It’s been a while since my last post. Busy trying to recover after Google’s Panda update killed some of my sites.

I recently started helping out a local business with some SEO. They use Opencart, an open source shopping cart. At first I thought, “it’s definitely not Magento”. It had a more “for dummies” feel to it. Which in the end is what I like most.

You can pick up some nice themes that are relatively inexpensive. My client outsourced the original web work and they bought a template and did very little customization to it.  Unlike Magento, a guy like me who is not the most technical web designer can add custom code to the templates without much worry I was going to break the design.

Opencart runs pretty decent on shared hosting, Magento does not. Magento tends to be a resource hog, especially for larger sites.

Even though Opencart is free, in order to get the most out of the cart, you’ll need to buy plenty extensions. Out of the box, SEO is fair but I needed to purchase some extensions to deal with custom title tags that differ from the header text on the page for categories, one for canonical url’s and another for Google sitemaps and Google base. While the cart offers options for Google base and sitemaps, it’s not optimized very well. I also had to purchase an extension for mailchimp and a new menu. Probably spent a total of $120 or so to date. There are a few more plugins, one for a better one-page checkout that runs $150. The checkout page tends to be a little long and at least one customer had posted a comment while checking out. So we’ll probably purchase that extension.

After about 4 months of using Opencart I think I would use it again for a smaller retailer, say 200 product or less. It seems to work well for a smaller site. It’s really easy to add products, attributes and options. A layperson could learn how to create their own products and upload images without too much effort. If I were running a larger shop I might stick to Magento.

I’m still torn on using paid shopping carts like CoreCommerce. It is nice to have real support. I’ve had an issue with Magento and OpenCart where a programmer was required to fix an issue and it’s tough to find someone who works for a reasonable rate (quoted $100+ an hour by most programmers I contacted). Ended up using the original developer who charged a more reasonable rate but took a while to address the issue.

I’ll post another update when we move into phase 2, converting the site to a new template that is mobile device friendly. Over 25% of the site traffic is generated by mobile phone/tablet users.

The link to “themes” at Theme Forest and Corecommerce track sales and I am paid a commission if you make a purchase at either location. I was not paid to make this post.

I’ve finally convinced a client to upgrade their antiquated ecommerce platform.  As I stated in some earlier posts, I was a fan of Corecommerce when I first tested them out a little over a year ago. This time around the experience was much different.

First I googled some reviews and found one in particular that lead me to find that Corecommerce was recently hacked. Seems like they did not handle it very well. But I decided to give them a try anyway. I went to sign up for a free trial and was unable to. Kept getting a MYsql error. Started a chat with technical support, they told me to try again, same error. A sales guy enters the mix, they send me login information. Too bad the emails contained no actual login information. They tried again but try to reset the password, no luck. So the technical support guy tells me to hold while he puts me through to sales. I waited over 20 minutes before I ened the chat session.  No follow up emails or phone calls.

On a side note, I did open a BigCommerce trial account. That went much smoother until I tried contacting my sales rep. I was hoping to strike a deal between Gold and Platinum packages (my client is really cheap and have just over 1000 products) I called and left a message, no return call. I get an email, pretty generic, but respond to the same rep I called, no return email. So BigCommerce  loses the order.

In the end, I’m going to use Magento hosted at Nexcess. I’ve emailed them several times and they always respond within an hour or so.  I even called this time after my 2 experiences mentioned above and spoke to a technical support rep in a matter of minutes and he has indicated they provide technical support to all the core Magento files. You’re on your own with any plugins or templates.

I’m back in the market for a new shopping cart. I was pleased to find out that Magento Commerce has offered a new version of Magento called Magento Go. I thought, great, my favorite ecommerce package with hosting and technical support, how can I go wrong.  After a few emails with Magento Go Support, which is fairly slow with one email not returned, I was informed that you cannot use the API, custom purchased themes or any plugins, free or purchased. So is this really the Magento many of us have come to love?  It kind of is but it’s stripped down for the layperson. I cannot blame them for offering such a service that can better compete with other carts like CoreCommerce.  My clients are usually small businesses who cannot afford the Enterprise edition and while I like the community version, when something breaks, I have to depend on my host or the community and there’s no guarantee either one can help me fix my issue.  One side note, if you’re looking for solid Magento hosting, check out Nexcess.net. They will provide some Magento technical support, core files only, not with themes or plugins.

The project I was suppose to work on was put on “temporary hold” but I did find out a new tidbit of information about the Big Commerce platform. You can actually by the scripting from a company called Interspire. The licensed edition with set you back $295-1795 dollars depending on what features you need to run your online business. See http://www.interspire.com/shoppingcart/pricelist.php,  more details.

It’s been a while since I last posted.  I’ve come back from the dark side (working for someone else) and should have more time to post here.

Any how, one of my last assignments at my J-O-B was to implement a new shopping cart. My new parent companies cart was over 9 years old and never updated, very old school and not all SEO friendly. I had some experience with Pinnacle Cart, they offer both a hosted and licensed version of their software. The licensed version will set you back about $800 plus the cost of hosting on your own server. Pinnacle cart will host your site with their software installed with prices ranging from $29.95 to $149.95. When I used Pinnacle Cart we chose the hosted version and it worked out ok.  Technical support was fair and we had no downtime issues.  I found customizing the site challenging but not impossible for someone who has intermediate web design skills. Pinnacle Cart does offer  a free 14 day trial.

I did sign up for a free trial at Bigcommerce but unfortunately I did not have much time to explore their service thoroughly. BigCommerce claims they make it easy to sell online. You get a website, shopping cart, SEO, design, hosting and more. Try it for free!

The two shopping carts I focused on were 3dcart and CoreCommerce.  3dcart has a nice cart but a few nasty reviews online. The reviews did not deter me, ultimately at the time I was ready to make my decision Corecommerce already had Facebook and mobile phone store capabilities. I was looking to start using those features right away. 3dcart does offer api access at any account level which is a plus. Most every other cart with api access requires either a one time fee or paying at least $99 a month for a higher tiered service plan.

I found Corecommerce easy to work with and technical support was available each time I needed help. I chose the chat option but they offer email and phone support as well.  Customizing your website is not terribly difficult but can be challenging. They do offer a wide range of templates and we found one that suited our needs. No sense spending too much time on your design in my opinion. Make the site look decent and concentrate on SEO and marketing. You can always change the design at a later date. A great looking site is useless if no one can find you in Google search results. Speaking of Google, Corecommerce can export your products directly to Google base, a must for any online retailer.

We imported much of our product data into Corecommerce. It is possible to include image imports if you copy all the images into a directory (another Corecommerce perk, they offer FTP access) and include the image paths in your product import file. The product interface is easy to use and all the standard SEO options are available. One of the nicest features is the separate tab for your mobile phone accessible site. You can use a custom thumbnail image and description.  I did not have the opportunity to use the Facebook app but you can export products to Facebook which is a popular trend at the moment. CoreCommerce offers a free 15 Day Free Trial. No credit card is required.

One last note about shopping carts and you get what you pay for. I used Magento on a site for about 10 months. Magento is free open source software. I liked Magento but there is no true support besides posting in their forum or pay $8000 for the enterprise edition. So if your site breaks, your out of luck unless you have a Magento expert you can pay for assistance.  I used a Magento recommended host for $24.95 a month, Nexcess.net (a U.S.  based host). They were a great host and had awesome technical support. But I had some issues with Magento like Google base exports not working and spent many hours reading their forum and trying fixes. For under $50 a month you can use a service like Corecommerce and get a web template, mobile phone site, facebook product app and technical support as needed. If you’re serious about sales, spend the few extra dollars!

I frequently send myself emails containing interesting finds of the day from my 9-5 job to my home office.  Today’s a snow day and I decided to post some of the older email links here.

• JQuery Mega Menu – Amazon like menu that expands with multiple columns of links.
• Ajax Page Fetcher – Insert content from other pages dynamically.
• Smart Columns w/ CSS & jQuery – Columns dynamically change
• Mullinx – Transform one hyperlink into a drop down with multiple links.
• Simple Page Peel Effect with jQuery & CSS – Easy page peel effect
• Mega Drop Down Menus w/ CSS & jQuery – This guy does some awesome work and provides all the code for us programming challenged designers.

I’m constantly searching for new scripts. I should probably learn to program my own but I just don’t have the patience for hard core scripting in PHP or Javascript.

Here are a couple of good finds:

• PDFmyURL.com Simply type in a URL, click the fancy submit button and save the URL to a PDF.
• Glider Examples – Easy to use ajax script for creating sliding content/carousels.
• Gmap – Google Map plugins using Jquery
• Jquery Backstretch – add dynamically resized images to your websites.

The folks that make XSitePro were kind enough to give me a copy of their web design software for evaluation and inclusion in my marketing on this site.  I figured this would be a great time for my son to start his new website, BlindSideCreations.com.

During the web design process my son will act as a guest blogger here. And we will be asking one question from time to time?  Is XsitePro so easy a 10 year old can create a professional looking and functioning website?

Welcome my son Brandon. He will explain his initial thoughts on XSitePro and his custom design process.

Hi my name is Brandon.  At first I picked a design.  They have many choices of designs.  I pick a design that looks like a notepad I realized that it was kinda boring.  I picked a blank design.  The blank design was cool because you got to import a header a footer and a sitemap.  I added some html games that were fun.  For my header I did a spray paint logo using MS Paint.  The tools were very simple.  What was frustrating was that when you type on a page.  Its really hard to center it and write a paragraph properly. Overall it was very easy.

Brandon will be writing more blog posts in the near future about his experience with XSitePro. All links in this post are trackable  links. So if Brandon happens to generate a sale, the commission I get paid will be put into his savings account.

I have not used XsitePro myself except to assist Brandon in entering the ftp information so that he could upload his site up to our web server. XsitePro has a built in FTP client so he is now able to update the site himself with one click of a button.

So is XsitePro so easy a 10 year old can build a professional looking site?

I would say so far the answer is Yes if you use the build in templates.

Google Labs has introduced a useful tool for web designers simply called, Browser Size.  Enter your URL in the search box and see how your site fits in numerous browser resolution sizes.

One thing this tool fails to do is left justify websites who have their designs centered.

Thesis Theme for WordPress: Options Galore and a Helpful Support Coummunity.

Free WordPress themes are bountiful but many free themes have strings attached and/or largely unsupported by the developer.  Some require a link back to the developer, others hide spyware in the code and some break after WordPress implements a major upgrade.

In the long run you might be better off using a premium theme like Thesis. It costs just $77 for one site or $164 for unlimited usage. Thesis is very popular due to it’s continued support and  the ability to customize your site without being a WordPress guru.

Plus Thesis is very SEO friendly.

I plan on switching my WordPress driven sites over to Thesis soon. So many sites and so much yet to do.