Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, I think I'm about ready to start selling off a few of these guitars I have laying around the house. I found a guy through my brother-in-law who does web design and hosting and he has agreed to get a website up for me in trade for one of the guitars.

What I'm asking here is for those of you who already have websites to give me some advice. I'm not sure exactly what I'm trading for yet. It will at least include the site design, taking of all the pictures and hosting for a minimum of 6 months.

Are there thing that have bitten some of you? Are there things that you would have done differently if you had know better at the time?

What should I ask for in the deal?

I guess I'm not sure how much these things normally cost and what I should expect in return for a decent handbuilt guitar.

Anny comments, no matter how small they seem to you, would be appreciated.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Dave, what do you sell your guitars for?
What value would you put on your guitars?

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I could build a site like my guitar site (www.mayesguitars.com) for
WAYYYYY less than what a guitar would cost (well mine at least). Hosting
and domain registration is pretty cheap. You can find some REALLY
cheap ones, but they can be down a lot. But for a few bucks a month you
can have the site hosted.

http://findmyhosting.com/

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

I use Valueweb.com to host my site...I was paying $16.95 per month but they just raised me up...I think it's something like $18.95 a month now. They have been pretty good...not much down time...I've used them for about ten years now ( in other businesses)so I know there track record is pretty good. I have never gone over my usage allowance either and I have had hundreds of photos up at a time.

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Yahoo small business. $11.95 haven't been down since inception. They give you free software. By building the site yourself you can add and edit at will. Not much of a learning curve. If you can use this forum, then you can build your own. www.dickeyguitars.com is using this software.

Matter of fact the software is a free download, and you can test build a site before ever making a purchase. Websites are time consuming for the first three weeks, but then it's a breeze.

Thing is, you spend a lot of time with a webdesigner, just sending pics or meeting with them to get what you want. I'm all for anyone in that profession, because some folk just don't want the hassle.

Here is a site built my my buddy's son: www.designsbyg.com he sells guitar stands and it links directly to Paypal off the shopping cart. Guess what?
He just paid $2,000 to a webdesigner in Little Rock to put a new face and get websubmissions as a package.

He spent the money, has made several 200 mile roundtrips to Little Rock, and when he's done, he'll be responsible for updates, so, this will give you an idea of what others are paying.

Later, I may no longer do my website, but for now I must.

OK guys, let me clarify a little bit here.

I haven't sold any guitars yet (well, there was one, but that's along story). I am planning to start them at around $2000.00 when I begin selling. I can always go up later if demand calls for it.

The guitars that are up for the trade are basically my practice builds. In other words, my first 10 or so guitars that I've deemed not good enough to sell. So I'm not trading a high dollar guitar for this work. Just wanted to make that clear. I figure I'll have about $300-400 in it at the most.

The other thing is, I was asking for ideas, likes or dislikes, problems, etc. with your own websites so I might avoid some of the pitfalls that others have already experienced.

Thanks for the responces so far, keep em coming.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Materials cost that much....

Just remember that you will need to plan on feeding your hobby for a time, but make a plan so that it will feed YOU! The more you build, you will develop skills, knowledge, jigs, and techniques that will cause you to be more effective and efficient. I think a good website can be pay for itself if done well. Keep asking questions until you have a gazillion answers. Visit other computer forums, etc. Let us know what you find out, as I am planning to have my site up next year.

Hey Dave. Not sure if you remember, but for the past decade I have owned a couple of Internet marketing firms.

My advice would be this.

1. Get you "BRAND" right. Figure out what makes your guitars different that what your typical customer is likely to buy instead of yours and figure out a way to carve out a place that lets you have a unique selling proposition.

2. Figure out the purpose of the site. Sounds silly, huh? But it is not. Look around at other luthier's sites. For the most part, they are a mess (no offense to the present company... Yours are all great.

What I mean by this is... what purpose does your web site serve? Is it's main purpose to troll for new leads, be a place to send people you are wooing in the sales process, etc.

It is hard to make a site serve more than one master... so as tempting as it is to say "YES" to all of these things, I find that is the fastest way to kill the effectiveness of the site.

3. Professional Quality. If you are going to ask someone to pay a decent price (and I think $2k is a decent price) for a guitar then I think the design and photography should look great. It doesn't have to be a work of art, but I think it should be shot by at least a decent amatuer photographer if not a pro.... I know some folks here have a pretty good eye, and are also shutterbugs... but if you are not, I would scrounge up someone cheap that can do nice work.

The same goes for graphic design.

The writing should be straight forward and proofed very well. I think bad proofreading (on your web site... not on Internet forums. ;-) ) is a sign that you might miss the details of building too. (I know this is unfair... but it happens.)

4. If you troll for leads I think the after launch marketing is every bit as important as the construction phases. I have done very well with Overture and Google paid search placements. It is relatively inexpensive, the traffic is targeted, and you can usually see results very quickly.

The other thing you might want to do if you create a "leads" based web site is try to get people to give you contact info if they are interested.

"Click here to get my free guide to buying a custom built guitar".

(that is cheesy, but the point is... use something to capture their info and keep it casual and low committment.)

These are just a few ideas.....

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks Brock! That's exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Just wasn't quite sure how to ask the question.

The guy that is doing it for me has been doing this for a living for quite some time. He says he can get the site out to all the search engines and that sort of thing. He is also the one doing the pictures for me. He has been doing product shots for quite a while as well.

I'm trying to start off small and not get too carried away with myself. I DID want to make sure I had all the things that potential customers might be looking for on a site and not have it be a pain in the oops to find it.

I also want it to be pretty fast to load. I hate sites where it takes me all day to find what I'm looking for. Don't want potential customers to give up before they get the information they need.

The sad part is I'm a computer tech type by trade. I work for HP and provide mission critical support. Lutherie is my time away from that and I don't want to spend that time futzing around with web pages and hosts and all that.

This seemed like a doable deal to me and I plan on taking advantage of it. Just wanted to be aware of as many of the pitfalls as possible before entering into it.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. Every little bit helps.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

re: proofing - have someone else proofread the site for you, maybe even let them loose with some editing tools. If someone in your environment has an english background, all the better!

I translate (to English from Dutch, mostly, but I've alos translated from German and Italian on occasion) and proofread on a freelance basis to earn some extra cash (it's what's financed that nice, large stack of tonewoods sitting next to me right now, actually), and the number of 'silly' errors present in even the best written document. And while a lot of people won't notice, a lot of people will.

Now, please don't take my posts as an indication of my language skills; I'm notoriously bad about proof-reading my own posts! Bad, I know...

I know very little about marketing (not a problem, since I'm not trying to rake in the commissions..) but when it comes to web-design, I like clean and elegant. The '3 click rule' is a fairly good test: the information you want should never be more than 3 clicks away. A good overview, lots of info readily available, and above all, standards-compliant (which means 'It works in non-IE browsers) and plugin-free if at all possible. I really don't like it when sites insist on inflicting unnecessary animations or Flash plugins for navigation on unsuspecting internet users, taking up, oh, about 600 times the required bandwidth for a perfectly good, high-quality interface (and I'm on a 3.2mbit unmetered connection, so speed's not the issue). Roll-out menus are fine, as long as they roll out fast.

A friend of mine put my website together for me, PHP based, CSS navigation, standards compliant, loads fast, and easily naviagted. I can update and add/remove menu items through an admin console with some hand features (automated thumbnail links, that kind of thing). I host it at fuitadnet.com, who have a pretty good deal on hosting, etc. It's more of a showcase for my stuff, and will have some how-to info. When I find the time to get it updated properly, that is.

Thanks for your input Mattia!

Anybody else?

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Dave, don't sweat the tech stuff. This is more of an exercise in marketing that technology. Technology is just the canvas.

And... certainly one thing regarding search engine strategies. That is becoming a VERY VERY complex field. There is no such thing as a free lunch anymore with these guys. The "natural" rankings require extreme rigor and careful planning to get keywords that are meaningful. I am almost to the point of saying it isn't worth the effort (for no guarantee of results) and pushing everyone into pay per click programs like Overture and Google. Those rule, they are quick to set up, affordable, and the results are fantastic. You definitely should check them out.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks Brock!

Man, this really surprises me. I though sure I would hear from at least a few folks that had made mistakes or found things they didn't like about their websites.

Well, thanks for the replies. I guess I'll just wait and see what my web guy comes up with. I'll surely know right off whether I like it or not.

Thanks again everyone.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars