An amateur lost in the wilderness

Melissa2012B

New Member
I'm an amateur with web design, barely past the basics. I've never been to school for it at all. I have some basic HTML experience, from doing my own amateur web pages over the years and I can basically maintain things once they're done for me, like my site at http://ColoradoProcessServers.net
I HAVE worked with Wordpress some and can get around with that, and in Hostgator when I need to. But my own site is now simplified and I maintain it through FTP at my ISP's server and use CoffeeCup HTML editor for that.

But now my sister needs me. She had a couple of designers over the years, who set up the site for their flower shop, at http://aflowerpatchonline.com/

But the online ordering hasn't been working so well for them, too many problems, too little business from it, and they want to get rid of it, and the last designer who did the site also used some kind of blog format for the featured design arrangements there, so there's "Comments" links under each design, which they hate and want out of there.

Problem is that they have had hard economic times down there in Florida and they dropped the insurance on their shop around this time last year, so they could keep their employees. Then the day after Valentine's Day, the shop caught fire and burned. They've been working out of a tent in the parking lot since, while rebuilding, so they don't have money to spare for a designer at this point. So I'm it.

I need to figure this out, and my experience is very basic. They need me to get rid of the shopping cart stuff and the Comments below each arrangement, and they even want to get rid of the "Contact Us" thing in the top bar, but I cant even find the thing in Wordpress, it's weird.

And if I turn off the shopping cart in Wordpress, it moves the sidebar menu up into the graphics and makes it look like a mess.

I also need to improve their SEO and I know a limited amount about how to do that with a site this sophisticated, though I've had some success with my own site. But they're not even on the first page of organic results yet.

I also have some Adwords experience with my own site and have improved things SOME for them, with that, but need to get them on the first page of organic results before being able to really help with that.

Help would be appreciated, I feel like an idiot with this, because I've literally had no formal schooling for it.
 
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chrishirst

Well-Known Member
Staff member
But the online ordering hasn't been working so well for them, too many problems, too little business from it, and they want to get rid of it,
Probably because

A: it is not promoted
B: the "online flowers" is a hugely competitive, over-subscribed market.


I also need to improve their SEO
You can't "improve their SEO", you may be able to improve the optimisation, promotion and marketing, but most SEOs are totally beyond any hope of improvement!!


First off good optimisation does NOT there will be a constant stream of visitors beating a virtual path to their door (or tent flap as it seems), PROMOTION AND MARKETING is what gets traffic, optimising is there to get better conversions from what traffic there is.


And please, who decided that flourescent pink, yellow and green were a good combination for a design? In a bouquet of flowers certainly, but a website? not that good. Change the pink for a proper red it should improve it somewhat.

The first SEO lesson is FORGET about "rankings" they are NOT a useful metric anymore. In 2002? Sure. In 2012? not even slightly.

Second is links are NOT "SEO".
 

Melissa2012B

New Member
Probably because
A: it is not promoted
and-search/26-links-the-secret-life-of"]links are NOT "SEO"[/URL].

Not sure what you mean by that.

B: the "online flowers" is a hugely competitive, over-subscribed market.

Not sure what you mean by that either.

You can't "improve their SEO", you may be able to improve the optimisation, promotion and marketing, but most SEOs are totally beyond any hope of improvement!!

Not sure what you mean by that either. What I was talking about was getting them onto the first page of Google results, organically, then marketing them up higher with Adwords.

First off good optimisation does NOT there will be a constant stream of visitors beating a virtual path to their door (or tent flap as it seems), PROMOTION AND MARKETING is what gets traffic, optimising is there to get better conversions from what traffic there is.

Well like I said above...

Once people see their site, they seem to get lots of business, from the experience so far, it's getting them on the first page of results, and then towards the top.

And please, who decided that flourescent pink, yellow and green were a good combination for a design? In a bouquet of flowers certainly, but a website? not that good. Change the pink for a proper red it should improve it somewhat.

LOL You should have seen it before I got to it. They used to have light and dark green alternating stripes for the background, that looked like foil gift wrap? :eek:

The first SEO lesson is FORGET about "rankings" they are NOT a useful metric anymore. In 2002? Sure. In 2012? not even slightly.

Hafta disagree with that. Since I started using some keywords and Adwords some, their business has picked up significantly, off the absolute floor that they were on last year. That was what made it where they had to drop the insurance on their store in order to keep their employees. They made so little money last year, they barely paid themselves. They're in an area that has had about 25% unemployment for years now.


Thanks.

So now I gotta figure how to remove the shopping cart code and comments below each photo, without screwing up the pages.
 

Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
definately rethink the colours...they are all wrong

page rank really means nothing, so hafta disagree with you. and keywords are not used and adwords is not seo. so cant see how you can disagree with chris on that one.

the best way to improve their traffic is to advertise, locally. but do so after you give it a design overhaul, it really needs a lot of love.
 

Melissa2012B

New Member
OK that's fine, but I have to learn how and colors aren't the first priority.

#1 priority is getting rid of the shopping cart, which is a Cart66 plugin in Wordpress, and doing it in a way where it doesn't trash the page when I do it. When I simply turn it off, the prices all turn to weird text and the right sidebar list of items ( presently pink ) moves up into the graphics.

#2 priority is getting the blog comments junk ( No Comments » | Edit ) out from beneath each merchandise item.

After that we can focus on the colors and marketing aspects ( getting a lot of people from all over the U.S. to call them and place orders for their relatives in the West Palm Beach area ).
 
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Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
also I would not be getting rid of the contact us page. that's just silly if they want people to contact them!
 

Melissa2012B

New Member
No, the "No Comments" junk below each item. I just found out how to eliminate them!
I found and deleted the : No Comments »
from several page templates. Fixed THAT problem!

The Edit part was only appearing to me, because I'm logged in as admin, so no problem with that. But priority 2 is solved! YAY!
 

taty

New Member
Our area has the highest unemployment in our state so we understand some of your frustrations.

If you can edit an HTML template I'll be more than happy to send you a Floral template that looks much better than the one you have now but it's not a WP template. You'll need an editor.

I would also suggest you seo the business for local area within a 50 mile radius of the business and then build from that. This is what's working best for most of our mom and pop store clients now.

PM me if you're interested in the template.
 
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Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
I was referring to this...
they even want to get rid of the "Contact Us" thing in the top bar

...the easiest way (albeit a bandaid solution) to remove your "shop" from the public eye would be to add to these selectors in your css
Code:
.Cart66ButtonPrimary,  
.Cart66ButtonSecondary, 
#content .Cart66ButtonPrimary, 
#content  .Cart66ButtonSecondary, 
.Cart66CartButton .purAddToCart 
{display: none;}

/* and */

#cart66cartwidget-2
 { visibility:hidden;}
although this wont get you out of the woods as far as figuring out how to successfully remove the shop, it will (visibly at least) remove the purchasing elements of the cart and the cart message, so at least it would get the client off your back for an immediate removal.
 
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Melissa2012B

New Member
Thanks Phreaddee!

That at least gets it off the page without scrunching the lettering into the graphics, and I can now remove the "Add to cart" buttons easily from each item and it will be gone!

Not "client", they're my sister and brother in law. LOL
 

Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
B: the "online flowers" is a hugely competitive, over-subscribed market.
Not sure what you mean by that either.
meaning to place high in google for a search term such as "online flowers", you would be competing in a very large and very competitive market, which would make it difficult.
 

Melissa2012B

New Member
LOL! True. Thanks for the advice people!

Looks much better now! http://aflowerpatchonline.com/

But I had to go through every page by hand just now, and get rid of all the cart prices and replace them with plain old text prices. Whew. Brain burned out!

The only disadvantage now, is that the prices don't come from a central list, so if they change something, they gotta go everywhere it appears and change it. Oh well...

Now if I can just tweak the wording to get them on the first page of Google organic... without making it look silly....
 

chrishirst

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Hafta disagree with that. Since I started using some keywords and Adwords some, their business has picked up significantly, off the absolute floor that they were on last year. That was what made it where they had to drop the insurance on their store in order to keep their employees. They made so little money last year, they barely paid themselves. They're in an area that has had about 25% unemployment for years now.
Of course, but that is NOT because of the rankings that YOU SEE.

It is not rankings per se that is useless, it is CHECKING rankings that is the useless bit. You see what you see, others see what they see, the two are never the same. And by searching like a "rank checker" you are skewing your results set in favour of a few words and phrases, so what you see are NOT 'natural' results, they have been 'shaped' by your search behaviour.

And putting keywords and adwords you are getting the idea there, traffic comes from marketing of the right and promotion of the URLs. CONVERSIONS from search traffic is what optimising of for, unfortunately the two sides of Internet marketing became indelibly blurred when the name was coined back in 1993 -1995. Search has changed immensly since then, but the "experts" haven't. They keep ploughng right onwards repeating the same last century mantras and thinking, while continuing to perpetuate the myths and legends of search.
 

Melissa2012B

New Member
Of course, but that is NOT because of the rankings that YOU SEE.

It is not rankings per se that is useless, it is CHECKING rankings that is the useless bit. You see what you see, others see what they see, the two are never the same. And by searching like a "rank checker" you are skewing your results set in favour of a few words and phrases, so what you see are NOT 'natural' results, they have been 'shaped' by your search behaviour.

No, actually I've learned to use the checker that Adwords puts in the keywords. https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/

Ad Preview and Diagnosis
With the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool, you can search for your ad just like you would on a regular Google search results page, without accruing any impressions. Use the drop-down menus below to configure additional options for your search

Their tester doesn't skew any results and shows where your keyword set is actually placing at the time.

And putting keywords and adwords you are getting the idea there, traffic comes from marketing of the right and promotion of the URLs. CONVERSIONS from search traffic is what optimising of for, unfortunately the two sides of Internet marketing became indelibly blurred when the name was coined back in 1993 -1995. Search has changed immensly since then, but the "experts" haven't. They keep ploughng right onwards repeating the same last century mantras and thinking, while continuing to perpetuate the myths and legends of search.

All I know is that when I do it better, we get more business.
 

chrishirst

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Adwords position testing and rank checking are two very different things.

Ad position testing and modifying your bids and keyword grouping is a good strategy to keep the cost down, improve your quality score and increase your conversions, and while ever you can maintain a positive ROI from paid campaigns you shouldn't worry about "natural results from search". With Adwords you remain in control of your traffic.
 
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