extigy — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:53:10 +0000

Thank you very much guys, I will try and study up on the easy stuff first and go from there. I tell you how it ends up. I will try my best megan to keep this project going, I know once it is done it will hopefully be a big hit!

If anyone else has any more comments please my all means post away.

thanks

Megan — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 13:11:24 +0000

I think the most important thing to have is ideas so you're off on the right foot right away. The next important thing is to not lose sight of that. You'll get caught up in programming or design and things like that, but you need to remember what your goals are at all time.

When it comes to design, the most important thing is that you communicate to your audience. What is this? Why am I here? What can I do here? Make them want to take the next step. Make yourself attractive to your target audience. It doesn't matter how pretty your design is if it doesn't pull people in. I've got a few posts on my blog about this recently:

http://www.meganjack.com/2006/10/18/environmentaldefenseorg-a-great-example-of-engaging-writing/ (on engaging writing)

http://www.meganjack.com/2006/10/03/the-bad-design-is-good-design-debate/ (on appropriate design)

02bunced — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 06:04:59 +0000

To do a successful business website, you'll need to be good at coding and design - no-one's gonna really want to buy from a website that's been thrown together on Frontpage or MS Word. So perhaps you may be well rewarded if you spent say 9 months or so learning XHTML, CSS and perhaps PHP or ASP too, assuming you don't already. Then practice creating some awesome designs. Then, when you can make stuff look good on the net and work well, you can move on to creating a business site.

As for what makes a good website - it needs to be something different, selling or promoting something not done before and it needs to look good.

You may find some of the following sites useful for ideas:

http://cssmania.com
http://cssbeauty.com
http://cssdrive.com

Just some encouragement to finish with - about two and a half years ago I was in the same position as you, and I started a business on the net (http://www.dodifferent.org.uk). Sure, it's not the greatest thing since sliced bread but it gets me some money to sub my Uni fees. So it is possible to succeed, and I'm sure you can do it. You just need to appreciate it's gonna take some time and hard graft