Is DIY Hurting your business? #2

[beck180]

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.

[beck180]

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.

[Lisasoaps]

Well from what I have read here (which is very informative) I gotta tell ya, I feel like I have wasted a lot of time and money. I havent checked yahoo yet but I will. I just dont know if I will be able to figure it all out and god knows I cant afford to pay $300 or more to have someone set up a website for me from scratch. Oh and what about when I need to make changes to my site?

I only know basic html and even that is quite rusty.

I did most of my researching on-line for building my ranks. For the first year my site was lost out there in cyber space. I started learning different tips and slowly started finding my site in google search, moving up. It took a couple months but I had finally worked my way to page 3. I just dont have time to keep up with the research and change so I have slipped to page 6 now. Its never ending when it comes to having a site I guess. I am all ears....tell us more.

[Suzanne]

Seriously Miss Mary - Don't shoot the messenger.

Beck - Very informative post. Much appreciated by many.

[MissMary]

I REALLY recommend OSCommerce, even for the newest of people. You can get free templates, VERY easy to use, you don't pay for it and you can start there. There is a single page to edit and you can add in all your products as you want. What makes this cart so great, is that you just upload a template to change your entire site to the new template and NONE of your other coding will change. Everything else stays.

If there really is a market for people who want to do this type of stuff, I'm willing to help on an individual basis (because not everyone wants the same type of thing), and not for hundreds either. Not so much a market, but I want to help others - I have NO recipes to share, since I'm using bases and a lot of recipes already out there on here, I have no real good expertise, just ideas when it comes to that sort of things, but like I said, I do a minor tweak here and there, but honest to god, I've been wanting to give back for a while without knowing how. If it wasn't for everyone here (including several in this thread), I'd have gotten nowhere.

Definitely a BLOG is VERY important - not for product info. With each post you make, link to yourself! More linking back will increase your ranking as well. Get a free one from anywhere.

I'm 5th down on many of my searches WITHOUT a blog, on Google.

[MissMary]

Seriously Miss Mary - Don't shoot the messenger.

Beck - Very informative post. Much appreciated by many.

I was typing the other post same time - Shoot the messenger? Did I miss something?

[SliverOfWax]

There's a lot of truth to the linking, Mary. I've heard tell people should join every forum out there, make a few posts with your link in them, then when they start calling you a troll, move on to the next forum. People will naturally click on your link just to see what it is.

Too many forums, too little time.

lol

I don't know about a blog. Just more work with not enough benefits, imo.

[ShelleyBean]

I have to say these threads came at an ironic time for me. I have been with a DIY type site for over a year now. Yes it's been easy to use (sometimes lol) and many designers out there making ready made templates for them, but along with that came other issues too like email down quite a lot.

Up to this point, I've mainly used my "online store" as more of a catalog for those I know in person to order and be able to use their credit card. I have recently decided to go full force with business and I had no idea that the DIY type stores are not spider/bot friendly.

I've had a family website for years through godaddy using their hosting, and as a trial about a month ago, I installed OScommerce (which is a few clicks through godaddy-love the ease of that!) and have been playing with it and so far I am loving how easy it is to use. I had decided to keep my DIY store open until I have everything in the OS store and will then point my .com to new site. I was paying for my godaddy hosting for the family site AND paying for a DIY store monthly, so right there I am going to save some money. From the sounds of it from the threads, I may be able to get more net traffic by stepping away from the DIY platform.

Anyway, just wanted to say I'm interested in what info is put out there about this subject and thanks to your husband too for sharing his knowledge

[beck180]

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.

[ladysj]

I greatly appreciate this thread although I am dumb as a box of rocks on some of this stuff. I would like to know exactly what I'm looking for on OSCommerce. I went to their website but don't know for sure what I should be doing there.

With this crap that has come up with HCM I am really bummed and my site isn't getting the traffic I was/am hoping it would.

[Stella1952]

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.

It still is in between a few folks who seem to resent anyone sharing information for free about anything and hijacking threads for personal reasons...

I personally appreciate your opening this discussion and understand your intentions. If someone is going to have a web-presence of ANY kind, it is their responsibility to LEARN about the technology they are using.

I don't think one should worry so much about search engine placement before worrying about SECURITY. Everyone who has a business presence on the web should make it their responsibility to educate themselves on security issues and ensure that their sites, however complex or humble, are locked down as tightly as possible against unauthorized intrusion... and one has to keep on learning and applying security updates, etc. to plug the new holes and vulnerabilities that script kiddies discover on a daily basis.

AFTER I learn about security, THEN I'll worry about search-engine placement.

In case I missed it, please define DIY sites.

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

I disagree wholeheartedly. I have hated IE since its inception, however it is the number 1 browser used hands down. While Firefox, Netscape, Opera and Safari represent significant portions of the browser market, the fact is that IE is the one most folks are using, so your site had better look good and work right under IE first and foremost; then Firefox, Netscape, Safari & Opera.

[MissMary]

Actually, Stella while making good points, Mozilla has officially passed IE now in terms of pages looked at (no one can for sure, of course, calculate unique individuals). My web traffic stats also show that at this time, over the course of 1 year, my traffic was 78% Mozilla, compared to only 19% IE.

[Stella1952]

My web traffic stats also show that at this time, over the course of 1 year, my traffic was 78% Mozilla, compared to only 19% IE.

You have wiser than average visitors! Your webstats don't lie!!:laugh2::laugh2:

Wikipedia sez (2nd Quarter, 2008 Global usage share data from TheCounter.com Global Statistics) Firefox only represents ~18% of the browser market, and, sadly, IE still has 73%. Safari came in third with Opera fourth. Netscape was last (before "other").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

I wonder how one tests their site in Safari without a Mac...? Does anyone know of a site or software that checks pages for Safari?

[Di_in_AZ]

Just for comparison, here are my website browser stats:

36% MSIE 6.0

30% MSIE 7.0

21% Firefox 2.0.0

7% Safari 1.2

4%

2% Mozilla 4.0

[MissMary]

Sorry Stella but counter is only for hits of THAT site and sites that PAY for their services., not internationally.

Additionally, the Wiki you linked was based on an article from more than 7 months ago - a long time in computer history. Especially when you consider that FF released a new version and with each version there are jumpers.

ETA: I should mention also, that IE is a default popup for many users since it's what's coded in a lot of these pages. It also comes with all Windows apps, so even one hit on IE to get to FF to download is considered a usage for the month of stats. Stats shouldn't include defaults either, but purely who continually uses the browser.

ETAA: Also, if you are surely sarcastic in your tones about stats - then why are you using them to support your own argument?

[Stella1952]

Mary, I'm sorry, but you are misinformed about Firefox having a larger market share than IE.

Additionally, the Wiki you linked was based on an article from more than 7 months ago - a long time in computer history. Especially when you consider that FF released a new version and with each version there are jumpers.

You should have skimmed the whole Wikipedia article link above. Second Quarter 2008 just ended in June. That's pretty recent even in Internet time... Even Mozilla doesn't claim to have a larger marketshare than IE!!! :rolleyes2 Google "Firefox Market Share 2008" - then Google "Internet Explorer Market Share 2008" and please show me where ANY of the articles show that Firefox has a larger global or national marketshare than does IE! I don't mean to be argumentative, but you are simply wrong in your assertion that more people worldwide or in North America use Firefox than IE.

ETAA: Also, if you are surely sarcastic in your tones about stats - then why are you using them to support your own argument?

Dunno how you got that impression, but I wasn't being sarcastic - if YOUR webstats indicate that most of YOUR visitors ARE using Mozilla (Firefox), then the only conclusion I could come to is that you DO have wiser (IMHO) visitors than national or global averages - at least as far as their choice of internet browsers goes...

Of course, first you would have to discard all the hits on your site from your IP 'cause those don't count... My stats look that way too, until I subtract all the hits from my own IPs...:undecided Then it's MSIE all the way... :rolleyes2

As previously stated, I think Firefox is Da Bomb and I wish it was the #1 browser in the world, but it isn't... so I am gonna make good and sure that my webpages are designed to show up and work well in IE, Firefox, and Safari because those are the big three that MOST people all over the world are using.

[MissMary]

My apologies, I used the sentence you almost quoted as the reference article and looked at that.

I also didn't say "market share" either. Again, in market share - you have to include that Windows comes with IE and the forced IE pop ups of other sites. I said in terms of pages viewed, which would mean not how many individual and unique people, it means that there is more surfing done on Mozilla than on IE.

Sorry, I got the sarcasm impression after all the gigglies after talking about my stats on visitors. My apologies again for that mixup.

I also only count hits that do not include me, as it's not total stats I look at. It's the individual IP stats. It breaks down people into IP's first and I can exclude my own. From all 4 computers. I look at my site orders area at least 50 times daily (and pray ).

This is what I mean:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/12/12/BMS

This is one person's particular study of course and it's a bit outdated, but it details what I'm trying to convey when I talk about pages viewed. Again - not the same as market share considering the force of IE use.

I'm by far not the only person reporting higher rates of pages viewed in Mozilla. Truth is though, we could go into a debate in circles since no one can ever sample every single internet user - but designing to make pages work in all 4 of the major browsers is what's really important.

Either way, whomever is bigger, no one wants to lose a sale for one reason or another. It's not hard (in general) to design for both IE and Mozilla. My site, a few tweaks had to be done to fix it in IE but if you design with IE in mind, you may lose a Mozilla sale. Or vice versa.

You can take your pick and design for A, then cross check and fix in B, or however you choose to word it. Designing for a browser in mind probably limits people more than it helps.

[beck180]

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.

[kidsngarden]

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...

[MissMary]

They don't have a setting to put the meta throughout the site, you have to go page by page? I don't know anything about HCM's user workings frankly.

If I could get into a coded page and see, I might be able to help more but unfortunately, the biggest thing I can see is what's been searched and came up as error, not what the error was. Again - some errors are just when a bot hits when the site is on maintenence or you changed something it had previously indexed, etc. So some errors are normal - that's where the problem in trying to see WHY these places are so high. Are their servers down a lot? Is someone changing constantly, but the coding indexes the old page still instead of removing it completely?

It's tough to tell, but at any rate - lots of the errors, downtime, CS issues, etc. should NOT be happening.

[beck180]

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!

[prairieannie]

LOL!! Good job kidsngarden!

You even hid it from a "savvy web designer type person" heehee

And just in case anyone here is wondering.. I'm not posting this because I'm pulling for HCM. Couldn't be further from the truth actually. Just getting a kick out of this particular issue. I can't say more lest I give away secrets!!

[SherriLynn]

I am so glad to have looked at this thread today. I currently DO have a website, however the maker of my site no longer is available to update the shopping cart and a few other things.

I had taken out a trial version on net solutions and have been working with it for the past few weeks, thinking I could design and build my own website, using their templates. Wowwwww!!! What a costly error that would have been, after reading all this information.

My thanks to this board, who have people on it, that are concerned about others.....

[MissMary]

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!

I'm not talking about individual web page coding of an individual's site - I'm talking about back end stuff. In the creation process, some of this stuff could be starting from their end in the info and stuff they have.

As yes, there are some things out there that can prevent some of the coding from being displayed on a regular webpage. You'll see some of it, but not all.

[kidsngarden]

I've been on HCM since September and to thier credit I have not ever had my site be down to my knowledge. since I'm paid lifetime and Frank has assured me I will still be around I'm sticking with it. I don't want to reinvent the wheel and start over here if what I have is working, but I wish I was higher up the google search.

There is a default on the site that just automatically throws meta stuff out there or something, but I was told by the company I hired to do every page myself.

By the way - with all the HCM concerns I have to say this...As far as making my site, HCM was the best thing I ever did and I tried other stuff and didn't get it. I had spent countless hours on dumb Godaddy templates and other crap and spent about 8 hours totall uploading my entire site on HCM. I still have to go back and reoptimize though. What I do regret is the THOUSANDS I paid out to the guys to optimize my homepage and advise me when I probably would've have found what they did and told me to do for free.

What is CS?

You guys are speaking greek to me.