Forum Moderators: buckworks
I guess I really should to look at it this way. I pitched a redesign to a local business a while back. They didn't have an ecommerce site, but I think it is illustrative of a similar mind set. He said he didn't have the money to hire a professional. But as soon as he got a few hundred dollars he was going to splurge on FrontPage. Ack! He re-did his site with FrontPage recently... He's happy as a pig in "poo" and it still looks awful! Of couse there's no telling him that.
I dont often recruit clientele as I have a full time job and more contract work then I can effectively handle, but when I do solicit more work it is the merits of my previous work that sell.
These merits often extend beyond the asthetics of the sites, they generally encompass getting potential customers to the site and to the cart and soliciting orders - because if you can demonstrate that a track record in improving the bottom line then the job is yours.
I think that most companies out there could care less what a website looks like, what features it has, how cool it is etc., what they most want demonstrated is that their investment will pay for itself.
Those that see the bigger picture, but those that don't say things like "Well we were thinking that we could have the site done in flash with a picture of uncle bob flying in on the left and..." I explain that it doesn't matter how beautiful or ulgy your site looks if no one can find it and the sites that I create are search engine and customer friendly.
These are the points that also need to be placed up front. Also though the initial cost may be low in the long run they would be saving money by owning their site not renting it.
Webtress, good point! THE point...
Search engine friendly means more than allowing Google to index a site. Google can index nearly any site and can index Flash MX files. It's the other search engines whose spidering technology isn't as mature as Google's that we have to be concerned with. There are a number of articles on search engine friendly shopping carts. Some of those are published on ****.com.
ALL-in-one packages that include the ability to provide search engine friendly pages for both the cart pages and non-cart pages bring new horizons to the community. Understanding the abilities of the search engine spiders is a requirement for building and designing search engine friendly shopping carts and content management systems.
There is also a need to understand that not everyone knows how to optimize a web page. A system must be developed with this fact in mind. Providing a small bit of help and forcing some elements helps put pages in the good positions with little work.
It's the other search engines whose spidering technology isn't as mature as Google's that we have to be concerned with.
Although Google can index dynamically generated web pages like those I find on your site, other search engine spiders have problems with those pages.
You are right in the concern that Google currently has the majority of searchers. And, I do agree that it isn't always a factor on the page that makes pages disappear from Google's index.
You seem to have assumed that I was stating you have to limit your site to the abilities of other search engines. That by far is not the case. You do however have to develop your site so they can navigate it. Just because your site have unique keywords, page title, and such doesn't mean the other search engines can navigate your site.
I hope this clears things up for you.
Typically those systems with template designers are not full wysiwyg editors. They are no better than Homestead, Geocities, Tripod of the like. Registrar services even provide those template designers and people fall for that every day.
The reason a lot of those organizations don't provide strong wysiwyg editors is because of the higher level of programming it takes. This is not to say they don't know how to program, rather to say they don't put the time required into their solutions.
Shopping cart designers typically spend between 30 and 60 days designing their shopping cart to put on the market. While this is great for a web designer developing a site for a client, it typically is not reliable enough in my opinion to make the solutions top notch.
Developing software is a slow and meticulous process. However, people tend to think developing software for the Internet needs to be fast. That's because everyone thinks someone else is going to come up with an idea and launch before they do. While that might happen, it doesn't mean that the company that takes their time can't beat the first guy out of the gate. Whomever has the better horse wins the race.
I hope this helps.
The average all-in-one package isn't scalable. And even if a site owner hired a designer that doesn't mean that designer knows what they need. Many times on my radio show I had people call in asking for reviews and many times those reviews weren't raving. There were problems whether it be a focus upon graphics or a focus upon what I call 'street html' (it works but not as good as the properly developed html, kind of like street fighting and karate).
Some all-in-one packages are like street fighters; they work but not as good as they could be. Then there are the karate type all-in-one packages.
You need to find one of those karate type all-in-one packages.
Perhaps we should start this thread with the question of what do people consider an all-in-one package.
All-in-one packages can fall into one of the following groups:
1> Yahoo! Stores and those little hosted shopping cart packages
2> Shopping carts provided by online gateways
3> Systems that give pre-defined, non-unique templates with their shopping carts
4> Systems with full wysiwyg editors
Obviously, the first three options we would consider less than adequate. Option four allows you, the professional designer, to use the system while gaining the opportunity to use systems you would spend years developing. Obviously your customers couldn't afford the cost of development.
Of course, not all systems with wysiwyg editors would meet your specific requirements, but to discard them all on notations that they do not work would be short-sighted. There are many designers that purchase shopping carts for their clients; you may even be one of those designers. Small design shops can actually make more money by using a strong system that includes a strong wysiwyg editor.
Some systems with wysiwyg editors put all pages within the system. Some call these systems content management systems. However, content management systems started out as content management systems and added shopping cart features later. One shopping cart I know started out as a shopping cart and decided to add the content management features. They state this empowers the site owner to achieve 100% managability of their site without having to call a designer to make a change or add a new page.
Obviously, the broader you can build your portfolio the more clients you have and the more people talk about you. Then some clients will want you to manage everything for them.
Yahoo! Stores is, however, something that I would never recommend anyone to use. While Google has indexed over 5 million store.yahoo.com pages, Yahoo itself has indexed less than 500,000.
That means if your site depends upon using Yahoo! Stores to present your products you can hang up performance in other search engines. Google's the only one that will help you.
Then you have other problems which haven't even discussed yet. How do you handle optimizing your pages if you're building static HTML pages? How many products do you have? How many categories do you have?
Obviously all those questions add to the cost of ownership. That's not even counting the per transaction fee Yahoo! Stores charges you. I prefer flat fees where I know what my budget is.
Even with the Yahoo! Shopping you have to pay for clicks into your store. Certainly that adds to your cost of ownership, but that is advertising costs and you have an option to participate or not. The per transaction fee is not optional.
Still, you may feel confident that Yahoo! Stores meets your needs. But have you looked at other options to see if they meet your needs better?
I'm not sure what package you have with Yahoo! Stores, but let's do some math. Of course I'm making general assumptions. Hopefully that won't be a problem.
Yahoo! Stores basic package: $39.95
Per transaction fee: 1.5%
($1.50 per $100 and $2,000 per month would be $30)
So, assuming you're selling $2,000 worth per month your costs would be $69.95.
This does not include the management services of a web designer or SEO specialist.
I know SEO specialists that charge $1,500 per month and I know some that charge $300 per month. At the low spectrum your monthly fees would then be $369.95 per month. Of course, you may not be using the services of an SEO specialist.
A solution that empowers you to manage and optimize your own pages with little effort and knowledge increases your ROI. That's what some all-in-one solutions can provide.
As a psychologists don't you know people that get paid up to $500 per hour? And often they never show 'real' measurable results.
SEO specialists can show 'real' measurable results. Then again, SEO specialists that know how to develop copy and at the same time optimize for the search engines help increase ROI. So, not only do strong SEO specialists show results in the search engines they also show results in sales.
As a psychologist, I would imagine that you could develop some really strong copy and help improve sales for someone. Now, all you need to do is learn how to ethically optimize a web page. Get to work on it and start building your portfolio.
Well, I decided to save some money (and spend some time, time is money you know) and now I am mastering oscommece but in the next life I am not sure what will I do in the same situation.
