freebirdevans:
I want to add the capability to accept credit card donations and sell a few logo items.
Also, I need to improve it's looks, and find the cheapest way to be found by search engines.
Teri
Hi Teri,
Let me direct you to some resources to get you started in the right direction.
For processing credit card donations and accepting payments for items sold on your site, there are two main things you'll need to set up to achieve these goals: a shopping cart application (to create your site's storefront) and a payment gateway/merchant processor (to securely authorize and process payment information). Though it might come in handy in certain situations, you don't need to have specialized technical skills to set up this e-commerce functionality on your site. Many tools exist on the market that can be used right out of the box, and there are even all-in-one solutions designed to handle every step of the process for you.
For more on this, I recommend you read this TechSoup article by Idealware:
A Few Good Online Payment Multitaskers
Now the other goal you stated as having for 2009 is to "find the cheapest way to be found by search engines". Well, I can help you here too.
You might be familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In a nutshell, SEO is the process of optimizing each page in your site according to a set of accepted best practices, most importantly involving the use of carefully selected keyword phrases, around which you develop relevant content specific to each page. Good SEO will significantly boost your site's position in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and will also drive higher traffic to your site.
Standard SEO (also known as "organic" or "natural" SEO) costs you literally nothing money-wise to implement. Anybody can do it, and it's the single most important strategy for improving traffic to your site. Of course there are also other ways to improve your position in the search engines, but I always recommend SEO as something that should never be overlooked.
There are many free online resources that teach you how to do effective SEO including how to select appropriate keyword phrases for your site. SEOmoz and SEOBook.com are good sites to check out. A search in Google for "SEO tutorials" will also give you many other resources to refer to.
And we're always here to help too, at TechSoup's Web Building forum, for any questions or issues you may encounter along the path toward achieving your goals.
Good luck!
Yann