As co-owner of North Star Nursery (www.northstarnursery.com), Lucas found that her job does not leave much time for building and maintaining a Web site. Therefore, she needed a Web site-building solution that would allow her to get the site up and running quickly and would be easy to maintain. "I can honestly say that creating and maintaining my Web site is a job I can only give a few hours a week of my time," explains Lucas. "NetObjects Fusion was a very efficient way for me to get what I needed done in the limited time that I had."

With little knowledge of HTML or Web site design, Lucas took advantage of the powerful site management capabilities and WYSIWYG layout features in NetObjects Fusion. "The main reason I chose NetObjects Fusion was that it was extremely easy to use for us nontechnical business users," says Lucas. "I read a review of it and it sounded like it was just what I needed. I was able to jump right in and start creating pages immediately without a long, tedious learning curve." Lucas especially appreciated the product's simple approach to implementing high-end functionality, such as the easy, menu-based creation of Dynamic HTML actions she used to add clever animations and moving graphics.

While Lucas admits that her original intent in building the Web site was "for the fun," the project soon turned into a natural extension of the business. With the help of NetObjects Fusion, she developed a creative and engaging site complete with general nursery information, incentives for repeat visitors, a browsable catalog of available items, and an online store.

Unknown to site visitors, the North Star Nursery site is actually two sites hosted on two different servers. One site is the nursery section, a simple "brochure" site that informs visitors of who North Star Nursery is, where it is located, what it sells and grows, monthly gardening tips, and links to other garden-oriented and Mendocino sites. "One of my favorite sections is the monthly Garden Tips page," says Lucas. "I knew I needed to give visitors a reason to come back month after month. The monthly Garden Tips page provides helpful information for gardeners and reminds customers what to plant and which areas of the garden might need attention. Not only does this encourage repeat visitors to the site, but it also stimulates customers to purchase the items needed to keep their gardens healthy."

The second site is North Star's On-Line Store. North Star offers more than 25 items for sale in a secure environment consisting of 30-odd pages. "We're just a small local nursery," Lucas says. "By putting our store online, our products are now accessible to people across the country." Lucas used NetObjects Fusion to design the entire front end of the online store, including the product listings, page layout, and descriptions. And with NetObjects Fusion, the online store is easy to update as product offerings change.

"Three years ago I'd never even touched a computer, and 16 months ago had never seen or been on the Internet. If a complete novice like me can create a successful business Web site that people seem to appreciate and enjoy, then anyone can use NetObjects Fusion to do the same thing."