Hi all!
I need a little help. I have a 10 page website that currently just showcases my murals. I would like to reconstruct the whole thing to sell the many ebooks I have been writing and publishing under www.lulu.com on there. To install a shopping cart, it would cost about $15 a month, and I don't want to put that out. Can I just link all of my books from Lulu to my site, and just sell them from there (Lulu)? To sell from Lulu it is free. Will it create a duplicate site, which will make search engines drop me?

I have many different books on many different topics; should I put them in different categories on different pages? (Mural painting how-to's on one page, age-restricted content on another, internet work-from-home books on another, health and beauty another, etc...), or just put them all on one page, but then what do I do with the other pages? My last page is dedicated to my affiliate programs. Holly's new book says to include a contact form (I already have one), an about me page (have that, too), and guarantee page. Any other suggestions?

I can keep my website name, www.scribblesanddribbles.com/ because I figure it could stand for all sorts of things that are scribbled down. Any HONEST suggestions would be soooooo appreciated!!!!!

Post edited by: 4everoptimistic, at: 2007/03/23 01:58

Shopping Carts can be free so I'd look into that if I were you. My personal suggestion is definitely ZenCart if that's the direction you want to go in; it allows you to fully administer the site, it's customisable, it's Open Source (free) and it has a huge community for any/all problems you may encounter while setting it up.

It also supports SSL which is a MUST if you want people to buy online. I for one would never buy from a site without an authentic SSL certificate or PayPal as a payment method.

Duplicate Sites are exact copies of other sites. If you're linking off to products on other sites it won't go against you with Search Engines at all BUT it'll look a little odd if someone goes to your site, clicks to buy something and ends up on another site to buy it. They may well still purchase but it's confusing when it happens.

Categorising a website is always best from a usability perspective but spiders don't care about that. If they can see all pages and you have a "how to eat cake" and "how to mow the lawn" page in the same category it really doesn't matter to them.

Categories are for users.

In addition to the current pages you've listed a "testimonials" page is always nice - it makes people realise that you're a real, contactable person who people are happy to trade with rather than a nameless website.

Good luck with it all

Yeah, I'm a big believer in always shopping on the web before committing to just about anything you're about to spend money on. (Hosting, tracking, autoresponders, web templates, etc.) Sometimes it's amazing what you can find, in terms of lower priced (or even free services in some cases) that can do the job...at least for while you're still low on start up funds. That's what's great about the internet - you name it, you can Google it!

John