One Comment on “How can I design my own Cafepress shop site with HTML?”

1. SandyKIT
   April 15th, 2007 at 7:31 am

   Short answer:

   Unless you know XHTML and CSS (and advanced tweaking) you’ll be over your head in one minute. This is the truth, and a hard one to accept when you’re motivated to start your own store.

   Long answer:

   You can make a storefront yourself, but it’ll require a lot of study and trial and error (even pros will get stumped with storefronts — and don’t let any tell you otherwise).

   XHTML and CSS is much harder to do than HTML 4.01, as it has new rules and tags and it’s stricter on compliance. BUT, search engines eat it up; your pages will load faster (meaning you can get and hold more traffic); and you can quickly change things around via a central stylesheet.

   Getting to that point is the hard part.

   Not knowing if you what answers of just “yes” or “no” I’ll spare you the intrinsic details; but if you want to know how the sausage is made, just ask.

   If you want to have someone else to design it for you, it will be an expensive affair (at least $100 a page, with logo [and you will want one]). That $100 will be well worth it if you’re pressed for time and completely new to web design.

   A good place that has vetted designers (to prevent rip offs — v-e-r-y high in this field) is here…

   You can ask for free and only pay when you find a designer that best works with you and your outlook. It’s one of the ways to get a page done cheaper and of good quality even (established coders hate that place because of it, but overpriced coding projects will create such sites. It’s the market self-correcting itself [I do web design work, but also a customer for scripting and see both sides]).

   Personally, I recommend this route for you so you can concentrate on the business, site content and have some fun. Web coding is a chore, and one not for beginners (I say this so you won’t get frustrated and get upset, when you want to be fresh and creative. Use that creativity and talk with a coder about how you want your Cafepress to look like (no different than looking through fashion magazines and talking about styles, materials and color schemes). You won’t get stressed, and have fun watching your dream come true — and it IS beautiful having a site up to your specs, and it’s right, right down to the XHTML/CSS).

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