E-Commerce / Shopping Cart

We’ve included an optional E-Commerce platform with your website. If you select this option, we will be contacting you for more information regarding your product line. We will need your merchant information to accept credit card payments online and your initial product line (up to 10 items).

While your shopping cart can host an unlimited number of products, we will configure the first 10 with your website. We will provide you with detailed instructions on how to easily add, edit and delete products from your shopping cart but adding any additional products beyond the first 10 are entirely up to you. If you would like us to add your entire catalog of products or additional products beyond the included 10 items, let us know and we will determine a price for the additional services based on how many items you want us to include.

Newsletter

A newsletter is used to stay in touch with your visitors. They sign up to receive news, offers, specials or whatever you want and their email is put into a database where you can then email your list. On your website it will look like a very small form, usually integrated into the sidebar, which asks for Name and Email. This can be customized to ask for whatever you want.

To actually use the list and email your customers, you need to use a service. We chose MailChimp.com and here’s why. They have a great reputation and they have a free version of their service which includes up to 2,000 email addresses and 12,000 sent emails per month.  That’s a lot! If you want more or need more, you can upgrade your account with them. If you have another service you are already paying for, let us know and we will be happy to integrate it for you.

Contact Form

A contact form is used to allow customers to send you an email inquiry from within your website. You can completely customize your contact form and have it sent to yourself and whoever else you want to get a copy.

Social Networking Icons

Social Media is the buzz today. We will integrate Social Media Icons on your website which will allow visitors to promote your website, products and services via their own social media profiles. We cannot stress how powerful this is.

In addition, we can link to your Social Media profiles. If you are not using Social Media for your business, let us know so we can get you started. By default, we will include icons for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

Blog / News

A blog is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and let them know what is going on with your business and to educate visitors on your topic. If you want it, we will build it. Typically, it’s up to you to write your own blog but we have been known to provide those services on behalf of our clients. If this is something you are interested in, contact us so we can discuss what it is you need and how we can deliver a solution tailored just for you.

Photo Gallery

There is a right way and wrong way to display photos to your website customers. If it’s done wrong, it looks terrible and unprofessional. We will set up a great photo gallery for your visitors which you can easily add / remove pictures from. Click here for a sample photo gallery to see just how powerful our Photo Galleries are.

Calendar

Calendars can be used to highlight upcoming events, specials, promos or even to let visitors browse your blog articles by date. If you want it, we will build it. We know that calendars will be an important part of some businesses, so we are using a very robust and powerful calendar app, Google Calendar.

Google Calendar will allow you to add, edit and manage your calendar from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Comments / Reviews

A lot of businesses don’t understand how great a comments section is. That’s because they are scared of negative comments appearing on their website. While we won’t go in to the benefits of negative reviews, comments and reviews are an extremely powerful force of onsite marketing. It’s a way for customers to let prospective customers know about your website, products and services.

It’s important to note a couple things about a comments section. First, all comments are submitted to you for your review. If you don’t like a comment, you don’t have to approve it. This means you only approve the comments you want to appear on your website. Second, a comments section eventually gets picked up by spammers who will leave a comment for the purpose of promoting their own website / service.

If you do decide to utilize a comments section, we will show you the Do’s and Don’ts and explain exactly what to watch out for when it comes to spammers. They are easy to detect and all you have to do is press one little button to get rid of them.

Content Management System (CMS)

All of our Affordable Websites will be built on a Content Management System that will allow you to take control of making any edits or changes to your website. You will be able to edit copy, add and delete pages, photos and products. The system is very intuitive and is as easy to use as creating a document.

We will also provide you with a CMS “cheat sheet” that will give you step-by-step, easy to follow instructions. Of course, if you have any questions or concerns, there is always the Live Chat function, or you can simply give us a call and we will be happy to answer any and all of your questions.