Website design/programming advice

Countcussy · 19 Sep 2017 at 16:56

Our company is looking at options to take our web sales and marketing to the next level. We have always used "Specialists" to help design and host our websites. Continued growth now means we are looking at other options which would allow us more control. Specifically over the design and any alterations we want to make. Currently, we have to explain to the developers what we want, get a quote for the work, and then decide if we wish to proceed. We are finding this a bit limiting, especially as they have no understanding of the industry we operate in. Our site is e-commerce and built on Opencart.
I have been asked to explore other options, whereby we have more control over the site than we currently have. Our marketing girl has worked wonders with our current site, but we all feel there is so much more potential. I have not linked to the website as I don't want this thread to look like an advert.
We are in the pumping (Water/sewage) industry, which means there are many versions of similar products, many options and add-ons, and this has proved problematic for various reasons.
Our only 2 experiences of website design have been Joomla and Opencart. Is that the problem?

Any idea where I should start? Would a bespoke site be relatively easy to look after ourselves with the correct staff/training?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

touch · 19 Sep 2017 at 17:11

Joomla isn't much of a problem. It's just a CMS used for managing the pages, content, products, etc on the site. You could have an entirely bespoke design built on Joomla if you wanted.

It does sound like you've got a standard setup though: you get access to the Joomla CMS to manage your site content but any design changes need to be made by the developer. If you don't know what you're doing, you'll probably make a mess of it and if you do know what you're doing, there's no need for a developer and you can just build the site yourself.

Obviously, I dont know what your current site is like but I'd suggest focusing on SEO will improve sales more than redesigning the site would.

Countcussy · 19 Sep 2017 at 18:48

Thanks touch. You have it spot on in terms of what the site is. Traffic is good, but it's also an info resource for our customers and new staff. The owner just feels the site is a little dated, and is always looking to improve. Like all successful owners, he has a constant itch.
We have grown from 2 guys in a garage to having a large workplace with 7 staff quite quickly. He does not mind funding it as long as we get what we need. He does think everything is copy/paste and can be done in an afternoon though.

dmsims · 20 Sep 2017 at 01:31

Nothing wrong with Opencart. There is no product option / add on issue that cannot be solved

PM me the site and I'll take a look as well (for free

)

Countcussy · 20 Sep 2017 at 08:32

dmsims said:
Nothing wrong with Opencart. There is no product option / add on issue that cannot be solved

PM me the site and I'll take a look as well (for free )

Thank you for the info. I am sure Opencart is fine for our needs.
Maybe we need to explore Opencart training and or employment so it can be looked after in house.
That would be the ideal solution.

(I've sent you the site via trust)

Bes · 20 Sep 2017 at 11:08

You mentioned marketing as well. Are you actively using lead scoring and lead nurturing tools? You might want to look at solutions like Pardot to this end, as what you do once the visitor has left it far more important than what you do when they are on-site (Take this from someone who works in Digital Marketing and helps companies spend millions on this to great effect)...

Countcussy · 20 Sep 2017 at 13:21

Bes said:
You mentioned marketing as well. Are you actively using lead scoring and lead nurturing tools? You might want to look at solutions like Pardot to this end, as what you do once the visitor has left it far more important than what you do when they are on-site (Take this from someone who works in Digital Marketing and helps companies spend millions on this to great effect)...

Thanks for the response. I will find out.

Randomface74 · 20 Sep 2017 at 13:25

Don't try to do it yourself. You'll mess it up.

Hire 2 developers or pay an agency. Whichever is cheaper.

touch · 20 Sep 2017 at 13:53

Countcussy said:
Maybe we need to explore Opencart training and or employment so it can be looked after in house.

I'm not sure exactly what it is you're trying to achieve? You mentioned that you wanted to be able to change the design of the site and also look after Opencart in-house.
I would consider the "design" to mean the layouts, colour schemes, menu structures, etc. It would be best to get a developer to do this.
The opencart products, descriptions, prices, etc I would consider to be "content". This would all be done through some kind of admin page and may require some familiarisation with those pages but wouldn't require any technical knowledge so it would be more cost-effective to do it yourself.

It's good to have a modern design, it gives the impression of being an efficient, modern company. If the boss doesnt like it, by all means go ahead and update the design. I'd say that it wont have a large impact on sales though: SEO and other Digital Marketing stuff like Bes mentioned will do a lot more for your sales.
One thing I would say (which is a massive generalisation and there are thousands of exceptions) is that you would be better go to a graphic designer to create the visual designs of the site and a web developer to make that design into a website.

TheAlex · 20 Sep 2017 at 15:06

Countcussy said:
We are in the pumping (Water/sewage) industry, which means there are many versions of similar products, many options and add-ons, and this has proved problematic for various reasons.

I'm guessing that's mostly to do with how you present the products? I.e. whether to have a separate product page with every size of coupling seal, for example, or have one page showing all coupling seals with a drop-down box for size. As far as add-ons go - perhaps that could be achieved with a "you may also need" type of shopping option.

If there are any websites you like the look of, in terms of how they display products or anything (and not just your rivals), you can check what CMS they use at https://builtwith.com/ (there's also a browser extension). That's not to say the website is necessarily using the best CMS for the job, but it can help with your decision in terms of what each is capable of.

touch said:
It's good to have a modern design, it gives the impression of being an efficient, modern company. If the boss doesnt like it, by all means go ahead and update the design. I'd say that it wont have a large impact on sales though: SEO and other Digital Marketing stuff like Bes mentioned will do a lot more for your sales.
One thing I would say (which is a massive generalisation and there are thousands of exceptions) is that you would be better go to a graphic designer to create the visual designs of the site and a web developer to make that design into a website.

The design of a site can have a huge impact on sales. There's a whole industry in optimising conversion rates - even down to what colour buttons are, and where the basket icon is placed. I've seen successful websites that have been redesigned (to something more modern-looking, but less user-friendly), and lost a huge percentage of sales or leads, and vice-versa. Not that it's necessary to spend a lot of money or time on conversion optimisation - sticking to website-norms is generally fine, unless you want to take the extra step in an ultra-competitive industry.

Also - ideally the designer, developer, content person and SEO should all work in tandem when creating a new website, so the designer or SEO doesn't end up creating or wanting something that's impossible to do, the designer or developer doesn't make decisions that will negatively impact SEO, not enough room for product descriptions is left etc. A lot of people think SEO is something that's left until last, but I couldn't disagree more - it's about designing a user-friendly website right from the start. Search Engine Optimisation is the design, amongst many other things. A user-friendly website is often a search-engine-friendly website.

Countcussy · 20 Sep 2017 at 15:57

FWIW, I actually like our website. IMO its clean, easy to navigate, and relatively "simple". For some of our customers, its perfect.
We are currently talking to a few designers and developers to get a feel for what's possible, and what may or may not work for us.
I also a agree that a flashy, all singing site does not guarantee more sales.
We realised the importance of SEO from the very beginning.

Thank you all for your thoughts. We are having a chat tomorrow and this thread gives me some much needed info.

touch · 20 Sep 2017 at 16:08

TheAlex said:
Search Engine Optimisation is the design, amongst many other things. A user-friendly website is often a search-engine-friendly website.

I dont agree. I've seen plenty of user friendly websites which lack even the most basic SEO and plenty of sites which look crap but perform SEO well. It's easily possible to have one without the other.

TheAlex · 20 Sep 2017 at 20:07

touch said:
I dont agree. I've seen plenty of user friendly websites which lack even the most basic SEO and plenty of sites which look crap but perform SEO well. It's easily possible to have one without the other.

I didn't say in every case - I said it's the design amongst many other things, and often a search-engine-friendly website. Google themselves advise to design for the user in mind, and many aspects of their algorithm are geared towards ranking websites that are user-friendly.

Not that I believe everything Google says by the way - far from it. But Google want people to use their search engine, so they want people to be happy with their search engine's results (while allowing for plenty of money-making along the way).