Basic Advice

[t_pinchen]

Hi Everyone,

I have just started designing a new e-commerce website. I am fairly good at designing how I want everything to look in Fireworks however am not so good when it comes to putting this into Dreamweaver. I also worry that I will end up with near to no content that is readable by search engines as it will become very Jpeg based.

What is the best method of creating an ecommerce site, is it to work out your design using a program like fireworks first and then put it into dreamweaver or is there a better technique?

I would be really grateful for any help people can give.

Thanks

Tom

[JamesColin]

Personnally I would use a CMS, a script specialized in ecommerce.
Since I like drupal CMS I would use the module called ubercart.
But for someone new to drupal and who only wants to do ecommerce there are better solutions (free) but I don't have the names right now in my head, zencart maybe, others can tell you, or you can find them yourself, otherwise tell me and I'll look into it.

[RyanReese]

I like creating the actual finished product in something like photoshop and then slice the images and then code the actual thing. Don't use programs that give you code as often it is copmlete crap.

[t_pinchen]

Hey,

Thanks for the replies guys. The advice is really useful. Do you know a way to ensure that the site is optimized best for search engines if it is made up of lots of images? Is it a case of naming the image files certain names that search engine spiders will be able to crawl?

Thanks again.

Tom

[uringgogo]

Is it a case of naming the image files certain names that search engine spiders will be able to crawl?

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Sure the images should have alt properties so that search engine can crawl.