R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1] 2  All   Go Down

Author Topic: Building your website  (Read 4252 times)

aivoryuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 480
Building your website
« on: July 13, 2005, 02:13:46 PM »

Hi

I'm currently wanting to build a website to advertise my small mastering services and was just wondering when you were guys had in mind when you were doing yours.

There are websites i have been to which some of the stuff i couldn't quite believe they were saying (thankfully none of you regulars on here Smile )

did you put a lot of thought into the websites and how you wanted to be percieved?

what would you say the common pitfuls (if any) of websites that you see.
what things would you and would not put on a website??

I kinda know how i want to come across but was just interested on other peoples thoughts

cheers


Alex
Logged

lucey

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1043
Re: Building your website
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2005, 08:31:12 PM »

just be yourself ...

Logged
Brian Lucey
Magic Garden Mastering

"the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ecology" - unknown

bblackwood

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7036
Re: Building your website
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2005, 09:42:17 PM »

I had someone do the Euphonic site for me and I recommend it if you have the resources - just as we specialize in what we do, I believe it's worth letting one who specializes in visual arts handle your site. IME, you can generally spot a DIY website a mile away...

That being said, the number one issue I see with websites is navigation - it has to be easy to get around the site and find what you want.
Logged
Brad Blackwood
euphonic masters

lowland

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 575
Re: Building your website
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2005, 02:40:55 AM »

I'd certainly agree that getting a professional web designer involved is a very good idea (I remember my attempts to fix our toilet last time it broke), and I think my site has benefited from that - I spent some time in the planning stage with the design company sorting out the presentation, and perhaps more importantly what I wanted to achieve with the site.

My feeling was that I didn't expect a flood of business solely from the web but that it would be a kind of glorified business card for me; I also wanted something that was simple, reasonably elegant and fast-loading - viewable with a wide range of resolutions and browsers. I've had some criticism that the site is not completely 800x600-friendly, and though I may look at this again eventually, for the moment I'm comfortable that the majority of content (including all the text) is visible at that res. without scrolling.

In my case, as I occasionally write about audio I wanted the text to be particularly 'tight', especially in those sections where there would be little change over time such as the 'Mastering' page, which attempts to answer some common questions. I therefore put a fair amount of effort into the textual content and I'm reasonably happy with the results - when I look at other people's efforts it's not unusual to see 'flab' and redundancy in the writing, probably not unlike this post!

The other thing I'd say is that from the start I wanted to be able to change and update things remotely from home, and the solution the designer identified was to use Nvu (www.nvu.com), a very good WYSIWYG web editor which also happens to be free - it'll suit both a complete web novice like me and also someone who wants to roll up their HTML sleeves. This has enabled me to tidy a few things and add a basic News page for example, while still working within the framework that was set for me. I hope to regularly update the picture content as well since I live and work in a pretty location and use pics of the local countryside as part of my 'angle' for the site.
Logged
Nigel Palmer
Lowland Masters
Essex, UK
www.lowlandmasters.com

George_

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1234
Re: Building your website
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2005, 05:39:47 AM »

or to get George..

I'm workiing for maybe less then you expect;)

my advice:
I do you a goodlooking Mambo-powered site in 7hours if you have content.. with administrationsurface and stuff..

www.blazingsun.ch is an example of mambo..

it's not all the way safe (mine was hacked 2 times) but we are not talking about banktreasures, or?Wink

try out mambo if you are into installing mySql-databases.

If you need advice PM me. I'm also into PHP/mySQL and some good old oracle (this is not what we need here). HTML is also no problem and I can make you javaapps or servlets.. Im also into ASP and Macromedias cold "shit" fusion.

hei man, and I'm so cheap (like my gear).. Smile
Logged
"BORN A ROCKER, DIE A ROCKER"

George Necola

carlsaff

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 773
Re: Building your website
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2005, 07:29:06 AM »

For me, it was primarily an easy way to put up all of the information clients were asking every other day in emails before I had the site (pricing, gear, accepted formats, etc.).

Now when a new client has questions, I just send them to my site and, usually, all questions are answered (short of turnaround time, which pretty much has to be variable).

aivoryuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 480
Re: Building your website
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2005, 02:06:41 PM »

thanks guys for the advice

I think i will get someone into to do site for me. I'm on a bit of a budget so any recommendations would be good.

Im just looking for something simple but stylish (i'm prob asking a lot) i've got to grips with ftp as well so this is something i would like to consider.

I don't want to use samples of before and after so don't have to worry about that
Logged

lucey

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1043
Re: Building your website
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2005, 03:38:56 PM »

aivoryuk wrote on Thu, 14 July 2005 13:06


I think i will get someone into to do site for me. I'm on a bit of a budget so any recommendations would be good.



I paid $500 ... and that's cheap. But it's a simple site.

The site looks more casual, less 'pro' ... and that's by choice.
Logged
Brian Lucey
Magic Garden Mastering

"the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ecology" - unknown

lowland

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 575
Re: Building your website
« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2005, 01:57:51 AM »

In my case the design people I used were part of a studio/record company concern just up the road so I bartered: mastered one of their album releases and they built my website, a 'win/win'.
Logged
Nigel Palmer
Lowland Masters
Essex, UK
www.lowlandmasters.com

aivoryuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 480
Re: Building your website
« Reply #9 on: July 15, 2005, 05:49:29 AM »

lowland wrote on Fri, 15 July 2005 06:57

In my case the design people I used were part of a studio/record company concern just up the road so I bartered: mastered one of their album releases and they built my website, a 'win/win'.



thats sort of what im doing cause one of the bands i mastered for have got a website and one of their relations who did it is going make me a offer
Logged

lowland

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 575
Re: Building your website
« Reply #10 on: July 15, 2005, 06:27:29 AM »

All the best with it, Alex. If my experience is anything to go by it may take longer than you think  to get things right, but I found that extra time to be well worth it.
Logged
Nigel Palmer
Lowland Masters
Essex, UK
www.lowlandmasters.com

aivoryuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 480
Re: Building your website
« Reply #11 on: July 15, 2005, 07:08:34 AM »

lowland wrote on Fri, 15 July 2005 11:27

All the best with it, Alex. If my experience is anything to go by it may take longer than you think  to get things right, but I found that extra time to be well worth it.


thanks for the encouragement Nigel, i downloaded that program you said so wil hvae a look at that as well

i've just been on the sterling sound website and its been competley revamped
Logged

Ed Littman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 877
Re: Building your website
« Reply #12 on: July 15, 2005, 02:02:37 PM »

for a look at a stunning site go to Sterlingsound.com

make sure you take the studio tour. this site must have had a whole firm work on it for months maybe years.....
Ed
Logged

jfrigo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1029
Re: Building your website
« Reply #13 on: July 15, 2005, 06:32:41 PM »

Ed Littman wrote on Fri, 15 July 2005 11:02

for a look at a stunning site go to Sterlingsound.com

make sure you take the studio tour. this site must have had a whole firm work on it for months maybe years.....
Ed


Indeed - pretty sick site. A heap of work obviously went into it. There's even a video "welcome message" with the president. It may actually be a bit too flashy for it's own good.
Logged

Technotechno

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 34
Re: Building your website
« Reply #14 on: July 16, 2005, 05:30:34 AM »

Alex,

Try and not go Flash. Its a big hassle getting anything changed unless you design it yourself. If you go that route theres plenty of really easy build it your self flash software.  Be in control of your website if you can. It will reduce your stress a lot..

Also, make sure YOUR name is the registered owner of the site. Trust me on that one. I learned my lesson very well with one designer who had me over a barrel becasue the site was registered in his name.

Its a long story but I think you get the idea.

Logged
Pages: [1] 2  All   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.025 seconds with 19 queries.