Web Presence

[Martin Boekers]

This will be a year of changes and adaptations for my shop.

I have a limited audience that I am allowed to sell to. I am looking to expand
my sales by establishing a web page to make ordering easy for my clients.
I can't go through regular services that provide a "shopping cart" system.
There still will have to be some ineractivity with clients for payment and such
The main thing I want is a "forum" to have product photos and cost, email orders, specials
and shop info as needed.

One alternative is to go with a "book paging" system these guys have one that
seems adaptable, easy to use and update as well as embeding links. Has anyone used
these guys or a similar system? Any input or ideas would be appreciated!

www.keeptrees.com/ (http://www.keeptrees.com/)

Thanks!

Marty

[Randy Digby]

I don't see a link??

[Rodne Gold]

I like this style website , modified content management
www.timpson.co.uk (http://www.timpson.co.uk)
Im redoing my website this year and want to use it as a model for mine.
Easy to navigate , clear and looks classy

[Ross Moshinsky]

Ecommerce sites are A LOT of work. I have one about 60% done that I did with a developer and it will probably never see the light of day. It's just a lot of work to get going in our industry with so much customization required. I'm almost tempted to sell it off. Probably would take about $3000-4000 to get up and going plus all the data entry.

As for KeepTree: I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole. What they are doing is taking a PDF, bringing it into Adobe Flash, and then jazzing it up. Adobe Flash is becoming less and less useful on the web. It's far better for building interactive applications. I'd stay away from it.

There are a few routes to go. I'll say before you read this: most likely the best route is finding someone in India to do this work. I have many reasons why I say this, but I'm not going to say them because it will probably come off as offensive.

1. Download a CSS template and work from there. CSS template is basically a file that loads into every page and sets the style/look for the page. Now if you can find one that works for you, you can load it up in Corel's Web creator or Dreamweaver or any HTML editor and get it right. If you look at the CSS page and say "well I don't like the image there, I want it over here" then you're already in over your head. I mean literally keeping everything the same but just inserting your images and text.

2. WordPress w/ template. Wordpress is kind of like having an editor on the internet. It's very user friendly, but somewhat limited. Tweaking up templates and text is much easier on WordPress but if you want to add an interesting bit of code or a special feature, you might not be able to. WordPress is not HTML.

3. Go find a Website builder site. Do not pay to host. If you're going to pay, only pay for the design features. There are sites that you log in, pick a template, and go to work. It's not much different than the other two options except things are typically VERY user friendly. This typically comes at a cost, but time is money.

I built this site off a free CSS template in Adobe Dreamweaver: http://hgawards.com/whi/index.html It's not really ready for launch yet but I'm hoping in a couple of days it will be close enough to launch. (By the way, I don't care if you take down the link. It was just to illustrate what you can do from a free CSS template. It started as this: http://www.nuviotemplates.com/template/impress-01/)

[Scott Shepherd]

Marty, I see a lot of people flocking towards Wordpress these days. It's getting more and more powerful every day, it seems. You can do a ton of stuff with it and it's always getting better. It might be just what you're looking for.

[Martin Boekers]

I don't see a link??

Thanks! I am moving too quickly again.....

[Martin Boekers]

Thanks this is the type of input I am looking for. I can do the hosting so that's not an issue.
I liked the ease of what "Keep Trees" was doing, but I haven't used it so that's why I asked.
Thanks for sharing your insite Ross. I have an "older MAC at home and Adobe Flash no longer
supports older MACs so some sites I can't use becuase of that. I am at work most the time
so I really haven't got around to upgrading the home computer. :)

Rodne I'll definitely check that out.

Scott, Wordpress is now in my notes!

Thanks Guys!

[Mike Null]

Marty

Take a look at Yahoo. You can build your own site with their software, you can use your own dot com address as well as emails with that dot com address. Mine is not a merchant site and I pay 11.95 a month with no other fees. I've been with them for about ten years and wouldn't consider a change.

I started out as a catalog (not ecommerce) service and then found I was better off going in another direction.

[Ian Franks]

We used prestashop to build our webstore. With products being 50% of our laser sales it works for us. Then customers do contact us for other stuff through the site. What is pleasure is getting the order emailed to us together with payment notification from the credit card processor.
It is hard to keep the site updated and we make sure that we have at least one special running.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I would also suggest looking at WordPress for what you describe. It is quite easy to use and there are a gazillion themes (free & paid version) available to choose from to give your site a consistent look. There are even more apps, widgets & toolbars you can select to modify the appearance and add components to achieve the end results you are looking for. You can also integrate certain shopping carts into a WordPress site.

I don't personally have a WordPress web site, but I have helped a few old friends convert their sites to WordPress so they can then make their necessary changes instead of relying on someone else. I have to disagree with Ross in his statement that you might not be able to make changes to code in WordPress. You just need to know where to look.... and you need to know how to read and write code or find someone that can. :-)

[Doug Griffith]

There are a few routes to go. I'll say before you read this: most likely the best route is finding someone in India to do this work. I have many reasons why I say this, but I'm not going to say them because it will probably come off as offensive.

That's funny. I freelance program for a development company that spends a good part of their time rebuilding sites previously built there.

[Doug Griffith]

My suggestion is to find someone who has real experience with web development. There is a lot more to it than just plugging content into a CMS or Dreamweaver. SEO being a big one. A decent PHP programmer (not an HTML cut and paster) should be able to bang out a professional site in a month provided all the content is good to go. Less time if using a template based framework.

[Craig Matheny]

I have been doing my websites and others (friends) for about 15 years started with backtobasics dot net (still take orders daily) simple site using Paypal for the cart free... For my other site lazermodels dot com ( been up for about 6 months) I use Ecommerce Templates for the basic site and cart cost 160.00 then customize it and then load it up with your products, I host all my and friends sites unlimited bandwidth for under 8.00 a month. I have heard that WordPress is not a good way to go do a search lots on it, sometimes when we talk about websites we are not talking apples and oranges, Yahoo, Google, Go Daddy and others offer start ups but it has to be what you feel will work for you. Currently I am doing a site for a friend that paid 1000.00 to a developer and the site is ---- and no search engine tags and ugly so I am now redoing it from scratch with a template from ecommercetemplates dot com.

Martin if you have any questions feel free to ask you all have been here when I needed help

[Craig Matheny]

My suggestion is to find someone who has real experience with web development. There is a lot more to it than just plugging content into a CMS or Dreamweaver. SEO being a big one. A decent PHP programmer (not an HTML cut and paster) should be able to bang out a professional site in a month provided all the content is good to go. Less time if using a template based framework.

Get a template pay to customize the colors and hook up the Data Base and put your items in

[Scott Shepherd]

I think some responses on here are missing Marty's original post. He's on an Air Force base. He sells to clients on the base. He can't sell to the general public. He has a limited amount of products and services for those clients.

I don't think you need to pay someone for a months wages to develop some custom application for that unless you just like spending money.

I know many many people that do business all over the world using simple sites. No need for any MySQL and all that stuff. You don't need to make this complicated (unless you get paid to solve those complicated tasks :) ).

Marty, will iWeb run on your old Mac? If so, it's easy to use. I mean easy!

[Craig Matheny]

Scott you are 100% correct throw together a simple site or get a free template on line or for 60.00 get just about any of them use Paypal on the back end for the money simple low cost solution.

[Doug Griffith]

iWeb produces nothing but ---.

If you just want to have an online presence, go the cheap route. If you want to glean as much out of a website as possible, then go with a pro. I don't think the average Joe can implement all of the back-end data logging used for market research, implement the various social network APIs to drive visitors to the site, incorporate dynamic content that makes management a snap, debug on a multitude of platforms to cater to the largest audience, create backwards compatible and SEO optimized code, the list goes on and on.

I do it for a living so I'm highly biased.

[Ross Moshinsky]

I would also suggest looking at WordPress for what you describe. It is quite easy to use and there are a gazillion themes (free & paid version) available to choose from to give your site a consistent look. There are even more apps, widgets & toolbars you can select to modify the appearance and add components to achieve the end results you are looking for. You can also integrate certain shopping carts into a WordPress site.

I don't personally have a WordPress web site, but I have helped a few old friends convert their sites to WordPress so they can then make their necessary changes instead of relying on someone else. I have to disagree with Ross in his statement that you might not be able to make changes to code in WordPress. You just need to know where to look.... and you need to know how to read and write code or find someone that can. :-)

I never said that. I said "Tweaking up templates and text is much easier on WordPress but if you want to add an interesting bit of code or a special feature, you might not be able to. WordPress is not HTML."

WordPress isn't HTML. It's its own thing. You can't find some code on the internet and then slap it into your WordPress file. The same thing goes with eCommerce sites. The tie into the database and their own little programming world is like jumping into a worm hole sometimes. Unless you understand the structure of the site, it can be an absolute bear to make simple changes. 5 page website? Wordpress works. Something more than that, you're resources are more limited in a lot of ways.


That's funny. I freelance program for a development company that spends a good part of their time rebuilding sites previously built there.

I'm not going to enter this argument. Let's just say I prefer the customer service model of an outsourced company to that of a US based programmer.


My suggestion is to find someone who has real experience with web development. There is a lot more to it than just plugging content into a CMS or Dreamweaver. SEO being a big one. A decent PHP programmer (not an HTML cut and paster) should be able to bang out a professional site in a month provided all the content is good to go. Less time if using a template based framework.

[QUOTE=Doug Griffith;1859125]iWeb produces nothing but ---

If you just want to have an online presence, go the cheap route. If you want to glean as much out of a website as possible, then go with a pro. I don't think the average Joe can implement all of the back-end data logging used for market research, implement the various social network APIs to drive visitors to the site, incorporate dynamic content that makes management a snap, debug on a multitude of platforms to cater to the largest audience, create backwards compatible and SEO optimized code, the list goes on and on.

I do it for a living so I'm highly biased.

--------------------------

I've dealt with a few programmers as friends and in the professional world. For me, graphics and database people are the only ones I trust for websites.

As for the rest, people have expectations of what they get on the internet. My opinion is simple. Make everything look like Amazon and eBay. It doesn't have to be exactly like it, but as long as it's close, it's considered an acceptable format. As for the engine running it, the idea that anyone that hasn't even had a website up needs that big of an engine is borderline absurd. That's like buying the biggest baddest laser engraver on the market when you don't even have a client.

[Craig Matheny]

As for the rest, people have expectations of what they get on the internet. My opinion is simple. Make everything look like Amazon and eBay. It doesn't have to be exactly like it, but as long as it's close, it's considered an acceptable format. As for the engine running it, the idea that anyone that hasn't even had a website up needs that big of an engine is borderline absurd. That's like buying the biggest baddest laser engraver on the market when you don't even have a client.

Ross the engine running everything is important if you want a good listing on search engines Doug is right there is allot to it However do some reading and follow directions and you can be on the first search pages. We have 2 of our sites in the top spots however we also are unique and that helps. You will not find our site yet in the top 10 under laser but it will happen. IF you want to make money on the web you need search engine optimizing. You are correct in Martin case he wants to reach a small base I would look at FaceBook it is already setup for all that put some pages and boom done.

[Scott Shepherd]

[QUOTE=Doug Griffith;1859125]iWeb produces nothing but ----

If you just want to have an online presence, go the cheap route. If you want to glean as much out of a website as possible, then go with a pro. I don't think the average Joe can implement all of the back-end data logging used for market research, implement the various social network APIs to drive visitors to the site, incorporate dynamic content that makes management a snap, debug on a multitude of platforms to cater to the largest audience, create backwards compatible and SEO optimized code, the list goes on and on.

I do it for a living so I'm highly biased.

----------------------------

That's good to know. I guess I didn't get any business from my website last year because my site was ---- behind the scenes. Come on Doug, I understand your point, it's not 100% coded to make a geek happy, but I don't target geeks, I target people searching a looking for my services. My iWeb site does that, it does it easy, and I've gotten some very large jobs from our website. I get about a dozen calls a week from people that found us through our site. So I guess I should just delete that because it's "coded -----"?????

I've had dreamweaver for 8 years or more. My dreamweaver site was --- and the time it was taking me to learn it all was killing me, all while I had nothing good on our site. With iWeb, we had a decent looking site in less than 4 hours. A site that's gotten me a lot more business and a lot more comments than anything I did with dreamweaver. I'm not in the business of creating html, I'm in the sign business. iWeb allowed me to create content without having to know squat about html.

[Scott Shepherd]

Ross the engine running everything is important if you want a good listing on search engines Doug is right there is allot to it

I don't think Marty is looking for search engine optimization.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Ross the engine running everything is important if you want a good listing on search engines Doug is right there is allot to it However do some reading and follow directions and you can be on the first search pages. We have 2 of our sites in the top spots however we also are unique and that helps. You will not find our site yet in the top 10 under laser but it will happen. IF you want to make money on the web you need search engine optimizing. You are correct in Martin case he wants to reach a small base I would look at FaceBook it is already setup for all that put some pages and boom done.

We're not talking about ecommerce sites here though. That type of network is completely different than Martin is trying to create. He's attempting to expand on a B&M business. Getting an order from across the state is not really his objective.

If you're a B&M and just want to expand your base a bit, there are far more simple ways to do it. You just want to make sure your name is in Google properly. From there, it's about creating an appealing website that puts your information out clearly and professionally. Facebook might be good for him because he's on an army base I believe but for me, no one on Facebook cares that I build trophies. When they want a trophy some day, they do a search for their town and trophy and if I'm close enough, I pop up. The idea that someone 50 miles is going to come to us over someone 10 miles away is unrealistic. The only time they're trying to work with me is if by recommendation or desperation.

Personally, SEO and the backend is the least of my worries when we start talking about an eCommerce site for the trophy/awards/printing/apparel industry. How are you going to let your customer input the data for each of those items is a far bigger project than getting it on the top ten of Google. After that, you have to figure out how you're going to match the pricing of someone working on a ridiculously small markup. Like I said, I have hours and hours invested in a eCommerce site and just getting the site to function reasonably well is quite a task.

[Doug Griffith]

My iWeb site does that, it does it easy, and I've gotten some very large jobs from our website. I get about a dozen calls a week from people that found us through our site. So I guess I should just delete that because it's "coded ---?????

It's not that the code is ugly, which it is. It's that it's bloated with unnecessary code and is not SEO optimized. I'd bet real dollars that if you're having success with an iWeb website, you'd have twice that with a proper website.

I agree that you have to start somewhere and doing it yourself can take what seems like forever. But at some point, once it's proved itself as a money maker, it's time to step up a notch.

My latest website for my product line (brotherhoodproducts.com - not soliciting because it's completely unrelated) demonstrates a bunch of features that you just can't do in iWeb. Social network integration, internal search engine, Ajax form submission, custom cart system, data logging, wholesaler backend, zipcode search tied to Google maps, the whole nine yards. These all help my business in some way or another.

[Scott Shepherd]

Yes, it is poor at SEO, and Marty doesn't need SEO, which is exactly my point. Go back and read his original request and honestly tell me he needs all that custom coding garbage and SEO tools. I have a 3rd party app for iWeb and SEO. It works VERY well. Well enough I don't plan to share the details on a public forum! Let's just say I'm way ahead of many people that paid a lot of money for custom coding.

[Ed Hazel]

I would suggest Word Press
A. It is free
B. There are 1000's of free templates and it is easy to change
C. There are tons of plug ins to do most anything you want.
D. After you spend some time with it you can at least make a better decision on what you need/want out of a site

[Jiten Patel]

We went with the Pro route. Developed a webshop, as well as a sleek design (well I think so anyway!). It took the stress away and we ended up with a website that makes us look professional and well established. Now I know the market I am in is completely different to what most on Sawmill do, so therefore I need the jazzy site. We opted for a web shop and completely understand the custom nature of things. It doesn't work wonders and most of our business come direct to us for a custom quote. Also the web shop took an absolute age to get right - about 4 months of solid work as well an updating the database on the back-end! Was it worth it? Probably not as it has only brought in 4-5 orders in a year. Paid for itself, but I would have rather spend that time developing more menu options and areas on the site. Our website brings it a lot of enquiries which most often than not turn into orders through it being SEO and lots of other sites linking to us. I don' think my business would be doing half as well without it and it is the one of the core aspects for our business. I mean if you do not have a physical shop to showcase your products (which would costs thousands and thousands to set up) then a website it technically your shop therefore spending a few thousand getting it looking and working slick isn't a great ask - again just my two pence on things. We are actually in the process of writing a brief to get ours re-done so that content is easier to find, more pictures etc. Re-doing will cost us around £1500-2000. Personally I think if you do not have a physical shop, then a website which is properly done to showcase your products and give ball park figures on your prices is crucial to success along with a solid marketing plan!

[Rodne Gold]

I agree with Jit 100%....
Way I'm going tho it's probably total overkill for the original post/er.

[Mike Null]

Guys, I've just spent too long editing out the word "crap" and its derivatives. That word and a few others including all profanity have been determined by the owners to be unsuitable for a family forum.

Please cooperate in refraining from the use of such words.

[Joe De Medeiros]

Yes, it is poor at SEO, and Marty doesn't need SEO, which is exactly my point. Go back and read his original request and honestly tell me he needs all that custom coding garbage and SEO tools. I have a 3rd party app for iWeb and SEO. It works VERY well. Well enough I don't plan to share the details on a public forum! Let's just say I'm way ahead of many people that paid a lot of money for custom coding.

My wife also uses iWeb and an SEO tool, and it works for her. iWeb produces some very ugly code but it works and is easy to maintain. Where I work we use Drupal, and one of our office assistants updates it, the original layout was created by a contractor, but like wordpress there are tons of templates free and paid. There are also tons of guys out there getting paid to code web sites that are just awful.

PS. Nice site Doug.

[Martin Boekers]

Whew!!!

Scott is right, I am on a military base, I can only sell to those with access to the base. With cutbacks looming, it is best for me to get efficient as possible.

The profits this shop makes goes to fund other activities on base. Yes, I am a Government worker (NAF) that actually turns a profit! We do exist! :)

I have a PDF of my inventory that I email to clients. I just want to come up with a nice editable site with products and pricing to make it more convenient.
I have developed a system so that much of my work is done through emails. Saving my clients time. I have established a filing system for ease of access and
repeatability for repeat business as well as a graphics library of "base" & military graphics. I am looking to build an editable project form that can be filled out
online and emailed back. I would like to have the ease of adapting changes such as specials or other information.

One reason I like the PDF format, is it is easy to change and they can download it to their desk top for quick review.

I do want to also have a web presence as some bases have closed or never had a shop such as this, so I am looking to expand in those areas. I do carry a large
inventory over 300 unique items and keep a good many of some of those on hand as my turnarounds are typically 2-3 days. One thing I do want to keep in mind
through this process is the possibility of sharing this with other bases to help them stay as efficient as possible though these cut backs. So I may be setting up
similar sites in the future for others. I can host this on our servers as I do have limitations on doing things through "outside" sources.

So that's my main goal in the upcoming months!

I thank you all for your input as it gives me a good overview and ideas on this.

Marty

[Martin Boekers]

One more thing in PDF form I can print a hard copy on my laser printer and spiral bind it while they wait (on demand)
so they can have a printed hard copy if they like.

I imagine though, I will have the web version and a PDF as it seems it will be difficut to have them do both.

[Tim Bateson]

...Personally, SEO and the backend is the least of my worries when we start talking about an eCommerce site for the trophy/awards/printing/apparel industry. How are you going to let your customer input the data for each of those items is a far bigger project than getting it on the top ten of Google. After that, you have to figure out how you're going to match the pricing of someone working on a ridiculously small markup. Like I said, I have hours and hours invested in a eCommerce site and just getting the site to function reasonably well is quite a task.

This has been my pain! My website is highly listed (no I've never paid for this), now I want the eCommerce piece. After 2 attempts with 2 different shopping carts, I've concluded that the term thrown around - "ready, out of the box", is only a {use your choice of angry expression here} sales pitch. If I was selling widgets, then that would be somewhat true, but for our business, where we require a lot of custom entry for each order, it isn't so easy. Currently I have my shopping cart/store locked down. I only use it internally to process credit card orders.

[Dan Hintz]

Martin,

For quick and dirty, I see nothing wrong with a page (or several, broken down into categories) with 200x200 images of what you typically offer. Most of your work will go into the pretty header/foot/sidebar, but once those are done, adding a product is simply adding an extra entry to a table.

[Dan Hintz]

Bruce,

I use Agora Cart for mine (since turned off)... there's a free version, but for a really low fee (I think it was <$100), you get updates for life, tech support, etc. Their support forums are really good, and plenty of people who, if they can't modify your cart as you want quickly, offer good hourly rates to radically modify it.

[Liesl Dexheimer]

Agreed, Ecommerce sites are A TON of work. Every year when new catalogs come out I have to edit all the prices both on my site & in my shopping cart processor. It really isn't even worth the work for me to do it, more & more customers just want to see prices so they compare & buy the lowest item they see. :(

I would definitely suggest Wordpress. Also try looking through http://themeforest.net/


Ecommerce sites are A LOT of work. I have one about 60% done that I did with a developer and it will probably never see the light of day. It's just a lot of work to get going in our industry with so much customization required. I'm almost tempted to sell it off. Probably would take about $3000-4000 to get up and going plus all the data entry.

As for KeepTree: I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole. What they are doing is taking a PDF, bringing it into Adobe Flash, and then jazzing it up. Adobe Flash is becoming less and less useful on the web. It's far better for building interactive applications. I'd stay away from it.

There are a few routes to go. I'll say before you read this: most likely the best route is finding someone in India to do this work. I have many reasons why I say this, but I'm not going to say them because it will probably come off as offensive.

1. Download a CSS template and work from there. CSS template is basically a file that loads into every page and sets the style/look for the page. Now if you can find one that works for you, you can load it up in Corel's Web creator or Dreamweaver or any HTML editor and get it right. If you look at the CSS page and say "well I don't like the image there, I want it over here" then you're already in over your head. I mean literally keeping everything the same but just inserting your images and text.

2. WordPress w/ template. Wordpress is kind of like having an editor on the internet. It's very user friendly, but somewhat limited. Tweaking up templates and text is much easier on WordPress but if you want to add an interesting bit of code or a special feature, you might not be able to. WordPress is not HTML.

3. Go find a Website builder site. Do not pay to host. If you're going to pay, only pay for the design features. There are sites that you log in, pick a template, and go to work. It's not much different than the other two options except things are typically VERY user friendly. This typically comes at a cost, but time is money.

I built this site off a free CSS template in Adobe Dreamweaver: http://hgawards.com/whi/index.html It's not really ready for launch yet but I'm hoping in a couple of days it will be close enough to launch. (By the way, I don't care if you take down the link. It was just to illustrate what you can do from a free CSS template. It started as this: http://www.nuviotemplates.com/template/impress-01/)

[Doug Griffith]

Agreed, Ecommerce sites are A TON of work. Every year when new catalogs come out I have to edit all the prices both on my site & in my shopping cart processor.

In my opinion, this is just another reason to go with a professional built website. The shopping cart is integrated and the updates you mention can be globally changed through a single spreadsheet like admin. It's also possible to upload an Excel file or an exported CSV from whatever software is used to manage your business.

But I'm biased so...

[Mike Null]

I completely agree with a professionally built site. I designed my own from an artistic standpoint using Corel but had a very good designer write the codes. It's been successful since day one and if I could get time to work on it I wouldn't be able to keep up with the orders.

[jordan matthai]

Agreed, Ecommerce sites are A TON of work. Every year when new catalogs come out I have to edit all the prices both on my site & in my shopping cart processor. It really isn't even worth the work for me to do it, more & more customers just want to see prices so they compare & buy the lowest item they see. :(

I would definitely suggest Wordpress. Also try looking through http://themeforest.net/
I also agree with the Wordpress suggestion and themeforest. If you want to be able to easily update the site online, wordpress seems to be the easiest way to go. I would suggest the wordpress getting a premium theme and then host it on your own server.