I Want To Build A Website....

My wife builds her site using Frontpage2000 (She might have upgraded for herself)
It's an old program, but it works well. (at least for me.)
The wife says web expressions is the latest.
Your on your own for a server :-)

There are many options. You can pay someone to build you a good homepage. But thats not cheap and can be stressful. And you can learn to make home pages on your own. But thats not easy, especially if your are not a coder. Third option is to use editors to make a page. I use the site builder of http://www.ixwebhosting.com/ and it works really fine. And the learning curve is low too :)

On the pessimistic side, don't. By that I mean it's rather late to try to come up with a coin web site. If you go to Google and type in coins or coin web sites you would find there are virtually millions of them already. And probably 90% never get visited or if they do, very seldom. I suggest to get rid of or wanting to sell numismatic items you simply stick around here of go to ebay.

I'm with Carl in that getting into search engines these days is tough. I've had my domain since 96 (not coin related) and have had good success bringing specialty pages up in the ranks. But coin selling is not a specialty and I doubt I could even get into the top 100 pages of goggle and I know how. This is true for all things for sale IMO. Too much "for sale" out there. It's hard and you have to stay on top of it. "Build it and they will come" just ain't happening anymore.

On the other hand I wish the local dealers in my area had a little something up so I could browse off site. hmmmm :)

As much as I like it here (CCF) it's not the best for listing items "always" for sale. Too much fooling with messages. Love ya Dad!

A combination of "here" and a small database driven site sounds ideal (this is similar to what several people here are doing with ecrater and such). Just don't expect anyone to find it that you do not send there.

As a person that writes online database apps... ebay is some machine!! Even the bad parts are pretty darn good. You're paying for that convenience. People forget that part sometimes.

I'd like to go just a bit further on what I (and others) have said here. If you are very frugal you can actually keep your site costs pretty low. In my case I just have to pay a few dollars a year for a domain name. I have the site for free and all work for free since I do it all myself. The reason the site is free is because I maintain the company site I work for so my site is just a sub-domain at no extra cost, other than that fore-mentioned domain name.

I shopped around and read a lot of reviews before settling on a web host company. The one I use has unlimited storage, unlimited databases, unlimited data transfer all FREE. Can't beat that with a big stick. In addition they partner with SEO and McAfee so I get to use those for free as well. So basically I have a site at no cost.

I do choose to pay for a large size mail box ($150 a year) so I don't have to use my home address (Google posts your address when you use Google Checkout) and it is large so nothing needs to be folded to be put in it (ran into that problem with a smaller box once). This is something I would want even if I was just selling on ebay.

You also need to register with your local state/county for business name and resellers permits and such. It is different for every state of course. In California I am required to have the seller's permit just to sell on ebay alone. But it does allow me to purchase things for the site tax free and gets me wholesale prices here and there.

Hope some of this info helps.

So very true. Did you notice that post about coin shows. I've been saying this for a long time. There really isn't a decent listing out there at all. Great example is I just checked out a few for tomorrow possible shows in my area. I know for a fact there is one in a town called Lamont. Yet on several differnt listings it doesn't exist.
I really hope you go through with that.