beck180

I Have to agree that this would not be worth your time and effort to pursue. At the very most you could get a civil judgement against this person that really does not amount to much, there is no debtors prison here in the US and they will not go to jail for not paying you! No judge in the US would extradite someone to Canada for $100....

Forget about hiring a lawyer for damages less than $100 dollars, pretty sure most would not even take a case like that and even if they did your fees would far out way any compensation you might (or most likely not) get.

Best case scenario...if everything went your way it could possibly affect there credit rating, but if they are as untrustworthy as you say they probably already have poor credit anyway and would not care.

Live and learn, and never ship without getting paid ahead.

B

By the way....That's what a lot of the big companies are going with these days as it offers the advantage of short run production, without the setup costs of flexo or offset, yet it has many advantages over other printing methods including the ability of variable data printing which is quite handy in the candle industry with so many different labels and fragrances.

Yankee uses this technology for all of there labeling jobs now.

"there isn't any equipment on the market that you can purchase to make a single sheet of custom printed, die-cut, laminated labels"

That's not exactly true...Hp Indigo presses are quite capable of handling all these tasks and much more including, spot color, metallic foils etc.

Find a friend (or company) with and Indigo and you can get custom short run labels, die cut, laminated and more pretty cost effectively, usually starting at just 1-1000's labels.

I really like Shopify and Foxycart, especially if you want to have more control over the look of your site, easy integration and affordability!

Seams like nowadays a one page checkout is almost mandatory to avoid abandoned carts and secure more orders.

Here's a good link for you, a lot of choices...

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct/shopping-cart.htm

Good luck!

OMG!!!Ladysj:laugh2: :laugh2: You mean there are others out there like me? You sound just like me! lol, lol

I've been following this post (this is chapter #2 thread right)?

I'm really thoroughly now confused! With all this computer lingo I'm really lost...

I think the single biggest mistake made in web design today is just over thinking too much. Just a nice page with the ability to get to products fast and a quick way to check out is all that is really needed! The cleaner the the design the better off you will be all the way around.

The days of the heavily coded graphic intensive sites are falling to clean code and CSS design that makes the whole web a better place.

I think some tutorials on this site would be perfect and I'd be willing to bet things would start to cheer up a little here as a result.

Hi there, HCM user here (let's not go into the seemily stupid thing that is right now...)

I actually hired someone to optimize my homepage and tell me how to optimize my other pages myself (all of which is not done currently as I wait and see if everything I have done will be obliterated). I am seeing the huge foolishness of hiring them as I am truly doing the work. Now, If I am going in this HCM template and putting in my keywords and my phrases etc in my Meta tags for each page is that still going to be riddled with errors? Is the code there killing me even if I am tagging it all? I'm feeling pretty clueless...

Hey, is there a script or something on your site that blocks your code from being displayed over the web? Was trying to take a look and all i could get was some simple HCM comments.

BTW, you have some really neat stuff on there, really cute, you have done a great job with those products!

Remember this though: Browser compatability really is not a popularity contest. Ask any good web designer that knows and they will tell you that you should always evaluate your sites appearance in a standards compliant browser first, and work your way back!

This does not mean to ignore IE altogether, yes there are alot of users still with IE, but it is a well known fact that IE 4, 5 and 6 have the most bugs and quirks than most of the others.

Backwards and forwards compatability is the real issue here, it is because of the fact that people are still using these browsers that the problem arises in the first place, not arguing who uses what more.

Look at it this way. If you start with testing in firefox first, you will have a much better chance at getting a handle on the bugs and quirks of the microsoft browsers (there are many) and this is a very necessary evil on both fronts.

If your designing for IE first, you will most assuredly set yourself up for faluring in validating, SEO and forward compatability in the future. Your site can look completely wonderful in IE, but break in other browsers.

:cheesy2: I did tell you how to do it....you are apparently to lazy to do it.

You want it handed to you on a plate. sorry no one handed it to me I worked for it.

I am very happy with my site and it provides me with a good income but I worked to get it that way and I work to keep it that way.

there really are no free rides so grow up and stop being too lazy to do your own work.

The fact remains...whatever your technical knowledge is on the subject, many of these people sign up with this type of service for the ease and hassle free ability to sell products! When in all reality if all of this customizing and tweaking, and learning is necessary, then it is anything but easy or hassle free!

Can you please go post on the other topic that says: Unnecessary unwanted and sarcastic comments welcome...

Thank You!

Let me just say that DIY type stores are not all bad, and I'm not here to trash on them. It is a great way to get started in the business and get up and running quickly and easily, and with a little coding help they can be made functional.

But...it sure is time for them to take a look at their technology and bring it up to today's standards, so they can feel confident that they are providing a valuable service to the masses, without just taking their money and letting those great products exist in nowhere land.

Another thought... would be for them to even just change gears a little and add some good, easy to follow tutorials to their websites that explain the need for further customization on the webmaster end, that is needed to help them be successful.

The hard part to understand is that many people don't really know that without adjustments to the code, people will never find them. For the most part these are good honest people trying to suplement their income and they have alot of cool products to be seen and purchased, but it saddens me that a ton of them will never be seen.

Here is a great read explaining this concept further.

James Opiko

July 23, 2006

Google currently is reported to have indexed 8 billion pages and counting. Google utilizes an array of bots A.K.A. spiders or crawlers.

Among the specialized bots Google uses include: The web spider Googlebot, the Adsense spider MediaBot, the image spider ImageBot, the AdWords spider AdsBot, the RSS feed spider FeedFetcher-Google, and Googlebot-Mobile spider for mobile devices. MSN & Yahoo, the other two of the 'big three' have their own proprietary versions of spiders.

Why is it important for an Internet Marketer to know how spiders crawl your website?

A search engine crawler is your best visitor. Giving a crawler easy and uninhibited movement in your website is necessary for good search engine rankings.

Your website must be spider (search engine) friendly if you want any traffic from the search engines. A search engine spider does not read your website the way we humans do. The spider reads web-page source code (HTML) that renders your page, therefore ‘bad code’ can be an impediment to the spider, sometimes causing it to give up crawling your website.

Spiders love content (text) and do not read JavaScript at all, therefore a website that is packed with images with no ALT tags to assist the spiders, and heaps of JavaScript may not be indexed successfully. So, when designing your website you must incorporate structural website design principals that elicit search engine friendliness.

An astute marketer should also desire to see how search engines see his or her site. This may be accomplished by a Lynx Viewer which is a text-mode web browser. Additionally, a Lynx Viewer can help you determine if your web pages are accessible to the vision impaired, an assemblage of visitors that should not be ignored ---yes, there are millions of visually impaired people surfing the Internet regularly.

A quick search in Google for "Lynx Viewer" will yield numerous sources from which you can download this important tool for your use.

Even though you must design your website with your visitors in mind first, it is crucial that you accord the search engines top level priority too, since the vast majority of these visitors will arrive via search engines. Practice good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but not at the expense of your visitors' experience -- it is a balancing act that must be accomplished with prudence.

Also of significant importance is the fact that web browser standards are not yet fully harmonized. A web page that looks great in Internet Explorer might look atrocious in a Mozilla based browser like Firefox or Netscape. Additionally, with the proliferation of hand held devices for browsing the Internet, compliance with W3C standards is becoming more and more critical. A marketer must therefore be conversant with the intricacies of cross-browser design -- designing for one browser (IE) is no longer ideal, as the Google backed FireFox is eating up Microsoft’s browser turf at an alarming rate.

Anybody can "whip up" a web page in FrontPage without sufficient knowledge of HTML, but may not be able detect and correct the messy code that FrontPage generates underneath the page, some of which is proprietary to Microsoft. Consequently a website that looks superb in Microsoft Internet Explorer may look and load dreadfully in Opera and/or some other browser, denying you visitor traffic.

Never use a Word Processor to design your website. Word Processing software generate tremendous amounts of code that is not search engine friendly. If you cannot hand-code using a text editor then it is necessary that you use authentic and industry standard web design software that incorporate the most up to date design principles. Macromedia's Dreamweaver and the latest version of Microsoft FrontPage are good candidates with Dreamweaver getting my partisan nod.

A first-rate design strategy should include the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and valid XHTML, the most current in the HTML generation of standards. Websites designed in strict W3C standards tend to be lighter, faster and cross-browser compatible. This is not to insinuate that table based design is going anywhere anytime soon, for it is my humble disputation that if strict W3C standards were to be enforced in browsers, 95% percent of websites would go out of business, furthermore the lack of inter-browser synchronization just worsens things.

According to some surveys, more than 86% of all people arrive at websites through search engines. In 2006, PC World, arguably the most authoritative and widely-read computer and business magazine, reports that Google remains the site of choice for most surfers.

The double-digit increase in online search activity marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Internet consumer behavior," says Ken Cassar, senior director of analytics at Nielsen/NetRatings. "Online search is the primary tool most people rely on to do everyday research," he says.

A top ranking in the search engines can bring you highly targeted traffic. If someone visits your site after searching for a product or service that you are selling, it means that he/she is interested in what you are selling and hence is a potential customer for you. Thus, search engines send pre-qualified customers to you.

You can sell virtually anything on the Internet, but in order to succeed you must bring "targeted traffic" to your website....people who are ready to buy your products and services, the vast majority of who will arrive at your website through search engines. If your website is not designed suitably, Google and other search engines will disrespect your website. Respect brings in traffic which translates into the all important Dollars, "Kwacha," Euro or whatever you wish to call money.

Remember, search engine bots are your most important visitors, you must seduce, "open your doors" and accommodate them in order to gain any measurable success in your Internet Marketing endeavor.

MissMary - Thanks for sharing. That's quite true what you said, design for your audience not for yourself. A lot of people miss this important fact and make their pages all about what they like, i've even seen people design site themes around their children or pets.

While that stuff is great for personal sites, it has no place in business... unless you were in childcare or dog grooming! :smiley2: It only makes you look cheesy and unprofessional.

As for Internet Explorer being a horrible browser and not designing for that, what i mean is to make internet explorer your last priority when checking how your site will display in other browsers. You should build your site to be consistent in all browsers for sure wherever possible, but IE is ignorant to many warnings and errors that may come about with the better browsers such as Firefox.

Designing a site to look good in IE first will set you up for a ton of headaches down the road!

I do promise not to give complete web design instruction and training here on the forum, just trying to give people some tips to improve their chance of success.

I'm certainly not faulting you for trying to help. It's the scattering of threads that will probably confuse somebody just popping in.

Right, I can understand that. I am breaking up these post because of the length, not to confuse anyone.

It's not my expertise but my husband who is kindly sharing.

I think it's not just if people or buying or not, but that people are more choosy about where they spend there money and the trust and professionalism involved with the two parties. They are less willing to take a chance nowadays.

That said, if they don't know where you live in the first place they won't drop by to visit. That's the whole point.

Unless you are fortunate enough to have existing or repeat customers, or there is good word of mouth to lead them there, it's kind of like fishing in the dark, for lack of a better analogy. There website exists in a limbo land where no one could even find it to make a purchase!

Many of the members here are not that fortunate and are simply starting from scratch.

The sad thing is they are paying for this service to set up a webstore that exists in a black hole!

They should understand this fact!

I have read both posts and I am very interested in what you have to say.... and I don't even have a website. My curiosity is peaked.

Not to mention that the information could be helpful to many people.

I was afraid to post on this topic even though i have thought about this for some time. The way i remember it this place was a great resource for people to discuss and exchange information and knowledge, just hope i don't get whipped and beaten too bad for trying to do so.

My husband offered the advice and i was interested in passing this along to the community. He's been in this line of work for quite some time and a computer geek forever!

If i can help some, guess it will make up for those who will disagree and get angry.

Not all news is good news, I really am just trying to help, not trying to sell anything to anyone...honest!

I think i also said those who were not interested could pass on reading this as well....maybe I'm losing it???

Anyway,

I've been following this thread and am interested in knowing how can I, as a DIY website owner, "fix" the various issues you all speak of? I am not in anyway knowledgable in this area (but I should be) to know if my website is "out there".

However, what are your thoughts on Craft Site Medic? I use them. I do get plenty of hits, but maybe not as many as I should...right?

The first thing that will help you if you want to stay with your store the way it is, would be to install the Firefox browser with the Firebug plug-in. This will give you a set of tools right in your browser that will enable you take take a good look at your page, the markup and coding, and even let you validate your code right from there. It will show you a lot of the errors in your existing markup. That's a good place to start.

Firefox is great, and by the way never design for Internet Explorer, it's the worst browser on the planet.

As for the site you mentioned i would have to look into that, never heard of that one before.

The fact that you started a new thread on a subject you already had a thread on shows me you aren't organized and are just seeking attention or business. Your first post in this thread makes zero sense without reading your first post in your first thread on this subject.

Seeking attention or business from whom?

just trying to help sorry, used to be able to do that here!

I don't live my life on the boards so i don't know all the rules of the road, i do apologize for that.

I wanted to make clear I was teasing about the selling stuff. It was just set up that way, kinda funny to me.

Open source RULES!!! I use OSCommerce and people bash it all the time, but god... attribute sets are AMAZING!!!! And frankly, I can go to a forum, get the help I need from just about anyone, or get a plug in (like shipping, weight discounts, volume discounts, coupon codes, the attribute sets, customer data sheets, newsletters, etc. all inside OS!). Why pay for a crappy cart that can't even do half the stuff, when OSC works? That's another story though.

I do think this dialogue is important, regardless though. In times like this, where many are posting about sales being down, and websites not getting orders, we've not (at least in my searching) had a true, total rundown on websites. It's damn near the most important thing outside of wax for many people here. If you have a crappy website that either doesn't work or is down all the time, how are you gonna make those sales, even IF you get repeat customers?

Teasing is good, keeps me sane !

This whole thing came about because everyone says business is so slow, and i remember when candltech was like a mob, now it's more tame, i miss those days!

Lets start the Open Source Revolution!!!

Oh, it's already started....

seriously tho, people just need to learn a little more and they can compete with anyone, i really believe that!

My site has been down since yesterday morning - I am not getting any answers at all as to why and when it will be back up

That's crazy! There lies the value really building it yourself and aquiring your own host. Most good hosting accounts offer like 98% uptime or better!

I'd put my foot down with that! Truly Unacceptable!

Webmasters are starting to realize the value of a true CMS for ecommerce and more, big thing is just realistically evaluating your needs.

There is so much great stuff out there cheep, or even free!

GO Open Source!

Regarding page code errors, warnings, etc., truer words were never spoken! Using Firefox with extensions (Web Developer, Error Console, HTML Validator, FireFTP, etc.) has helped me tremendously to clean up code, coupled with recommendations from the http://www.w3schools.com/ site... While dirty script may not cause a spider to totally ignore a site, it makes it more difficult to index, as you said, not to mention often leaving the site more vulnerable to security issues, defacement, etc.

Beck, this is very interesting stuff to me. I take it when you spoke of DIY sites, you are talking about products like "Website Tonight", "Site Studio," and others offered by webhosts, correct? Or, god forbid, Frontpage... :rolleyes2

You mentioned Wordpress - what about Joomla, PostNuke, CubeCart, osCommerce and other predesigned scripts that folks can run? I have used Joomla, postNuke, phpBB, SMF and TikiWiki to build sites, but I was not concerned about search engine placement for those particular projects... How are the the open source e-commerce scripts and content management systems for search engine placement?

People have alot of success with different platforms, Joomla and PostNuke are good, just depends on who's coding it, or if you are using templates plug-ins and such.

Installation can be a little tricky for some.

Some of this is incorrect (only slightly) like error pages - those will be crawled at all times, and everyone will have them from time to time when a bot crawls during a down time of the site, or maintenence, etc. But I gotta say - this is starting to sound like a setup for selling something!

Additionally, the way Google indexes you and search coding doesn't start highest with tags - it starts highest with linkbacks as the initial "ranking" information. (One funny story about it was something about the word terrorist or what not and the top search result was whitehouse.gov). It tries first to link the search to the word preceding the link. The one true way to start is link sharing, along with blogging about your own site, including a link in each post.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and add anything that might make people realize how important this issue really is.

Not bashing anyone, just trying to help people on here succeed!

Some of this is incorrect (only slightly) like error pages - those will be crawled at all times, and everyone will have them from time to time when a bot crawls during a down time of the site, or maintenence, etc. But I gotta say - this is starting to sound like a setup for selling something!

Additionally, the way Google indexes you and search coding doesn't start highest with tags - it starts highest with linkbacks as the initial "ranking" information. (One funny story about it was something about the word terrorist or what not and the top search result was whitehouse.gov). It tries first to link the search to the word preceding the link. The one true way to start is link sharing, along with blogging about your own site, including a link in each post.

Nope, not selling anything, just trying to inform those who may not know better!

$20 a month? Ouch - Yahoo Small Business is cheaper than that and has an awesome set up, templates, etc.

Here's the thing - with small business ANY site builder will be set of poor performance. Yahoo is an exception because of their coding for drag and drop properties and ease of meta tags, etc. (I used them forever ago, for a family site before I started learning html.) If you want real business, you need to build your own site from the ground up (or hire someone to do it). My simple site (www.cormarcompany.com) is maintained only by me. I have a host for the domain name for like 100 a year and that's it. All my sales are from my site right now and I rarely promote the darned thing. However, I've kept track and many many many of my hits are coming from things people type in that you would never have guessed led to my site.

Almost ALL of the small business hosting/website companies are far behind in technology and preparedness. As the net evolves, they go past the skills of the individual owner.

I've often thought about doing website management because I've read so many people with so many problems, and all they really want is something that can be done for them and easy to use. The charge for this kind of thing outrages me, same with logo design - because most of the time, it's incredibly simple stuff once you get the hang of it. My logo is boring yes, but I like simple. I can make a fancy logo with all the trimmings in an hour or two. People charge hundreds for that stuff. I've thought about doing sites for $15 a month, hosting included, with unique pages. LOL And logos for $25 a pop. (I'd do logos in vector too, so that it can be used in ANY size, from billboard to postage stamp.) It's always outraged me how much these guys charge (guys in general, no one company specific).

Anywho, I know not everyone is very good with "computer stuff". But to charge outrageous fees for stuff that is simple, and quite often messy coding is nuts to me.

Yeah, That's a whole other topic, these guys are charging a fortune for logos that have absolutely no use beyond the web.

Photoshop logos for $299 or more...just crazy!

That's one thing about the web that sucks, everyones a designer now and the quality suffers for the whole!

Please!!! Do not give up. This is a simple problem to fix! I am going to pick his brain for all the info i can get!

For some the DIY is convenient and easy, especially for those who are not computer savvy.

I just hope I'm not starting a firestorm here! I really don't mean to.

I just have a passion for Soap & Candles and have always enjoyed this place even though i don't post all the time. It just bothers me that everyone is talking about how bad things are....

I like to help fix them!

OK, if you came back for post #2 you are either interested in learning more, unsatisfied with your current sales or just really bored enough to hear me ramble on about web technology, spiders, google and the whole ecommerce marketing world.

Or...you are sincerely interested in finding out why your ultra beautiful, handmade, great smelling products that you invested tons of time money and heart into, are not stacking up to what you had hoped for.

So... with my husbands guidance we took a look at 3 websites built with this technology, and what we found surprised and angered both of us in the process.

None of these sites were HTML or CSS valid, which in layman's terms means that the code was dirty and not compliant with today's standards.

The first included 64 errors alone, anything from no document type declaration to missing tags, scripting errors....on and on...

Ok...what's this got to do with you? Well, if you care about people reaching your site and purchasing from you...EVERYTHING!

To start with, if you don't have a generous existing client base on which to survive you need the search engines to generate traffic and sales. This is not an exception. People will not find your site if you are not indexed by google, yahoo or other search engines.

The trouble is...when the spiders, or bots, or whatever you like to call them (the technology that scans and indexes your pages and content) reach your site full of errors, with no doctype and on and on...they will not index all of your content, will not index it properly, or even worse will flee in terror, or... as one web master so eloquently states "search engine bots like valid code, or rather, they hate invalid code as it may cause them to barf and miss half your site"

Improper code and invalid pages result in poor indexing by google and others. Or worst case, no indexing at all which means no traffic, and no sales!

Let's break this down. I don't believe anyone is out to purposely rip you off and take your money when they offer such a service, it's just the fact that a lot of this technology is built by well meaning companies on old standards and technology that is prone to mistakes.

Hubby says you would be better off building your store on Wordpress technology for free! Than to build a site no one will ever find.

I will continue this post as long as people are interested in learning more, or when someone objects to this commentary and pulls them down.

I hope that doesn't happen as we all have a right to know what we are paying for, and if we are wasting time waiting on spiders that will never come, so to speek.

Stay tuned for post #3 Hubby says you can build a successful website for next to nothing, with minimal effort...the real DIY way!!!

Beck ~

I know I will most likely ruffle some feathers here with this post, It is only in the best interest of the community that I approach this topic. I have learned a lot here and appreciate all the help I have received.

If you are currently operating a webstore on a DIY networking platform, how is your traffic and sales going? Are you generating the interest you expected? Are you pleased with your current performance?

If you really care at all about your business, your products and are truly interested in making a good profit from your store, there are some things you should know. If not, then you can skip this post.

For those of you that stuck around, please read on...

First off, this is not a solicitation but just a general FYI for anyone who currently operates a webstore under a DIY network or platform. This is not directed at any one service or business, but more about the technology in general that makes up a DIY type of platform.

My husband has been in web developement for twelve years and is quite knowledgable about the aspects of ecommerce developement and when investigating opportunities and solutions for my own online candle shop (when I first found the Candletech community ) and In reading and learning, pouring and perusing what others had done before, I noticed that quite alot of you here have a webstore with a DIY type of network.

You should know that this could honestly be hurting your business, your sales and your bottom line. With a little investigation you will learn that alot of DIY networking platforms or do it yourself web builders are far behind the technology curve when it comes to successful performance and web traffic generation that it takes to compete in this tough market. That the web pages and code generated by this technology in most cases, is not search engine friendly and not up to par with todays standards.

If your not in this to make good money or you get alot of sales through your own client base or just word of mouth, this will not really affect you.

But...If you know you have a great product and are dissapointed with your current sales performance and web traffic in general, and you know you should be doing a whole lot better than you have, this could have alot to do with that.

I have seen alot of talk on here from those of you who are ready to give up and throw in the towel, those that blame the the slow economy for poor sales margins and still more of you who feel that the market is too saturated or there is too much competition to make any money...

I'm here to say... that my friends, is totaly untrue. If you have a great product presented in a professional way and distributed through with the right methodology and technology, there is absolutely no reason you should not be making a profit from your business venture.

I'm not talking about the get rich quick without any work involved type of profit, but rather just genuine reoccuring consitent sales margins every month, a decent second income, or even just recouping what you have invested over the years in candle supplies and turning it into positive numbers.

There is no reason you can't do this unless something is holding you back! Is DIY the culprit? Maybe, or maybe not, I'm sure there are some who would disagree. But lets check it out in the next post, I will cut this off for the sake of brevity here.

Read on in post #2 and I will show you some things that may just open your eyes and give new fire (pun intended ) to your candle business.

If you are thinking of hanging up the pour pot, or think I'm just crazy stick with me and I will show you some things that may change your mind.

Thanks go to my husband for helping me put this post together, we are sick of seeing people throw there money away with no results...he really knows his stuff, and he's a great guy!

Beck ~