1. SELECTING A DOMAIN NAME
You may already own a domain name, but if you don't, please be sure the desired name is available and buy it. See Resources for good, very low-cost sellers. The name will be needed in the header graphic of your site and you will need to know what your business email addresses will be for the web site before you buy. You can "park" your domain on the seller's site for free until your site is ready to go live.

2. SELECTING A WEB HOST
If you don't already have a web host, finding one who will work with beginners is what you should strive for. Conduct searches on the internet with keywords like "host free set up". From the hosts that will do free set ups (email them to see if they mean they will set up your site and point your domain name, or if they mean they don't charge for you to do it), look for hosts that offer CPanel, an easy site administration tool, and will allow you to have a cgi-bin for Perl scripts. Also, look for one you can try for a few dollars, so if you don't like the service, you can move to another one without loosing money. If you move to another host, though, realize that when your domain is pointed to another host's server, it will take a period of time, anywhere from 12 hours to 7 days, for your domain to "propagate" throughout the internet to your new host's name servers. More likely, it will take from 15 hours to 2 days, but it can take longer.

• offers a free set up
• offers CPanel
• offers a cgi-bin
• costs uder $5 per month

CPanel for Easy Site Administration: The CPanel is a site administration panel that allows you to do things such as create email accounts, forward email to another email account, check your web access statistics (where your hits are coming from and how long they spend on your site), block spam, instantly install and host forum boards and other software, to name a few things. It is easy to use and understand.

Pointing Your Domain to Your Web Host's Servers: When you sign up with a host, you will immediately be emailed general instructions for uploading your site, plus the IP addresses for the name servers for your site. You may wish your web host to handle "pointing" your domain to their servers, as part of a free set up. If you want to do it yourself, your domain name seller will email instructions on how to point your domain to your new web host's name servers and they will have instructions on their web site. Basically, you log into your account, choose "name servers" from the-pull down menu, then remove the old IP addresses and type in the new addresses, click "Update", then log off. It will take from 12 hours up to 7 days for "propagation", but will probably take ony 15 hours to two days.

Setting Up Your Email Accounts: You will probably want at least two email accounts for your site: info@ and yourname@yourdomain.com, or maybe sales@, or webmaster@yourdomain.com.

The Ideal Web Host for Beginners: The ideal web host for anyone new to having your own web site is a local host with walk-in offices. They can physically show you how to FTP to their server, for instance. They can better explain concepts and answer your questions, if you can see what they are doing on their computer. After you have learned what you need to know, you can move on to other hosts that may offer lower rates, but less personal service, as you won't need a lot of personal service anymore.

3. UPLOADING TO YOUR SITE TO YOUR WEB HOST'S SERVER
There are two ways you can upload your site to your web host:

• using an FTP client
• using your web host's online file manager

Uploading with an FTP client is the fastest, easiest way, though you might think the File Manager would be. File Mangers are painfully slow, however. With an FTP client, you can upload your site or changed pages in seconds. Directions for uploading to your web host's server will be provided by your web host. Basically, you supply the FTP client with three, possibly four, pieces of information in text fields: 1) the url of your host's server (you will receive this when you sign up with a web host), 2) your user name, 3) your password, and 4) the path to the directory where you want to put your site. Usually, you can skip step 4) and leave the text field blank. If you don't already have an FTP client, you can download shareware and freeware FTP clients from Tucows:

Mac:

Fetch (shareware)

Hefty FTP (shareware)

Windows:

WS-FTP (shareware)

CoffeeCup Free FTP (freeware)

After your site is loaded, you only need to replace pages you have made changes to.

4. TAKING CREDIT CARDS and OTHER FORMS OF PAYMENTS
Please review the FAQ section regarding an explanation of accepting credit cards on the internet, as well as the pros and cons for each type of merchant account and payment processor.

There are two ways to approach the e-commerce aspect of your site: choosing the shopping cart first, or choosing the payment processor first.

The reason you would choose a shopping cart first is because you have found an easy shopping cart that will do what you want, such as exporting data to QuickBooks. The shopping cart provider will have payment processor vendor partners that will work with their cart.

The reason you would choose a payment processor first is because the payment processor has better rates, easier qualification, quicker payment to you, or other reasons. Also, if you wish not to have a merchant account by going with a third party payment processor (see the FAQ section for the pros and cons), thus avoiding a number of monthly fees and assuring easy qualification, there are only a few to choose from, so you would choose the payment processor first. The payment processors all have a free shopping cart you can use that will allow you to add, change and delete products from your shopping cart through and administration module. You just type in the text fields for the product details, like product number, color, size and price, then upload your images.

Ideally, you will get the terms you want from a payment processor, along with a shopping cart that will do what you want. One feature all payment processors have is the ability for their clients to log in to the payment processor's web site to view all your web site's payment activity in real time. You can generate and print a number of reports, too.

5. ADD, CHANGE and DELETE PRODUCTS FROM A CART
Through an administration module, you can easily update shopping carts. As described above, using the administration module, you simply type the product details in the provided text fields, like product number, description, color, size and price, then upload your images. That is the easy part.

The hard part is actually easy, but may be perceived as difficult. For each product you enter into the administration module, a snippet of javascript code is automatically generated for you to "cut and paste" into the designated area on the item's product page. The code will create a unique "Quantity" text box and "Buy" button for the item. Modern wysiwyg html editors, which require no programming knowledge, have a way that you can place code into the visual editor, so you will be able to do it easily, without having to know what is going on. When a buyer clicks the "Buy" button, they are taken from your site to the payment processor's secure site to enter their payment information and complete the transaction for the item or items they selected, or return to your site to continue shopping until they are ready to pay. This happens because of the code you paste on each product page.

6. IN SUMMARY
To sum up how this "How-To Guide" can work for you, it may be that you are able to do some things and feel you can't do others. Anything you are able to do will reduce the cost of paying someone else to do everything, like eliminating the need for scanning by having your negatives digitized instead. If you can then go online to a free service to edit (sizing, cropping, brightening and thumbnailing) your digitized photos easily, that is one less thing to pay for, leaving higher profits for you.

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