Newbie Questions

Any advice would be appreciated

[TexasMusicGuy]

Hello all, I've lurked these boards for a while and finally decided to join.
You all seem to be very helpful to those of us that are new to all this.
I'm a rank beginner and currently use Frontpage but plan to redesign my sites with Dreamweaver soon.
I would like an honest opinion of my sites and how I can improve them. About a year ago I started an informative music website, <snip>.
It was a hobby and I decided to create a website around this type of music. This site makes no money what so ever so in February I decided to try the E-Commerce thing and started another website, <snip>. As the name implies, I sell <snip>, primarily cd's. I know everyone and thier dog is selling cd's on the net but its kind of a niche market and i figured it might be a good way to pay for my expenses and maybe make a supplemental income.

Enough background, my main question is what can i do to improve both of these websites and set-up the e-commerce one the right way from the start? My hosting company uses Miva Merchant for the shopping cart so I'm working with that and Frontpage at the moment. I haven't cross-linked both sites very much but the informative site gets between 300-500 visits a day.

I value what you guys think and I'm open to any suggestions you might have. Sorry so long winded :).

[edited by: engine at 5:38 pm (utc) on April 19, 2004]
[edit reason] formatting, no urls & specifics [/edit]

[Robino]

TOS #13:

Please don't drop promotional urls, signature files, nor specifics that would lead people to your site. Signing your name is fine, however commercialized posts or resume signatures will be edited. We tend to err on the side of caution to protect the integrity of the system. Affiliate based URLs are not allowed anywhere on the system.

[bunltd]

TexasMusicGuy, welcome to WebmasterWorld from another fellow Texan. :)

Adding content to the cd site would be helpful, the home page is kinda sparse. Not opening the store in another window would be nice, too.

Re: Miva - there are 3rd party add-on modules that will help with the search engine end of things for the items you have listed in your store... Also organizing the items into logical categories, to make it easy for your visitors to find what they're looking for - alpha (last name, first name or band name), genre, etc.

Other than that, you're in the right place to learn - spend some time here reading and you'll get up to speed.

LisaB

[TexasMusicGuy]

Thanks for the advice, Lisa. I appreciate your quick reply and it was very helpful! :)

Sorry about the url's, i didn't realize it was a no no. what is the best way to ask a question like i asked with giving url for an example?

[Essex_boy]

By adding a tag line 'Please sticky me for the URl'

[Corey Bryant]

Greetings from another Fellow Texan! :)

I tend to try to stay away from Miva Merchant. If you like ASP, check out: [spidersales.com...] or if you like PHP, check out: [oscommerce.snappyserver.com...]

The reason I would suggest one of the above - the source code is yours - and if something every happened to your server / hosting company - you could easily pick up & go.

-Corey

[bunltd]

Corey: I tend to stay away from Miva now too... It's become too proprietary for my tastes. It can also get expensive with those add-on modules. (you used to be able to write Miva script and customize, now they have a compiled version and without their software you're out of luck - or you're off to buy a module)

We've been doing quite a few ClickCartPro sites - since it's written in Perl, the code is easily customizable, and you can adapt it to whatever look and feel you want/need. There's ongoing development and an active forum, too.

LisaB

[webtress]

I tend to lean towards ecommercetemplates, compatible with Frontpage or Dreamweaver, ASP or PHP database are MSAccess or MYSQL. Integrates with most payment processors including paypal. Great customer support.

[TexasMusicGuy]

Thanks for all of your input...you guys are great! My hosting company offered Miva when i signed up for thier web commerce package. I thought that i was stuck with using that software, i will definitely look into other options. I'm new at this but i'm learning as i go. Thanks again!

[Corey Bryant]

Also keep in mind: Let's say you are on a UNIX server. You should be able to put osCommerce on there (as long as they give you PHP/mySQL). And you do not have to pay extra for e-commerce. The same with Windows - they should at least allow ASP / MS Access.

The only thing - they might now give you access to a Shared SSL. But you can get your own SSL (highly recommended) for about $20 a year. And if you ever decided to change hosting companies - it would be very easy for you to pick up & go :)

-Corey

[raywood]

Hey TexasMusicGuy,
Don't forget to read the latest security alerts for Dreamweaver. Vulnerabilities easy to fix, but dangerous if ignored.
ray