Ask Nancy - Got a question? I’ll do my best to answer it.
I write about things that strike me as useful for everybody. If you have burning question about SEO or ecommece - This is the place to post it
Nancy Andrews on February 10th 2007
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I’m a Stomper and saw one your posts.
Although I’d heard of you before from your many LINKS presentations!
Anyway, I love your sites and am always inspired by your successes.
I know you work with x-cart and wondered if you could recommend an x-cart programmer?
I’ve had my site designed by Finestshops - it’s an x-cart site. But although they’ve been really great at integrating the Zen-cart template with x-cart (whatever that involves), there are some cosmetic changes I require to be made to my site and they’ve not really responded back to me even though I’ve emailed them 3 times in the last week.
I’m looking for purely cosmetic changes at this moment but I’m just no good with editing .TPL files, and modifying HTML etc.
And I have far too much on my plate with getting the ecommerce store up and running (as you well know), than to sit and spend time tearing my hair out over the website design stuff (BTW, I’m based in the UK which has been a total nightmare anyway).
At this moment I”m looking for someone to change the “blocks” around ie move the Categories section up, add a logo,
change the colour of this block etc etc. I don’t believe any x-cart programming work is required. Although I might be wrong.
Do you use anyone that you could recommend?
I’m also looking for someone who can give tips and tricks and optimize the site - ie things like what images are better to use, JPEGS or GIFs (I’m finding that my site is slow in loading), and whether there are any options I need to set on the server settings etc, etc.
I think you said you do a lot of the stuff for your sites but I’m emailing to see if you might know someone who can help.
I’ve trawled the x-cart forum but am wary of letting a “stranger” loose on my site just yet.
I have more faith in in someone I know!
Look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Ishi
Hi Ishi,
Zen-Cart is a flavor of ECommerce, it’s different but not hugely different from x-cart, but different enough ;).
speed could be a problem from several sources; you have sized your images bigger than what you are displaying, if your images are in the database instead of the file system- move them to FS, if x-cart stats is on, turn them off (they suck anyway), If you using the Fancy Categories add-on toss it.
It’s really hard to say where you problem lies for sure not knowing what version of xcart you’re on and how you have it configured.
I can empathize getting a store up in running can be time consuming, and I have used RedLime http://redlimeweb.com/ to do some programming for me, but I haven’t had them do anything cosmetic. The cosmetic stuff is not that complicated if you take your time.
It is well worth your time to learn a little about the cosmetic end, you’ll get your projects done faster, cheaper, and can use the money elsewhere.
If you’re moving blocks of code up and down but staying in the same column it is fairly simple because xcart is basically lots of blocks of code;
The main template for just about everything is home.tpl
You’ll find it in skin1/customer/home.tpl
IMPORTANT: MAKE A COPY OF HOME.TPL and save it so you can always go back to square one
Inside home.tpl (depending on what version of x-cart your on) the part with categories will look like this;
I hightlighted the part you want to move (the
is a line break in html)
So if I want categories below manufacturers it would look like this;
Changing colors is in skin1.css
in it you will find commands that name colors in a hex number format e.g. #FFFFFF is white. Type the color number into whatever graphic program you have (Photoshop, Corel, fireworks, etc) to see the color. After you know what the color’s hex code is, replace all with the hex code of the color you do want (use your graphics program find a color and write down the hex # associated with it)
IMPORTANT: MAKE A COPY OF SKIN1.CSS and save it so you can always go back to square one
LOGO
If the existing logo is the correct size, and you just want to replace it;
right click on the logo
in the dialog box click properties
write down the location, name of the image, and its dimensions
in your graphic program size your logo exactly the same, and give it the same image name (I believe its xlogo.gif so you must also save your logo as a .gif)
upload your logo to the same location overwriting the existing image
If you need a bigger or smaller log edit head.tpl and remove the height and width attributes (and make sure your logo is sized to the dimensions you want to display)
I hope some of this helped, if you really don’t want to tackle it yourself, try Red Lime they’re the only out sourced programmers I’ve ever used
Good Luck
Nancy
I use dreamweaver and right now hosted with GoDaddy but that may change.
I have bought a https from GoDaddy and I hired someone to do a page and set it up but it is riddled with errors. At one point a copy of all the orders were going to him. Then when people bookmarked the page it was marking his page. In short I do not trust the guy and I just want to do my own order pages. I have several sites in addition to that one. I am not a techy but I can pour piss out of a boot IF the directions are on the bottom.
The site that I am currently working on is paying for my Stompernet course. So it works for me but I have to show results soon.
Here is the current order page. I know it sucks https://gojiheadquarters.com/forms/OrderForm.htm
The whole site is being redesigned based on what I have learned from Stompers https://gojiheadquarters.com/index4.htm
So here is what I am looking for. Tell me what X-cart can do and can’t do
1. Right now the site I am working on only has one product, but they can order various quantities. Can they do that.
2. For this site I do NOT need a card processor because we just call in the order to the company and they swallow the fee on the processing.
3. This may change with other sites even though I have had capabilities for years to process my own.
4. Can I have the order go to 3 or more email addresses?
5. Are there templates or can you custom design your page or both?
6. Does this program figure taxes based on zip code?
7. If so are there automatic updates when tax bases change?
8. I do not know a lot about affiliate programs yet but will this accommodate affiliates so I can give them credit for the sale?
9. Is this software good for unlimited web sites that I design?
10. If I have trouble do they have a GREAT customer service that will answer questions? Does it cost?
11. Do they have telephone and email support?
12. What are their hours for telephone support?
13. Can you set up a series of autoresponders in addition to the thank you page?
14. Is it SIMPLE? I don’t know php, and only a little html.
Randy
Wow! lots of questions! the short answer; what you need is 1shopping cart, not xcart.
Xcart is overkill for a one product site, 1shopping cart has the auto responders you need and you should be able to port your existing html over. xcart is designed to handle catalogs and does it beautifuly
really I think that’s your answer, but to answer your questions
yes, yes, n/a, yes, yes and yes, yes, yes, no, yes and based on points, done through a support/problem reporting database, n/a, maybe (know CSS is helpful, but you don’t need to know php),
whew!
I hope that helps. If it doesn’t let me know
after I finish this site for them I will be working on a web site that has several health products from different companies. All drop shipped. Which was part of question 3 that I forgot to include. So am I better off getting the full boat? Is there a huge learning curve?
Sounds like I am still better off to keep it simply for now, since time is a factor especially since I can just export DreamWeaver. Do you know how 1 Shopping Cart answers all those questions?
Hi Randy,
For your current site, I’d still say 1shoppingcart is your best bet.
Even though I haven’t used it myself, Ken Giddons loved it(he was a master at conversion), I talked to Mike Long about it and the features for a one or two product site sound perfect… Support never came up in our conversation, but my guess; they give a guy who can generate a million in sales one day all the help he needs
If you’re not Mike I don’t know
Xcart is licensed by domain name. Once you own the licence you can change the domain name as often as you like (I’m guessing within reason)
In a multiple dropship provider situation the pro version is great. You can set up shipping rates by provider, and when an order crosses multiple providers, each provider is emailed only the product invoice for the products they ship (pretty cool)
Many great customer centric features already built in, lots of third party developers to tap into, and an active (and useful) community forum.
learning curve is different for everybody… you don’t need to know PHP, but learning a little about CSS is important (the colors, fonts, etc are controlled by the CSS) then it’s a matter of getting used to the blocks of code that are .tpl files.
multiple .tpl files make up every page so on the highest level a page is made up of head.tpl, home.tpl, footer.tpl.
A niffy tool called “webmastermode” will help you identify which .tpl make up a page.
Soooo, i’d check our 1shoppingcart for what your currently doing, and when you have a catalog of products concider X-cart
Nancy,
There is one thing I constantly wonder about with Google. For a lot of my keywords, the top spots seem to be taken by listings from shopzilla, bizrate, amazon, nextag, pricegrabber, etc.
Why is it that preferential treatment is given to these discount listings rather than the legitimate sites that optimize for those keywords?
Take a look at the keywords “latex pillow” or “floor pillow”, 2 keywords that I try and optimize for and look at the listings on the first page of Google if you want to see what I mean.
I don’t notice this as much in Yahoo! or MSN…
Thanks,
Mike
Nancy,
I listened to your interview on SEO radio and you mentioned getting links to all of your product pages to pull them out of the supplamental index. Is there an efficiant way to do this with 1000 products?
Could you have a seperate blog and make posts with the product links?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
I was curious about the effects of duplicate content on SEO. For example, if a company has a lot of distributors and affiliates that just copy the main sell pages and add the text to their own site, how will this affect the main companies SEO.
Hi, Love your blog. Thanks so much for sharing with us. We opened our site in December and it has been reassuring to see how the site you are tracking is progressing to see if we are making comparable progress. Here is my question:
When you optimize a keyword should you optimize both the plural and singular version of the word? For simplicity sake using the example of handcrafted bracelet versus handcrafted bracelets. Would you optimize both on the same product or category page? Whether the terms are listed separately depends on the keyword service I use. Thanks for the advice. Joey
Nancy,
Do you still operate ecartstore? If so, are the link building and SEO services offerred through the site the same as you talk about and teach in your program? Thanks,
Regards,
Tony
I have used exploit search engine submission wizard to good effect in the past for my covent-garden.co.uk site and want to take mapscape up which gets most traffic from covent-garden.co.uk do you know this tool? I am starting a few projects from the audiogenerator camp and your name came up there but unfortunately I can’t get any replies from
something happened and I lost the last contents - halfway through a bunch of stuff I started to ramble on and Then was going to delete so forgive the fluff… one question at a time
Jackie
Hello Nancy,
I am in the process of building my new site. My question is about setting up the bank account.
Is it better to use the name of the website for the bank accounts or should I create a different name that I might be able to put more websites under?
I appreciate your patients and time.
Thanks,
Ken
Reply to Ken from Nancy
Hi Ken,
Good to hear from you again. As far as your bank question it depends on the type of websites you’ll be setting up. If you are going to have multiple ecommerce websites, we find it far easier to keep the bank accounts different websites. It’s so much easier to reconcile website reported sales to the deposits made by your processor.
Now if you have a lot of websites this may not be practical. We are currently balancing about a half dozen accounts. The most important thing if you think you may end up with multiple accounts is to be assured that the bank has a good online banking system whereby you can see all your accounts from a central page. Sort of like a dashboard. When I log into my bank’s system all my accounts come up with balances. If I want to transfer from one to another it’s really easy (and no charge) and immediate. So that’s what you want to ask about - the online banking system and any hidden fees in transferring funds from one account to another within their system.
You didn’t ask about this but we use a local bank. I’m big on that because they are far more likely to take an interest in you as a person. When we first started we (hubby Bob and I) both stopped in to fill out the forms and talk to them about what we were doing. I regularly go into the bank just to deposit a check - not because I need to - it’s just an excuse to talk to the employees. Trust me this can really pay off. One day about six months ago I got a call from the bank manager who said she was reviewing our accounts and had some recommendations to increase the interest we were earning on our accounts. She had some great ideas and we implemented them and I can safely say we probably have another $1,000 to our name just in additional interest she helped us earn.
I’m pretty sure I’d never have gotten a call from Bank of America.
Make sense?
Nancy
I’m in the process of building my website.
As I was going over the various plans and seminars you offer, a thought occured to me.
Is the cost of your program SEO Blueprint tax deductable?
I appreciate all you are doing and I hope to get in on everything you are providing soon.
Take care,
Ken
Nancy’s Response to Ken:
As a general rule, training or education expenses that are incurred to further your business are deductible. If you have established a business, whether it’s as simple as a sole proprietorship or more complex like an LLC, S-corporation or C-corporation then you can deduct training for that which could include our training program. While I’m not a tax expert I do just want to point out that the deduction would be for the year in which the cost and training were incurred. So for training expenditures you make now, that would be a deduction on 2008 tax return.
Nancy
Hi Nancy, when can I get into your program. I have read and seen your videos and I am amazed.
I really need your help to start my business. I have tried and failed many times using all the so called gurus. You are for real and I need to get into your program. When are the doors opening.
Thanks
Rich
———————————————
Reply from Nancy:
Hi Rich,
Were you over at www.liveblueprints.com/seotalk leaving a comment over there the other day? I thought I remembered your name. Anyway, we are getting close - real close to opening. If you haven’t yet, the best place to sign up is on our home page www.liveblueprints.com for the ‘Keep me in the loop’ list because that’s the one that will get early notification.
And thanks for the comments - I really appreciate them. We have some case studies we’ll be releasing shortly and some of them are from folks just like you who floundered for awhile and then signed up for our initial launch last September and now they are found on Google, making money and happily building their empires. What I teach is a repeatable process for anyone.
Nancy
Greetings Nancy,
Great info and tips! You say forget the longtail, low traffic keywords and focus on the high traffic ones.
My question is, what constitutes a high traffic keyword in your world? What are the min/max ranges on number of daily searches and competing sites.
The “baseball gloves” phrase has about 18,000 competing sites and an estimated 134 searches (from Wordtracker) per day. This is vastly different then say a keyword with 635 daily searches and 78,000 competitors.
I look forward to your reply with the understanding one may not come simply because of time constraints.
Reply to Mark from Nancy:
Hi Mark,
Good question. I would like to point out two important considerations. First (and this is very important) Wordtracker currently only tracks queries on a 90 day historical trend. For seasonal terms you can get grossly misled. I was, in fact, lucky enough to have lunch with Mike Mindel of Wordtracker just yesterday (Saturday) as we were both in San Diego to hang out at Frank Kern’s Mass Control workshop. Anyway this very subject came up between us and he fully agrees with me. They are working on a longer term cut of data (maybe as long as 360 days). But for now they have a cool interface with Gtrends that does something I’ve been doing on the side myself for quite some time. You see they now go in and compare the Gtrends rate with ‘known’ search volume on selected terms they’ve been gathering for some time now. If you go to www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com/gtrends/ and type in your query you’ll see a little graph icon to the right of the returns under a column labeled ‘G’. Click on that and you get what I believe is much better data. For softball gloves, that shows about 250 visitors a day for an average for the year. That’s closer to reality on that term although, of course, the reality is ups and downs due to seasonal factors.
The second issue is that I tell my Live Blueprints members to go after 2 or 3 terms. With PrimeTimeSportingGoods.com we went after 4 terms - softball gloves was just the first we scored on. Today that site is on page 1 Google for 3 of the 4. Softball Gloves, Softball Bats and BaseBall Gloves. And the fourth term, Baseball Bats is above the fold on page 2. So that’s what I mean about going after competitive terms. Pick a couple (4 may be a bit too aggressive for most but 2 - 3 is a good target). I like to see at least 2 terms with potential in the 450+ range.
Make sense?
Nancy
P.S., I have some good videos you should watch (especially the one with Mr. Garfinkel over on www.liveblueprints.com/seotalk/ if you want to know more about how I beat the Google Sandbox.