Bonnie H Posted February 8, 2012 Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 I'm trying to build a "website" so to speak so I can refer the ladies to it when they call me about quilting a quilt for them. Kinda a place for them to go to get an idea of what patterns I have and the pricing, etc. It is actually on blogspot.com and everything was free. I'm working on this bits at a time and it's still not completed . If anyone has the time and feels up to the task, can you please take a look and let me know what other things I should add (or subtract). Disregard the blog spots ... I'm not so good at those! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathG Posted February 8, 2012 Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 Hi Bonnie It looks good. Easy to navigate around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamarack Posted February 8, 2012 Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 Looks really good Bonnie. I do have one suggestion ....consider organizing your pantos by price. You can check out my website to see how I have divided my pantos into three price points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neher-in-law5 Posted February 8, 2012 Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 I like it, simple to see, simple to read, and not a lot of "stuff" to wade through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Linda S Posted February 8, 2012 Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 Bonnie - Your site looks great. I too have a couple of suggestions. Just to save yourself from any copyright hassles, you might want to put a blurb on the top of each panto page indicating that these are motifs you have purchased from other designers for use on your customer quilts. Also - you might want to put a range of pricing on your custom quilting. Depending on what people want, you will go into the poor house if you do every custom for a maximum of .025. There have been quilts where I charged 6 cents a square inch and still lost my shirt. Don't sell yourself short. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 Thank you to everyone who has looked at my site, and thank you for the nice comments. I really appreciate it. Kathy, thank you for chiming in with your suggestion of sorting the the pantos by pricing. It's something I'm working on in my panto binder but never thought to separate it out on the website. It's on my list to do now. Thank you! Linda, another thing I hadn't thought of. Geez, I'd hate to be in trouble right off the bat! LOL I added a little blurb about the copyright of the pantos. I guess the custom work is a live and learn thing. I will adjust it for just very light custom as I probably don't be doing anything intensive just yet! Thank you, Linda! I'm sorry you put all that work into custom and came up so short. More suggestions are welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbz98236 Posted February 8, 2012 Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 Bonnie, Pretty site, I like the bright color. Something I noticed was under you pantograph pricing, you have medium twice. you might want to remove the one before cents. Like everyone else, I think it was easy to navigate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 Debbie, thank you for the nice comment about my site. My favorite color is green, so it had to get in there somewhere! I'm glad you noticed my typo. Easy fix, got it changed. Thanks so much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SYork Posted February 8, 2012 Report Share Posted February 8, 2012 I think your site looks good. You have a nice selection of pantos to offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineseams Posted February 9, 2012 Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 I'd list your price per square inch on your tabs as 1.5cents/sq inch, 1.75 cents/sq inch and 2.0 cents/sq inch. When you do the multiplication in your example you are using dollar denomination, which is your square inch price divided by 100 (the number of cents in a dollar) so that you can show the total in dollars not 100's of cents. Maybe no one will notice, but if you did a dollar denominated multiplication of your currently listed price of ".015 cents per square inch" for a 4800 square inch quilt, the result would be $.72 - I'm sure not what you intended! I really like the tab on preparing your quilt for quilting, and I also very much like the tabs with the different pricing and images of the pantographs you are currently offering. I think this will give potential customers a really good idea of what they can expect when they bring a quilt to you. Good luck with your business! I wish you the very best! I'd love it if you would let us know how your business goes - it might give a less courageous quilter (me) the gumption to take the leap! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quilted charm Posted February 9, 2012 Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 I'm just impressed! I haven't figured out how to build a web site:D Looks good to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 Originally posted by SYork I think your site looks good. You have a nice selection of pantos to offer. Sharon, thank you. I picked up about 20% of my pantos when Kingsmen was offering them at $8 each. They may still be offering this if anyone is interested. Call and ask, can't hurt! The selection is limited though to what is left in stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 Bonnie (gosh, there are lots of Bonnie quilters!), thank you for looking and noticing my math error. Math always makes me shake in my boots ... even when it's pennies! LOL Kathy recommended putting the pantos under price sections, which was a GREAT idea. I like how that turned out. (thanks Kathy!!) I'll be sure to keep the list posted, cuz I'll be excited if I get any business. You should definitely give your business a try. You never know what will happen. I had another gal come by with a quilt last night so now I have TWO to quilt and that makes me happy happy. I still have to pinch myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 Originally posted by quilted charm I'm just impressed! I haven't figured out how to build a web site:D Looks good to me. Thanks, Leslie! If you want to know how I did mine, I'm happy to share. It is actually a blogspot.com site, not a real website. I bought my dotcom domain name and that's why it is not blogspot.com. Everything was FREE and not hard once I figured out how to add pages (that took about three days to figure out! I'm slow! LOL) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oma Posted February 9, 2012 Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 Great job Bonnie. :) I would have put stars, but I don't know how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamarack Posted February 9, 2012 Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 Bonnie I have one more suggestions....on your homepage you might consider added where you are located. I know it is in the Contact Me page but having it on the homepage might help with others finding you though search engines. Try searching 'longarm quilter california' and do you show up on the search? Just something to think about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Linda S Posted February 9, 2012 Report Share Posted February 9, 2012 It looks just great. I've found over the years that I really enjoy custom quilting -- when I do it for myself!! Most customers will not want to pay what it's worth, and I always lose money on it, unless it's a barter with my sister. She house and pet-sits when I'm out of town, so that's proven to be worthwhile. Your real money will come from pantos or all-overs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustee Posted February 10, 2012 Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 Bonnie, Your website is fabulous, so creative and packed full of information. I found it very easy to find my way around. How did you change a blog into a website? I would like to do something like this. When I went to blogspot.com all I was able to do is creat a blog, not multiple pages. Would you like to share more information on how to do this? Thanks Dustee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 Dustee, I don't mind sharing at all. Though I'm not a good explainer. First, create your blog at blogspot.com. I'm sure you can use other places, but I'm of no help with them, and only limited help with blogspot.com. I just play around and see what happens. LOL On blogspot, I've found one of the better template choices for using others' backgrounds is the "picture window" template (most designers tell you this when you want to insert their backgrounds), so you may want to change your template to that first before adding any coding for backgrounds. For backgrounds, I looked around and found HotBliggityBlog.com and used one of their free backgrounds. She has a bunch of nice ones. There are some other places, too, like Designerblogs.com. The gal at HotBliggityBlog helped me a bit today refining some on the template for $30 and I think it looks much better. She also created a business card that looks like my blog. All this in one day. Once you find a template you like, follow the directions for inserting it into the blog. You can keep changing it until you find one that works for your personality. At Hotbliggityblog when you click on the "install" button, it tells you how to install it. If you use a "widened" template, it may look better than a "regular" one, but play around and see what you think. To add pages (clickable links) to your blog, log into your blog and then at the top of the page there is a link to click "design." Click on "design." At the very top of this page is a link called "dashboard." Click on "dashboard." About the middle of the page is a blue button that says "NEW POST." Click on that. Under posting, comments, settings, design, monetize, stats, there are links. Click on "edit pages." Now here's where you can add pages! Click on "new page" and define your new page. You can add up to 20 pages. Okay, so now you can add things to the new pages like links and pictures and whatever information you chose. Play around with it. To change most everything in your blog, you will want to go to the "design" page and "dashboard" page. Under the "design" page you can click on "template designer" and change many things there like colors and layout and fonts. In order to turn the blogspot.com into a regular dotcom address, you have to pay and register your domain. Linda S posted a great place that she used to register inexpensively. Maybe you can find it in a search. Once you have your domain registered, you go back to your blog and to the "dashboard" section. Click on "publishing" and follow the instructions there. Last night when I googled, my blog didn't come up. It was disappointing. And then this morning, I googled and there it was. So exciting! If you run into any problems, I don't mind if you call me. My number is listed on my blog. I work at home so am here most of the time. I'm not a pro by any means, just kinda figure things out after a while, but I'm willing to help you as much as I can. Good luck, and have fun!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 Originally posted by Tamarack Bonnie I have one more suggestions....on your homepage you might consider added where you are located. I know it is in the Contact Me page but having it on the homepage might help with others finding you though search engines. Try searching 'longarm quilter california' and do you show up on the search? Just something to think about. Ah-ha!! I wondered how the search engine stuff worked! Last night nothing came up on the search engine, but this morning it did. I added Tulare California and think maybe it will show up tomorrow. Thank you for the invaluable tip, Kathy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted February 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 Originally posted by oma Great job Bonnie. :) I would have put stars, but I don't know how. You're too sweet! And cute! Thanks, Oma. I hope to see you and Corey at The Best of the Valley. I will be selling tickets for the guild's quilt so duck and run if you see me holding a roll. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustee Posted February 10, 2012 Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 Bonnie, Thank you so much for taking the time to post the directions. I am in the process of creating my blog. I am going to play around with it today and see what I come up with. I really appreciate your help. This is so kind of you. I may be calling you. I am not computer savvy and when it comes to stuff like this it will probably take me awhile. Dustee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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