BusyBodies gets a face lift for 2007As another busy holiday season winds down, I'm excited to get blogging again & share what I've learned over the past several weeks. I'll be answering questions and responding to comments I've been getting on my "new" BusyBodies website in upcoming posts.
Before I get into details & resources I want to talk about why I did it. Why the new store design when the existing one was working. And why I paid for help.
Why a new shop design?
Back at the Cafepress conference this summer our keynote speaker, Michael Dearing mentioned in his talk about how "a little plastic surgery on your business every once in a while can be a good thing." He was (part) jokingly referring to Dolly Parton and how she keeps her image fresh and what a smart business move this is. I kept this in mind.
Also at the conference I was lucky to spend time with several top shopkeepers and gain some insight and get great advice on ways I could improve my site and increase sales. "lose the splash page"..."have coupons available"...."have prices on the home page"..."talk about the 30 day money-back guarantee on the home page"..."talk about fast shipping on the home page"..."make your home page less busy"..."raise your prices"...etc. etc. I kept all of that in mind.
So here I had a site that was doing well. Why change it? Why not, I say! There's always room for improvement, and as the internet becomes more and more competitive, every inch of your web site needs to be thought through. And advice from successful shopkeepers is worth listening to. Even if I had a nice looking site before, it pays to keep it fresh. I figured I could still keep my shop's branding and familiar colors, but give it a little face lift. Add a few features, make it a little more fun, a little easier to use.
Did my site's "plastic surgery" pay off? You bet it did.
Here's how I went about updating my Cafepress shop...
Returning home from the conference with my head full of ideas I worked on putting some of these ideas into action. After a little looking around online I found a mention of a guy named David on the Cafepress message boards.
Designs by David was exactly what I needed. David Miles specializes in custom Cafepress shop design and his service are priced reasonably, too. His courteous, professional manner made him a joy to work with and he graciously tackled all of my detailed requests. I couldn't be more happy with my new shop!What did David do for BusyBodies?
I know nothing about Flash but I knew I wanted animations on my site. I knew nothing about java (except that I like it decaf with lots of sugar and cream) & how to put all sorts of custom image "stuff" into my Cafepress shop and have it work seamlessly with my shop and home page. David's a pro at all of this. I was more than happy to have him take my art and make it move.
He created great looking buttons, customized my search tool, showed me how to add forms to my site & tweaked all the code until it worked well on various browsers and computer systems. He made it so it loads quickly, he added super-fun mouse-overs that make my home page a virtual BusyBodies playground. He made it more shiny and fun than I ever could and it was up and running for the busy Christmas shopping month of December.
So if you're thinking about giving your Cafepress shop a little plastic surgery in 2007, check out David's site to see his portfolio and read more about his services. For my shop, BusyBodies, David was just the "surgeon" I needed :-)
David Miles' interactive home page.Technorati Tags: cafepress, template, design, David, web
