also can't say much about it until then. I think it will be ready tonight, in which case I'll announce it tomorrow.


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## sandhill (Aug 28, 2007)

I found I was spending way to much time at the key board. I limit my time to LJs and a few other sites (one hour at the most per day spending more time in the shop). If I ever get another site I will pay someone to build it.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Waiting….......................


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## CanadianWoodWorks (Dec 29, 2009)

Here's my site Canadian Woodworks - custom wooden rocking chairs

I use a mac, the program is called Sandvox uses templates but I did modify it to be wider then the original template.
I update my blog every couple days, especially when building a piece for a customer. I use a nikon and an Iphone to take pics and video.
I also have a youtube channel where I upload my videos too.

All gallery pics were taken in my photo booth that just uses a white sheet and a bunch of florescent lights, with my camera WB set to florescent the pictures turn out nice.

I'm constantly doing my own SEO and it shows I target custom wooden rocking chairs, when searched in canada i'm 4th on google, I don't know what I am where you all are? Have a search let me know!

I use google anayltics and web master tools.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Paul, all I can say is Wow! I'm not sure what I like most, your site or your chairs. Okay, I can say… it's the chairs, and all your other stuff too. If I weren't so busy right now (Dave's pressuring me) I could easily spend an hour or more browsing all your beautiful furniture. As for the website, it totally compliments your craft. It's clean, easy to navigate, loads super fast.. I think yours may well be one of the best sites I've seen in a while, and I don't mean just woodworkers sites.

So I tried searching Google for custom rocking chairs-no quotes, just the three keywords. I'm in Chicago and your site showed up #30. But considering it's a Canadian website, I'd say that's pretty impressive. Then I tried custom rocking chairs canada. You're came up in the #1 position.

I think anybody using a Mac who wants to build a website would be doing them self a big favor by following your lead. Anyway, I guess I could say a little more that wow. Thanks for sharing. 

Mac users, here's a link to Sandvox that Paul referred to - http://www.karelia.com/sandvox/


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## DerrickB (Aug 10, 2010)

Mine uses Shopify. I probably need to upgrade soon because I need a calendar for classes.

http://www.pugetsoundwoodworking.com/

The dashboard is easy, but the blog platform isn't so hot. I went with Wordpress for that and just linked it, but let it lapse recently and need to re-start it.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Hi Derrick, your site looks nice and it's easy to find my way around. I was looking at Shopify earlier today and they look pretty impressive on the surface. But then I saw the lowest price package is $29/month + 2% of sales, which seems kind of steep for a small shop, unless it's panning out of course.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Paul and Derrick, you guys both have clean and crisp sites. Good work. I did spend a few minutes on each site clicking around. I saw sycamore and pattern vices. Good stuff guys.

~~

~
~~
~
~

Ted Waiting…......


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)




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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

I'm going to try and have a page up on one of our test sites tonight so you can see how we seo businesses to their local area. What you'll see on the test page is exactly what we do and we're having a lot of success with it especially with our small mom and pop store clients.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

Try this site and see if it can help you get up a web site with no knowledge of web design. I understand when you pick out a template a video will pop up and explain how to edit a template to meet your needs.
I'm going to take a look at it later in the day. I've seen a few nice looking sites made from their templates.

http://www.wix.com/


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

OK, I'll be the ignoramus. What is SEO?


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## Remedyman (May 20, 2012)

I would think that there are plenty of people here with the skills to get a website up. I don't see any reason that we couldn't get together to help out the less technically experienced and put together a website that we could all use. I could put some time in on it.


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## Remedyman (May 20, 2012)

Rance,

Search engine optimization (SEO)


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

If you want a now free professional web site designer, Microsoft Sharepoint Designer 2007 you can download it here.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21581

It's the same as Microsoft Expression Web 1. We use the newest version Expression Web 4. 
You can build web sites from scratch with the program or edit templates in it. We still use it for some sites that we maintain that need some of it's special features.

If you download it and have any questions getting started with it I'll try to answer your questions here or with a phone call in the US when time permits for me. You can probably find a lot of tutorials in Google.


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## renners (Apr 9, 2010)

A quick question about content now.

I've just sat down and started doing some of the images for my website. I'm tempted to post pictures of my two favourite jobs on the front page, but I don't want it to come across as only doing this type of (expensive) work.
Any thoughts?

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/55523

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/56330

Of course, I'd love to be just doing higher end work, but these jobs are really the exception rather than the rule, in this difficult economic climate.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

You do beautiful work. 
One of the big sellers for people visiting a woodworking site is to have a client gallery so people can see your completed work in the client's home.

It doesn't hurt to showcase some of your work on your front page and it helps to show several photos of product ranges that you do. It also helps to be able to click on a photo and it opens in a new page with a larger photo, the description and price if you want the price there.

Two things we don't do on our client's sites..clutter a page and have ads bouncing all over the place. Of the several 1000 clients my wife has in her business not one of them has clutter or ads anywhere on their sites. They load fast and easy to navigate throughout the site.

Have clean and fast navigation for every page and product you sale, not try to show everything on one or two pages. Let the front page be the one that captures the attention so they'll continue looking through your site.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

I updated Wordpress and blew up my site. I am trying to recover now.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*Dave*, what the heck happened? Did you make a backup? Please tell me you did.

I see you got it working again.. I guess that's why they call you superdave!


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*Renners*, I say put your best foot forward. If you look at other websites, especially successful ones, they don't put their mediocre stuff on the front page, they put their best and then make it look even better. That's what will get everybody's attention, including the high-end work, the low-end work, and everything in between. As they browse your site the in-betweens will be happy to see that your services are available to them too.


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

This is a very interesting blog. Lots of good input and smart folks posting here. Wish I had more time to read everything verbatim but we are slammed busy and time is limited.

Just wanted to answer original post. Our site is in signiture line and our SEO is www.footbridgemedia.com. I sure wish I could write html and be a master SEO fella, but I lack the time required. Leads provided by my web site, walk in traffic and referrals keep me running almost non stop.

I generate many leads from my web site. For example, we rank #1 for relevant search terms such as:

San Antonio custom cabinets
San Antonio kitchen cabinets

We rank #2, 3, 4, or 5 for many other relevant search terms such as:

Custom cabinets san Antonio
Kitchen cabinets san Antonio
Cabinet maker san Antonio
San Antonio cabinet maker
Cabinet builder san Antonio
San Antonio cabinet builder.

And many of those searches we rank #2 and #3.

Our site pays for itself and then some. I feel we may have grown much slower or not at all without the site leads we get. As an example, last week, I got a call from a lady who wanted crown molding hung throughout her small home. Because we talk about trim / molding options on our web site, we must rank good. She said she found me on a search through Yahoo. I sold her the job for 1,732.00. I bought the molding for 450.00 and since my thing is custom cabinets, and my already busy schedule, I called a trim carpetenter I know from past jobs, he charged me 1.00 per LF which was 437.00. We made little more then 800.00 for very little work. She was so happy, she told a friend. I sold the friend a comparable job this week and for very little effort we make around 1,500.00 this past two weeks. We tend to get a lot of this kind of thing. We sell everything from trim jobs, to small bathroom vanity job to large full kitchen jobs via our web site. By the way, we pay 150.00 per month which is a great deal considering our ROI on our web site.

I rank "how my web site works for me" higher then "what my web site looks like". My web site does look very good. It may appear cluttered to some based on some of the posts I read, but the undisputable fact is my web site makes us good money and pays for itself. My web site is probably my best employee. I just want to say "2 thumbs up" to Aaron with Footbridge as he has done a swell job for our small family owned cabinet shop.

One thing I am not sure about though. My internet provider gives me a IP address based out of Dallas area. So whenever I search for custom cabinets / builders without using San Antonio I tend to get Dallas based shops. Whenever I just google "Custom cabinets" I do rank very well on the first page even though cyber space thinks I am in Dallas.

I used to spend a lot of time doing my own page, but was never found in any organic searches and seemed to be wasting time behind a keyboard. Now, I don't have much time to spend at a keyboard since I am meeting with customers most of the time.

My biggest head ache these days seems to be managing labor and staying on schedule.


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## SergeantSawDust (Jun 4, 2012)

You can check mine out here. I made this with a WYSIWYG editor called Blue Voda. It's very easy to do and I actually believe I have a lot of what you're looking for on my site, and I made it with that program. The "catch" however is you have to use their servers to publish the website, but it's not very expensive and I found it to be the best deal anyways. I got a server with unlimited storage and a lot of extra perks for $100 a year.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Ted Wordpress had a small update. I went to my dashboard and told it to install. The update broke my dashboard. I since learned that Godaddy doesn't support you until they approve the update. So I started replacing files from my backup a few days ago. 
My problem is I don't understand what files call what files. I didn't want to loose the data and comments between the crash and backup. So I got lucky. Six hours later.
For major updates using word press I suggest you turn off your plugins a have a solid backup, update and pray.
Its a large learning curve for me. 
I need to learn basic web page file structure.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Dave, I'm not sure if GoDaddy has cPanel or if they use some other control panel, but what I do is at cPanel I first go to the file manager, select all the files, and click on the Compress icon. That makes a zip file containing all the files in their original structure. Then I to back to the front end of cPanel and make a backup of my database, which I download. Then I know whatever happens, if things go bad I just delete all the files and delete all the data in my database. Not the database itself, just the data inside it. Then I go to backup manager again and upload the data backup I made earlier (.sql file) and go back into file manager and extract the compressed file I made earlier (.zip file), and I'm back to where I started. I don't know if this is the correct procedure, but I've recovered some pretty complex websites this way. Not live sites - don't have any of those yet. But test sites just to see if I could do it.


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## woodworker59 (May 16, 2012)

I made my site on WEEBLY.com. it is completely free and the only cost was when I registered my domain name. Got a deal on that and paid only $12.00 for the domain name and registration for a year.. my site is strictly a show you what I can do or have done site.. there is no means of payment, there is a contact page and a gallery and a about and a why and a who page.. this is all I have done so far and seems to be okay to this point.. 
you can check it out at papaswoodworking.com 
like I said this is real basic, but for my needs now it serves the purpose and was easy to set up..only took a couple days of adding this and that to get it working.. check out weebly if you want to try a free one first and then if you need or want to, you can look into a more expensive and more advanced web hosting./ have fun.. keep your tools sharp and play safe.. Papa


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Ted I will have to look for the GUI at Godaddy.


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## Doss (Mar 14, 2012)

*Ted* and *Dave*, I use bluehost for my wife's site using Wordpress and it uses cPanel (and makes a lot of the operations of managing a site pretty easy).

*Paul Lemiski*, good looking site (simple and clean) and awesome looking projects.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Thanks Doss


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## CanadianWoodWorks (Dec 29, 2009)

Thanks guys, I work my ass off on my furniture and I work about half my ass on my website. I love the program I use for building the site, there is actually a new version but i'm still using the older one.

I work pretty hard at SEO by making sure my images have text, title text, natural useful information, back links and linking to other usefull sites. I blog almost every other day and have a youtube channel. I also use pintrest, tumblr, faceboox, and post on hand made sites.

I always try to get links back to my site using my target keywords, I post on kijiji, isell.com, an many other sites. I've been mention on some t.v shows so those links help a bunch too. Considering the sites i'm going against are 5 to 10yrs older then mine, I think i'm doing alright. I get about 40-60 unique visitors a day, many from organic search results.


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## dkg (Dec 14, 2009)

I used GoDaddy. It is more expensive than the stuff you can get online, but the tech support is 24/7. For an illiterate as myself the tech support is invaluable. Posting pictures is a breeze.
roosterexoticwoods.com


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Guys hyperlink your sites please. I live mostly on a iPad and it makes life a lot easer.


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Here you go Dave, www.topqualitycabinets.net


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Jerry, that is a smooth site. It loads fast, I can find the info I am looking for. Nice job and thanks for the hyperlink.


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Thanks Dave.


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## CanadianWoodWorks (Dec 29, 2009)

Canadian Woodworks - Custom rocking chairs, tables, stools

As requested (-:


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

EDIT


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Paul that sycamore in that chair bottom is amazing. And you picked up a youtube subscriber as well.
Nice site.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Ted I am hanging on a ledge here.


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## CanadianWoodWorks (Dec 29, 2009)

Superdav721 thanks i'll keep the youtube vids coming, trying to improve the quality and content.

I think your looking at the chair that is built from Brazillian Lacewood and Canadian black walnut

Is it this rocking chair?


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*Dave*, the most important thing is to keep a general backup of your site files and database. With those, and a little practice, you can restore your site at any time in just a couple of minutes. I know making a full backup every time you want to make a change is a hassle, to say the least - takes all the fun out of playing with your new website. But if you make one every few days you'll always know you won't lose any more than that, should disaster occur.

I'm surprised that updating the core wordpress broke your site like that. I noticed two particular WP plugins in the error messages while your site was down - ultimate seo and nexgen gallery. Either of those may have been the culprit, or it could have been something else that inadvertently broke those. Whatever the case, it's usually just a simple one line of code that breaks the whole darn site. One simple line of code gets changed and that generates an error, so the whole site won't load.

But the thing is, I tried going to your WP admin just to see if the login page loaded, and that was broken too. That's what surprised me the most, since that should not have tried to load either of those plugins, or any plugins for that matter. That told me it must have something to do with the main WP core files. I have updated my WP and I have about 30 plugins installed, so I'm wondering if it has to do with the hosting environment or something else. Maybe the update didn't install completely, or GoDaddy has some setting on their server which conflicts with the latest version of WP… I'm speculating here, so it could have been caused by any number of things. But if it had to do with GoDaddy, I'm sure they saw it and fixed it real quick, considering a large number of their customers are using WordPress.

Like I said, I'm just speculating on what might have caused the meltdown. It could have been any number of things. Bottom line is to keep a back up at all times, so you can at lease recover anything up to the time you made the back up. How to do that is beyond the scope of this forum topic, but I can make a short tutorial later when I get some time.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

*Everybody*, than's for sharing your website and telling us how you did it. It appears a lot of readers are gaining a lot of useful information from this topic. I would like to comment more but I only have time to stop in and take a peek now and then. Again, thanks for sharing.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Paul that's the one. Sorry for the mis call it does look a little like quartes sawn sycamore. Nice chair and good videos. 
Ted thank you for the useful information. I will follow the backup regiment you suggested. 
I am in iT and there is an old saying. If you see me smiling I hope you have a backup.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Well guys I have been up 2 1/2 weeks. I love social media. What do these #'s tell you.








 
sorry the image is small but the StumbleUpon is 500 times better than the others combined. 
chiselandforge.com 
Ted sorry about your hard work.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

For those of you that stumble. They have a category for SEO. I have found it interesting.


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

SEO can be a daunting task especially when a million people are trying to sale the same product and be ranked on the first page of the search engines. When you think you have it all figured out and you're ranked high and the search engines make a change then all of a sudden you've disappeared.

Getting ranked high on the search engines for a local area and staying there is much easier than national or international ranking.
On a local area ranking the chances of being on the first 3 pages is much easier than trying to go world wide.
Most all the small to mid size businesses we handle have walk in store fronts. They're interested in being found in a local search area within a 50 mile radius of their stores.

We did a local book store last year with a so so clients in his town. Within 6 months his business had jumped 60% after we did a local seo on him because no one knew he was there but his home town local folks. 
He tells us people tell him we never knew there was a mom and pop book store in our area until we found you in the net. He also has no links on his site, no back links, and no social networking.

You also have to take into consideration what people are looking to buy. I know many of you sale some beautiful products. Let's take cutting boards for instance as your product. How many people are searching to buy a cutting board? Thank about it. Google cutting boards and see how many returns you get and see who your competition is. Now do a Google on cutting boards in your town and see what those results are.
Are you there ranked on the first page? If not then you need to be. If anyone does a search on just your town..funky town, your state…are you listed? You need to be in a search like that no matter what kind of business you own.

It takes some of your time getting your site listed in your local area but well worth the effort. Once your locals find you and start buying from you, word of mouth will move you up to another level in your business.

.


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

What you say applies well to those selling a tangible product, especially when they want to target local business. But there are those who want to share their ideas and wisdom, and attract a nationwide or world wide audience. For them, I think visitor loyalty is about the best traffic they can get. No matter what happens in the search engines, their visitors go by bookmarks, favorites, or just typing the site into their browser. Or they click links in directories or on forums. Not to discount search engine rankings, but there is nothing like loyal visitors to keep the traffic coming, through referrals and mentions in facebook, twitter and other social networks.


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

OK guys I am a newbee at this. I have been up a month and have an average of 200 hits per day. I am just wanting people to stop buy read and view a video then hopefully leave a comment.
How am I doing?


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## TedW (May 6, 2012)

Better than most, Dave. But more importantly, you're website is coming along great, which means many of those who do visit will be back for more. That's what I mean by visitor loyalty, and no search engine can beat that. Keep up the good work!


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)




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## DonOtt (Jul 10, 2009)

My shiny new website….

http://www.donebydon.ca

I had a bit of help getting this site set up and some tweaks afterwards. I really wasn't sure what the purpose of the site would be other than to give people a place to see my woodworking items instead of emailing them pictures.

Open to questions, comments and suggestions.

Cheers….Don


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

Don that looks great, well done.
Hey everybody go look at Don's site !


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## JoséLuisValle (Sep 18, 2021)

nowadays web development is replaced by page builders such as Elementor, on WordPress infrastructure.


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## tcaz (Nov 9, 2018)

https://www.flemingandcazalas.com

My wife and I run a small business together selling home goods, accessories, gifts, etc. She creates with natural & botanical dyes while I do the woodworking. It's mainly small items available for purchase but also a section for custom woodwork requests. This comprises the bulk of revenue made off our biz.

Anyways, we operate through Shopify after a year or so on Squarespace. We found it allows more customization and options for our needs. Marketing is primarily through word of mouth, markets, and social media. It's an ebb and flow of sales and am trying to figure out a more steady way to get sales/traffic/our name out there.


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