Site Design and software issues

[jkgourmet]

I'm a newbie. I'm NOT an artistic person. I'm html, php, css, etc. challenged. And I'm frustrated.

I've studied, learned, read, and devoured a lot of information over the past few months (thank you, my last employer, for accepting my suggestion that you lay me off - it's been wonderful!). I have a good basic understanding of keyword research, niche's, PPC (which I will avoid for a very long time), quality content, article submission, a little SEO, etc. But the technical and design aspects of building a page have me stopped in my tracks. I'd like to put up a few questions and hopefully get some direction.

I am interested in selling products through AM - I feel that I can do with with integrity and honesty, which are important issues to me. (I originally liked the idea of promoting information, but find that too many of the products are, shall we say, crap. Maybe I'll reconsider later, but let's stick with products for now.)

1. If I set up a ecommerce store, with a blog to 'talk' about the products and continue to add valuable, fresh content on the site, how can a shopping cart be used if there are multiple merchants? I've seen sites that make it crystal clear that they are only a resource for gathering "the best" merchants (see gifts.com for example), but it seems to me there should be something better.

2. If I'm looking at selling products, wordpress (at first glance) doens't necessarily seem like the best way to go. I know there is PopShops, but I'm still not sure how this would work. Are there other platforms I should be looking at? (I have neither the time, money or energy to learn Dreamweaver at this point.) What language?

3. Should I just farm this out to a freelancer, asking that they provide some tutoring at the end so that I can learn to repeat this same basic website shell for additional niches?

Any examples of specific sites that you think I should look at would be most appreciated! (Lynn, I did pick up on your 2005 series about building the dart store website, but I don't think it's operational anymore - at least, I couldn't find a way to buy anything on it.)

Thanks everybody for the help. I intend to stick around long enough to pay it forward.

[kdbbiz]

I have a shop using Popshops and I really like it. It is fast and easy and you can have multiple merchants as you wish. I also have the blogging part setup for articles and videos(it's a skateboard shop that was my teen son's for all of 2 months)

Keep me posted on how you're doing. I think you need the wordpress plugin for it too. I have to go check, it has been 2 yrs since I installed it....

[TraciKnoppe]

To resolve your design issues, set yourself up a WordPress blog and use a free theme. Design issues solved. ;)

As far as a shopping cart: if you're doing affiliate marketing, you do not need a shopping cart. You are selling other people's products and they already have the shopping cart system in place, you are just directing your site visitors to the actual product creator via your affiliate link. That's one of the beauties of affiliate marketing: less work for you. ;)

If you are still wanting to go the static site route, with eCommerce, let me know and I can offer some suggestions.

[Lynn Terry]

I'm not familiar with popshops - can someone toss me a link?

I don't use ecommerce/shopping cart software to set up my affiliate sites. I simply create web pages that feature products. The one you looked at is being worked on at the moment, but that's a good basic example. Very simple.

I like your idea of setting up an ecommerce-looking affiliate site with a blog installed for topical discussions & reviews. Instead of hiring someone for any major web design or programming, all you really need is a template created. And maybe a custom header for your WordPress theme.

My guy is Michael Schultz and he is also a member here. I'm sure he'd be happy to give you a quote on that once you know what your topic will be and have an idea what you might want.

[jkgourmet]

I'm not familiar with popshops - can someone toss me a link?

I don't use ecommerce/shopping cart software to set up my affiliate sites. I simply create web pages that feature products. The one you looked at is being worked on at the moment, but that's a good basic example. Very simple.

I like your idea of setting up an ecommerce-looking affiliate site with a blog installed for topical discussions & reviews. Instead of hiring someone for any major web design or programming, all you really need is a template created. And maybe a custom header for your WordPress theme.

My guy is Michael Schultz and he is also a member here. I'm sure he'd be happy to give you a quote on that once you know what your topic will be and have an idea what you might want.

LOL, Lynn - I spotted a few of your tweete with michael earlier today. I may very well take that suggestion.
I appreciate the positive response to my idea. Do you know of any sites that might show me what I'm thinking about (that sounds backwards but accurate nonetheless.). It's the multiple merchant on one page that has me stumped.

[Lynn Terry]

His twitter ID is @MykeSchultz and you'll find him here on the forum as well.

Don't think of it as multiple merchants. Think of it as similar products. Let's say you're selling Strawberry Shortcake products. On one page you'll have Strawberry Shortcake house shoes, on another you'll have Strawberry Shortcake backpacks. You can display products from one merchant, or also add in variety by including products from other merchants.

Your job is to create a resource for the shopper who is searching for value and variety.

[retta719]

http://popshops.com/ Pop Shops are kind of fun, I was using them for awhile on my craft blog. I think I still have a few pages there that were created with them. They've made improvements to the program since then though and I haven't had a chance to check it out now that its new and improved.

[jkgourmet]

His twitter ID is @MykeSchultz and you'll find him here on the forum as well.

Don't think of it as multiple merchants. Think of it as similar products. Let's say you're selling Strawberry Shortcake products. On one page you'll have Strawberry Shortcake house shoes, on another you'll have Strawberry Shortcake backpacks. You can display products from one merchant, or also add in variety by including products from other merchants.

Your job is to create a resource for the shopper who is searching for value and variety.

Considering my jkgourmet moniker and the fact that I don't have kids, it took me a minute or two to understand that your strawberry shortcake example had nothing to do with whipped cream and angelfood cake:).

I'll keep trying to wrap my brain around it from that perspective, Lynn. Thx everyone for your advice.

[Lynn Terry]

LOL!

My own daughter has never been a fan... but I was as a child ;)

[kdbbiz]

You don't need the popshops plugin anymore. I just checked. I was wondering why I wasn't getting much action anymore CJ shut my account down since I had no action and hadn't logged in in too long. lol.

Had to revamp with new products to list. Good thing it is so fast and easy to do.

Anyone want to take a look. I have not organized the products yet because I simply wanted to add a few in case my daily visitors needed anything.


http://jpcskateboards.com My domain stands for Just Plain Crazy Skateboards( 15 year olds pic the strangest names)

I was thinking of selling it soon. Anyone have any comments for me, feel free to share.

thanks
Melanie

[carlos123]

An option may be Drupal. ...


I think Drupal may be overkill for what the OP (original poster) needs. If the OP is having a bit of trouble understanding the technical side of things...Drupal will absolutely bury them in frustration. Just wait till it comes to updating a Drupal install never mind actually using it to create a web site.

Just my two cents.

Carlos

[Lynn Terry]

What kind of code does the popshops generate? Is it done in java, html... ? I'm asking because I prefer all of my product pages to be coded in HTML so that the product names, descriptions, etc are "seen" by the search engines. I get a lot of traffic to my affiliate product pages by product name etc.

[kdbbiz]

A few things about Popshops. In the free version, it is only Javascript but you can also add the code to your typepad or blogger site which is kind of cool for the new beginner who wants a site up but is still working on figuring out wordpress or what not.

If you upgrade to Pro you can use html and php and asp. Then if you want even more options( not to mention the ability to create unlimited shops), you can go Enterprise and do XML, CSV, ATOM and RSS2 versions of your shop.

There are lots of videos and such for tutorials so you can learn to create the best shop you can. I haven't much gotten into it yet, but am thinking of adding a shop to one of my other sites too. Who knows, maybe I will work on writing a tutorial once I have played around with it more(since we all know I love writing tutorials).

[Jill]

Following along on this discussion, I have a different question - is anyone using the WordPress Ultra Simple PayPal Shopping Cart? I'm trying to figure out how best to automatically redirect the customer to the correct web page after a paypal purchase when you have multiple reports to sell. I have 3 reports, so I need 3 different return URL's - and it looks like this plugin only allows one redirect page.
For folks who sell info products, is there another plugin you prefer? Or can you coach me on this one?
Thanks,
Jill