Time and time again I am hearing how people are just not happy with their Joomla website and they are not happy with VirtueMart (Joomla’s shopping cart).  Their complaints are the structures are just not user friendly when in reality, with the proper training Joomla and Virtuemart is not any harder to use than WordPress or 1Shopping Cart.

The problem is that Joomla comes with so many functions already enabled. People get lost. Once they understand that they can learn to create an article and manage it, then they can learn to move modules, etc, and that they can learn one thing at a time and not get confused by it all at once, Joomla starts to make sense.

Case Study

I met a fellow virtual assistant who had a Joomla site and she was ready to throw in the towel and move it to a WordPress website.  This is fine but she eventually wanted to give away things, have a newsletter and other things that could be accomplished with WordPress but she would either have to pay for these services or she would be using WordPress for something that it was never intended for which is a complex website and she would’ve eventually ran into problems.

She reached out for help and I answered her and spent two hours working with her (she basically needed a full education on how to use her site because her designer created the site, got paid and walked away, which is unfortunate) and she is now much happier with her website.

Her complaint was also that it was not user friendly but once I helped her understand how to do things to her website, she realized it’s really not that un-user friendly.

When you are not use to web design and shopping carts and how they work, whether you use WordPress, Joomla, 1Shopping Cart or Virtuemart, it can all seem overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be.  All you have to do is reach out and find the right person who is willing to take the time and teach you.

With the fast-pace of your life, you may not want to learn something new and that’s fine but if you don’t take the time to learn, it can leave you frustrated and cost you a lot of money.  Even if you have somebody update the site for you, you have to pay them every time or if you try to learn things on your own without somebody in the background to help you out it will cost you in lost time and frustration.

So before you give up on something because you feel it is non-user friendly, reach out and find somebody who is willing to take the time to work with you and educate you because you may just find that you were just uneducated on the item.  Being uneducated can be detrimental to your business and cause great confusion.

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Easter morning she got it and was so excited except of course it was pink and not the teal color she liked so much (they were sold out). Anyway, the outfit is a long shirt with a pair of leggings and she saw the leggings and said I don’t know why the Easter bunny got me pants because this is a dress so I don’t need them.  Mind you, my daughter is 5 years old. Anyway, I explained to her that it wasn’t a dress just a long shirt and she had to wear pants with it, she argued.  I told her that I would ask my mom and sister in law for their opinion at Easter dinner and of course they agreed with me however, that is not good enough for my daughter.  She is still convinced that it is a dress.

This whole ordeal got me thinking about a couple of recent encounters I have had with clients. The most recent one was a person who was looking for help because their website was displaying incorrectly in IE (unfortunately this happens frequently). It was cutting off the complete lower half of the site.

It was beyond my expertise but I contacted a colleague of me that could help me out and we looked at the code and come to find out the most logical problem with it is that they put a height restriction on the site.  When you put a height restriction on a site, IE goes to that height and then completely cuts off the rest of the site.

I told the client about this who then proceeded to tell his web developer.  This web developer emailed me and told me that the code wasn’t the problem but didn’t even know what the problem was and wouldn’t even test to see (sorry but if the site isn’t displaying correctly the only thing it could be is a coding issue). The web developer proceeded to tell the client he needs to redesign the site.

I felt sorry for the client because chances are he will be charged even more for the additional work when chances are all the developer has to do is remove the height restriction and it will work.  I don’t care how long you have been doing web design, there is always a chance that you added something or left out something that is essential to that site displaying properly. When I checked this morning the site was still not displaying properly and they are paying for advertising and marketing and the majority of people still use IE so that poor client is losing business because of the web developers unwillingness to admit he possibly made a mistake.

Another client that I have been working with is a VA.  She has a client who is getting a website developed using Joomla.  Unfortunately she chose a web designer who charges by the hour and quite honestly knows nothing about Joomla.

I’ve been trying to help her out with this client and one of the problems they were having was adding 1SC and Amember to the site. I explained to the VA that with Joomla she doesn’t need to pay for 1SC and Amember because Joomla has free extensions that will handle the job nicely without an extra fee. Plus, if you get too many different applications running in a website that are not created specifically for that site structure you run into a lot of headaches-headaches that can be avoided.

I explained the extensions to the VA who said that her client won’t be interested because her site is already over budget and past due. I told her I would talk to her client for her and explain it to her because it will actually save her a ton of money and headaches in the long run. I then got an email saying they went in a different direction.  A couple of months later, I get an email from this same VA asking for assistance on some other matters and I explained to her that in order to get the results she was looking for, I would have to redo the template not redesign, just redo the template to get the effects she wanted. The VA then proceeded to tell me that she doesn’t need my services at this time.

Obviously this client’s site is still not up and running properly. Had I been able to talk to the client in the beginning I could have gotten all the things that she wanted done completely and her site up and running and making her money a long time ago.  I know that sounds arrogant but the problems that she is having are simple problems, problems that can be taken care of with the correct extensions and a web designer with the know-how.

These clients ASKED for expert help. They got it, and then continued to fumble around messing things up because they wouldn’t listen to the simpler information. They over complicated things and did not take the advice they asked for.

You run into people like that. You tell them it is a shirt, and they insist it is a dress, and end up with their backside exposed.

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As a website owner you also want to keep your clients and customers informed with what’s going on in your business and portray yourself as the expert in your chosen field so you start a newsletter.

The most popular service for both a shopping cart and a newsletter is by far 1SC (1Shopping Cart). After all, spending $99/month to offer a newsletter, physical products and downloadable products seems like a steal considering how much you believe you will earn from your products.

The truth is it takes time to get a website found online and even when it does get found, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your visitors will purchase your products.  You have to have a superior product and portray that throughout your website.  Your newsletter has to have something of interest for it to get subscribers.

Depending on what you charge for your product, it could take you a long time to just break even when paying $99/month. What if there was an alternative to that costly monthly fee?

There is and it’s called Virtuemart and Acajoom. Virtuemart and Acajoom are made specifically for the CMS, Joomla and they are both free.

Virtuemart-

Virtuemart is a fully functional, high powered shopping cart made specifically for Joomla.  Some of the features it includes are:

• Shopper groups-this allows you to be able to offer discounts to customer A but not customer B.  This is a great feature so that you can offer discounts to repeat customers.
• Multiple currency
• Shipping address based tax calculation
• Unlimited number of products
• Online Catalog
• Featured products
• RSS feeds to update subscribers on new products
• Easily add and remove products
• Live credit card processing or pre-defined payment gateways like paypal, authorize.net and more

Acajoom-

• Unlimited subscribers
• Subscription through URL
• Create a default HTML template for each mailing
• Unlimited lists, you can have a list for marketing tips, a list for startup tips, a list for whatever you want and have different subscribers to each.

You may be saying it’s great that all this stuff is free but I already have a website so I don’t want to redo it.  That’s perfectly understandable.

It will cost you approximately $900 or less to get a full-featured shopping cart, newsletter manager, and easy to update website. With 1SC, you are STILL going to either have to put in a LOT of work to set it up, template it, configure it, load the products, etc. In fact, the SAME amount of work that is required for a Joomla site. And you’ll have to either do the work, or pay for it, at about the same rate.

The real comparison is not in setup fees – those are the same. The real comparison is in monthly. A Joomla/VM setup can be maintained for $35 or less per month, and with that, you can often get assistance and advice on how to actually EARN with the site. Compared to 1SC, that’s a significant savings.

Let’s do the math:

Shopping cart and newsletter using 1SC-$99/month
Joomla, Virtuemart and Acajoom-$35/month
1SC for 1 year-$1188
Joomla, Virtuemart, and Acajoom for 1 year-$420
That’s a difference of $768 for 1 year

The proof is in the math.

I understand change is tough. Especially when you have virtual assistants, coaches, marketers etc telling you to stick with 1SC but the truth is, you could really be costing your business a lot of unneeded money waste.

If you don’t mind wasting thousands of dollars to keep in touch with your clients and sell your products online because 1SC is the “norm,” then more power to you. But if you are looking for a cost-effective, long-term solution to your newsletter and shopping cart needs, give us a call and we can help you decide which solution is right for you.

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She was asking for some ideas on how to get more visitors to her site as well as making it more visible on Google. I checked out her site which was very nice but I noticed one HUGE problem, it was completely built in flash. Because the site was built in Flash it probably cost her roughly $1000 dollars. The bad news about it being in Flash is that the search engines will only index it as a single page site without any content.

Considering content is one of the most important aspects of SEO if the search engines can’t read it, I don’t care how nice it is, the site will bring minimal traffic, if any.  You can add description tags and title tags that are excellent but because that is not a primary concern with search engines, you will receive minimal benefit from it.

It is true that Google purchased the rights to the technology to interpret Flash. However, they have not implemented it and no other search engine can read it.  When they do implement it, they will only read the text inside the Flash, not pictures of text, since Flash sites are basically moving pictures, Flash sites will still not be as indexable as other sites.

There is NO aesthetic advantage to designing an entire site in Flash. In fact, you can achieve almost the same effects with JavaScript, and CSS, which won’t interfere with search engine indexing.

Flash is great for accents, but not for entire site coding.

I wasn’t really thrilled about telling the person about her site.  Especially since I knew approximately how much she paid for it, but as a web designer I felt I had a moral and ethical duty to tell her.  Was she upset?  Probably, but I haven’t heard a response from her.  My only concern is that she went back and talked to the person who created the site for her, asking them about it.  Not because I am fearful of the backlash but because of the fact that her web designer probably told her I was full of it and that Google and other sites can index her Flash site just as well as any other site.  The reason I am sure that her web designer told her not to worry about it is because they created the site for her to begin with, knowing that her site would have a hard time getting indexed and getting traffic.

Just because a site can have a ton of bells and whistles doesn’t mean it should.  This also goes for advertisements, or anything that does not serve a purpose to your site visitors such as music playing in the background, a video of the site owner/CEO talking about how great their business is or even saying welcome.

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Domain Name And Hosting- Obviously this is first and foremost.  The domain name needs to be purchased quickly so that it is not purchased by another person.  There are several businesses and people who are on the internet and it may be difficult to get exactly the domain name that is wanted.  Hosting needs to be purchased as well because without hosting, there is no website.

Site Design-The site design is one of the most important aspects of the whole website.  You have to get the colors, pictures, navigation and all around organization of it correct.  Then it needs to be sent to the client for approval.  It is commonplace for some additional tweaking and design work to take place before it is out for the world to see.  This could take several days, or even weeks, depending on how quickly approvals are returned, and how intensive the changes need to be.

Site Structure Install-If you are using the CMS Joomla,  this is actually the easiest thing to do as long as the designer has Joomla already configured.  Then it is just as simple as installing it into the hosting account and making sure all the components are there.  This also includes installing the template that was created. This can take between 1 and 4 hours to do, depending on how much is pre-configured.

Content-The content is the hardest part of creating a website.  The content has to be written and it has to be written well.  A client can do this themselves, or hire it.  However, a good web designer will take a look at client provided content and tweak it to better suit the site visitors and for SEO purposes.   This will go on for every page that is on the site.  This can take several days or even weeks, depending on how many pages the site consists of and how much needs to be done to speak to the site visitors.

SEO- When a site is built correctly, the SEO is largely accomplished in the design and content areas. Too often, a site owner hires a designer to do the site, a content writer to create the content, and then hires an SEO expert to optimize it – the problem with this approach is that it results in a lot of unnecessary cleanup, and may produce handicaps in the site that are prohibitively expensive to correct. It is best to include the Optimization in the site build process from the beginning. Because when the site is built correctly to begin with, SEO becomes a simple process of adding the titles, descriptions, alt-tags, and creating a backlink and online Search Marketing plan. Search Engine Optimization helps to attract higher placement in the search engines and results in more traffic to the site.  It begins and ends with good content, and happens best within a smart site design.

Training-Joomla can have a learning curve to it, as does any software that is worth using, that is why designers who create websites in Joomla SHOULD include training.  Training can be from one hour up to several hours.  Depending on how much the site designer and site owner agreed to and how much the site owner needs help with.

The average time between contract signing and site completion, is two months. It can happen faster if the site is fairly simple and the site owner returns required items promptly and gives approvals quickly. Sometimes it can take longer, due to unforeseen complications (technology is that way), or unexpected events in the lives of the site owner or designer. Getting a “Website Tonight” though, is a myth. If you get an instant website, it isn’t going to be a complete website.

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What this means is that we are now offering web design packages with the virtual assistant and private investigator/judgment recovery agent in mind.  These packages include some of the most asked for addons for the particular industy.

For virtual assistants our sites include:

Newsletter manager (no more paying third party companies)

Events calendars

Task management ability

Event and seminar registration

Companion blog (with matching template)

and more…..

For private investigators and judgment recovery professionals:

Newsletter manager

Ability for clients to download contracts directly from website

Collaboration software

and online client bill paying

These addons are just one’s that are already included in the package.  Should you want another feature, chances are it can be added.

So whether you are a virtual assistant or private investigator who needs a website or wants their website revamped check out our two vertical markets:

Virtual Assistant

Private Investigator/Judgment Recovery Agent

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I remember when I first started my VA business. I was on a limited budget and I didn’t have a lot to spend on my business. I knew I needed a website but I didn’t have the money to pay to get one professionally done so I took it upon myself to create my own and let me say what a challenge that was. Anyway, I set out to create my own website so I searched for free hosting, free templates, and how-to html coding sites and I found some so I started my journey.

I got my site done after spending many, many weeks on it and endless amount of hours working on it. I was so proud of it that I couldn’t wait for the world to see it. I decided to put my website up for review thinking for sure I would get nothing but rave reviews. Boy, was I wrong! In fact, I don’t think any of the critiquers said anything nice about the site. I’ll admit, I got mad and got really defensive. I felt as if they were all attacking me. Honestly though, I think what was the worse is I got my pride hurt. I was so proud of my site and here it wasn’t as good as I thought it was. I did eventually take their critiques to heart and started fixing it and let me tell you, it did wonders for my site and my image.

Anytime you ask for a critique of your website you need to realize that you will get the truth on what people see on your site. They are not trying to be condescending or ignorant when it comes to reviewing them. Believe it or not, they are actually trying to help. There ARE some people who are just ignorant who won’t give you any advice and just tell you give it up and hire a professional designer. To me that is not being helpful that is just plain ignorant and shameless self promotion. Just ignore them. They forgot what it was like when they were just starting out doing web design and now they don’t believe that anybody can do it but themselves and they are not truly out to help, they are out to get business.

When you are looking for a website critique ask yourself a few questions:

Am I ready to have my site critiqued?

Can I handle the constructive criticism that I may get, good or bad?

If I do get a critique, will I take the opinions and run with it or will I just ignore them and walk away?

Do I truly want my site to be a success or do I just want to have a web presence?

If you ask yourself those questions and you can honestly answer them in a positive way then you are ready for a website critique. Personally, I think one of the biggest reasons why people get so defensive is because they feel that people are attacking their hard work and that is not the way it is. They are honestly trying to help. Those who offer the reviews are taking time out of their day to help your website and your business become a success. There is nothing in it for them. True they may get a few clients from it but in all reality, that is a very small percentage.

If something isn’t working, you have to accept hard truths to be able to fix it and make things better. And if you refuse to accept help, or if you decide to hold a grudge against someone who tried to help you, you are shutting off your own ability to succeed. Remember before you ask for a website critique, ask yourself those simple questions and above all else, if you do not want a TRUE opinion, don’t ask.

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You can spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on business cards, brochures, memberships, advertisements, etc but if your website gives the wrong impression, it is the same as throwing money out the window for others to capitalize on. You are doing the hard part, making potential clients aware of your industry/product. This leads to them going onto the internet looking to find out more information about what you have. This starts with them visiting your website and if your website leaves them feeling uninformed and empty, they will continue searching until they find a site that helps them with that feeling. Chances are, they will hire that person or buy products from the person that gave them the “warm” feeling.

People are growing ever more conscientious about how they spend their money. They want the most value for their money that they can get. If some images in your website do not show up, that reflects poorly on you. That gives them the feeling that you do not pay attention to detail. If your website doesn’t have enough information or looks unfinished, they will go somewhere else because that portrays to your visitors that you will only half way do the job and not go that extra mile for them. After all, your website has the potential to be seen by hundreds if not thousands of people and if you can’t spend the extra time on that, then you won’t spend the extra time with them.

When doing a website think about trying to buy a house. You see a house that you really like and you ask to look at it. According to the information about it, it’s got all the amenities that you want, the price is right and you can already see yourself moving in. This seems like it is your dream house. Then you go into the house and there is dirt everywhere, clutter on all of the counters, the carpets are stained, the colors clash and just look horrible, the wallpaper is dated, not to mention that there are areas that look unfinished. Chances are you are going to want to leave as quickly as you got there. You leave with a weird feeling that you can’t explain. Because human nature is to look at the surface of things and not dig deep, you couldn’t get past the clutter to see what great potential that house had. It is the same with a website. If your site gives the wrong impression on the surface, they will go elsewhere to find the site that gives the right impression.

When you say your marketing is not working, there are TWO sides to it – the marketing, and the website. If either one is ineffective, you will get nowhere.

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Many people don’t understand that they need to have good content that is targeted to their market throughout the whole website. It’s not enough to have it just on the homepage.

In order to get content targeted to your market you have to ask yourself a few questions:

• What are your strengths? Why would someone choose you over somebody else?

• What are your weaknesses and how can you capitalize on that?

• What area/industry do you want to focus on?

• Why do you want to focus on that industry?

Once you have these questions answered, it becomes much easier to write the content targeted to your market.

You have to make sure that it is crystal clear what visitors get from working with you. You have to say more than just “you save time”, “you save money”, “you get clients”, etc. You need to let them know how they get clients, how they save money, why they should hire you. They need to know if you are the type of person that they would like to work with. You have a very short time to convince them of this and to get them to dig deeper into your website. Keep the “we” comments to a minimum.

When trying to target a particular industry, use words that they use. Use phrases that they would use. Let them know that you understand who they are and what they need.

If you aren’t sure whether your content appeals to your target market, find a forum or other online networking place where they hang out and ask them what they want to know when shopping for your product or service. Have them take a look at your website and get pointers from them. You can also hire a professional web designer to give you a site review. Once you get a site review, you will know what needs to be changed.

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Many people fail to realize that you need to brand yourself online just as much as you do in print. You need to have a clear vision as to what you want your visitors to get from visiting your website. Is it the feeling of fun, professional, easy going, etc? Once you decide that, you need to convey that in your message to your visitors.

Once you decide what kind of a message you want to send to your visitors, you need to be consistent in your writing style. For example, if you want to bring some personal experiences into it, then by all means do it but keep it consistent.

A tagline is not overly important but if you have one that is catchy make sure you are using that. Add it to your title tags, description tag. Place images in your site that convey the tagline message one way or another. If you get one that is catchy enough it can do wonders. What do you think about when you here the words “can you hear me now”? Verizon, right? They have used that consistently and added it into their commercials so that their customers get a clear vision of what they are talking about.

The design of your site must also match your brand. Figure out what your target market is going to be and design around their personalities. For example, if you are targeting attorneys you will want a very professional, more traditional site design. However if you are targeting artists it needs to be colorful and creative since artists tend to be a bit more free-spirited. Once you figure out the colors that fit your target market best, use them in ALL marketing materials. Business cards, brochures, ads, etc. If you decide to do a blog, keep that design consist with the website as well. It doesn’t necessary have to have the same header but keep the colors the same.

Add your website and blog links to your signature line for emails, online networking, etc. This will help reinforce the brand you are portraying because the more people see it, the more they are going to remember it.

Branding runs through every element of a website – text, header, navigation, even the names of the links and the way things are organized. All of it pulls together to give a consistent message. If it fails to, then people are unpersuaded – or they leave feeling uncomfortable without knowing quite why.

Good branding persuades without people being able to completely analyze why. Inconsistent branding leaves people feeling a little uncomfortable about purchasing, and again, without being able to precisely define the reasons.

When was the last time you reviewed your branding? Is your branding sending the right message or is it all over the map?

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