I am currently just making cakes at home for practice, I sell a few cakes time to time to friends, family and co-workers. I would someday like to take this business to the top. But for right now I would just like to create a website so that when I tell people about my work and I can also give them a place that showcases what I can do. The problem is I am not sure where to start? What is the process for creating a website just for these needs. I know that there is a free website that I can start out with, but I do have a name in mind for my business and I would like to buy a dot com maybe via go daddy.com , if I did use this service how would I design my site. I just am not sure where to begin. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks In Advance!

BUMP!

I'm interested as well. I have been making and selling cakes to friends, family and co-workers for sometime, and a friend suggested I create a website with pictures of my cakes. I partially started one on Angelfire - which is ok for the time being I suppose. My friend is a DJ (and generally does weddings and parties) and has a website that he wants to link with mine once I get it done.

Thanks!

www.freewebs.com, is a great place to start. You can use your own domain name or have www.freewebs.com/yourname as your url. It is super easy to set up a site, they have all the tools there and you basically just type text and upload your pictures. Check my site out www.euphoriabakery.com, this only took about one evening to roughly set it up. Of course I keep changing little things here and there. But it's really easy to go in and make changes as well.

Also, once you have it set up, post a thread on CC and everyone here will give you great feedback on what looks good and what can be improved.

Thanx

I may try to set up a page there thanks for the input! Yours is very nice by the way!

I don't know if it's the "right" way to do it, but this is what I did:

I registered my site name & got my hosting through www.canaca.com . It was cheap and offers HUGE storage and bandwidth.

They have free .PDF templates so I picked one and modified it... and there it is! I used Adobe Photoshop & Imageready which seems to be the "gold standard" in web design.... but that's only because I already had it.
There are lots of programs you can use... some hosting services even offer their own programs (some are very user-friendly, but limited)... you need to do some research and decide what will fit with your own skill level. Microsoft has Frontpage, but it is a typical MS product... it has some "interesting" quirks. There is Dreamweaver, but I've never used it so I can't comment.

Beyond that, I would search out threads here that discuss web designs for cake sites... there is a LOT of helpful critiques, as well as links to some great pages!

MSN groups has a free site. You can make your own "group" and upload photos , design pages and all that. They have a basic template set up then you just add and change it however you want. It has a certain amount of free space but you can join your own website under different user names to get more storage space with no problem.
If you go here http://groups.msn.com/ just click on the link called "create your own group" and it will show you what to do. I'll be happy to help if you like.

Hope this is helpful.
KimAZ

I have a freewebs.com site too along with a blog. Both are free to do. You can check out my sites below. The freewebs like mentioned about will allow you to buy a domain name for a reasonable price.
So far I really like what I'm able to do with both my sites. I'm not really in the business yet either. Like you I mainly do for friends and family, but like to have a site to refer people I know to. Someday I may pay for a domain and a fancier site, but I felt that I was better not investing a dime into a website at this point. : )


KimAZ, I LOVE your avatar! Doughboy is a favorite of mine. I have many doughboy collectibles in my kitchen! : )