business web sites

[lawnboy82]

hey guys-
i am thinking of starting a web site for my business. i am not gonna do anything fancy. i went around this week and last taking pictures of some trees that i have to cut and i have a lot of workers asking me what there is to do. and some of them have internet access. i figure that i will post pictures of the trees and a brief description of the job. i mean it shouldnt have to be all too neat and tidy because the only people lookin at it will be my friends and workers. p.s. i am also using this page to brag. so if there is anything that you fellas think may be important when designing this kind of web site could you please drop me a line. thanks

[AVRECON]

For your crew guys, I would just email pics of the job with a description and instructions.Can't really tell you much about the web page idea.

[jjfehr]

Why waste your time designing a web site? I do a little web work on the side( http://www.spdotcom.com is my latest activity) It takes alot of time to design a website.
With all of the code that you have to type to get the little things done. You said that it does not have to be fancy so this is my opinion Just send the work order or whatever via email to those that have access! Very simple and alot less time consuming than keeping your site up to date. If you want a site to promote your business, you better make it "fancy" to attract your potential clients! The advantage of having a website is, if presented properly, it can sell services, schedule apts., show your work, etc... 24 hours/day to anyone in your area. I know that you can't do that for yourself. If you want a website, make sure that it looks prof., keep it up to date, and include your web address on all printed materials, and truck lettering. Keep this in mind, your flier or newspaper ad or yellow page add can omly say so much, But you can direct potential clints to your site where you can tell them an infinate amount of info. for free. You web site idea for employees is not a good idea, however, if you plan on using it to market your business I say go for it!!!

[mowingmachine]

I bought a book on HTML programing. That is the major programming language used to design websites. I learned almost everything I needed to know for a simple website in several hours. The more complex things take more time especially when you want to add script for some of the more fancy stuff. If you have any programming knowledge at all it is a breeze. There are also programs that will make websites for you. If you have any questions about it I would be more than happy to help you.
Mowingmachine

[jjfehr]

mowing machine
If you think that scripts are hard , you can even get free programs that you just fill int the forms and they do the html for the scripts that you want to run on your site, all that you do is copy and paste then ftp to your site. Web design is very simple if you understand it, however it is very time consuming. If all that his guy wants to do is give jog orders to employees it would be much faster to email them to the employees tha have internet access. What is the point of a web site that only his employees are going to see? Just email the info, along with a pictur, it will be alot quicker

[KirbysLawn]

Web site design is very easy and you do not have to learn code to make a nice site with the proper programs. FrontPage and NetFusion both are very easy to use and make nice sites. I did my site in FrontPage, our local association page is in NetFusion: http://www.thecgma.com. For what you want to do why not just use http://www.homestead.com, it's free.

Ray

[Fantasy Lawns]

Front Page ^--

http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/

[Eric ELM]

Websites are so simple even I can do them. ;)

I used MS Front Page to do mine and others. For you new members, mine is designed to help the members here at Lawnsite mostly and show some of the lawns we mow. It is not designed for getting more work.

I did my first website using MS Publisher on a free site called Bizland.com http://www.elms.bizland.com/ and the last one on the little red house below is Front Page designed.

[GreenQuest Lawn]

Not too difficult. just buy a web design program. I did mine(well I am still working on it) on Web site designer, This program came with Print Shop Pro-Publisher. It takes care of all them codes for ya. I have recently purchased a new web design program that I am switching to. It has a lot more features than the old program. I paid 19.95 for it.

[Skookum]

Hardest part is just knowing where and how to start. It takes a few restless hours to get it all to come up right on your server.

The cheapo program I bought is Complete Web Studio by Sierra, the same people that brought us Lesure Suit Larry so many years ago. It cost about $30.00 and is super simple. I plan to get MS FrontPage sometime, because my server has alot of support items built in for FrontPage.

I had problems with the FTP upload part of the cheapo program. It would not access the FTP so I could manage my space on my server. It would just upload the web file as I had it set on my computer. So, I found a great little program on AOL computing downloads called FTP For Dummys. It does all that the big and complex FTP programs will do except it is super simple. It operates like the Windows explorer.

After a few hours, I had a page up and never cracked any book or manuel.