CMS and SEO

If I go to a professional web developing company to make me a site. What will they give me? I mean, will they design HTML templates for my site and then I can fill everything and do the SEO and PPC etc.

That's my plan. I want to do the SEO and PPC campaigns on my site when it's up and running. So when I go to Mr Developer to design me a professional website, do they do the content and SEO and then give me a CMS to continue it or what?

My site is going to be a retail site with a payment system etc in place.

tomED

Hi

It depends on what company you go to.

Some web development companies will only develop your website to your spec. They won't put input into where you should bring your site.

Other developers will help you along, if you want them to organise a content writer for example, they will source one for you.

The best thing to do is sit down with a few reputable companies and get some advice from them. Don't just see one - see a few to get an idea of what each can do for you.

D.W

Deleted User wrote: »

If I go to a professional web developing company to make me a site. What will they give me? I mean, will they design HTML templates for my site and then I can fill everything and do the SEO and PPC etc.

That's my plan. I want to do the SEO and PPC campaigns on my site when it's up and running. So when I go to Mr Developer to design me a professional website, do they do the content and SEO and then give me a CMS to continue it or what?

My site is going to be a retail site with a payment system etc in place.

Any decent web design company will give you what you ask for design-wise. However remember seo is a totally different thing to design and many designers know little about seo.

You need to draft up in detail exactly what you want-a wish list. Ensure that pages are seo friendly as a starting point as many retail sites tend not to be. Ask for the site to be built as a CMS if thats what you need. I would supply/add text myself-nobody knows your business or products better than you.

Sully

Deleted User wrote: »

If I go to a professional web developing company to make me a site. What will they give me? I mean, will they design HTML templates for my site and then I can fill everything and do the SEO and PPC etc.

That's my plan. I want to do the SEO and PPC campaigns on my site when it's up and running. So when I go to Mr Developer to design me a professional website, do they do the content and SEO and then give me a CMS to continue it or what?

My site is going to be a retail site with a payment system etc in place.

A proper and actually decent company (who are usually pricey, but compared to what you get from other cowboys its well worth it) will listen to what your goal is and your requirements. Some may go as far as advising you on the best approach to get the most out of your website. This will include a discussion on whether you would like a Content Management System (CMS) - some websites will remain static and wont change much. If thats the case, they may offer you (we do anyway) price plans for maintenance and the pay as you go rate also. If your selling products online, you will be given a Product Management System which will allow you have full control over selling products on your website.

Once its been worked out what you want, they will prepare a quote based on your discussion. Inclusive of design, development, CMS or product system. Not every company will bother performing the basic SEO (some will, some wont - it should be standard but came across many who don't) but you wont get any offering you a full SEO service without paying another sum of money. If you do, odds are they have no idea what there at. Some may include the price of hosting and a domain or bill separately for such.

That's the initial stages. Sorting out a specification and getting a quote based on that. At the very beginning you should always look over a company's portfolio and testimonials - make sure the websites they designed are good and you are happy with the work quality.

Some company's will offer you work at €700 - €1,000 but be careful, lots of these are amateurs with very poor design and development quality. This can hinder your SEO work, consumers may be wary about using your website and odds are you will revisit it and have to spend more money improving it.

In general: SEO & PPC work is completely separate to the standard web project. Some will do basic SEO work and probably should as its good coding. Be careful of those offering it on the cheap and always review their past work and testimonials.

Excellent, can someone recommend some web companies in Ireland or on the net who I can discuss this with ? I assume consultations are free.

zAbbo

One alternative is to do it yourself, just invest some time and research.

You could quickly implement Magento, add a decent template and customise.

You could hire a freelancer to do the setup and customisation, and spend the rest of your budget on a decent link building campaign.

Not to downplay the importance of SEO - but for most people this equates to optimising title tags, attributes and playing with various h1/2/3 levels. When in reality it's so much more from a technical POV.

If you use something like Magento which allows access to the most important aspects of onsite SEO, and put in the effort where it will actually make an impact (offsite SEO)

Just a thought if you were looking to keep costs down and spend your budget were you will see the most return.

I think you would need to sit down and determine exactly what you want to achieve and work out how that's going to happen.

Thanks for that Barry, that's an excellent idea. I didn't realise a platform such as Magento could be bought that looks so professional. Am I missing something with it here ? It looks like a really good product.

Off site SEO is something I've been trying to learn a bit about recently.

Edit: I didn't even realise it was free !

zAbbo

Magento is free

Although there's a very good premium version, but you could easily get by with the free version and there is community support as well, and some very good paid modules as well to allow you to get extra functionality without buying the premium version.

I think you'd find that most shopping carts with some customisation would suit your project, this allows you to save on budget (I'm factoring a cost of E5,000 for a web company to develop)

Zen Cart & CRE Loaded are others.

Spot on. 5K is about right for what I had in mind and after talking to a couple of lads who have gone down the e-commerce route with proper professional web sites (not the half assed jobs that cost 1k and you have all sorts of crap going on on the page ! )

Sully

Its always good to pick a business with a good reputation rather then a freelancer. Good few times I have got a dodgy freelancer or have been let down. At least with a business you can easily contact them and have something to fall back on

link8r

Deleted User wrote: »

If I go to a professional web developing company to make me a site. What will they give me? I mean, will they design HTML templates for my site and then I can fill everything and do the SEO and PPC etc.

That's my plan. I want to do the SEO and PPC campaigns on my site when it's up and running. So when I go to Mr Developer to design me a professional website, do they do the content and SEO and then give me a CMS to continue it or what?

My site is going to be a retail site with a payment system etc in place.

This is a beautiful case in point - if I may - if you're learning about SEO, how are you going to do it yourself?

My first advice is to research your market, no matter what your investment will be (sweat capital, money other), theres never a good time to waste it.

Talk to other web owners and masters, there is so much to an online business. I spent an hour today talking to someone who wants to go for an online business and its all based on a) this person really just wants to and 2) that they've bought into this idea that online marketing is simple, people will just refer your site and visit it and find it so unique. I can tell that she'll never get off the ground, hasn't close to a realistic budget (I'd say €30k, she has €3k) and its already over-competitive with not nearly enough sales/search interest to justify a handful of sites.

The reality of an owning and operating an online business is no different from any other business. And just because you dont have a premises to kit out doesn't make it cheaper or easier. It takes a big effort, lots of know how. Retail is retail - its technical.

Sorry if I'm not sounding overly optimistic - just-go-for-it-sure-what-could-go-wrong - just trying to be fair and give a balanced realistic insight into it.....

Bounce your idea off of other successful web entrepeneurs first - web developers rarely (I'm going with 99% here but please prove me wrong) dont have a clue about selling online - most dont even sell websites online, they are referred to. Even if they do, its a far cry from understanding online retail.

My golden rule for the web: just cos you can, dont mean you should. In other words, anyone can build a webpage. Thats a far cry from a website. Internet Businesses still require marketing and that still means effort AND money. Granted, online marketing (and esp SEO) is very cost effective but there is a key word there - COST. I doubt you can bring a web business, in Ireland to profit in a year with less than €5k, unless you are in the top 10 online marketing companies (excluding PPC marketeers, because they would have to actually spend wouldn't they?)

Best advice I can give.

link8r

link8r wrote: »

This is a beautiful case in point - if I may - if you're learning about SEO, how are you going to do it yourself?

My first advice is to research your market, no matter what your investment will be (sweat capital, money other), theres never a good time to waste it.

Talk to other web owners and masters, there is so much to an online business. I spent an hour today talking to someone who wants to go for an online business and its all based on a) this person really just wants to and 2) that they've bought into this idea that online marketing is simple, people will just refer your site and visit it and find it so unique. I can tell that she'll never get off the ground, hasn't close to a realistic budget (I'd say €30k, she has €3k) and its already over-competitive with not nearly enough sales/search interest to justify a handful of sites.

The reality of an owning and operating an online business is no different from any other business. And just because you dont have a premises to kit out doesn't make it cheaper or easier. It takes a big effort, lots of know how. Retail is retail - its technical.

Sorry if I'm not sounding overly optimistic - just-go-for-it-sure-what-could-go-wrong - just trying to be fair and give a balanced realistic insight into it.....

Bounce your idea off of other successful web entrepeneurs first - web developers rarely (I'm going with 99% here but please prove me wrong) dont have a clue about selling online - most dont even sell websites online, they are referred to. Even if they do, its a far cry from understanding online retail.

My golden rule for the web: just cos you can, dont mean you should. In other words, anyone can build a webpage. Thats a far cry from a website. Internet Businesses still require marketing and that still means effort AND money. Granted, online marketing (and esp SEO) is very cost effective but there is a key word there - COST. I doubt you can bring a web business, in Ireland to profit in a year with less than €5k, unless you are in the top 10 online marketing companies (excluding PPC marketeers, because they would have to actually spend wouldn't they?)

Best advice I can give.

How am I going to learn about SEO/SEM/PPC etc ? The same way anyone learns it - Learning and practicing by doing no doubt.

I'm not an expert at internet marketing, far from it, but I definitely have what it takes to do it myself in the future. I'll continue learning and seeking advice (when appropriate) but I'll be doing the SEO for my own site (and any future business of mine at some point in the future.) unless of course I decide that it's best to outsource it for the sake of my business.

I understand PPC marketing and how to research keywords (and how investing in solely broad keywords is a license to lose money), long tail keywords, deep keyword campaigns, the importance of choosing phrases and keywords that are relevant to your site and the implementation of negative keywords into campaigns, on site SEO (basics), the importance of Google Analytics, correct landing pages etc, the necessity for content rich pages with relevant keywords, I know that hits mean nothing and how it's all about generating relevant targetted traffic and conversions, Blogging and having a blog on the same domain as my site (researching keywords to implement into your blog), Google quality score, the importance of affiliate marketing and I know how important it is to have a digital footprint on the web in the sense of link building to high quality sites, how to choose a proper domain name etc etc. I think that's a good base to work from and develop further. I've the right attitude in place to continue learning.

I spent an hour today talking to someone who wants to go for an online business and its all based on a) this person really just wants to and 2) that they've bought into this idea that online marketing is simple, people will just refer your site and visit it and find it so unique. I can tell that she'll never get off the ground, hasn't close to a realistic budget (I'd say €30k, she has €3k) and its already over-competitive with not nearly enough sales/search interest to justify a handful of sites.

Most importantly (and thankfully) that person you spoke to is not me ! I am not choosing an online business solely because I want to and I know that online marketing is not simple - it's like anything else in life. It requires hard work and intelligence. I'm choosing an online business because I believe it's most suited to my business at the moment.

My budget of 5K doesn't refer to my business capital. It refers to the the amount I expect to spend (between 3 and 5K) for a professional web site. I know what makes a good web site because when you use it, it does what you want it to do in the most efficient way possible. I'm (thankfully) fully aware of how bad a lot of the websites out there are but most importantly, I think I know what a great website is and that's exactly what I'll be paying someone to do; make me a brilliant web site.

Sully

Deleted User wrote: »

I'll be paying someone to do; make me a brilliant web site.

At least you have the right mindset for getting your website done. A lot of people expect to pay very little and will easily go to the nearest freelancer for €700 or so because they think that the quote from professionals is to expensive. Thus they go about setting up a ****ty website which fails to meet the requirements and will end up costing more money in the future. Shame really.

Sully

Sully wrote: »

At least you have the right mindset for getting your website done. A lot of people expect to pay very little and will easily go to the nearest freelancer for €700 or so because they think that the quote from professionals is to expensive. Thus they go about setting up a ****ty website which fails to meet the requirements and will end up costing more money in the future. Shame really.

I think a lot of people who set up online businesses don't realise that their site has to reflect the same quality if they were to set up a bricks and mortar store offline i.e. if you're selling high end designer jewellry, you can't have a tacky website with dodgy colours - it needs to be just like a high end professional jeweller offline; professional, classy and an experience in itself.

Online businesses also have to work harder in my opinion because of the associated risks and confusion with online shopping in Ireland not to mention the amount of competition due to globalisation.

link8r

Wasn't trying to discourage anyone from building an online site - was just trying to get the steps and motivators in the right order - i.e. there is a business need, and from your follow up post, I have no doubt that your business ideas and processes for implementing them are well thought out and logical.

I think the web is a great place for business and I love online business development, which I have been doing a long time. I've made a living from internet related work for 14 years and I love it.

The person I spoke to was entering an over-supplied marketplace with not nearly enough online business to justify it - and they didn't have the budget/know-how to take the number one spot to displace their competition.

link8r

I found your post really helpful and am grateful that you posted. I couldn't agree with you more with everything that you said.

link8r wrote: »

Wasn't trying to discourage anyone from building an online site - was just trying to get the steps and motivators in the right order - i.e. there is a business need, and from your follow up post, I have no doubt that your business ideas and processes for implementing them are well thought out and logical.

I think the web is a great place for business and I love online business development, which I have been doing a long time. I've made a living from internet related work for 14 years and I love it.

The person I spoke to was entering an over-supplied marketplace with not nearly enough online business to justify it - and they didn't have the budget/know-how to take the number one spot to displace their competition.