Just discovered this Open SOurce ASP.NET ecommerce system called NopCommerce. This is pretty revolutionary for me as in the past, I have been lead to believe that .NET systems are closed source, make use of COM objects and closed library files which resulted in almost every piece of .NET software being a paid application.
The system looks pretty well formed and feature packed and it includes all of the standard functionality you would expect from an ASP.NET Ecommerce system in particular:
As a pro web designer with over 10 years experience it pains me to say this but if you’re starting out with an online business the key is do do things as cheaply and more importantly basic as possible and once the site achieves a high search engine placement, then you can use your experience, not guess work and expendable profit to reinvest in the design, branding and features of your website.
Time after time we get briefs from new business start-ups who dont have any cash but have grandioso ideas about the features and functionality required of their online store. Most of the time this is all wishful thinking an not really based on customer objectives and in the end our quote often makes them lose faith in becoming an online business.
So do yourself a favour…
Get an SEO involved for advice
Buy a domain for a few pounds, get some hosting (beefier the better if you plan on using Magento… more on this below)
Set up the email properly and integrate with Outlook
Find some open source ecommerce software like Magento Commerce, Prestashop or others
Use the standard theme!!!!! just change the logo (make sure it matches the colourscheme)
Ask your SEO how you should format your product titles, categories and ask for pointers on how to write effective descriptions
Populate the site with information
Ask the SEO to promote it.
Total cost (est) £100 plus SEO fees.
Then working with the SEO begin writing about your products from a non commercial viewpoint
The SEO should begin building links and making changes to the site to make it more search friendly
Make money
From this point on the plan should be:
Listen to the customers, find out what features they require
Look at your business rpocesses and work out what systems could be created to simplify/automate time consuming business tasks
Reinvest in hiring a designer to change the theme and branding with guidance from the SEO
Make more money
Repeat
You can even read the FREE online book Getting Real by online application developers 37 Signals which gives you an idea as to how theyve built and managed successful websites without the masisve overhead and complicated initial featureset.
From the creators of jailbreak comes flash for the iPhone.
Steve Jobs said it couldn’t be done but some crayzee guy has managed to port flash to the iPhone 4/3gs/3g so you can now play farmville in all its glory.
Its very buggy but worth it if you’re tired of seeing those blue lego bricks everywhere.
I love sagepay (formerly protx) as a payment gateway. For small businesses it provides a really simple way of providing secure payment and at a cost of just £20 per month with no set up fee for up to 1000 transactions per month, its a bargain too.
But did you know that on one sagepay account you can use up to five domains? This means that if you’re attempting to dominate the SERPS with micro -sites its going to cost you almost nothing to make these additional domains stand alone sales platforms!
I know its not new news, but its the first time over ever seen Googles new UI design.
New Google UI Design
So whats different?
As you can see the listings are now pulled up the page and the blue bar has been removed. The search box s larger and the search button made larger and more attached. Results numbers have moved to the right hand side and advanced tucked under the right hand edge of this panel. Some pre-built filters have been added to the left hand panel (none worked). Wjhat you cant see from this image is Google have added their standard corporate links to the foot of the page where the Gooooooooogle bar has been re-designed and theres a repeat of the search box. Font sizes have been made smaller.
So what do I think about it?
I think its a step in the right direction if you’re trying to compete with Bing who will shortly be using a sidebar to pull in comparison information and provide other integrated search functions.
On a bragging note, its nice to see my sites featured 1, 5 and 6th
I’ve recently had to move machine whilst Microsoft figure out how the last Windows update has crippled my computer causing it to run slow and lockup/reset every 100 minutes (very annoying). The up-shot of this is that I am now working on a Windows Vista computer instead of my souped up XP configuration and as a result I am no longer able to access my standard suite of cross browser testing apps that are XP only.
I’ve tried to use online services but theyre slow and not very interactive however I recently came across a free solution that comes direct from Microsoft.
By using Microsofts free Virtual PC application you can quickly and easily run virtual machines preconfigured to combine versions of Internet Explorer and various operating systems. So with little effort, I am able to run a virtualised Windows XP with IE6 and IE7 preinstalled.
It works brilliantly.
One thing to note is that the virtual machines are time limited meaning that every so often you will have to download a new version.
Just discovered a great article on the BBC website outlining how Neville Brody’s Research Studio crafted the new website design.
It’s a great article because it goes into read depth about some of the decisions made and shows how difficult issues such a stext overlays on top of images were managed.
Simply inspirational for everyone.
Mr Brody was a twat when I met him a few years back… just goes to show you should never meet your heros.
I’m proud to announce the re-design of the Distinctive Chesterfields website as performed by both Adam (php genius) and myself.
It was a great challenge as we had to keep all of the content and site structure the same and had to work around a rather archaic CMS produced by the previous creator.
Some of the features of the new Distinctive Chesterfields website include:
Improved product information pages
Removal of some sales workflow barriers
Combined brochure and swatch request pages
Refocused international page contents
The new Distinctive Chesterfields site has been online for a few weeks now during soft launch and with only a few minor niggles, I’m glad to say the company has had its best month of sales to date, a fact that I’d like to attribute partially to the new design.
I'm now SEO Manager at the award winning Leeds based SEO Services company, Blueclaw. If you would like to hire my team for your SEO project or would simply like an over the table discussion about how your businesses SEO can be improved please email mark@blueclaw.co.uk with your questions, expectations and project details.
