Shopify Expert Insights

E-Com Advice from our experienced in-house team

When paying by the click, it's important to target ads as specifically as possible to stretch your PPC budget. One way is to hide your ads from unrelated searches using Negative Keywords. For example, a seller of bicycle tires would want to eliminate overlapping searches from motorcycle owners. Their negative keyword list could look like: "motorcycle, harley, sportbike, wheel, rim, car." In a recent campaign for web design services, we saved 9% on our AdWords spending by hiding terms related to job seeking and free templates. To hide your ads from job seekers, try the following keywords: application apply career careers craigslist direct hire employee employer employers employment freelance freelancing full-time head hunter hiring human resources intern interns internship internships interview job jobs opening openings part-time position recruiter recruiting resume resumes salaries salary staffing temp
The Website Grade for ethercycle.com! Website Grader calculates the marketing effectiveness of your web-pages based upon the keyword popularity, link popularity, page structure, traffic ranking, readability level and search results in Google. Found this post helpful? Follow us on Twitter.
For your iPhone, we've created two wallpapers with a test pattern theme. You may recognize the latter wallpaper as the original Apple logo colors.
To install your new wallpaper, download it, add it to your iTunes photos, sync your phone, and set it from Settings: Wallpaper. For a more detailed explanation, check out iPhonesTalk's step-by-step guide.
In an effort to support startups and small businesses, EtherCycle now offers payment plans for web sites. With just a small down payment we will begin the development of your website. The single flat monthly payments include hosting costs. For your convenience, we accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, and Google Checkout.
Good communication is the cornerstone of client satisfaction. We believe that the more interaction we have with a client, the better the resulting project will be. We have five commandments for client communication.
  1. Offer free consultations and give honest advice.
  2. Listen to what the client has to say to better understand them.
  3. Ask the client questions to clarify the project's goals.
  4. Research the client's target market to ensure the project's effectiveness.
  5. Revise the project proposal as many times as necessary to earn the client's approval.
Mood boards serve as a visual tool to quickly inform others of the overall feel that a designer is trying to achieve. We find them to be most helpful as a source of inspiration. A typical mood board can feature color palettes, logos, concepts, ideas, features, layouts, pictures, screen shots, and anything else that can be informative or inspirational to the project's team.
Sample mood board for EtherCycle.com.
While different clients and projects require unique design and development processes, a typical EtherCycle website is created in the following order:
  1. A consultation assesses your needs, aims, and budget.
  2. A proposal is created to establish the project's budget, goals, and timeline.
  3. A type of poster design called a mood board is created to develop our design concepts and to communicate to other members of the design team.
  4. Mockups of the home page are created.
  5. Mockups of the internal pages are created.
  6. Content is supplied or created as necessary.
  7. Development begins.
  8. Usability testing ensures the website is easy to use.
  9. Cross-browser compatibility testing allows for thorough debugging.
  10. Meta Tags are created based on market analysis.
  11. The site is live, Champagne is enjoyed.
This is definitely an oversimplification of what occurs, but to those of you who are new to the process, it may be helpful. It's also important to note that the client is included in every step, and if anything is not to their satisfaction, that step is repeated. Typically, the home page mockup (step3) is repeated several times to achieve the client's vision. To date, the development process has never had to be repeated as our sites have always exceeded our client's expectations.
Section508 is an amendment to Workforce Rehabilitation Act. It's a provision assures that people with disabilities can access web pages predominately through the use of text labels and descriptors for graphics. It applies to all Federal agencies, and sometimes private organizations who receive Federal funding. EtherCycle understands the fourteen guidelines for better web content accessibility set forth by The World Wide Web Consortium.