ihula
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posted on September 6, 2003 12:54:40 PM new
I finished the website, so I went to my host to install the shopping cart. My fault for not reading things more closely. Apparently when I install the shopping it is so "user friendly" that it will end up redoing my whole site.
Basically it would be a good thing because right now my pages are a little slow to load, so maybe with their website I'll get higher in the search engines.
What will happen is I will have my own homepage, which contains a link that says "enter my store" and they take over from there. Here's what the new site would like (minus my home page) http://thedealwheel.com/shop/
This is my website now, but I don't know how to add a shopping cart in - fatcow's is very easy http://www.thedealwheel.com/
In a nutshell I want to know if the new shopping cart is going to look much less professional.
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CBlev65252
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posted on September 6, 2003 01:48:53 PM new
I personally like how it looks now. Don't care for the new look.
Cheryl
The next time you think you're so perfect, try walking on water.
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jnash
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posted on September 6, 2003 02:10:04 PM new
I'm not sure what you're asking but if you're asking if the shopping cart pages look okay
then I think they do. For now anyway. And the cart seems to work okay. I didn't buy
anything but I did try two items in the cart just to see if it really worked or not.
I always figure get it working then make it pretty. You'll want to re-do it once in a while
anyway. It'll probably go through a few changes over the next year anyway until you feel
it's finished. Some of my clients change pages constantly.
Remember, when it comes to websites, "Content is King and a picture is worth 1k words".
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ihula
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posted on September 6, 2003 02:14:17 PM new
I guess what I'm asking is should I keep the original layout and try to find a shopping cart to install or should I use the shopping cart that comes with the web hosting. I don't like how the shopping cart they use doesn't have pictures until you click on them, but maybe that's to keep the page loading time down. I also don't like how I can't link back to the homepage from the shopping cart.
The only good thing about it is that it's a piece of cake to add and delete items.
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jnash
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posted on September 6, 2003 02:33:11 PM new
Well, the original layout is much nicer! But you can always change the cart
latter. There's most likely a way to fancy that up a bunch if you can find the
"read me" files for it. The rendered pages are most likely templates.
You can always load the templates into your editor and fancy them up.
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ihula
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posted on September 6, 2003 04:17:20 PM new
I did email fatcow to get their opinion on how customizable it is once I download it to Front Page. Otherwise can anyone recommend a good easy to use shopping cart that will work with my original website? I'm thinking there must be some software or something out there that I can use without having to re-do everything that I've already done.
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jnash
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posted on September 6, 2003 06:28:13 PM new
There's plenty of different carts out there but I think since what you have is
already working I'd stay with it for a while. What you have is more a prebuilt
online store than a shopping cart. There's tricks to modifying most any cgi
program. Carts or stores are no exception. You might be able to go with
Server Side Includes to make the cart fit into what you want your site to look
like. I'd explore the templates, too, if that cart runs from them.
Did you look at Paypal's offerings? That's what a couple of my hosting clients
did. They didn't have the sales to justify a switch up to a full server of their own
with MySQL and SSL and didn't like the offerings from the cart services they
found. The Paypal cart integrates fairly easily. Of course it leans toward
Paypal and not everybody likes Paypal. I like Paypal and I've used the
Paypal single item buttons some on my own websites.
I also took a look at your code. You need to add meta tags for the
site description and keywords. And you'll want a robots.txt file to keep
the search engines from "spidering" the parts of the site that shouldn't
be public.
I'd also consider a links page. You'll want link relativity. Your links should
mostly have something to do with what you sell and what your site is about.
Of course you can link to anything you really like also. The trick is to get
sites to link to you. Make up a banner and join a couple banner exchanges.
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ihula
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posted on September 6, 2003 06:43:29 PM new
Wow - maybe I'm over my head in this. I don't have any idea about meta tags or the robot.txt thing. For someone who is such a novice like myself do you thing I should just stick with the cart that they have and make up a home page and link the cart from there? Otherwise I'm thinking I may have to hire a web designer.
If I just have a homepage and use their shopping cart (maybe just add a few pictures to the first page to dress it up a little) will search engines still find me? I've checked and so far if you type in The Deal Wheel I come up in a search engine, but otherwise I don't show up at all because I don't know how to do the keyword thing. Fat Cow does offer a program that will submit the site to search engines, though.
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jnash
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posted on September 6, 2003 07:36:55 PM new
Had to think about it for a while then checked a couple things. Here's what I'd do.
When you go to the store page itself, notice that each item category has a URL
with some info added. The only difference is the category number right at the end.
I'd use those URLs as my product links on that nice main page you made up.
You can bring the category up in your browser then highlight and cut the URL and
paste with your html editor to the appropriate link in the mainpage.
Then I'd take one more look at the main store page. View the source in my browser.
Look down the page and find the search box code. It starts with the words "form method"
and some other words in brackets. Copy all the text down to the word "/form" in brackets
and paste that into my html or use the "insert html" feature of my editor.
Now you got your nice main page with direct links to your store's categories and have all
the features of your main store page. Or, you can do the same cut and paste trick with
the individual product links, too. Test, Test Test. This should work just fine but you'll want
to test it thoroughly.
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ihula
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posted on September 6, 2003 07:43:29 PM new
Thanks - I'll give it a try tomorrow. What about that robot.txt thing. Am I going to be really messed up if search engines see something they shouldn't? I could probably do some reading on meta tags to see where I should put those. Maybe the "store part" itself has meta tags in it for me? I like the part about the links. I'm already a link at buyersinfo.net (it's a wholesale chat room), so I should probably add their link, and I'm sure I could find other websites that I could "swap links" with. I could put them right on my homepage.
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paloma91
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posted on September 6, 2003 10:31:44 PM new
Your website looks great!
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Dragonmom
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posted on September 7, 2003 02:46:26 PM new
Ihula, be careful, be very very carefull! 
I started out making a little website because I didn't like the way the auctionwatch sites looked. Two years later I have a concave butt from sitting in front of the computer- cussing and sweating and trying to teach myself all these things.
I think I posted the url to my storefront-
http.www.dragonmother.com
If you like I could probably set one up for you and get the rudiments of the way you want it to look.
I am showing up on Google now, without even paid inclusion! Not first page but somewhere. And lots of questions i am on the first page, or even the only answer!
Start writing articles about hula dolls and tiki gods and anything else you think is interesting.
"And All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall be Well"
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jnash
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posted on September 7, 2003 05:09:58 PM new
Concave butt! Yeah, that happens.
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jnash
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posted on September 7, 2003 05:16:06 PM new
Nice Site Dragonmom.
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Dragonmom
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posted on September 7, 2003 05:22:13 PM new
thanks jnash, of course i don't really care about helping ihula, I'm just trolling for compliments (Grin)
but really I can help you load this same software, and put your logo into it- give you a background color that suits the site and give you google-friendly URLS and all the rest of that. I've loaded this software thrice so far. it's not too difficult after the secong time....
Anyone have any color or design suggestions for my second store? It has the more esoteric things that the parents of Harry Potter fans don't want their kids to see.
"And All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall be Well"
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ihula
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posted on September 7, 2003 05:41:24 PM new
It is a very cool site! Can it be loaded onto my original site? The www.thedealwheel.com site?
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Dragonmom
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posted on September 7, 2003 05:43:37 PM new
yes, if your host offers you one or more
Mysql/php databases.
"And All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall be Well"
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ihula
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posted on September 7, 2003 05:55:06 PM new
I looked at fatcow and it says I can purchase a SQL for a one time set up fee of $10.00. I was just looking on ebay to purchase a new logo (I don't like mine). If you can do that too that would be great. I'll email you through the website and we can talk price and all that stuff
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