[Lexavier]

Hello,
as you all probably know I am new to the forums and this was the first website I found when looking for business forums. I have a lot of questions being that I am extremely new to starting an internet business. if there are certain posts that you could direct me to that would be great, but first, my questions.

My father is interested in starting an online food business with me, me being the owner. I am not going to say the idea, but I need some info on starting everything up. 1. money is not a problem, if I have to spend money towards this to make money, I have it saved up.
2. should I pay someone to design a website or go through a website like godaddy.com? (if there are better sites like go daddy, let me know)
3. I know there is going to be some sort of legal issues, privacy statements, user aggreements and what not....where the heck do I start with all that?! its kind of intimidating.
4. ADVERTISING! I plan to get business cards, hehehe....what else can I do as far as building more traffic on my site to be built? ads? getting in the top *put number here* of search engines like google and what not.

basically, what books, people, sites etc... do I have to talk to and read to get this up successfully? how much money should I look to spend so the website mainly doesn't look like some joe shmoe did it? overall, how much should I look to spend to have a great start with all this and once again, it is dealing with food products-are there certain legalities and different methods of this type of business compared to others? thanks guys!

Danny

[Cru_jo0]

I will design your site, we have already taken 3 orders from this forum

Here our some examples of work we have done in the past week.

http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ewfinalob5.jpg
http://img126.imageshack.us/my.php?i....swf&width=800

[The Stealthy One]

Moved to correct section. And welcome aboard!

[versas]

Welcome....

Seems like you will be needing a eCommerce site right?

Well if you want an all in one, international award winning program for beginners, and experts you need to go with Volusion.

Even now, most web designers just know how to make a template for your site, and chances are, they just used a template and pasted lil things to make it look good.

Alot of them do not know how to set up a shopping cart, optimize it for search engines and to build an actual working ecommerce site.

Volusion is literally the top rated system of it's kind in the world.

So what is it?

It's an all in one web site / ecommerce website builder with complete Administration are. But not your run of the mill type.

It has an astonishing amount of options to make your website complete and on the level of top tier web development.

There online software is truly amazing. And easy to do, and yet the most sophisticated available.

It comes complete with exactly what you need to operate a world class website.

The "1 page shopping cart" is proven the best in the industry. (Based on security and the visitor / sale ratio.)

Easy product placement and creation.

Includes, marketing tools such as, on site SEO, coupons, email marketer, newsletter builder, a built in member / login area, customer base, analytics, legal jargon that will automatically be included with your company, your own affiliate program, national tax & state options, the list goes on.

This is not a free thing, as nothing good is.

Check it out.

You will be impressed.

Don't bother with web designers.

Some say that Search Engine Optimization is more work then building and maintaining a website.

And like I said before, most web designers do care to or know how to SEO a site.

Also, in most cases, a website has to be built around SEO, not the other way around.

As for business cards, it is the single most important marketing tool for any business of any size.

We specialize in that, as we have over 20 different kinds..

Members of this forum can receive a 15% discount with the coupon code: "yngentrpr".

Just enter it in when you checkout.

Also, the advice I always give when starting a new website is...

Find out who your competitors are and do what they are doing, but just a bit better.

Good luck.

[danbu1]

Hi,
You can make your own website instantly at buiBase. There is a marketing scheme for local businesses as well, however, we are at a very early stage of our business.

Here is a sample site you can play around with: http://dan3.buibase.com that you can play around with.

-Dan

[cocaine]

wondering how long you would all bombard him with offers, i was considering it lol

things you need
1)Hosting
2)Domain name
3)OScommerce (free) or volusion, never heard of it but it looks good, but would sya oscommerce is best
4) if you want to make your site look great you can buy thousands of oscommerce templates, or download some free
5) SEO - one of the most important things, google.com/webmasters or go to seochat.com or search seo tips on google, you will get alot of results and useful tips.
6)All legal forms, i don't know what forms you need as i don't specialise in this field. But if your in the UK go to food.gov.uk or Businesseye.co.uk - they will help you with setting up and all the legal documents, if your in america, i believe score.com is very good.

you may need to buy books, but you will need to do alot of learning about SEO (search engine optimism) one of the best things someone can learn online, oscommerce.com has alot of useful tips etc and free downloads.

ah what the heck, ill offer you cheap hosting!

[The Stealthy One]

This is kind of sick. The OP joins YE looking for help, and all you guys can do is offer sales pitches. Shame on all of you.

[Wowzerz]

Originally Posted by Cru_jo0

I will design your site, we have already taken 3 orders from this forum

Here our some examples of work we have done in the past week.

http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ewfinalob5.jpg
http://img126.imageshack.us/my.php?i....swf&width=800

Are you saying you did that flash thing in the second link?

[versas]

Originally Posted by The Stealthy One

This is kind of sick. The OP joins YE looking for help, and all you guys can do is offer sales pitches. Shame on all of you.

Yeah,

Sorry about that..

Although only the business card part is bias.

However the website builder I was talking about is a true praise.

[DrMoney]

Ya I saw those sales pitches and I frowned.