What do you guys use to manage your websites?

[Gary Hair]

There are two guaranteed secrets for success.
1. Never tell all you know.
2.

I'm surprised at how many people think that someone in the same industry and market is going to tell the world how they got their customers and what they are doing. If you told 10 competitors how you got to #1 on the search engines, then you could be #10 and they'd be 1-9. I'm all about helping people, but I'm not too keen on helping people take my customers away from me for free.

[AL Ursich]

This industry doesn't work that way. They just need to find you on the web when/if they need your services. Advertising is a waste of $.

That is a Golden Quote.... And for me 100% correct.... Tracked all the pay stuff I did a few years ago and got ZERO orders for my money, about $6k in all. Thought it would work... The people that use my stuff were the target... I ask every customer how they find me?.... 9 times out of 10.... Just did a search and you showed up a few times in the first few pages with lots of images...

And I use a very CHEAP Site... Former Yahoo Small Business for $119.00 per year. Bought out by someone last year. It's easy and works for me...

AL

[Jacob John]

I'm surprised at how many people think that someone in the same industry and market is going to tell the world how they got their customers and what they are doing. If you told 10 competitors how you got to #1 on the search engines, then you could be #10 and they'd be 1-9. I'm all about helping people, but I'm not too keen on helping people take my customers away from me for free.

Hopefully this wasn't referring to me. I only asked about platforms, not keywords, search strings, SEO strategies, or anything specific.

So Scott, what's the secret squirrel sauce for ranking higher than everyone here? yes-man.gif

[Bert Kemp]

google yourself about 10000 times a day and eventually you'll get to the top of the list

[Scott Shepherd]

Hopefully this wasn't referring to me. I only asked about platforms, not keywords, search strings, SEO strategies, or anything specific.

So Scott, what's the secret squirrel sauce for ranking higher than everyone here?

Not directed at anyone in particular, just a general comment referencing people that have asked me for help with their SEO over the years. No thanks When LinkedIn hit the market I joined it and started building out my network. It had the potential to be fantastic for connecting to people I was having a tougher time getting to at the time. Just find someone I know that knows the person that I want to meet and then I'd be golden. It worked and helped me meet some good contacts. I built my network of people that were my customers and business related contacts. My network was essentially, some of my good customers. Then my competitors, who we also did wholesale work for, started asking to join my network. What? Wait a minute.....if I connect to you, then you can now see who my customers are and target them directly without me knowing. Essentially, by connecting to my competitors, I was handing them my customer list. Well, that's pretty dumb from a business standpoint. You wouldn't write down your best customers and hand that list to your competitors, so why would you do that electronically. At that point, I stopped using LinkedIn. I'll look at it from time to time, but I never link to customers these days.

Searching for your own name in Google isn't going to help anything. That's not how it works

[Tim Bateson]

...That's not how it works

"That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works....." Great commercial line. lol I agree Steve, I could share one secret that made a huge difference for me, but may not necessarily work for someone else. This business is funny & different from region to region. What works here may not work there & vice versa..... THAT's how this really works.... or does it?
Did I mention that I've worked in IT for 35 years... Pre-internet.. well pre-internet as we know it today. I was surfing & abusing the web long before browsers were invented.

[Kev Williams]

My (dad's) business all started from his Litton work buddies. Litton was their 'McDonalds', a place to start before moving on. As they did, his buddies new jobs involved needing something engraved; desk signs, name badges, a watch or two, ID plates- and they'd call dad. Many moved on again, leaving their replacements behind with our number, and going to a new place that needed engraving...and so on and so on, etc. etc... and that progression has never stopped, and because of that we have never had to search out a job. When LinkedIn started, I was flooded with emails, none of which I've ever answered.

If I actually had to search out work, I'd likely starve to death!

[Scott Shepherd]

Keep in mind Kev, you took over a business that had grown over decades. Most of us are having to start from scratch, or close to it, so we couldn't sit back and wait for repeat customers to call.

[John Kleiber]

I use Hostmonster with Joomla. Be warned, if you have no IT background, be prepared for a severe learning curve.

[Matt McCoy]

Wix, Square, Big Cartel, and Shopify are popular options. Easy and most of the under-the-hood stuff is done for you. They're also pretty customizable, if you're savvy, especially Shopify.

[Jacob John]

google yourself about 10000 times a day and eventually you'll get to the top of the list

Ok I did that, but 20,000 times. I broke 3 keyboards in the process. Now what?

[Melissa BurnerMN]

Our company has several e-commerce sites done in Zen-Cart. It's open source and has an active community tweaking it. You can also do a lot tweaking (damage) yourself since you will have access to all the files that make up the CMS.