Newmarket Web Design - Be A Part Of - Taking Communities and Their Businesses One Step Further

I can’t thank you and your staff at Be A Part Of enough for all the work done to help us out of a really bad spot. As you know, we were left in the lurch, so to speak, by another web developer. They had been given the contract to redesign our old FRC web site at the beginning of December 2010. They had promised to finish the site by mid January 2011. Two weeks past their deadline, at the end of January they called to tell me they were burned out, lost track of their schedule, and had no creative ideas for our new site. They made many promises, then just dropped the contract and reluctantly refunded our money.

I spent 3 days calling web developers and everyone was busy. Nobody could take us on and meet a deadline of 3 weeks to redesign a site using Big Commerce for the first time. You were great from the beginning Greg. You were busy and you agreed to take us on, with our 3 week deadline and a contract clause that stipulated I wouldn’t pay you if you missed the deadline (sorry about that – it was stress…lol). I know it’s not easy to take on a client claiming *issues* with a prior web developer. I know I was anxious and wanted many things stipulated in our contract, after what I had already experienced. You were patient and accommodating. I appreciated that a great deal. You and Doug (Roberts) communicated progress in a very consistent and professional manner. You both addressed all issues requiring adjustments efficiently and were able to finish the web site prior to the contract deadline – Bravo!

I am very grateful. The site looks fantastic and I know my clients will be pleased with their shopping experience on the new FRC web site. I would not hesitate to recommend your services to other people and I look forward to working with Be A Part Of again in the near future.

Sincerely,
Tammy Rosenblatt
www.fieldtripresourcecenter.com

We provide the service of developing sites for BigCommerce. We also provide the service of customizing, API integrating and the like for the hosted solution, Interspire.  We do both very well and have had many satisfied clients tell us so. Recently at a sales seminar our sales team had the pleasure of going to, the main sales trainer told us, that there was one thing missing from our site… something to tell people why we are better than others.. he said “Do a little bragging, customers are not always going to call you to find out how great you are so other than your work… people want to read something the SELLS!”. So here are some competitive advantages we wanted to share with you…

1. Be A Part Of has been a BigCommerce Design Partner since the day it was available. We have developed Interspire shopping carts since it launched as Interspire Shopping Cart 3.0 in 2008. We have completed projects ranging from just a few days work to a few months work and have worked on approximately 40 projects using either platform to date. We know this product inside and out. We have created complex modules and changed the inner framework of the site many times.
2. We have NEVER dropped the ball on a client and told them to go get it done somewhere else, we will always make sure that the project gets done based on the specs and quotation; this is who we are as a company and it will never change.
3. We have taken numerous projects on that are the leftovers of other designers. We are passionate about our work and are unlike other companies that say things like “We just feel that our designer cannot meet your needs” and the like.
4. We DO NOT outsource our work to any random company across the world for the lowest price.  We only deal with competent people and pay them accordingly so that your work is done right.
5. We have a skillset in not just the development side of things but we are also able to get top rankings with SEO techniques and programs that have proven to work, and work well. Contact us for details and examples of sites we have hundreds of first page rankings for! *Teaser: our SEO techniques along with Interspire shopping cart increased a clients sales by 240%… and the revenue before launching was not too shabby to say the least!

Contact us for a consult, we would be happy to help!

In the last couple of days I have been digging around to really find the best information you need to make your BigCommerce ecommerce site work. As usual, POP goes my Firefox as my fingers take me to Google and in goes the keyword search ecommerce software review. And guess what I found, wouldn’t ya know, BigCommerce is number one across the board – well for you who would like to be able to plug and sell. I was very pleased to see this as it’s very important to know that our decision to be a part of their design network was supported with non bias reviews and praise. Be sure to give it a try for free!

Here’s a video of how awesome this e-commerce software is. I have to tell you, it’s so easy, really.

Just a quick note. We are excited to announce that we are a design partner with BigCommerce. If you have seen some of my previous post, you’ll know we’re pro BigCommerce and truly believe that we are going to do great things for you with our partnership.

As we retain new clients through BigCommerce we plan to keep you up to date with new launches along with their on going achievements. We feel this a step in the right direction to a long term partnership that will truly allow you to succeed with your e-commence business for years to come.

To see some our e-commerce development, clink the image below or check out the BigCommerce Design Network page.

We look forward to assisting you with your design and development needs.

Kindest regards.

The Be A Part Of Team

Be A Part Of joins BigCommerce E-commerce Design and Developer Network

Okay, I couldn’t help my self. Posted the last blog, went to BigCommerce.com and found some new e-commerce tid bits I had to share which you’ll need to be successful. Really we could do our video’s and write articles, but really, these guys have done it all and we agree with what they’re saying. Therefore, check this out!

In this video BigCommerce guru Mitchell Harper describes the way you communicate with employees, customers, partners, suppliers and investors is a direct reflection of the business your business is (or is not) having.

Typically those businesses who are lead by excellent communicators out do their competitors and enjoy more customers, more brand awareness and more success because everyone understands what their goals are and the company as a whole (including its customers) is dedicated to one single goal that everyone is determined to (and rewarded to) accomplish

Check out www.bigcommerce.com for more awesome info to make sure you’re successful.

We often deal with clients that are planning to get their website done/redone with Flash and would like to know our opinion on the topic. I always say that I frown on it as it will negatively impact your SEO. For those who are not sure what SEO is, it is the act of Seaarch Engine Optimization – getting higher results on the search engines.

The bottom line here is that a site built entirely in Flash still faces huge obstacles. While there have been recent moves from Google and Yahoo! to try to index the content from combined Flash/SEO sites, those moves have not yet, from my experience, translated into SEO results or success (at least when compared to html sites).

We should make a distinction here between embedded Flash and sites built entirely from Flash. For example, a site that contains Flash elements but still contains basic html elements will not overly suffer, as the Flash element (usually a movie in a box on the homepage or elsewhere) is externalized. A search engine spider will generally not try to parse through any files that have been externalized in the code – they will only index the code that is readily apparent on the source page.

However, from an SEO results perspective, there are still major issues with sites that are built entirely in Flash, and SEO is normally the first thing that suffers. First of all, the URL generally never changes no matter where people navigate on the site. As any decent SEO practitioner will tell you, every page of your site is a potential entry page for a search engine. With a site built in Flash, SEO suffers even more as you only have one potential entry page, which is the main URL. This cuts off dozens, hundreds, or thousands of potential pages that could otherwise be indexed in Google and Yahoo! (and all other engines). When your only potential entry page in the search engine listings is your home page, it is very difficult to target a wide assortment of keyphrases, potentially eliminating SEO results or rankings.

Content is another very large issue. Search engines rank pages based upon a number of criteria, but one of the most important to SEO results is the text that they can “understand” on individual pages. At present, search engines read primarily html text (although some also read text in the PDF format) – which means that if you decide that you want to use a rare and fancy font that must be displayed in graphic form (since the visitor may not have that particular font available on his or her computer while browsing), the engine will not read the text and therefore will not know what the page is about, which could harm SEO results. Naturally, this also includes any of the text included in Flash. While Yahoo! and Google have recently announced enhanced capabilities in reading content within Flash, I have not personally seen that translate into great SEO results for competitive keyphrases.

One other emerging aspect is that as search evolves, more and more people are looking for information while they are away from their computers. Many mobile devices are currently incapable of displaying Flash content, although recent moves by Adobe to make “Flash Lite” available may change this. However, it remains to be seen whether people that are seeking information on a mobile device will even want to navigate through Flash, especially if they can get the information that they seek from a fast-loading html page. In my opinion, lean html content will be at a premium when a company is trying to target a mobile audience.

Despite the difficulties, it is not the intent of this article to assert that Flash and SEO will always be incompatible – merely that it is the state of the current situation. You can find many differing opinions on mixing Flash and SEO on the internet, but the true test is to try to find a Flash site (that is to say, a site built entirely in Flash) that you admire and see if it ranks well in SEO results for 50+ competitive terms that are related to the specific business (in Google or Yahoo!). In my experience, such sites that combine Flash and SEO are nearly impossible to find.

Flash can be, and often is, used for great effect on the internet, in interactive kiosks, and in many other applications. I’m not from the “any Flash is bad” school, although I do think that many Flash practitioners tend to get a little carried away and often ignore basic usability issues. However, sites built entirely in Flash with SEO elements are still, again in my opinion, like oil and water – Flash and SEO are obviously individually useful, but they don’t mix well. Until they do, I will continue to advise my clients not to build sites entirely out of Flash – or, at the very least, to have an alternate html option for search engine and user preference purposes. At the end of the day, many clients are surprised to find out how many visitors actually prefer “old school” html.

Like advertising, Marketing also has several definitions and the public perception of what constitutes marketing which is entirely different from that of a professional marketing solutions provider.

At Be A Part Of, we believe that marketing is an ongoing and continuously refined process of gently and subtly nudging people closer towards making a decision to purchase, use, follow, or conform to someone else’s products, services, or values. Or, to put it in layman’s terms, if it is resulting in sales then it is marketing and if it is not generating sales then it might be a failure but marketing it certainly is not.

The following is our approach to it all!

Today’s consumers are inundated with choices. These choices could simply be based on convenient location, reputation, referrals, status and more. However, as a business, you are also inundated with mediums to reach these potential clients. So how do we do this?

Our approach: comes from a sales perspective complimented with common sense and thinking outside the box. We do not believe in fixing what is not broken, but more so making something that’s good, great! With our sales/marketing experience we know what works for some may not work for others, hence saving you time and money.

Qualification: With over 9 years of advertising experience in the GTA, ranging from web sites, telephone books, newspaper, flyers, print products, video production, home shows and more. We felt after seeing the huge growth in our own backyard and hearing about the costly mistakes businesses are making, offering our vast knowledge of “the inside scoop” would help new business flourish without spending money they do not have to. Ultimately, we will take the guess work out of advertising in our community. In result we focus more on the quality of advertising verses quantity.

Services: Through the years as a professional in our community we have been fortunate to have met some great and talented people to assist us in running our business who share our passion for helping businesses grow. The following areas are generally used in the typical marketing campaign.

WEB DESIGN (Programming / data base/ flash/ video and more)
LOGO DESIGN (simple to complex)
AD DESIGN (with purpose!)
VIDEO PRODUCTION – TV and web ready.- includes scripting.
RADIO COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION – includes scripting and voice over
PRINTING – fliers – business cards – promotional products – t-shirts and more

Our team is armed with new technology and creative ways of thinking. We are knowledgeable of the old school methods but incorporate new school methods of doing business. We focus on branding, creatives for print and mass media along with direct marketing, directory marketing and more. Also, we are not scared to get out from behind or desk and get our hands dirty. In a modest manner we will also take you, our client, out side your comfort zone. Change is good!

If you feel you are inundated with advertising decisions, frustrated with the sales people telling you want you want to hear, realize you have to advertise and do not know where to start, this is why we are here.

Our community is geared for the greater Toronto Area. Businesses in Newmarket, Aurora, Richmond Hill, Bolton and Other parts of Ontario have the opportunity to post deals, barter with other businesses, post community messages, submit articles and much more.

Contact us to let us know if these ideas are of interest to you and we will let you know when we have launched this feature to the website. In the meantime you can submit your details to us so that we can put you on the directory for now at no cost!

We anticipate the launch in the next couple months!