My Daughter is an artist. She loves to draw cartoons, and I have been nagging her for a long time to put them on display - let me 'put them on the internet'. Finally, a few weeks ago, she agreed. So then it was down to me to keep my promise and build the website! Not being the most 'time rich' person in the world, this looked like being something of a challenge in itself.
Anyway, first things first, what did she want to call it? The answer - Funky Cartoons. So, first step, find a domain name.
Getting a Domain name
I always try and target '.com' names for businesses that are relevant all over the world, and being an 'old school' internet user I am accustomed to using Network Solutions to register and administer those domains.
So my first stop was http://www.networksolutions.com
A quick check showed that while funkycartoons.com was taken (although only by a holding company, it was not being used for anything) funky-cartoons com was free!
Right, grab it. Pay my $29.99 for two years (I don't know how long she will want to keep this going - teenage girls can have a short attention span), and add it to our set of domains.
Setting up the server
We run our own server at HTMail, so adding the new domain to that server was not too difficult. Network Solutions provides an excellent DNS management service that makes it easy to set up your domain and target the DNS provided that you know the IP address of the server hosting your site. You simply log into your account at Network Solutions and take the 'Edit DNS' option.
From there you go to DNS Manager - Advanced Tools.
As this copy of the form on our Network Solutions account shows, it is a simple matter of entering the domain name for your server and saving your changes.
We use a Cobalt RAQ server - which again makes it easy to add additional domain names. The Cobalt RAQ enables you to add 'Virtual' domains - so you point all of your domains to the same IP address on the RAQ, then the server directs people to the right site when someone visits. Each site has it's own directory on the server, which makes it all quite easy to manage.
As you can see from the RAQ form displayed here, it is quite a simple set up process.
All of the RAQ set up procedures are browser and form controlled, so usable even by someone without a strong technical background.
So, we had the domain, and somewhere to site it. Now we just needed a website!
Building the Website
As I said earlier, I am not time rich, so I needed to build the site as quickly as possible, while still providing all the functionality that would allow Abi to present and sell her cartoons.
I write websites by hand coding, I don't tend to use any development software (another hangover from being involved in building sites for over 10 years), so I needed to use a fast way of hanging code together to get the basic website.
I decided to use the template from the HTMail site, and modify it to suit. That quickly gave me a layout that just needed modifying for colours and fonts.
Next, what do I need to provide the functionality? I considered a MYSQL database to handle delivering the cartoons - but since the number of cartoons was limited that seemed like overkill. We have tended to use Perl for program functions on the HTMail website - but we recently had the PHP language installed on the HTMail server - and this seemed like an ideal time to give it a try. It is similar enough to Perl that I was fairly confident I could program it from scratch - so that was decided.
What about taking payments? Well, we find that perhaps 50% of our payments by number (if not value) come through Paypal on the HTMail site. Since the cartoons would be sold at low cost, Paypal seemed like the ideal solution - with the added advantage that it is very easy to set up (especially once you have already done it once) - so Paypal will be the only payment option.
Now for the design considerations. What do we need? Well, firstly a front page, giving the introduction, and hopefully selling the offering. Then we need a means of showing the cartoons and taking orders for them, and we probably need some terms and conditions of business. We also need a contact mechanism. Frankly, for a simple web site, that is it. No complexity, just tell the story and sell the product. So that was it - basically a three page website.
Design Considerations
As a marketer, my next step is to find a USP (unique selling proposition) or 'strap line'. After some thought I decided to keep it simple - "Funky Cartoons for your website or wall!" did the job. A USP should be memorable, and get across what you are all about in a sentence. This seems to do it.
Next a discussion with Abi about colour schemes. PINK - what else? Abi then put together a colourful Funky Cartoons logo for me.
I always think a picture of the person you are dealing with on the website is a great help in establishing trust, and Abi is cute! So, that had to be the center of the page. A small version of some of the cartoons would add colour to the home page, so that was the next design feature. Then we needed some words. Well I could have come up with some fancy marketing spiel - but this was Abi's page, and I figured that if she wrote the words, it would give a much more genuine feel. So she did - and it does!
Finally, the working part. Show each Cartoon, and offer a means of ordering and paying for it. This is the PHP page. It uses a simple numbered naming system for the images and increments it if you press the forward button, decrements if you press the back button. So scrolling through is easy and fast. Then I just needed to add the Paypal link, and increment the image name in the link so we know which image has been ordered - and that was it!
The whole set up, development, and build took 3 days of all my spare time to do - call it 15 hours. Not bad!
You can take a proper look at the site by clicking here - Funky Cartoons.
Next newsletter I will tell you what happened when we advertised the site through our HTMail service!
Thanks for reading!
