Ecommerce & CS-Cart Shopping Carts

Ecommerce is a critical component to your website strategy. Although there are a lot of WordPress shopping cart plugins to choose from, very few of them offer the robust features that most online store owners need. CS-Cart is my preferred recommendation for online store owners who want an professional and easy to maintain presence.

A Well Seasoned Kitchen Shop

http://seasonedkitchen.com/cart/

When my client envisioned a website for her publication, the site that was designed was primarily intended for promotion and sales of her acclaimed cookbook, A Well-Seasoned Kitchen. The client was unhappy with the limitations of the Shopping Cart plugin that had been implemented by her previous webmaster. My services were retained to design and implement a full-featured shopping cart.

For this project and based on the features and functions that my client was requesting, I recommended the use of CS-Cart software.

Project tasks: 1) Installation of CS-Cart software 2) Design and implement custom CS-Cart skin 3) Configure shipping features and functions per customer specification 4) Customize CS-Cart application for gift wrapping 5) Load products and SEO optimize content 6) Enable SSL certificate for domain 7) Test and implement payment processing 8) Train client in the use of their new application

Skills required: 1) HTML 2) CSS 3) Photoshop 4) CS-Cart Internals 5) Ecommerce 6) PHP 7) MySQL 8) Payment Gateway API

Branson Area Cabin

http://bransonareacabin.com

My WordPress Website Design services were retained to develop a website to promote and acquire online reservations for a rental property in Missouri.

 

 

Project tasks: 1) Recommend and set up account at a good hosting company 2) Install and optimize WordPress 3) Design page that conveyed the spirit of the company name 4) Set up an online reservation system 5) Set up, test and implement payment gateway API 6) Load initial site content and image galleries 7) Setup and integrate Google map for points of interest and activites during stay

Skills required: 1) HTML 2) CSS 3) PHP 4) MySQL 5) WordPress internals 6) Photoshop 7) Web-based reservations 8) Image gallery setup

Men's Gift Spot

http://mensgiftspot.com.au

My services were retained to develop an Ecommerce website for Australian Gift site. Initially, we began with Magento but the software's complexity, along with the learning curve for shop owners, led me to research other shopping cart solutions.

Shopperpress had just come on the market and I could see that it was a better WordPress Shopping Cart application than any of the others which I had used but that software didn't support gift certificates and a shopper wishlist. In my professional opinion, Shopperpress is more targeted for shop owners who want to import product links from affiliate programs like eBay or Amazon. As I was researching shopping cart application alternatives that would meet the requirements of this shop owner, I learned about and recommended the use of CS-Cart.

Project tasks: 1) Install CS-Cart 2) Design custom skin 3) Customize CS-Cart functionality 4) Test and activate payment gateway (eWay) 5) Page and logo graphics

Skills required: 1) HTML 2) CSS 3) Photoshop 4) PHP 5) MySQL 6) CS-Cart Internals 7) Ecommerce

Incoming search terms:

• cs-cart skin
• cs cart designer
• cs-cart skins
• skin cs cart
• artistic cs-cart skin
• cs cart booking system
• cs-cart cookbook
• cs-cart Template Design Cookbook

Marj has a lot of knowledge about WordPress, themes and plug ins and when she doesn’t have an immediate solution for my website questions, she does the research and comes back with a solution every time.

Along the way, Marj has also done a great job of educating me how to maintain my WordPress sites and make some changes on my own. And she has taught me about some cool online tools and SEO tactics as well.

If you are looking for a knowledgable and friendly WordPress expert, who offers her service at a reasonable price, I recommend Marj Wyatt of VirtuallyMarj.com.

Nita Gill
VegetableFruitCarving.com
VegetableFruitCarving.com Blog
VegetableFruitCarving.com Members

Vegetable Fruit Carving Sales Site

Vegetable Fruit Carving Blog

WordPress Website Design Overview

Nita Gill and I met at the Kennedy Glazer San Diego Chapter meeting in late October, 2009. She approached me with interest in learning more about my services and style. At that time, she was not ready to begin her project but, when she had completed the marketing plan, we got to work.

The first project was to help her with a wordpress website design for her new blog. I helped her learn the WordPress ropes, and how to optimize her posts for better SEO.

Nita returned a couple months later with a larger project, which was to migrate her static sales page to a WordPress Website and create a membership site for her products.

Perhaps the biggest technical challenge with the mid-year project was determining the best method to use to serve up videos to her members. We worked together to determine the best method of video production and what players and plugins to use on her site that would give her control over poster images and player control styles.

We used the Wishlist Member Plugin to secure her content. I assisted Nita with determining an overall architecture for her site and how to name the categories for search engine optimization.

The major contribution, aside from normal coaching that goes along with every project, was to educate Nita in the use of her wordpress software. To allow her to become self-sufficient, I created a dozen specialized training videos for her future reference.

Have a look at her sites. Not only are they well designed and functional, she has an awesome product and is a skilled vegetable and fruit carver. Her creations are utterly beautiful!

Incoming search terms:

• www vegetablefruitcarving
• vegetable and fruit carving maintenance

Service Category: Graphic/Web Designer
Year first hired: 2009 (hired more than once)
Top Qualities: Great Results, Expert, Good Value

Jeffrey Howard
CEO, Winning Sales Habits
MyDailySalesCoach.com
DailySalesCoach.com
MonkeyTraps.com

Project Details

Jeff Howard and I met at the end of 2008 when I responded to a Craig’s List posting.  Our styles meshed nicely and, since he first decided to work with me, our professional relationship has flourished.

Our most recent endeavor was to build a sales funnel for a membership site concept that Jeff had in his mind.  The sales page was developed using a premium Sales Letter Theme for use in promoting sales through Event Brite.  For the membership site, we used the Studio Press Corporate theme.  We are protecting content with the Wishlist Member Plugin.

After launching the site, we noticed some performance issues with the site.  Although it is streaming its own videos, the site speed was a problem for Jeff’s members so we began to discuss switching hosting services.  I helped Jeff to quickly determine that his long-term hosting provider, Network Solutions, was the fly in the ointment by setting up his content on A2 Hosting and Just Host for comparison.  Each alternate service delivered the site at lightening speed, by comparison to Network Solutions.  Jeff chose to port his sites to A2 Hosting because they more readily offer telephone support, even though their pricing was a little higher than Just Host.