Archive for the ‘Website Design’ Category

Free eCommerce Software

There are a few “Free” eCommerce solutions that you don’t have to pay for, you can download these shopping carts and set them up in a short period of time and it requires very little web experience but… You will get what you pay for. You will hear us use the term “You get what you pay for” a lot because we feel it is so true. If your business is on that level and it’s not that important that you make sales or really stand out then a free eCommerce solution might be right for you. If you don’t mind that your website will look like ten thousand other websites and that every hacker on the planet will mark your website as a target then it’s all good.

Template based eCommerce solutions

Let’s go a little deeper and look at the template based eCommerce website design solutions. You might find a good looking “template” and you might even be fortunate enough to use one that not a lot of other people are using but will it get you results? Will people be able to find you on searches? If they do find you will your website be strong enough to make them remember you later if they don’t make a purchase right then?

We will dare to say that 85% of the “turnkey” or template based eCommerce platforms out there today are not set up for the benefit of the end customer they are set up to be mass produced, this is how they can offer these solutions for a few dollars down and a few dollars a month, they get high volume because they are cheap and if they lose a few customers after a month or two then who cares, it’s just a numbers game, right?

We won’t even go into the service side of these companies; ok there is not a lot to talk about because if they are selling something at such a low cost they can’t hire quality support people and with the high volume “assembly line” attitude they really don’t care.

Please pardon us for getting on the soap box here but we talk to many clients that have gone down this road and when they come to us they have spent a lot of money on what they thought would be an easy cheap solution but it turned out in the long run to cost them dearly.

The bottom line to all of this is… You get what you pay for! (You knew we were going to say it didn’t you?)

What is good website design, what is bad website design and how do you tell the difference? There are probably tens of thousands of people on the internet offering “website design services” ranging in price starting at $100 to over $100,000 so how do you tell the difference? Should you hire a website designer because he or she is the lowest priced?

I have always been a big fan of corvettes and even owned one back in 1995, it was a great car but when I bought it I didn’t expect to pay the same price for it that I would if I was buying a Volkswagen bug. I could tell the difference in the two cars, they looked different and drove different. (I had a Volkswagen bug for my first car back in the 80s.)

Now it may not be as easy when people are shopping for a website designer but if you look “under the hood” and check out the features you might start seeing some differences.

Going back to what I said earlier, there are a ton of people doing design work; there are even people here in the Bristol Virginia/Tennessee, Tri Cities area that do some design work, granted most of them have either taken a class at one of the local colleges and in their eyes they are a professional website designer at this point. It’s easy right? Anybody can do it right?

With the economy the way it is today and high gas and food prices you have to be watchful with every penny but going the cheap route is not necessarily going to be a savings in the long run.

I feel like everything has a place and a fit so you can just as easily look at things from a designers point of view, if a client is wanting to spend between $100 to $500 or even up to $1500 for a website they either don’t realize the value of what a professional website can do for their business or they are not serious about it to start with. They are the perfect fit for those designers that create $500 websites and try to pass the Volkswagen off as a Corvette, as a matter of fact these people may never know the difference at the beginning and chances are they are not very serious to begin with so when they get no results from their website they will probably not even notice.

You have the other “type” of client that is serious about their business, they want to use the internet and their website to generate income, they want to expand to a global market and they are willing to make an investment worthy of this task.

Picking clients is just the same as clients picking a designer, you have to be picky! I know that sounds like an awful lot of picking and please forgive my Bristol Virginia/Tennessee dialect but just as those serious business owners want to be selective when they choose a website designer the serious website designer wants to make sure they are working with a client that will let them be a true partner in their success and allow them the sufficient budget to do so.

There are so many analogies that could be used when talking about designing websites such as building a home, do you want to use the cheapest materials so that in 3 years everything falls apart or do you want to start with a solid foundation and use premium material so that your home will stand the test of time? I don’t even need to answer that do I?

Bottom line, if you are not willing to budget for your website project, if it’s not that important to you then go to yahoo and spend a few hundred bucks, use their templates and set the website up yourself, it’s ok because your website will not be seen by many people anyway.

On the other hand, if you are a goal driven business owner with a vision and you see the value in hiring a website design firm that will work with you on many levels such as doing the research needed to determine what it will take to achieve your goal and you are willing to make an investment that you know will end up paying you back seven fold then you see the big picture.

As you research make sure you cover all the bases, hire a company that has a proven track record for creating successful websites and always remember “You get what you pay for”.