[TPIAP] Show #14 - How To Start A Faux Painting Website - Step 1
Posted by: THAT Painter Lady in Podcast
Patricia Hansen of Carolina Custom Interiors… the newest faux painter in the North Carolina area, has begun learning how to set up her new website.
She knows that this will be a great marketing tool. Showcasing her work online will allow her to share her talents and ideas with many more potential clients. By displaying her website and email addresses on all her marketing materials, she has expanded the 'net' for attracting new clients.
The cost for setting up a new web site? Good hosting plans with plenty of room for expansion and a ton of tools, should only cost about $7 -$8 per month. This is an inexpensive use of limited start-up business funds.
The hosting services Patricia decided to use is LunarPages.com LunarPages has a 1 month guarantee, so if you're not happy you can cancel and get your money back! What have you got to loose?
For more helpful tips for choosing website hosting click: Web Hosting Tips
This podcast/call is an actual conversation Patricia and I had while I am instructing her during her LunarPages.com set-up, which included all the little tidbits of information you must enter while signing up for website hosting.
The website does not show up instantly… as we haven't uploaded any files yet, so Patricia and I moved on to the discussion of web design and web software and templates for web sites.
I helped Patricia review several different websites, and we discussed what she liked and didn't like about each one. I tutored her on the faults as well as the great ideas we could find on each web site. This bit of research is necessary when beginning to design a new website… you must always have a plan, even if it is bare bones, before starting any project.
The format for Carolina Custom Interiors website will be a Wordpress blog, installed on a server at LunarPages.com using Fantastico.
You can find the WordPress Software to install at WordPress.org
Never use a free hosting service for hosting a website such as blogger or Wordpress.com:
- You do not have any customer service
- You do not have any control if your website is canceled for unknown reasons.
- You're website name will never look professional.
The WordPress "software" is easy to install at LunarPages. I hit the highlights in the podcast.
The websites we visited and discussed:
Some websites we visited after the call. These are the sites Patricia found interesting:
http://www.jenniferrebeccadesigns.com/
http://www.artisansbythesea.com/
http://www.roomerhasit.com/index.asp
http://www.paintinthetown.com/portfolio.htm
Theme sites we visited:
Follow the progress of website installation and design by visiting
www.CarolinaCustomInteriors.com
My copy of this book has cornered pages, notes and post-its on so many pages it really needs to be replaced. I love how easy it was to learn to use Wordpress and all the options it gives when setting up your new website.
Click on the Blue Arrow to play or the tiny orange mp3 logo to download.
Entries (RSS)
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:47 am
I checked out her new website and it looks great! I know from experience how hard it is to come up with a good looking website, and all the work that goes into it. So I just wanted to say it looks great!!
October 21st, 2007 at 6:30 pm
[…] I have done several radio show style interviews about website design for faux painters or mural artists. The information is very generic and would be helpful for anyone thinking about designing a craft website. Craft Business Website Design. […]
April 17th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
The next best thing you can do is to check out all the handy plugins for WordPress like Akistmet which automatically filters spam comments for you. Just Google: wordpress plugins, or best wordpress plugins to get started. I use about 20.