Official Luthiers Forum!

Can anyone recommend a pro web designer, who has experience working with luthiers ?? TNX

If you get involved with someone else to do your website, you'll lose the ease and fun of controlling your own site. Plenty of free to cheap do it yourself providers out there and the learning curve is not that difficult these days. While your self designed site may not end up being as spiffy as a web designer might do, it's really nice to be able to make changes like adding photos or other content at will. You can change your site in minutes if you have control of it. I am definitely not a "computer guy", and if I can do it anyone can. I'm also not big on bells and whistles, and if you need that a designer might be appropriate. Playing with my website is one of the few enjoyable things the computer provides me with.

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

Forum member Smylight was a web designer in his recent previous career... I am convinced he would be of good advice

If you have some computer skills you can use a site like squarspace.com to build your own. There are lots of tutorials available and it’s pretty easy to use and format. I find my weak area is with creating those sexy photographs. I’ve got a very good camera and now need to take the time learn how to use it.

M

My wife is a professional landscape designer with a web site. She had a web design company make a site for her but it ultimately was a real pain. Maintaining the content on a web site is more important than the initial design. The company she used used mostly their plugins and HTML. Although the site looked like what she wanted, even small changes like changing her hourly rate or adding a new garden required going back to the web design company. When I found out she was delaying changing her rates because the of the web site. I ultimately got FTP access to he site and did the modifications in html. I also started pushing her toward modern web site development platforms, that allowed easy content modification from the web site itself.

Ultimately she in combination with her sister I designed a website using squarespace. http://www.blycettlandscapes.com/ Having a site built with a tool like squarespace makes content modification as easy as editing a word document or sending an email. As a designer she did not want the site to look like a template knock off. Squarespace has the flexibility to design a good site with no web programming experience Still Squarespace does have a lot of template generated sites, allowing one to get a site up in a day.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

My lady was kind enough to make both of my sites via squarespace. I think they're alright.

Michael, I had a pro photographer do the pics in trade. Got a pile of good photos and a good start...

Using computers is not one of my better skills. My wife did our last website . I will have her read all the helpful comments posted here. So thank you very much for all the good ideas . they are much appreciated.!

I am actually employed as a web designer right now but I am more of a programmer. I cannot take on any side work but I will say that I don't think it's necessary to have a designer with luthier experience.

If it were me I would build you a site that you could manage all yourself. So that would not be a problem either. I would ask your designer about that. Either some sort of content management system or at least an easy way for you to upload images and make changes to the web pages. Lots of options out there.

There are definitely excellent DIY site-building tools out there, but even the simplest options can be a headache if you don't enjoy tinkering with computers. Hiring the right person to help can save you a lot of time and frustration. Proximity isn't all that important, but it can help to actually sit down over coffee with someone and talk about what it is you're hoping to achieve.

(Note: always take measures to protect yourself. You know, meet in a public place, don't wave money around, etc.)

There are a few people currently listing their services on the OK City Craigslist. This one looks to be offering the kind of support you're hoping to find:

https://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/crs ... 49250.html

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George :-)

Hi george. we actually live in guthrie, which is abt 45 min to 1 hr or more N of OKC, Kinda like n of everett to seatac airport in WA state. One of the reasons we moved here . was to get a larger property and a workshop all combined . Not that easy to find. Hope to see some of you at the GAL meeting this yr. and then on to Van. BC to celebrate our 35 th wedding anniversary an visit relatives.

Hey Ernie my friend. I would be inclined to also recommend that you keep it simple and if possible you or your wife create a simple site for yourselves.

Our site: http://www.annarborguitars.com/index.html?PHPSESSID=7246b4bbc85f3e5c601fd65ba048f7a8 I threw together in my spare time seven or so years ago. We didn't need anything complicated and since we will never accept shipped in work no shopping cart or PayPal bs was needed either.

I used Rapidweaver for Mac and it comes with templates for the look and feel of the thing and there are tons of aftermarket templates available too.

What's super important for us with our site being commercial in nature meaning folks will accept our invite with our web site and come visit us is to have the ability to change our site with a moment's notice and zero dependency on anyone else. If we want to close early and we often do I can put a notice on the web site and off we go.

We had some interesting requirements too such as Dave's videos and my "terms and conditions" that every decent business should be posting in a publicly accessible place so folks and you can reference it.

Our site is as much a tool for our clients as it is for Dave and I too. If some pos parts guitar that on a case by case basis we don't want to get any on us comes in we can reject it and show the client our web site where it actually says we don't work on parts guitars (even though we do on a case by case basis). We frequently get too busy now to accept new work, this happened 1/2 the time in 2019 and we can easily put up a notice on our site with no dependency on anyone else.

Anyway rapid weaver is very easy to use and in a year or so I'll be making a completely new site as ours is now dated.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Ernie,

You might start by looking at a lot of guitar builders' web sites. It would give you an idea of the look and feel of what you like or don't like. Take note of visuals, like color schemes, visually simple, or not, etc. Also look at how they're organized: lots of info on each page with fewer pages, more info with more pages and the like. Some people like a lot of links around the site, others fewer. Note that Rapidweaver is Mac only, so future changes would have to be done with Rapidweaver on a Mac. I've used it for years. It can be very simple to use for a basic site, to more complex, with bells and whistles added if needed.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Hey guys out there tnx again so much . My wife cathy read it , and she agrees with you hesh and pat . If u put it up yourself you do have more control . We have looked at other folks websites and some of them are very well done and professional indeed. Glad that u can reject POS parts guitars. I never ran into that. situation . What I did get was amateurs pretending to be loofiers . who would botch the job either before you got it . Or afterwards, when they just knew how to readjust the action. And after they had screwed it up . decided that it was your fault LOL. Anyhow . time to get in there and redo our website . Thanks for all the helpful tips, suggestions and useful advice !!

Hi Ernie

Mine was built relatively painlessly using WordPress. The downside is that it's designed for blogging, so there are not a lot of formatting options available. The upside is the same... Simplicity can be a good thing. Just get a domain on a good hosting site. I hear GoDaddy is like making a deal with Satan as there is no way you can win, everyone eventually regrets that decision.

Word press is portable across most hosts, so it's easy to make copies of what you created and ship them elsewhere if you are unhappy with your host. If you use host specific website builders, then you get locked into that host. And I just followed a YouTube free tutorial that used a skin that comes with WordPress so building a page is pretty easy. Pick a host that supports WordPress and the rest is pretty easy.

Check mine out to get a sample of what a diy site can look like with only a day or two of effort and absolutely no HTML coding... www.pemicheletti.com

Paul . tnx for the info . We had a look at your website . I like it . The format is straightforward, clean and easy to read. The cl/fl guitars look good ! The icons for the various blog seemed hazy to me , but I/m getting old LOL TNX aagain.

http://www.biggerroom.net/?main_page=webdesign
sean large did my site been using him for over 10 years

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

My web guyTroy is awesome. My brother sent me to him. He built and maintains our very robust ASW website and online store. It
S wordpress/woo-commerce. You wouldn’t need anything as huge for your needs. Contact Troy at this email. Saltlakeweb@gmail.com If you contact him, tell him I referred you.

I'll add my two cents. You get what you pay for for good web design. I hired a pro to do my business site as I didn't want it to look like a template which most sites do. it all depends on what your going to be using your site for exactly.

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https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

I use the free version of Wordpress which is free for the basic package with adverts but can be ad free and with unique domain name at small extra cost. Either way you get a huge selection of layout themes and a more professional appearance than a lot of 'paid for' sites I've seen.

As others have said, with this approach you keep control and if you're not completely computer savvy it's a good way to enhance your skills.

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https://overendsite.wordpress.com/2017/ ... -complete/