Finally have a budget for a great seo ecommerce site but need help choosing wordpress, joomla, modx, magneto or? Thank you in advance for your generosity of time

[forecastedinvestments]

We finally have a budget and want to dump our intuit/homestead site www.originalartbroker.com  Our budget is 5k-10k but could do more if needed.  I am slowly catching my competition with this homestead site that I built.  But I do realize it is time to step back, figure out what is best, and hire a pro to get the job done.

I am green in the seo and web development arena so please go easy on me and please help to point me in the right direction.  Just went out on a limb a couple years ago playing with homestead.com site software and built what we have today.  Didn't know anything about website development...it sort of just happened.  I feel and know that homestead.com solution is hindering what we could be doing due to the bloated nature of the site and inability to perform such task as 301 redirects etc....

I have been able to slowly attain first page seo rankings on keywords based of the artists we carry using this po-dunk homestead platform to build my site after a ton of work education thanks to seomoz and a lot of you.  But, have never asked for help and could really use some generosity of time in explaining a solution that would work best for our business.

Do we just go with a wordpress site that is similar to our current setup and use their plugins?  Do we use a cms software solution like magneto or joomla?  We will only have 200-300 pieces at any given time. We are constantly selling and buying new pieces providing us content.  We are need of a site that can perform well in terms of seo.  I have heard of a lot of people talking about joomla, wordpress, and magneto.

Would like to be able to have a product catalogue that ultimately sends whatever inventory we are uploading to our social sites and blogs so I don’t have to pump the product out to all of these sites.  We offer free custom framing with our pieces and it would be nice to have a program that could wrap the photos of the pieces with the different frames for our customers.  When I add a new piece I would like this software to have a predesigned product page that it plugs the information into.  I would like it to create the url extension based of the artists name, medium used, and piece name to create unique and individual urls.  I would like it to also create its own H tags throughout that product page according to the artist name description, and medium used.  I would like to be able to sink this up to google merchant and other sites to carry our product.

Bottom line is we sell art.  We sell pieces by specific artists.   We are constantly buying and selling.  I need something powerful that keeps up with our content

[buzzmediallc]

Being a fulltime web developer with over 500+ sites in the past 12+ years, I can tell you from experience that we've used/seen/fixed/tried all these options that people have discussed and we've come back to the oldie & goldie each time in Wordpress.

Here's a couple quick reasons:

1. It has a TON of man hours into developing a platform that isn't perfect, but works better than 99.99% of all people/companies could put together.

2. It is proven and it WORKS solid.

3. There are tons of plugins that make your site do what you'd like it to do. Don't have one with a function that you are wanting? Either code the functionality directly into the site or build your own plugin and have it do exactly what you'd like.

4. It's extremely flexible to work with to get it to do/integrate with whatever you'd like.

5. It's easy to find developers to work on it since there are a lot of WP developers out there that can help you out. Some of these other platforms, if your developer leaves you, then you're sunk.

Those are just 5 quick reasons why we recommend WP and keep coming back to it. I can't even begin to tell you the number of clients that we've gotten because their developer recommended a solution or custom built them a platform, then the developer went out of business, got lost on a boat in the middle of the sea, or just completely quit returning phone calls and they left the customer out to die. Then the client calls us and has to make another decent investment for us to build them something brand new from scratch on WP. The most recent, was with a client who had their custom built platform for 3 months and the developer disappeared.

Sorry to say but these stories happen all the time. That's why we're not cheap, but we take amazing care of our clients day & night (including sending them $100 of cookies like we did for a client yesterday. LOL!)

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[journeybeyondtravel]

If you want simple, powerful design, you really cannot go wrong with RapidWeaver. Combine this with a powerful content system like Wordpress.org and you have a winning combo. RapidWeaver (Real Mac Software) has a learning curve of about a month or so, but man it rules. With YourHead plugins (namely "Stacks"), Nick Cates Themes, Cartloom shopping cart, you are ready to go. I started knowing nothing and ten years later I am doing amazing things with these combos. You should try it too!

[brantwadz]

This post make me laugh because I have been in this position before and I go the same feedback as you are getting.

My conclusion was simple.  I absolutely agree that the most crucial aspect (and probably the biggest pain in teh butt) is very thorough documentation or roadmap of what it is that you want to accomplish.  IN my experience this road map at first included everything under the sun - all the cool bells and whistles.

Prioritize those features - take the top priorites and look at the top CMS solutions - all of them have been talked about here.  Make sure that there are CMS extensions that solve your business needs and remember the goal of the site.... probably to sell something or teach something or some combination of the two.  SAY THE GOAL OUT LOAD SO YOU DONT FORGET and get caught up in all the cool things these systems can do.

Pick the CMS that solves the business issues and fulfills the requirements of your document.

I personally love Joomla because it is very mature, has lots of great extensions, is very customizable.

Wordpress easiest - remember, that doesn't always mean best

Drupal most customizable

Joomla somewhere sandwiched in between

GOOD LUCK!!!!

[waynekolenchuk]

I'm a long time (15 years) web developer, and have drifted into search in the last years. I've seen a lot of things come and go. If this were my project, I'd avoid a custom solution that puts you at the mercy of a developer.

Look for something that's stable,  and popular, with a large developer pool. In my opinion Wordpress is great for point of presence sites, but is not yet there for eCommerce.

Although I am a developer, ff this were my project, I'd go with Drupal and something like Ubercart. You may not get all the customization you want, but you won't wind up beholden to a developer either.

[flowsimple]

I'm really surprised no one has mentioned Big Commerce. I searched high and low for a ecommerce solution that has the robust feature set that Big Commerce provides and nothing comes close.

In the beginning of my search I was trying so darn hard to find something that integrates with Wordpress because I love it so much. But the top choices Shopp, WP Ecommerce and etc. did not have the robustness that I found in Big Commerce.

While Alan is right in that you need to follow the pre-design development process and figure out what fits your need, I took a really long view on my vision for my ecommerce website and wanted to pick a service that I could "grow" into. Big Commerce fits that need. Their platform has the balance of everything I was looking for.

[flowsimple]

Will echo Alan's sentiments on Magento. Not only is it just a pain from an SEO perspective, I think it's terrible from the user-end perspective compared to other solutions. I think a good CMS balances the needs of all users (or departments) and is respected by all groups: developers, marketers, designers, and end users. Magento does not.

[AnthonyOConnell]

Please excuse me but it would be absolutely crazy to get a developer to develop your website from scratch when extremely smart developers have spent thousands and thousands of hours building open source solutions that fit your needs perfectly. Your website is a straight forward ecommerce store. You can get close to 100% of the functionality you need from http://magentocommerce.com (the market leading ecommerce software). Wordpress and Drupal are excellent CMS's but you want to sell so I recommend you use the best opensource ecommerce software available. I don't understand why anybody would suggest you create an ecommerce store from scratch with a budget of 5-10K. GAP, Nokia, Lenovo, Zend have the resources to create an ecommerce store from scratch... you don't ... but they chose Magento. Since you don't have unlimited resources to create custom software you NEED to WORRY about choosing the right platform. Write down the features you need and compare each platform and simply find the one that fits.

[nimbledigit]

Mr. Nelson,

Perhaps you should take a look at Marketpress and the community that surrounds it. There  is a lot of development and support there and the costs are well within your stated budget. Best of luck.

[DavidKonigsberg]

I use wordpress alot but have not found a great eCommerce plugin i like yet - If your going to go with eCommerce i would go with opensource carts like cubecart etc -If you find a good wordpress plugin pm me

[bemcapaz]

I would like to recommend Prestashop. Its very stable, faster and really mature CMS for e-commerce created by French developers.

The downside is that the modules are normally really expensive (the cheaper will cost around € 30) and are generic**,** but you can easily hire freelancers to do that part of the job for you, i just didnt because im aprogrammer and was able to build my own modules.

Some points that I really like about Prestashop is: SEO Optmized, have a great cache (making pages loading speeds really fast) and is deeply integrated with ajax, making it really user friendly.

Currently im finishing a site that uses Prestashop, if you want to take a look its at http://www.ilet.com.br , not finished yet but can give you an Idea of how the CMS works.

And I wouldnt recommend Wordpress, yes, it is a great CMS and with the right plugins or templates you can have a fully operational e-commerce, however, it is not robust like Magento or Prestashop for e-commerce.

We have to keep in mind that Wordpress were built as a blog system, while others CMS like the two above were Build thinking about e-commerce. You will have much better resources (community, developers, cms) on the long run using a solution that is designed for what you want to do than trying to adapt something.

[seospain]

Hi Ryan, Well I am not a developer so don't want to give you the wrong advice. I am sure there are many here on SEOMoz who can advise better than myself.

Good luck.

[AlanBleiweiss]

artversion1,

With all due respect, in my experience, Magento is one of the worst possible solutions for eCommerce from an SEO perspective.  It's one of the most difficult CMSs ever created from that perspective. Yes, it can be used.  However the handful of times I've seen it in place, I've needed to spend much more time working with developers to "get it right" especially in taking it to a higher level of SEO, than Joomla, Drupal, WordPress...

[forecastedinvestments]

we really don't have logistics nightmares as we sell less items with bigger margin.  Shipping for us is not a concern and don't need it even calculated.  Most times we just include shipping and custom framing with out pieces.

Just wondering what people are using out there product sites and what they like.  Something that is seo friendly.  Easy to customize.  People rarely by high end art without communicating with us first so the functionality isn't that important when it comes to product management etc....

Seo is most important to me

[KeriMorgret]

Are you going to have multiple shipping options? Do you want shipping automatically calculated? And do your paintings hit dimensional weight thresholds? I sell everything from six-foot-long fiberglass model boat hulls that are only a couple of pounds to thirty pound boxes of ball bearings that are easier and cheaper to send than the boat hulls. Shipping from an ecommerce site has been a nightmare for us, and it's something to consider when looking at your package choices.

[artversion1]

For eCommerce you should go only with Magento. We build on all OS platforms you mentioned above however only Magento will be robust enough to support your needs for a long run. WP is really not there yet for high end eCommerce but is easier for developers to setup that's why you will find many redocomending it. Joomla and Drupal are great but not for eCommerce eider. You can nicely optimize Magento without much of a trouble and will give you great base to grow your business online. Good luck!

[AlanBleiweiss]

If it's an open source solution built on a common framework (PHP / Zend comes to mind as just one example) then the cost of the customization could very well be less than trying to adapt an existing plug-in to a new, custom function it wasn't intended to accommodate.

It may, yet it may not be less expensive to go with the off-the-shelf system.  I've seen plenty of sites that ended up costing more due to off-the-shelf system limitations and trusting on community created plug-ins to do what they were not intended to do.

Ultimately, I was just providing the alternate considerations that I've personally seen and had to deal with , both in SEO and before that, as a project manager responsible for some of the most powerful sites on earth.

[AdoptionHelp]

Here's a user-submitted list using the drupal/uc combo: http://www.ubercart.org/site

One last piece of advice: Avoid CRE-Loaded. I had to help a customer out of that system once and it was a complete nightmare of no documentation and hostile "support".

[forecastedinvestments]

do you have any sites that you can suggest looking at that use this software?

[AdoptionHelp]

I agree with your process. Its almost impossible to have too much information up front, because its hidden assumptions that are often the cause of delays and projects going off schedule.

"Then, six months or a year later, other changes had to be customized."

But here I disagree. IMHO this is the best reason to go with a well-known CMS. When that point comes in the future where a change has to be made, would you rather have a custom built web site that only the original developer knows well (if they even remember) or a popular CMS with thousands of developers around the world?

[AdoptionHelp]

I don't know of good e-commerce solutions for Wordpress. If I was building your site I would recommend Drupal 6 with Ubercart.

[forecastedinvestments]

what addon for wordpress for the ecommerce side do you like the most?  I would want something that is seo strong and would allow the product to create its own individual page and url for viewing and combining with google merchant etc

[AlanBleiweiss]

If you truly have a budget for this work, the answer may be "none of the above".  I can't tell you how many times I've seen sites built in WordPress, Joomla or Drupal that required high quality user functionality, and in turn then needed the "out of the box" CMS to be customized extensively.  Then, six months or a year later, other changes had to be customized.  Because that's the evolution of the web.  (I've got sixteen years in the business).

If you have the right web developer who can create exactly what you need with an open-source solution yet one that is customized exactly the way you need it, you're not having to rely on developers having to find a plug-in that really doesn't do what you want, but that you're stuck with because the site was built in WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, and customizing costs a lot more than it would otherwise if it was a from-scratch site with that stuff already built in.

So the real process, then becomes :

1.  Write a comprehensive and detailed document that explains exactly what you need the site to do, under all the possible scenarios that apply to that unique site in that unique market.

Consider that your site might need to serve multiple markets (for example some visitors might be retail, and some might be wholesale).  Get that user experience information into the specification document.

2.  Provide that document to three different developers and find out what they would charge for the solution, and if they guarantee in writing that what the document specifies will in fact be included.

3. Make sure you really detail things out.  Don't just say "It has to work with SEO".  It should be a site that "accommodates current SEO best practices functionality".

Don't worry about the platform of choice.  Worry about getting a site that really meets your real needs.

[forecastedinvestments]

Thank you Ryan.   Do you have any recommendations of plugins that would work well with what we are doing?  If you get a chance can you visit my site and give me a suggestion on what plugins to purseu with wordpress?  What is the best ecommerce plugin for wordpress? Something that is also seo powerful and will allow manipulation of the url extension or create it based off the product information given on the new piece being added to the site

[forecastedinvestments]

Do you have any expamples of product sites that you have built with wordpress?  What ecommerce plugins work best for the ecommerce side?  I need to be able to add a product and it for it to create a page for that product while leaving the thumbnail of that product on the main artists page.  I would like for it to create a url extension based of the product information that is inputed.  I would like it to create automatic H tags for that specific product on its product page based off the information that is given on it.   Basically something that is seo storng and does some of the work for me

[forecastedinvestments]

Thank you for your post.  We are still not busy enough to need anything that would manage inventory, orders, customers etc.  We are old school and still use an excel and email campaign software to keep clients information.  Would you still suggest magneto?  I heard that it can be slow which is a major problem for our conent being higher resolution pictures etc

[forecastedinvestments]

Who will design my site will be determined once I figure out the best solution for my site.  I will at that time find someone that is efficient with that certain platform.  I am not going to work around a certain person and their limitations and would rather hear what experts on this site have to say and do my research from there.  I will hire whoever I can find that will be able tow ork with that platform at that time.

[StreamlineMetrics]

I am also a big fan of WordPress since it is very easy to use and basically 100% customizable, but in your case, I think you might be better off choosing an ecommerce platform such as Magento. While there are certainly ecommerce plugins for WordPress, I find Magento to be more robust and offer more features for managing inventory, orders, customers, sales reporting, etc. I would also suggest checking out Volusion and BigCommerce.

Also, I'd stay away from Joomla or MODx for an ecommerce site.

[seospain]

I am not personally a developer but being an SEO am able to work with most CMS platforms pretty well.

Wordpress for me has been the winner for long time. I have had clients who have used Joomla and it has been a complete nightmare for them. Doesn't help when developers disappear and leave you to try and find another designer at short notice and then find out nobody will touch it with a barge pole!!

Same goes for any kind of bespoke system. What happens when the developers are no longer around??

So word of warning. Make sure that whichever platform you go with, that is well supported and that  there are others on standby if the developers are no longer around to support you.

[RyanKent]

The best software to use is whatever your developer is the one which your developer is proficient in using.

There are some fantastic custom sites which are pure HTML/CSS/PHP/JS. You mentioned Wordpress and Joomla. I am certain you can locate some great examples of sites using those software solutions. A Microsoft developer will point out how a .NET site will meet all your needs.

The questions are who will be designing your site? Once your site is designed, who will maintain it? Your site's success is completely dependent upon those answers. Will the work be outsourced? Who will perform the updates?

These questions are your starting points. Once those factors have been determined, the remaining answers will start to fall into place.

[Sean_McDonnell]

In my experience, Wordpress is the most user-friendly.  This also allows you to easily optimize your site as they have great SEO plugins (we use the All-In-One SEO Pack).   Wordpress is great for plugins of all kinds and is URL user-friendly as well (you are able to create unique URL's).  The best part is pictures are very easily uploaded!

[AdoptionHelp]

You need a CMS, and the generally accepted top 3 open-source CMS's today are: Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla.

You'll want to do your own research on these platforms to come up with what works best for you. They all have many things in common, and could all be used to successfully build the site you're imagining. But they also each have their quirks, their own communities with slightly different cultures, and different types of site-owners that prefer one to the others.

For whatever its worth, when I ask myself this question I come up with Wordpress for brochure-ware style sites, and Drupal for anything more complex.

[Red_Mud_Rookie]

i would go with Wordpress if I were you. Avoid joomla because it is clunky and in my experience (with an art supplies website believe it or not!) it gradually falls apart at the seams as you grow the site.

Wordpress is arguably the best of the lot because it is the most widely used and therefore has a broad set of add ons etc to suit just about any site.

I haven't used the others so can't comment on them.