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KristineS
12-19-2012, 12:25 PM
I post on another forum that is specific to my industry and there are a lot of people on that forum creating really bad websites to sell their products. When I can, I comment on their threads and try to offer advice, but I'd love to have a list of sites I could refer them to for more information and help. I think such a list could be useful here as well, so I thought I'd ask which sites you guys think are the best sites dealing with how to create a good website. Also, if you have any advice you would like to share about how to create a good website, please do share it here.

vangogh
12-19-2012, 01:03 PM
Honestly I don't think a few sites is going to turn people who create awful websites into people who create great ones. There's a lot to learn, a lot more than most people are likely going to take on. My best advice is unless these people are truly interested in spending a few years learning how to design and develop websites to just point them to WordPress or Drupal or some other content management system and have them pick a theme and learn the CMS. That's going to be the quickest and easiest route to having a better site.

Having said that here are a couple of sites they can check out.

Designing for the Web (http://designingfortheweb.co.uk/book/index.php)
Digital Web Magazine (http://www.digital-web.com/articles/designing_for_the_web/)
Web Style Guide Online (http://www.webstyleguide.com/wsg3/index.html)

I'd also recommend this book. The link takes you to the Kindle version, but if you search Amazon by title you'll find lot's of different editions. The Kindle edition is $10. I think the paperback is about $20. It's probably the best resource for someone who's new to design and needs help.

The Non-Designer's Design Book (www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Edition-Designers-ebook/dp/B00125MJYM/)

Some tips from me based on what I typically see people doing.


Use more space on the page. People usually try to cram everything they can onto the page. Empty space is a vital part of the design. Without it nothing gets noticed
Try to align different elements on the page to other elements on the page. It'll give everything a sense of order and make it easier to find things.
Don't overdo color. If you're unsure how to pick colors that work together use mostly different shades of gray and choose one color as an accent to help some things stand out.
Create some kind of visual hierarchy on the page. Make more important information look more important than less important information.



Still my best advice is to either hire a designer or use a CMS/theme.

Wozcreative
12-19-2012, 02:17 PM
I agree with Vangogh that hiring a truly professional designer/developer for a site if you want something solid or use an existing high-end theme.

Learning to design websites yourself is a difficult task. I started developing them when I was 13/14 but never really understood design theory until I went to college, studied it for 3 years, and then practiced for another 3-4 years before I got website design to the level that I am now.

The thing with websites is that if not done properly, they seem very out-dated, cumbersome, poorly developed, don't work on mobile devices, images of products are small and blurry, no visual hierarchy and so on.. it's a lot of work and why they usually cost a lot if you are buying a quality one.

KristineS
12-20-2012, 12:39 PM
I agree with you both about hiring a designer and someone who understands website navigation and selling on the web if you want the best possible experience. I also know there are people out there who aren't going to do that. A lot of the people on this particular forum are small business owners who need to be educated. I guess maybe what I'm looking for is not so much sites that educate about how to build a site, but sites which provide education about how e-commerce works and how a good site works. So many of the people on this particular forum seem to lack understanding of those topics. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the garment decoration field who think simply slapping up any old website and any old decorated garment will make them money.

Harold Mansfield
12-20-2012, 01:53 PM
I'm actually working on a book for start ups that spends significant time on your website and dives into creating small business ecommerce sites. I'm a little behind schedule, but when I'm done I'll shoot you a copy.

In the meanwhile, I did write a blog post on this a while back. It's a little general, but maybe it has few tips that can help point people in the right direction:
Top 5 things that will kill a Small Business eCommerce Website | NHABIT (http://nhab.it/top-5-things-that-wil-kill-a-small-business-ecommerce-website/)

Wozcreative
12-20-2012, 03:34 PM
I guess maybe what I'm looking for is not so much sites that educate about how to build a site, but sites which provide education about how e-commerce works and how a good site works.

The only way they will get a site that works well is if they learn how to do it develop themselves, hire a professional or get a theme. Knowing how to build a site goes hand in hand on what works.

If you look at it this way, what if I wanted a nice home built.. I would either have to design it myself and know the building codes or hire a professional to design it for me. Designing it and not learning how to design it defeats the purpose.

vangogh
12-20-2012, 03:44 PM
Kristine offer them my tips above. One of the biggest problems I see with ecommerce sites is thought that need to cram every bit of product and information into one place as though if it isn't always visible no one will find it. You end up with categories a mile long and every inch of the browser filled with products. Placing too much information on a page though means nothing stands out so the end result is no one notices anything.

The thing is even a suggestion like that is more difficult for the typical site owner to implement than it seems. That's why my best suggestion is to pick a CMS and use a theme.

I'm not sure if there are a handful of sites that will contain all the information you want. I always see articles on design sites and marketing sites and seo sites about how to improve ecommerce websites, but they aren't all about ecommerce. I don't know any specific books, but that's probably where I'd send people. I'm sure there are some pretty good books on Amazon on best practices for setting up shop online.

billbenson
12-22-2012, 06:52 PM
The only way they will get a site that works well is if they learn how to do it develop themselves, hire a professional or get a theme.

I think in a lot of cases you need to know a lot about web design just to hire a decent designer / developer and give them the proper marching orders. Beyond that I think that the web site owner should understand databases. Databases are extremely powerful things and can do some very cleaver and creative things on a web site.

The problem is that web designers / developers don't usually run online businesses. Sure they have web sites to get business, but they aren't doing ecommerce as their daily activity. Also they don't know every product or service and shouldn't be expected to.

IMO you aren't going to get your optimum web site if you don't know a fair amount about web design. I'm not suggesting you write your own website but if you don't understand web design, what are you doing in the ecommerce business?

vangogh
12-26-2012, 04:31 PM
The problem is that web designers / developers don't usually run online businesses. Sure they have web sites to get business, but they aren't doing ecommerce as their daily activity.

That's not necessarily true. There are definitely web designers and developers who do run ecommerce sites for themselves in addition to working for clients. And for those that don't odds are they have other clients with ecommerce sites. The person or company you hire isn't going to know your business as well as you do, but that doesn't mean they can't design and develop and effective site for it. Assuming you're working with them you can supply the knowledge and experience about your business and they can supply the same about the website.

I don't think you need to know a lot about web design to hire someone good. You should probably know enough to ask questions to determine who's good and who's not so good, but you hardly need to know a lot to do that. Knowing more is going to be better, but you really don't need to know a lot.

billbenson
12-26-2012, 06:29 PM
That's not necessarily true. There are definitely web designers and developers who do run ecommerce sites for themselves in addition to working for clients. And for those that don't odds are they have other clients with ecommerce sites. The person or company you hire isn't going to know your business as well as you do, but that doesn't mean they can't design and develop and effective site for it. Assuming you're working with them you can supply the knowledge and experience about your business and they can supply the same about the website.

I don't think you need to know a lot about web design to hire someone good. You should probably know enough to ask questions to determine who's good and who's not so good, but you hardly need to know a lot to do that. Knowing more is going to be better, but you really don't need to know a lot.

My comment was a generalization. I am also thinking of someone such as myself who can easily spend 12 hours most days just doing the sales function. I'm constantly thinking about ways I can streamline my processes and improve my site to make things more profitable, run smoother etc. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do much of that in the last few years because of time constraints. I'm bringing on a partner which will hopefully free up more time to implement some of my ideas. But the more knowledgeable I am, I feel the better the site that that I can have built for me.

Case in point. I think we have disagreed somewhat on whether or not to put all products on the website. In my case I think it is a good strategy because of my customer base and how orders are placed. That would not necessarily be true for other ecommerce businesses with a different business model.

KristineS
12-27-2012, 12:59 PM
I'm actually working on a book for start ups that spends significant time on your website and dives into creating small business ecommerce sites. I'm a little behind schedule, but when I'm done I'll shoot you a copy.

In the meanwhile, I did write a blog post on this a while back. It's a little general, but maybe it has few tips that can help point people in the right direction:
Top 5 things that will kill a Small Business eCommerce Website | NHABIT (http://nhab.it/top-5-things-that-wil-kill-a-small-business-ecommerce-website/)

Nice blog post Harold! Very helpful and it made some good points.

KristineS
12-27-2012, 01:04 PM
I agree that in an ideal world, you would hire an expert to do the job for you and get the best site you possibly could. I suppose you could even say that those who don't do that, or who don't take the time to understand how e-commerce works and what a good e-commerce site contains have no one to blame but themselves if things don't work. I guess I just want to figure out some ways to offer techniques or advice to these people that I see in the garment decoration industry who do good work, but have no idea how to sell that work online. I don't want to dumb things down, and I don't want to imply that dabbling is the same as being a professional web designer, but having some places, like Vangogh's list, where I can refer people is a great help.

vangogh
12-27-2012, 04:28 PM
Yeah I didn't think you were trying to suggest that dabbling and being a professional web designer were the same thing. I felt I had to make the point at first, but obviously I was more than willing to offer some suggestions.

I'll offer a few more basic things, with an easy to remember acronym, C.R.A.P

Contrast - To make something stand out on the page make it look different from other things on the page. That's not to say everything on the page should look different from everything else. That would be bad. Pick a couple of important elements on each page you most want someone to notice and contrast how it looks compared to the rest of the page. For example the main heading on a page could be bigger, darker, a different font, a different color than the main text on the page. More contrast means more attention.

Repetition - Elements on the page that are similar should look similar. All in-content links on the page should be styled the same way. All page headings of a certain level should look the same. Across pages keep navigation in the same location. If you bold something on a page, try to only use bold for similar types of information. Basically be consistent.

Alignment - Try to align ever element on the page with some other element on the page. Aligning elements with each other will make it easier for people to scan your page. Align text to the left or right instead of centering it. Align rows of images horizontally so either the top or bottom of all forms a line. When you're placing something on the page see if you can align it horizontally or vertically with some other element. You can take it further and set up a grid where page elements always sit inside certain sections of the grid.

Proximity - Group related information together and separate that information from other groups with space. Think of a paragraph. There's often more space between two paragraphs online than between two lines of text inside the same paragraph. Extend this beyond paragraphs. Leave some space between your main menu and other page elements. Place more space around a grid of images than between the images. If you have 3 special offers on a page, each with a heading, description and, image group those 3 things closer together to each other than to the next group of heading, description, and image. It helps people tell what belongs together.

You don't need to follow the above 100% of the time. However for anyone new to design it's probably best to just follow the above. Breaking rules and guidelines can lead to great design, but you have to understand what those rules and guidelines are trying to do and understand why you're trying to do something different, before you'll effectively break the rules and guidelines.

jeffery1969
02-17-2013, 01:40 PM
Is there anyone on here that can help me w building a website for my small business?
I thought about using godaddy but figured someone on here would make it easier on me.

vangogh
02-18-2013, 11:26 PM
Jeffrey there are quite a few people here who offer design and development services, myself included. If you're looking to hire someone look through the thread and get to know the people here. It's a good way to determine who might be the right person for you. If you're looking for advice for building the site yourself, feel free to ask questions, though I'd ask you start your own threads to do that. Thanks.

Pack-Secure
02-18-2013, 11:56 PM
I highly recommend this site for people that are not fluent in CSS, HTML etc.

W3Schools Online Web Tutorials (http://www.w3schools.com/)

Alex1
02-19-2013, 11:07 AM
A website is very important for the online presence of a business. It serves as a advertisement to your services, and it needs to stand out from the billions of web pages out there if it is going to be remembered. So, its an investment to your own business, and it deserves more attention than slapping on a unremarkable wordpress template and just be done with it.

I believe a website should be not only eye-catching but also functional so its easy to navigate. So pay attention to the overall theme of the site you are trying to build, but keep in mind it needs to be functional and easy to use.

vangogh
02-20-2013, 03:18 AM
it needs to be functional and easy to use.

That's really the most important thing and unfortunately I think too many sites forget to do. Sometimes you wonder if the people who built the site or run it every tried to use it. Sometimes you can see where people very familiar with the site like the owner and designer could use it, because of their familiarity, but sometimes you wonder how even they can use the site or of they've ever tried.

KristineS
02-20-2013, 12:21 PM
That's one thing that really annoys me, when someone gets caught up in how cool their site looks and doesn't think about how easily visitors can navigate the site. It's all well and good to have a cool looking site, but if people have to search for five minutes to figure out how to navigate through the site, your coolness factor goes down pretty quickly.

vangogh
02-23-2013, 05:17 PM
Looking good can be important for a site. It actually does more than look good. The aesthetics of a design create an atmosphere and a context for everything you do on the site. However, it's not the most important part of the design.

What bugs me about this is unfortunately too many people think design is only about making it look cool. It bugs me because it completely devalues the work that designers do as if making things easy to navigate and organizing the information and making it easy to read just happens by magic. Those things are a lot more difficult to get right than most people realize as evidenced by all the sites only that are hard to navigate, read, and find anything.

Gabe
02-26-2013, 08:35 AM
I agree, web design is hard. I've always done my own web design, typically starting with a template and making it my own. Every time I finish, I consider it a masterpiece. Every time I look back at it after a few months, I realize how bad it is. I'm probably still bad, but I can tell I'm getting better.

A good practice is to save a list of websites you like and think about why you like them. I'll often mimic things on sites I like to learn why I like them.

The key part of good design is usability and things just making sense. Then take things away to make it simple but elegant (I like clean and simple sites). Once you've mastered that, the rest is 'just' making it look good. Easy to say, but hard to do. It's when you see how hard it is to do you learn the true value of a great designer.

Anyway, here's a good book on usability: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition: Steve Krug: 9780321344755: Amazon.com: Books (http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/)

Alex1
02-26-2013, 10:32 AM
I think some people are more talented for design than others. For example that's why I am left with the coding while my GF does the actual design of the site :).

vangogh
03-01-2013, 12:46 AM
Every time I finish, I consider it a masterpiece. Every time I look back at it after a few months, I realize how bad it is.

You aren't alone in that. I can attest to the same thing happening to me, though I generally don't consider them masterpieces when first finished. I do generally like them less over time. I think it's because a few months later I can see better how it could be better and usually my skills have improved and I know I could have done more. It's the nature of the job.


I think some people are more talented for design than others.

That's true of all things. Some people will have more natural talent, but I think everyone can learn to maximize whatever talent they have. Also with some like web design there's no one way to design a site. You can play to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses and still come up with something great. Someone else with different strengths and weaknesses can also come up with something great. The two designs might be entirely different and still both be great designs.

Multimedia Marketing
03-01-2013, 05:06 PM
Why not just use a service like Shopify (http://www.shopify.com/examples) for like $30 a month?

If they are new to the web the last thing they want to do is spin their wheels figuring out how to build a website. If you build a custom solution every time you want to make a change you are going to have go through the whole back and forth routine with a developer/designer. And in the case of most new business owners they don't really know what it is they should be looking for in features anyway.

A service like Shopify has so many third party apps that can add functionality in a snap of a finger for a very low cost... sometimes free! Why reinvent the wheel just to get a web presence. Time is much better spent on sourcing products and marketing than tinkering around.

Wordpress can work but it will look like a blog unless you know how to customize it and that means time spent that could be used on creating your content or promoting your business.

Gabe
03-04-2013, 12:40 AM
It's true not everyone can be great at design, but I think anyone can learn to recognize good design. On the fringes it's in the eye of the beholder, but in terms of usability and clarity it's pretty universal.

vangogh
03-12-2013, 02:33 AM
Why not just use a service like EcommerceShopify for like $30 a month?

WordPress has themes just like Shopify and they don't all look like blogs. You don't need to know how to customize WordPress in order to have a non-blog looking site. WordPress also doesn't cost $30 a month. I'm not saying Shopify is bad, but be fair to WordPress.


It's true not everyone can be great at design, but I think anyone can learn to recognize good design

I think that's true of most things. Everyone can learn to maximize whatever talent they have for anything, but some people will naturally have a higher ceiling to reach for.

lacarrye
03-12-2013, 01:12 PM
I'm not sure if I can post here my web design tool, but we used an wysiwyg tool.
Regards,

vangogh
03-14-2013, 02:07 AM
A tool doesn't make you a good designer though. It's just a tool. You still have to make the decisions about what goes where and how things should be organized. Design is a long series of decisions, starting with the decision about the problem you're trying to solve and continuing through all sorts of things like what to include and what not to include, how to organize everything you include, how to make sure text is inviting to read and legible to read, when and when to introduce the call-to-action, and on and on. Tools don't make those decisions.

KristineS
03-14-2013, 03:21 PM
Tools also don't necessarily understand e-commerce or the mechanics of websites. A wisiwyg editor is useful if you're not well versed in html, but it isn't going to give you the knowledge you need to create a site that converts visitors to buyers or which presents your business in its best light.

vangogh
03-16-2013, 12:56 AM
A WYSIWYG is to help people who don't want to write the code. It doesn't make design decisions for you. A better tool won't make you a better designer and a worse tool won't make you a worse designer. The tools can make things easier and harder for you, but they don't change who you are.

billbenson
03-16-2013, 02:55 AM
A WYSIWYG is to help people who don't want to write the code. It doesn't make design decisions for you. A better tool won't make you a better designer and a worse tool won't make you a worse designer. The tools can make things easier and harder for you, but they don't change who you are.

Philosophical :)

I learned html in what seems like 1943 but was actually about 2001. At that time they were a great way for learning html as you could see code view and usually had to go into code view to correct errors automatically put into the html. It was really good at two things at that time. Teaching you html and simplifying repetitive tasks like tables. We have a designer here who uses Dreamweaver to this day and likes it. CB Creative. There may be others. There may be others.

Most designers / developers write in code though. Don't get me wrong. Dreamweaver has grown with the times incorporating CSS. Not sure about PHP. Most sites today have databases, html, css, and php or some other dynamic language. I'm not sure if Dreamweaver is good at that or only parts of it like html and css or is good at the dynamic code part as well.

In the end most designers / developers seem to code in a text editor, some utilizing a WYSIWYG for certain tasks. I think in the end you need to be able to code.

I don't consider myself to be a designer / developer, but I do know a fair amount about it. Feel free to correct me if I have some misconceptions.

vangogh
03-20-2013, 02:20 AM
I learned html in what seems like 1943

That can't be right. I'm pretty sure the web and html didn't debut until 1948. :)

I think the best way to learn to develop web pages is to write the code by hand. Sure you can learn a lot by clicking some buttons and seeing the code that gets produced, but it's no substitute for typing out the code, making mistakes, and having to figure out what those mistakes are. When you're learning I think it's best not to simplify the repetitive tasks. It might be a pain to keep doing the same thing over and over, but the repetition is a great learning tool.

The problem I see with all WYSIWYG editors is you're relying on the tool to produce what you hope will be good code. DreamWeaver is certainly better than it used to be, but it still doesn't write the best code. It's also never going to be up to date with technology that changes rapidly. I don't mean to knock WYSIWYGs, but if you want to write the best code, you need to write code and not let something write it for you.

Where design is concerned a WYSIWYG doesn't help at all. The tool isn't choosing the most appropriate typeface of making decisions about where to place elements in the design. It can make it easy for you to place an element in the design, but it doesn't help you decide where that place is.

HireLogoDesign
03-27-2013, 05:31 PM
This is no knock on anyone, but I still don't know what someone means by designing for mobile. The site never looks any different than what you see on a computer. Someone may elaborate on this and maybe have an example of a site that is designed to look any different on mobile? Most say they design for mobile, but what does that actually mean?

Dan Furman
04-01-2013, 02:13 PM
This is no knock on anyone, but I still don't know what someone means by designing for mobile. The site never looks any different than what you see on a computer. Someone may elaborate on this and maybe have an example of a site that is designed to look any different on mobile? Most say they design for mobile, but what does that actually mean?

Basically, it means the site "changes" to better fit a mobile screen. The official word is "responsive".

Look at my site on your desktop. Then look at it on your phone. See how the menu changes to make phone browsing easier?

KristineS
04-01-2013, 04:10 PM
I have to agree that learning to create a site using code is a good thing. I know basic HTML and am certainly not up to date on everything because I don't write sites for a living. The basic knowledge of HTML does let me understand sites, however, and gives me an edge on figuring out problems. A basic knowledge of HTML can serve you very well, even if you don't ever write a site from scratch.

vangogh
04-02-2013, 11:58 PM
The site never looks any different than what you see on a computer.

The thing is that's generally not the best experience. Everything is so small that it's hard to read without pinching and zooming. But then you have to zoom back out to find something else.

If you want to see a site that changes for mobile you can give my site a look. On wide screens there are 2 columns and once the width of the browser or device gets below a certain point it becomes a single column. On some pages I just drop one column below the other, but on others like my blog posts I integrate the two columns a little more.

Other things you might do are reorganize how the site is structured so different content is easier to get to than it otherwise would be. Developing advice is even to create several versions of your content for different devices. For example a product page might have a long description, but on a phone that long description takes up too much space and delays people from seeing the price or some other information. So you might have an alternate short description displayed by default with the full description a click away.

Navigation on sites can create problems. On desktops and laptops there's room for plenty of links. All those links can take up a lot of room on a phone. One row of links becomes two becomes three. A menu on the left ends up filling the entire top of the screen. Some strategies call for moving the navigation off the screen and leaving in its place a single button that reveals it when clicked or tapped.

The general idea is that while they sometimes look the same a site that was designed for a wide screen often doesn't provide a good experience on a small screen. People typically abandon it quicker. Ever since I redesigned my site so it would work better on mobile devices, traffic from mobile devices is up about 300% and that traffic stays on the site about twice as long as it did before.

If you want to see some sites that adapt their design for devices like tables and smartphones you can check MediaQuer.es (http://mediaqueri.es/). You can see the different images for different devices, but you'll get a better feel for how the sites change if you visit them on multiple devices of simply resize your browser to make it smaller.

mary896
04-16-2013, 03:34 PM
Hi all,

I love this thread, learning a LOT!

I'm going to come clean here...very few know my secret. I built my website in 2000 using Adobe Pagemill 3.0. Yeah, it was outdated THEN! Guess what? I'm still using it and still love it. I was heartbroken when Windows 7 made it unusable, I even installed XP along with 7 so I could still use it! It crashed all the time and was tough to use, but I could still use it to update and change my site. Well, I figured out how to use it on Windows 7 & 8 easily and it's just as great as the day I started. No more crashes either.

Now, for the question. Is it ok for my site to be clean, simple, zero ads, no social media links and created by a paleolithic era wysiwyg editor? I don't know any HTML and know zilch about the latest and greatest in site design. I just have a small business that's not doing as well as it used to a few years ago. I'd appreciate some more of everyone's thoughts on what makes a good retail site and even specifics on my site, if you're willing. Cheers!

vangogh
04-18-2013, 12:18 AM
Welcome to the forum Mary. I'm glad you're enjoying the thread.

If you're happy with how the site is delivering for your business then it's certainly ok to continue with it. However, after so many years there's a good chance a newer and better site could do more even if it was doing well now. SInce you say it's not doing as well as it was a few years ago, I think that's really your answer. There could be any number of reasons why it's not doing as well, but the site itself is probably contributing quite a bit given how old it is.

If you want us to offer specific thoughts about your site or even just retail in general would you mind starting a new thread? We have an ecommerce section (http://www.small-business-forum.net/ecommerce/) for the more general questions and also a website review section (http://www.small-business-forum.net/website-reviews/) for specific feedback on your site. Thanks.