Mock-up of a website.

El Guapo!

I'm looking for a little bit of help here and I'd be grateful if somebody could help me out with a bit of info.

I'm in the very early stages of setting up an online business but before I go any further I need something. The website hasn't even begun to be built yet but before I can do anything else, I need a mock up of what the site will probably look like when it's finished. I need this to show potential clients what they'll be buying into. I'm not sure who to go to so I can get this drawn up.
Should I sit down with a web designer? Or would a graphic artist be able to draw me up a draft of it? Also roughly how much would it cost to get this done?

Thanks in advance.

OctoberRain

Dean09 wrote: »

I'm looking for a little bit of help here and I'd be grateful if somebody could help me out with a bit of info.

I'm in the very early stages of setting up an online business but before I go any further I need something. The website hasn't even begun to be built yet but before I can do anything else, I need a mock up of what the site will probably look like when it's finished. I need this to show potential clients what they'll be buying into. I'm not sure who to go to so I can get this drawn up.
Should I sit down with a web designer? Or would a graphic artist be able to draw me up a draft of it? Also roughly how much would it cost to get this done?

Thanks in advance.

Depends on the complexity of the site and the business model a few initial questions need to be answered eg:

Who will be the end users of the site?
How will the access the site, pc, mobile etc.
Have you done user research?
Are there competitor sites that you can identify as similar to your idea.
What is the goal of the site?

B.

El Guapo!

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

OctoberRain wrote: »

Who will be the end users of the site?
The general public
How will the access the site, pc, mobile etc.
pc at first and then if the business grows enough then there may be some scope for a mobile app. But at the minute it's just pc
Have you done user research?
Not at this stage
Are there competitor sites that you can identify as similar to your idea.
There's no direct competitors but the site won't be anything out of the ordinary. (nothing fancy or spectacular)
What is the goal of the site?
Without going into too much detail, it will basically be a large database with multiple search functions, and windows that pop up with diagrams etc

B.

I don't need anything too technical or anything. It basically just needs to be a rough picture of what the site will look like when its finished. I just need it so I can use it to explain exactly how the site works.

OctoberRain

Dean09 wrote: »

Thanks for taking the time to reply.




I don't need anything too technical or anything. It basically just needs to be a rough picture of what the site will look like when its finished. I just need it so I can use it to explain exactly how the site works.

...

OctoberRain

Dean09 wrote: »

Thanks for taking the time to reply.




I don't need anything too technical or anything. It basically just needs to be a rough picture of what the site will look like when its finished. I just need it so I can use it to explain exactly how the site works.

On that point do you think that your investors would be most impressed by a rough site, or do you think that they would be more impressed by a version that was highly visual, polished and had back up from research as a proven process? How comfortable would you feel having that in your presentation?

off.the.walls

pm'd

El Guapo!

OctoberRain wrote: »

On that point do you think that your investors would be most impressed by a rough site, or do you think that they would be more impressed by a version that was highly visual, polished and had back up from research as a proven process? How comfortable would you feel having that in your presentation?

Well by rough I don't mean just lashed together. I need it professional looking. But because I'm at such an early stage in the process, there's no point in me paying to get the site built yet without knowing if I can go further with it or not.
All I need is a picture of what the site may look like when its done. It's only to use as a visual aid when explaining how the business works as its complicated enough to explain.
Once I get that together, I can organise a meeting with potential clients and use that, along with my research that will follow, to do a small presentation for them.

Jeden

I launched a site myself earlier this year - Festivals.ie - and I used software called Balsamiq to do the mock ups. As I recall there was a free trial and then it was about $70 to buy a licence. Well worth it for me as I also used it to mock up a mobile website.

If you are looking for a professional I'd recommend a guy I'm currently using to get the site re-designed - http://www.madebyjustso.com/ - the designer is a guy called Paul Murphy and I'm really impressed by his skills in web design. He's a big believer in resopnsive web design which makes the site user friendly on all kinds of different devices (mobile and tablet).

Good luck with your venture but as the other guy suggested, you'll probably need to have a tight business plan as well as visuals to get investment.

Stryker_Echo

Well Ive done a couple of online stores for myself in the states where I am currently residing.
I am moving on Dec 3rd to dublin yay! And so I found this board tonight.
So with that out of the way, I can relate my do it yourself experience and what Ive learned

Ok, so I went the uber hard route. Trying to learn dreamweaver and coding and build a site from scratch.
I watched hours upon hours of training videos that I quickly forgot like 40 hours worth in on tutorial on dreamweaver alone.
I had no clue how to set up a shopping cart or which one to use.

Prior to that I just made a quick yahoo store which was quite MEH! Bland and boring and cookie cutter.
Then I bought into adobe business catalyst, a good 1000$ down the drain to become a partner to where I can design and build and sell online stores for other people. I am still a partner and can do that but I dont.
18 months ago after much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I said forget it, I hired a guy off a chatboard who said he'd help me out.

He mocked up the website.
I gave him my logo and banner for the top, he matched the colors and mocked it up.
Here's the kick ass part I learned, we installed ECWID shopping cart software. It's just drop the code into the html file and it's good to go.
You add your inventory, add pictures and descriptions, set a price and it's all automated.
Paid 17$ a month for them to support their software
And then I made a bank account and used paypal integrated into the ECWID to receive payments.
WHen someone placed an order. it automatically notified them that their purchase was made and then Id just confirm it and it autosent them a confirmation email
Then when I shipped it, I cilcked in ecwid shipped. Another email was sent automatically
Printed out a shipping label from paypal onto a sticker with postage and that was done.
Simple as can be. This was in USA so not sure if its just as easy in Ireland.

Here is a demo of their shopping cart with categories, click on a cateoory there and it will list products pictures, prices etc.. click on an individual product and it gave them a detailed description
http://www.ecwid.com/demo-frontend.html#!/~/category/id=0&inview=category3003&offset=0&sort=normal

check it out. customers had zero complaints.

I opened another online store and I realized I didnt want to pay 750$ to have someone just put in a banner and mockup the layout. I could do that myself and just drop in the code since I was more confident having been using ecwid.

But I was in a hurry so I just used 1&1 and their eshop and used one of ther store templates. Added my products and done.

I much prefer the ecwid store though as my store was what I wanted designed and then you just drop the ecwid code and it becomes part of your website only it becomes a webstore at that point.

I got alot more business from the better looking ecwid store but couldn't beat creatng a webstore with 1and1 in less than 48 hours with their eshop.

So in my experience going from trying to build from the ground up vs. a complete template eshop and keeping it simple.
My advice is to mockup the website as to how they want it and drop in a few lines of the ecwid code and voila... a customized online store.

You can even add ecwid code to facebook or a wordpress blog and wordpress is infinitely customizable with not having to learn code at all.
The ecwid site has lots of tutorials and friendly staff and helpful chat forum. I closed my ecwid shop and well I am moving to dublin in a few weeks. But if I open another online store. That is the most simple direct route to a good store that allows one to have more control that using templates.
I mean it's basically your designed website with a module dropped in it that people can order products from.
I learned after banging my head on the wall learning dreamweaver to just keep it simple. If I stuck with dreamweaver 2 years ago, Id still be trying to open my first online store.
A good guy did for me for 750$ and that was cheap bc he answered a ton of questions aand the back and forth with how do you like this or that. I used up alot of his time.
I'd suspect 1,000-5000$ depending on the complexity to have someone code it fromo the ground up.
Or build a website rapidweaver (mac) or use wordpress or whicch website builder you want and drop the ecwid module into it

Chiqqi

Take a quick look on Wix....free to build, anyone can do it with templates and u can actually build one for free ... It will just have Wix on it. You can show it that way or at least an idea of what it will look like. Do u have any skills to do it at least the trial.one?....let me know.

Wolf07

use mockingbird, https://gomockingbird.com/

hope it helps