The best way to start is get a paper notebook. Do a draft layout of the pages you are planning to add. This will make it ALOT easier when you are designing it on your computer!
Start by putting a page name at the top of every page. (home, resources, prices, samples, etc.)
Then you can write the text you want on each page, write in the link locations etc.
*** tip **** start each page with text that has your keywords for that page.
Have your phone number on your front page. Customers don't like hunting for ANY information.
They also don't want to wait a day or 2 for an email response.
IF YOU DON'T WANT AN EXPENSIVE SECOND LINE or don't want customers calling your home phone..... I have this REALLY COOL & CHEAP line! www.magicjack.com
You have to have high speed internet.... choose a number in your area. It hooks into your USB port (I have one desktop in the house that is always on) then you hook ANY phone into the magicjack instead of the wall. Now here's the best part!!! Cost like $50some for the magicjack AND the first YEAR of local, long distance, messages, caller ID... after the first year it is a whopping $20 a YEAR!!! Yes... a YEAR! I don't have a landline anymore. I have magicjack & my cell phone. I save just over $50 a month!!! if you google "magicjack" there is a NonOfficial forum.
OK... now some design tips.
LOGOs: You can design your own... I use PaintShopPro for all my design work. If you are not a great designer, see http://www.cooltext.com/ http://www.flamingtext.com/ http://www.logoblog.com/ & many more for simple quick logo designs.
Logos should reflect your business. Professional looking logos are the best.
Don't want an elephant on your clothing store logo ... you get the picture.
My daughter hand drew this one & then I added the text & made it a bit 3D with PSP (it's light because it's watermarked into my background on my site)
A few inexpesive places for logos & other cool store buttons etc.
http://kjscreations.ecrater.com/category.php?cid=50785
http://website-graphics.ecrater.com/ *this one is really cool!*
http://brenbeads.ecrater.com/category.php?cid=458691
http://photoforyou.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=434354
WEBSITE COLORS: White or light is the best. Textures or image background should be very light like a watermark. Bright colors can be used as menu bars or headers. Please match colors & be sure they are in your theme. Red & green is Christmas... so unless you have a Christmas Item store, those 2 colors would NOT be a great choice.
Now this is MY opinion: pastels.... men (yes, I get business men calling to advertise their bizes at my candybar site) would not stay very long. If you cater to the baby industry, party or weddings ... then pastels would be fine. But you may want to stick to very neutral backgrounds, & darker blues, tans, browns or greens if your targeted customers are both genders.
I am setting up a Golf shop (a work in progress) but you will notice the color scheme is green.
Even though women visit... I kept it "golfing green".
& Finally for this post.... Meta Tags... titles & descriptions:
Tags are the main thing search engines look at. If those tags are NOT relevent to that page, you will be chewed up & spit out on page 999 of the searches.
Tags must be listed above the body of each page in the header.
TITLE TAGS: This is the text that is displayed in the top section of the browser when you open a certain page. Example: Books Audio Movies Music - Online
META DESCRIPTION TAGS: This a a short description of your web site. Example: variety of books of all types: children's, adult's, audiobooks, homeschool curriculum, classics.
META KEYWORD TAGS: List all related keywords separated by "," Example: books, movies, audio, audiobooks, classic books, adult books
These Tags should be different on each page. "wedding" on your wedding page, etc.
3rd party stores & template made sites may be different.
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