,

Why Shopify and GoDaddy Should Be Avoided

Shopify and GoDaddy

A client approached us after years of using Shopify wanting to know if they should stick with it.

Shopify is a very good platform. It has millions of users. It is easy enough for just about anyone to use.

And that is the big reason why we recommend against it.

Yes, for the sake of full disclosure, we develop and manage some Shopify-based websites. But it is not the best. The best is a WooCommerce based store on the WordPress platform.

How can we make such a statement?

We’re not just developers, we’re merchants. We sell stuff online too. We deal with orders, customers, shipping and making everything we sell findable online.

And we rescue a lot of businesses who fall for what Shopify, GoDaddy and other “do-it-yourself” web builders are selling.

What’s worse is that most of these platforms are now selling AI solutions, deepening the belief that a successful store can be built with simple clicks.

No. Save yourself time and aggravation by resisting this. We wouldn’t have clients if this was even remotely true.

The fact of the matter is this: if you want to be into serious sales you need to invest beyond the money, time and easy solutions so many offer out there. They can build just about anything. But because they do does not mean that YOU customers are going to go to it and buy from it.

Once the reality that a ready-made templated based store doesn’t converts sets in that is when a real business learns quickly that they have wasted their time.

It begins with the customer. It ends with the customer. Nothing that GoDaddy or Shopify offers is focused on your customers. It is focused on selling you.

Does that mean we or other experienced developers can’t get a Shopify site to convert.

Of course we can. We just have to go undo what the creators and users of these sites have set up.

What’s the secret of making a Shopify or GoDaddy site convert?

It’s Google. The secret is the same no matter what platform or builder you are using.

But Shopify isn’t engineered to satisfy Google. It is engineered to sell YOU. And once they soak you for $200+ per month for a site you have to set up you’re in it so deep you never get to Google yourself.

Google has been telling us all along how to build a website.

Google doesn’t do this because they love you. They do it out of self-preservation.

The way Google stays in business is by relentlessly chasing good and accurate information on the Internet. If they don’t provide their users with accurate results they lose business.

That’s one reason why I’m predicting AI is going to take market share away from traditional search like Google – and hand it right back to them again.

ChatGPT, Claude and a now endless selection of AI-driven search is changing the way people look for things. And the sad reality lost in the hype is that AI is not producing accurate search results. It’s hurting Google now as the fad peaks, but Google is going to eventually win because they are zealous about accuracy.

The four pillars of online presence, as Google has for years taught us are experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness.

Those four pillars have ratings attached to them through Google algorithms that every website chases. And frankly, a slap-together template-driven world by Shopify and GoDaddy just doesn’t play that game.

Why?

Because they are designed to sell websites and services – not YOUR products and services. That is something Shopify and GoDaddy and Elementor and countless other website vendors just cannot offer.

They can’t because that’s your job.

Many businesses we work with are businesses that were successful long before the Internet came around. Most avoided the Internet and then jumped to only when they found out they were losing sales to it.

That same cycle repeats as businesses fall the cheaper and easier options of GoDaddy. Just get it done cheap and because it’s the Internet, it’s going to “go viral”.

What does a business do once they realize nobody is coming to their website and it’s not turning sales?

They turn to the same kind of solutions in marketing that they fell for in building the website. Whatever is cheap or free, quick and self-sustaining is what they want.

Kids, that doesn’t exist. Stop the cycle. Get real help. Get someone who listens to what Google has long told us about experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness.

What is needed to succeed in those pillars of Google?

You need time, understanding, lots of competitive research and a structured approach based upon your existing business footprint, your growth projections for new customers and your plan to overcome competition.

Translation? It takes work and it take money. There are no cheap, easy solutions.

What does a Shopify user pay to do this versus a WooCommerce site user?

It’s the same, kids. The platform, at the end of the day, is going to lead to costs that are similar. The difference is how and what was is done in the details.

Most of the time, we will recommend to companies building their websites to start with WordPress and WooCommerce. It powers better than 40% of the web and an even bigger percentage of ecommerce. Major brands use it. Go ahead, Google it. We don’t have any skin in this game. Nobody is paying us to endorse one or the other. This is coming from decades of using WordPress.

If a client comes to us with a Shopify site we’ll still recommend they convert it to WordPress. But, if they feel that is too big a shock for their existing customers, or for whatever reason they don’t want to do it, we’re fine with that. At the end of the day, we’re going to steer towards Google’s pillars.

Selling online is hard. It’s a fight. It’s just like selling offline.

What did you do you get your present selling physical location? What do you have to do to get customers to walk in the door? How many thousands of customer interactions and transactions did it take to build your business offline? What do you have to do to keep those customers coming back?

All those questions and more you need to ask for business online. It’s not going to happen online if you do less than a do-it-yourself solution.

Just like your offline business you need to learn how business online. That takes time, that takes developing some street smarts and it means pretty constant investment.

Most businesses find that to be hard because they have their hands full just trying to be the best they can at what they do.

Doing your website right is part of that.

/by

Why You Need a Toll Free Number

Toll Free Numbers

Do 800-numbers Matter?

I can recall the first time I heard of an 800-number. It was back in the dark ages of long distance phone charges. Do you remember those days?

Many working folks these days – Millennials, mostly – don’t recall those days because those days died long before they were born. We didn’t have the Internet in those days or even cell phones. What we had were printed materials like phone books or just plain advertisements that would show the toll-free numbers of business. The word “toll free” was the hook.

You see, back then, to call Grandma who lived a thousand miles away meant waiting until later evening hours when it wasn’t “long distance” calling to call her. The charges during the day were seriously out of reach.

That kind of selling environment was a killer for anyone looking for customers nationwide.

So they got an 800-number. It was key to building sales.

What 800-numbers Became

If you had an 800-number then you had a brand. It really was that simple. An 800-number was not only a signal that you cared about acquiring new customers it was a status symbol. It meant you were established and trust worthy.

Of course, nobody then really understand what it took for businesses to get such a number or what they cost. What regular folks understood is that they wouldn’t have to pay to do business with anyone using that 800-number. And frankly that was a huge selling feature.

Think about it. When the airlines got 800-numbers their business exploded. Why? Because they became free to contact. It was a huge customer benefit and anyone with an 800-number got huge business.

Vanity Numbers Sold Hot Dogs

I can recall a local meat company who got an 800-number that spelled out “hot dogs”. All people had to do was remember the word “hot dogs” to call them. That 800-number increased their sales ten fold overnight.

Their story, and many others like them, sold the idea of vanity numbers for businesses. And it still works. From lawyers to one-hour cleaners, the fact you can call them using a catchy word instead of a number is still a thing.

The Internet Changed Everything

Then the Internet came along. We went from 50 million people being online in 1993 to just a decade later having billions online. Is it any wonder that Amazon and other Internet pioneers who were able to hang on and figure it out became so massive?

At first, those with toll-free numbers just used the Internet to promote their phone numbers. But then, over time, those phone numbers became just kind of a byword in business marketing. The Internet made the novelty go away. A website, and not necessarily a toll free number, because the latest thing in reaching out to customers.

Cells Phones Changed Everything Again

Then came cell phones, and then cell phones with Internet. And just like that, 800-numbers came back in style.

How did THAT happen?

Consider this: of the world’s 8+ billion people experts say more than 7.4 billion of them are using cell phones.

Imagine it. Guys in the pizza business – a model that still relies on the good old fashioned connection technique of voice – rejoiced when all these technologies combined. Customers were literally carrying around a business in their pocket.

Those with 800-numbers benefitted right away with the habit-forming cell phone in everyone’s hands. Emergency road services, hair salons, and even the post office business models all changed to a whole new level because their customers could call them on the fly and arrange for business on their way home from work.

Do you still need an 800-number today?

Yup.

And it’s not expensive. In fact, if you don’t spend the pocket change to get a toll free number these days, you’re a fool. There are no long distance charges any more. In fact, businesses we work with just set up their toll free numbers to forward to a cell phone. It doesn’t even go through phone exchanges any more. For less that the cost of a burger you can pay to have phone calls from your toll free number forwarded to any number that you want.

Toll free number are fast to get, inexpensive to own, and essential to your business growth.

Don’t believe me? Call me at 888-499-5333 to discuss.

/0 Comments/by

Your Business is Better than Free

Digital Development

Stay Away from the “F” Word of Digital Development

Yes, there are free website builders online. Truth be told, the “f” word of digital development is told all over when it comes to building your digital profile online. Just about any host, service or digital development component is offered in some “free version”.

In fact, we confess: back in the 1990s we started on a free web host called GeoCities. Of course, in those days less than half a million people were on the Internet. Today nearly every person on the planet is online.

Our website we found back then is still running. It’s not called what it once was, and we’re not doing business with it in the same way any more, and there’s certainly nothing free about running it to be found. We couldn’t stay on the free stuff and survive. And thank goodness we can’t.

Isn’t your business better than “free”?

If there is one thing we’ve learned in working with auto shops, insurance brokers, retailers and other local business professionals its that there are many really wrong assumptions about getting business online.

One of the most persistent assumptions is that if you just put it online, people will flock to it and buy. If you’re there on Facebook,  the buyers line up, right? If you get mentioned on a big channel or via some popular podcast, you’re on your way, right?

Is that what happened when you opened your shop? Does just hanging your shingle do it anymore? Did it ever?

It is Not Free

Nothing about doing business online is free. Nothing. We can let this devolve into a discussion on politics but there’s no need to go there. You know that already if you run any kind of business. It just doesn’t get there without investment and expense.

But for every nickel you spend in permits, fees and taxes there seems to be a never ending stream of other expenses just to get ready to sell.

We hate to be brutally honest but the digital landscape is no different. It’s not free.

It’s not Cheap

What’s the cost of digital development? That question is like any other part of your business. Do you invest in the bigger location or the smaller one? Do you park it on Main street or on a side street? Do you advertise to get business or build a customer base and then advertise?

There are endless decisions – consequential decisions – when it comes to establishing and running a business.

And there are traps everywhere. I recently helped a guy who spent $10,000 getting a website designed. He felt he had done enough by having a beautiful site that did everything he felt his customers needed.

But he called me because he couldn’t figure out why none of his customers were using it.

Five minutes after checking it out I had to break the news to him. There were two very simple reasons why his website wasn’t working and both of those reasons were tied to him doing things cheap.

First, nobody could find his website because he invested zero in marketing it. That just wasn’t in his budget. He figured he could just tell people about his website and they would come. After all, when he first launched his business that is what he did. He told family, neighbors and friends and they all showed up to support him.

Of course, his website came later, after he had established himself. Why shift from the proven formula, eh?

He is in the car restoration business. What good is a website his customers don’t need when he’s already got them as customers? His website should be about acquiring new customers and he was doing nothing to attract him.

But that wasn’t even the hardest part of the conversation.

His website was with a host that charged him $5.99 a month. There’s a billion of those out there and he bought the hype about paying a year in advance for cheap hosting. Yeah, he put his entire online business in the hands of a host that cost less than lunch.

I’ll never understand the mentality of doing this. Especially if I invest $10k in developing a website. Cheap hosting is never going to deliver your best. Ever. You need a host that is lightning quick and able to handle the demands of what you hope will come: customers.

Of course, all this should have been made clear to him up front by whoever was guiding his digital development.

The Online World is Still the Real World

Whatever fantasies you have about selling online, check ’em at the door. The online world is still the real world. Whatever issues in the real world exist that prevent you from connecting with customers exist online – and more.

So forget what you think you know. Avoid the “free” and the “cheap” when it comes to building your business online. If it sounds too good to be true, guess what? It’s too good to be true.

We tell you this not to avoid building your business online. It can be done.

As long as you keep your feet on the ground.

It costs money. It takes time. It requires a lot of expertise as well as all the business savvy you have acquired in getting your business off the ground in the first place.

/0 Comments/by