My website ownership experience - Page 39 - Business, Finances and Investing Forum

Custom designed blog?

First of all, design/aesthetics is extremely important on our website. I asked my web designer if we should just use WordPress or other for our blog and simply plug it in to our site. He said that it's very simple for him to custom design a blog and then we'd have complete control of the design. Obviously, he is biased, so I just wanted advice from some others.

Is it really likely that we wouldn't be able to make a plugin look in a way that matches our website?
Are there any other reasons, other than cost, why I should go with a plugin or with a custom-build?

Thank you.

Okay, my impression was that you could use WordPress or similar and just plug it in to your site. So you use all of their functionality, but it appears on yoursite.com, not wordpress.yoursite.com. My web guy just told me that no, all you can do is put a link on yoursite.com to your blog on wordpress.yoursite.com. That seems wrong, but he's the professional, so...?

edit: Just like an e-commerce site on shopify can be at dodocase.com, instead of shopify.dodocase.com. I don't see why blogging wouldn't be the same.

Last edited by tetsuya; 10-06-2011 at 06:32 PM.

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10-06-2011 , 06:43 PM

#952

txpstwx

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,239

Completely incorrect in general. Could be that he can't/doesn't know how/doesn't want to integrate it into your site.

http://wordpress.org/download/ for a domain like yoursite.com/blog

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10-06-2011 , 06:49 PM

#953

tetsuya

enthusiast

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 77

K, thanks. So, should this be a red flag for me? We were about to spend 20k with this guy. Is it understandable that he didn't know this?

He said a link was the only thing possible. He wasn't even aware you could do this, not just that he didn't know how.

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10-06-2011 , 07:36 PM

#954

txpstwx

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,239

It really depends. He could be working with a custom CMS or Flash etc where it wouldn't integrate well with your site.

But at the same time, yes.

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10-06-2011 , 08:04 PM

#955

Neko

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 4,000

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdm13

def try pokeraffiliatelistings.com . a bunch of guys who make their living from poker websites will probably be interested in your sites.

Thanks. Did not know about that site.

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10-06-2011 , 08:12 PM

#956

_dave_

_Pooh_Bah_

Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,146

Quote:

Originally Posted by tetsuya

I'd consider it a huge red flag, especially for $20k. Most anyone building sites should know there's a downloadable wordpress, and you can install/run it on your own domain, or if you have a site already run it from a folder e.g. mysite.com/blog

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10-06-2011 , 08:54 PM

#957

tetsuya

enthusiast

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 77

Yeah, this is for a completely new site, so zero problems with integrating with flash or anything else.

Now, I'm thinking I'll just go with shopify or something. This guy does really good work, but if he has gaps in his knowledge like this, I could be walking into some major problems once it's too late.

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10-06-2011 , 09:10 PM

#958

HowardGrind

adept

Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 1,059

Quote:

Originally Posted by tetsuya

20k. For a blog site is a complete ****ing joke. Do your self a favor and go get more quotes. I massive agency would struggle to charge you that much.

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10-06-2011 , 09:11 PM

#959

txpstwx

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,239

You could even just use wordpress for the entire thing. I don't know what this guy was going to do for 20K but I think these are cool for $70:

http://www.woothemes.com/themes/woocommerce-themes/

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10-06-2011 , 09:15 PM

#960

tetsuya

enthusiast

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 77

Quote:

Originally Posted by HowardGrind

20k. For a blog site is a complete ****ing joke. Do your self a favor and go get more quotes. I massive agency would struggle to charge you that much.

It's an e-commerce site with a big backend. The blog is just a small part of the 20k.

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10-06-2011 , 09:17 PM

#961

tetsuya

enthusiast

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 77

Quote:

Originally Posted by txpstwx

You could even just use wordpress for the entire thing. I don't know what this guy was going to do for 20K but I think these are cool for $70:

http://www.woothemes.com/themes/woocommerce-themes/

Yeah, def considering something like that, too. Wouldn't it be a lot more work for me over a shopify type service, though?

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10-06-2011 , 10:02 PM

#962

txpstwx

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,239

Quote:

Originally Posted by tetsuya

Yeah, def considering something like that, too. Wouldn't it be a lot more work for me over a shopify type service, though?

Probably. I haven't used that particular wordpress ecommerce plug-in or shopify so I can't say for sure but if so, only because it isn't as fully featured as shopify.

I have used magento, oscommerce, joomla/virtuemart and zencart and they're all decent and fairly easy to use.

Shopify doesn't seem like a great long term solution but it seems like a decent option to get started. It's probably worth checking into their 30 day free trial.

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10-06-2011 , 10:38 PM

#963

tetsuya

enthusiast

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 77

Yeah, I want a custom-build, eventually, but I'm feeling put off at this point and think I'll just short-term it with one of these store builders.

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10-07-2011 , 03:10 AM

#964

cts

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 7,736

Fire the developer immediately.

Shopify you cannot self-host unfortunately (I'd love to be proved wrong here).

WooCommerce is the new WooThemes e-commerce platform and is by far the best I've used. It's really slick, powerful, and easy.

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10-07-2011 , 03:48 AM

#965

MalkasGambit

veteran

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 2,407

Quote:

Originally Posted by cts

How would you compare WooCommerce to something like Magento?

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10-07-2011 , 03:52 AM

#966

MalkasGambit

veteran

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 2,407

Quote:

Originally Posted by cts

Anyone have a graphic designer they would recommend for the occasional 1-off job? I keep having one or two projects a month that would take a pro an hour but end up taking me five and not looking nearly as good.

Have you found any yet?

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10-07-2011 , 04:07 AM

#967

MalkasGambit

veteran

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 2,407

Divorce Attorney
Child Support

Starting a $2-3k trial SEM campaign for an attorney in family law whom I've had a lot of success in Employment Law SEM with over the last 1.5 years (~30-35% conversion rate of visitors into emails/phone calls).
1) How do you feel re; these landing pages appealing to the type of mentality someone looking for a family lawyer might have?
2) One of the female partners at the firm said she feels the page looks cheap (e.g. lots of "free consultation"). Do you get the same impression? And if you were to a/b test this landing page with another, what changes would you make on page B?

Last edited by MalkasGambit; 10-07-2011 at 04:12 AM.

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10-07-2011 , 05:12 AM

#968

Phresh

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Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 10,108

I think it's pretty perfect. If you offer free consultation, why wouldn't it say that? I think women are stupid, tell her to go bake something.

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10-07-2011 , 07:22 AM

#969

yimc17

grinder

Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 484

Maybe someone here can help.

I am using the standard wordpress registration right now. I want to switch to something where the user can create their own password and instantly login instead of getting a random password emailed to them.

I read that gravity forms is the best option but to get the registration form you have to buy the $200 developer package... a bit more than I want to spend. Anyone know of a different option? I don't mind paying for a plugin just not $200. I have searched google and wordpress plugins but couldn't find what I need... maybe my search skills are lacking.

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10-07-2011 , 08:22 AM

#970

cts

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 7,736

There are free plugins that do that very well, don't spend any money on it! I'll take a look in 45 min.

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10-07-2011 , 08:45 AM

#971

cwar

Free Hugz

Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 11,127

Quote:

Originally Posted by tetsuya

Yeah, I want a custom-build, eventually, but I'm feeling put off at this point and think I'll just short-term it with one of these store builders.

I have a feeling a custom build is a lot more expensive than $20k to build one correctly (that will run quickly) with all the functionality that a lot of the ecommerce CMS's are already going to have. I use both Zencart and Magento, the new ZC beta has almost everything built into Magento without all the resource hogging on the non-enterprise version. Also, eBay is releasing more about X.Commerce within the week and I have moderately high hopes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cts

Very interesting. I really love launching projects on WP and that has a lot of the functionality I have always looked for, nice find!

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10-07-2011 , 08:50 AM

#972

cts

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Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 7,736

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalkasGambit

How would you compare WooCommerce to something like Magento?

Personally, I am just very used to WordPress and if I can get an e-commerce theme that will integrate well with it I am going to be hard-pressed to go with something else. Magento might be great, I'm not sure, but WooThemes always puts forth a really strong product and WooCommerce is very simple to use.

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10-07-2011 , 08:51 AM

#973

cts

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Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 7,736

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalkasGambit

I think they look great, nice job. I don't think it looks cheap or spammy at all.

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10-07-2011 , 08:55 AM

#974

cts

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 7,736

Quote:

Originally Posted by yimc17

I just browsed around for 5 minutes without finding anything and don't have any more time to look, but I've definitely used a free plug-in to do just this before. I'd keep looking.

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10-07-2011 , 09:02 AM

#975

cwar

Free Hugz

Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 11,127

Quote:

Originally Posted by cts

Very true. Having a CMS you are used to and understand well is huge. I have been running an extended test with Magento and while it does have a lot of the functionality I like changing things around is REALLY hard because I don't have the understanding I do with it like I do with ZC. Working with something you understand is very powerful particularly in a large ecommerce site where security is a serious concern and new functionality that is fully scalable is a constant need.

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