Very charming mouse print by Jacquie Ramsden
Shop: here.
Blog: blog.ramsdendesigns.com
Website: RamsdenDesigns
Often when starting your craft business there isn’t a lot of money or knowledge about website applications floating around to set up your website. Luckily it is possible to set up your own website with very little knowledge and money.
Here are some things to consider when starting your own website and ways to lessen the cost.
- Web hosting: there are a multitude of companies offering to host your website for free, just Google “free website hosting”. Even your ISP (Internet Service Provider) will generally offer free website space. They often offer free website builders, templates and will upload your files onto the net as well. The down side is these websites are often loaded with advertising and promotional material and you don’t get your own domain name, it will often be yourname.webhost.com.
- Getting your own domain can cost as much as $100 a year (these usually come with a domain name and web hosting) but it is a good investment. Now you can have your own domain name (such as www.yourbusiness.com) which makes it easy for buyers to find you and remember your web address. With web hosting you’ll get a website editor and applications to upload your files on to the web.
- If your website host has a site editor that is not your cup of tea then thankfully the next step is not Macromedia Dreamweaver or another pricy site editor. There are free editors available to you such as KompoZer, Nvu and Trellian. These are comprehensive, easy to use applications that make creating your own websites easy. Free Merchant will even let you set up your own e-commerce site.
- Many of these site editors allow you to upload your web ready files on the net but if you’ve found one you like and it doesn’t allow FTP (File Transfer Protocol) then, yes you guessed it, you can get one of those for free too. I use Core FTP and once you get the hang of it, it’s incredibly easy to use, simply connect, find your html or image on your computer and send it over. And there you have it, a website up and running.
- But what about images? They can make or lose you sales. What you need is a free easy to use image editor. One of the best known image editors is Gimp, a free image authoring application, however there others out there so shop around and find one you like.
- Feeling a little uncreative? Can make a knitted tea cosy but couldn’t design a website to save your life? Easy, simply download a free web template and add your own text and images. There are literally thousands of templates out there so Google “free web templates” and let the creative energies flow.
- And don’t forget to set up your own blog and let us know how you’re going, Wordpress and Blogger are great free blogs.
- I hope this list helps you set up and save money in your burgeoning craft business. Don’t just take my recommendations for free applications also. Go out and search for the applications that will truly suite your needs. And before you know it, your craft business will be up and running.
Good luck!
by Jacquie Ramsden
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Thanks for that Jacquie! What great money saving tips! Thanks for detailing the issue involved in setting up a website and listing the freebie options, (definitely handy!) Best of luck with your shop.
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Just thought I’d point out that a .com domain that isn’t already taken by somebody can be bought for less than $10, although if someone already has it prices can skyrocket into the tens of thousands of dollars (in which case I’d say you need to come up with a new domain, unless you have that much money to burn).
I’d recommend going with Wordpress, even if you don’t necessarily want a blog. Wordpress.org has quite a good community around it which has created plenty of free plugins and templates, so it’s very easy to step away from the blog feel and put in a gallery, shopping cart, integrate your Flickr pics etc. It’s also quite reasonable as a low level content management system, so you don’t have to deal with coding and uploading your work when you want to create or edit pages. It’s also nice and easy to set up
Only thing is you need a MySQL database and PHP support, so it’s likely you will have to get paid hosting rather than a free option.