Categories
software

No client left behind

We get to deal with many leads. However, not all the leads become clients. Part of that non-converting crowd are people who choose hosted shopping cart software. The reasons why we like those people are numerous, but I am going to list just one of them.

Reason 1: Even if they didn’t accept our services, they can still spread the word. People have very different needs. One person could be happy with hosted shopping cart; another would need a full-featured web store front. So even if we suggest some third-party off-the shelf e-commerce solution – we still on good terms with our lead.

Reason 2: Even with the third-party solution customer may need unique design. This one is too obvious to complain about, so I won’t. No matter how sophisticated the solution is – people will have natural urge to tweak it to their heart’s content. While a customer is able to upload inventory from Excel file and couple of images, tweaking style sheets and design may get too complicated and boring.

Reason 3: Off-the-shelf (or hosted) e-commerce solution does have its limitations. While being useful and user-friendly your hosted solution falls short when you really need to grow. If you host plenty of pictures, sample images (or if you are electronically delivering your products, like eBooks or downloads) server load and bandwidth become issues with your hosted solution provider. You come back to people who can build a custom-fit solution for your business.

Reason 4: No matter which software you are using – there is a steep learning curve at the beginning of it. When you just starting – everything seems unusual and complicated. Once you familiarize yourself with it – you’re the king of the hill. Good thing is – when you come to someone to design and develop your custom-fit business solution – you already know what you want! We, the design and development guys, spend tremendous time determining what is it that client wants. People with experience are a great gift, like a second free customer. What could be better?

Overall, the idea of hosted shopping cart or online web page creation tool or whatever else is there is very productive for consumers, solution providers and web design guys. Consumers acquire knowledge and understanding of what they want. Solution providers acquire a stream of customers. Web design guys acquire educated customers. Everybody wins!

Categories
blog

Blogging Away

At the earliest convenience registered myself at some other paying services such as ReviewMe, Smorty, Zookoda, TNX. Research shows that you have to have established blog with good pagerank if you really want to get any real money off of paid posts. However, links in those posts matter much more then actual content. The real problem, of course, is that Google doesn’t like paid links. So, there is a real dilemma – how to get good writing gigs without damaging your Google score (that is PageRank).

Some interesting ideas have been flowing through recently. We’re designing a software utility that will automate certain things in blog management, as well as create some unique opportunities in Search Engine Optimization. More on that later.

Categories
software

Qumana Blog Editor

Qumana Blog Editor Review - iStudioWeb BlogFor the second round of blog editor software reviews I decided to go with Qumana Blog editor. Available at Qumana.com, this free software is available for both Windows and Mac OS platforms. Current version as of writing this post is 3.0.1. The software is written in Java. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it forced me to install Java run-time on my laptop in order to even proceed with install.

SEE IMPORTANT UPDATE at the end of the post!

Externally, Qumana Editor is not really different from Zoundry. The interface looks more contemporary and buttons even have bubbly glow. However, editor allows same basic WYSIWYG functionality. Two tabs below the editing window let you flip between editor and source view.Tags for WordPress are inserted in the actual text of the post. I am no WordPress guru, but I am sure it’s done a little different. Default Times New Roman font for WYSIWYG editor looks horrible and there is no chance of changing it without changing the actual post.