August 2010 Featured WebNet Hosting Site: RussellRhodes.com

UncategorizedTags: e-commerce, Featured Site, Miva Hosting, Miva Hosts, miva merchant, Miva Web Hosting, Russell Rhodes, RussellRhodes.com, SEO, WebNet Hosting

Featured WebNet Hosting Site for August 2010

Each month we profile a client that is operating a successful e-commerce site in our newsletter and blog.  This month’s company is Russell Rhodes,  located online at RussellRhodes.com.   Russell Rhodes is a seller of customized and personalized Christmas ornaments, many of which are original designs.

Russell Rhodes is happy to extend a special offer to receive 25% off all personalized ornaments using the following coupon during checkout:

Coupon code: 25WN0810
Offer: 25% off all personalized ornaments
Expiration: Aug 31, 2010

The following is an interview with Denys Slater, President of RussellRhodes.com:

When did your site launch?  Give us a brief history of your business.
We launched in 1997.  We sell over 2,000 unique and custom personalized Christmas ornaments, many of which are original designs by Russell Rhodes.

How long have you been using Miva Merchant?  WebNet Hosting?
I used Miva Merchant once around seven years ago and I didn’t like it.  I tried it again last year, thought it was much improved and I now use it on over eight websites.    I have been with WebNet for about six or seven years.

If applicable, were you using Miva before you switched to WebNet?  If not, what made you switch?  If so, what made you signup with WebNet?
I was looking for a robust shopping cart software that could handle a lot of custom data fields, as everything I sell is personalized.  Nothing involves just a “add to basket” button.  I switched primarily to leave a suppressive, horrible, unfriendly company called Dydacomp and their shopping cart called Sitelink.

What do you like most about Miva Merchant?
It has the power to handle a lot of customer data input very well via attribute fields.

What do you like most about WebNet Hosting?
The service and help desk have been absolutely amazing.  I have NEVER had an experience even half as good as WebNet Hosting.  WebNet is the fifth hosting company I have used in nine years and I have every reason to believe I’ll never need to go anywhere else.  Seriously, I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to get a technical question answered at 1AM right when I need the answer.  The longest wait time I’ve ever had in the peak of the day has been 40 seconds.  Every need has been met and it’s really the people at WebNet that make it what it is.  PJ and Vincent have been invaluable to me.

What do you like least about Miva?  What are some common problems?
It’s still very “1990″ in terms of uploading data.  You can’t upload categories, headers, footers …  the list is long.  Even when you take into account all the modules out there, nobody makes a module to upload all info (for example: categories).  I have two different modules that upload various parts of categories, but nobody makes a module to import the category images.  So, I have to go hand code the image paths x 180 categories.  Very antiquated in terms of data upload.

What do you like least about WebNet?  What would you change?  What features would you add?
Seriously, the only thing you could add would be a personal masseuse while I am speaking with tech support.  I’m joking, of course, because I don’t have the slightest complaint about anything.  I can’t find one.

How many items do you offer for sale on your site?
I have nine Miva websites with WebNet Hosting.  I’m adding two more over the next two months.  All together, I offer over 5,000 products.

What Miva features do you use most?
All my %^&(* modules.  Without them, I couldn’t use Miva at all.

Which are your favorite modules and why?

I couldn’t live without toolkit and the prod and cat templates.  However, without the other import utilities, I still wouldn’t use Miva.  I simply can’t enter 25,000 pieces of data by hand.

Have you had any third-party development done on your site?
Yes.  I’ve taught myself html and a little php, but I couldn’t find a book on “Miva script” so it was a better use of my time to hire someone.  But even that was difficult.  There were not a lot of “Miva coders” clamoring for my business.  I felt lucky to find two very good ones.

What do you use for credit card payments and what have your experiences been?
MasterCard and VISA.  I won’t pay Amex fees.  I added Paypal and, as expected, sales went up 20%.

How many employees do you have?
Eight of my nine websites are seasonal for the Christmas season.  So from January through August, there’s one employee — me.  From October through December, there are usually about fifteen people working in various capacities.

What are your strategies for SEO?
You’d have to hire me as a consultant.  My main site is PR6 and ranked in the top 2 spots for over 100 keywords.  All other sites are the #1 page for their dozen or so keywords.

What were some of your biggest mistakes? (so that others can possibly learn from them)
The biggest mistake I made was paying an SEO firm $500/month for 10 months until I fired them.

What have been your biggest successes?
Deciding to do my own SEO.  Studying Google’s algorithm for 700 days.  I did a lot of live site testing, with the final result a close approximation of their mathematical model for ranking sites.  And then continuously testing and following SERPs over time because Google’s algorithm is dynamic.  And so are their penalty models.  In the end, it’s a big math formula, and I’m amazed in hindsight how much “opinion” there is about a math formula.  In the end, it is only and utterly math.  Brilliant math, but still math.  This means it can be understood by anyone.  There’s no need to have a “professional opinion” about what Google will like.  In addition, listening to what Matt Cutts says on video or writes in his blog doesn’t hurt either.

Take the time to peruse the inventory at RussellRhodes.com today!