The Beta version of the Born Built Beauties website is up

[volvomania]

At very long last I have just published the Beta version of my website with all the Born Built Beauties parts.
I know that I have been talking about it for a long time but I wasn't happy for a long time with what I had achieved.
Have a look at www.Born-Built-Beauties.eu and tell me what you think.

[thebear54]

That is a good start RJ

Now, when will the parts be posted and when can we start ordering from the site?

John

[volvomania]

The parts are allready on there.

Just click "The Born Built Beauties parts catalogue" on the home page (bottom of the screen) to go to the parts section in english and you can start selecting which group of parts you are looking for (shortcut: http://www.born-built-beauties.eu/html/parts.html ).
A first try of someone (myself) who has never built a website before.

[trabitom99]

Great work, Robbert. There are two things I'd like to add:

#1 Shop software
Have you thought about using "dedicated" shop software? As your parts catalogue increases, it can be a lot of hard work to keep all those pages up to date by hand. Maybe your provider has something "out of the box" they can offer you for smallish money. Why go to the trouble of doing it all yourself, when there is open source shop software around?

#2 Google
Another thing is to remember that many people, when looking for a part, Google it first. If someone, for example, types "volvo 3100518" into Google your website should turn up somewhere on Google's first page. To do that, you should consider making one page for every part so you can link directly to a page containing the engine mount. Title and page heading should describe exactly what you're offering, such as "Volvo 343 345 340 B14 rubber cushion 3100518" or words to that effect. "Engine" alone is not enough.

Then also try and get your site linked from as many other (relevant) sites as possible.

I look forward to seeing how your site progresses!

Cheers

Tom

EDIT: I just noticed you're also distributing Mac & Dai's parts. I think that's a superb idea, just what the V300 scene needs

[MCHUDD]

Hi all.
This man is a Legend.

[volvomania]

#1 Shop software
Have you thought about using "dedicated" shop software?

Tom, I have but decided against it as I want to keep in touch with the customer so that I am 100% sure that the correct parts are sold. The other week I sold some early B14 engine mounts to Germany, got specifically asked for them, and they turned out to be the wrong ones. The chap owns a 360 which he forgot to tell me. This is what I need to avoid more in the future.

#2 Google
Another thing is to remember that many people, when looking for a part, Google it first. If someone, for example, types "volvo 3100518" into Google your website should turn up somewhere on Google's first page.

Still looking into this and how to solve it without the website getting too cumbersome.
Thought that it was more important for now to get it online and improve it as and when expert hints arrived.

[trabitom99]

#1 Shop software
Have you thought about using "dedicated" shop software?

Tom, I have but decided against it as I want to keep in touch with the customer so that I am 100% sure that the correct parts are sold. The other week I sold some early B14 engine mounts to Germany, got specifically asked for them, and they turned out to be the wrong ones. The chap owns a 360 which he forgot to tell me. This is what I need to avoid more in the future.

You can still keep in touch with the customer when using a shop, as you're still recieving an email from the buyer first with his order request. If the e-mail is from someone you don't know, you're still able to reply and ask questions before dispatching anything.

Also a shop would come with some kind of browser-based interface so you can upload your products (pictures, a description, a part number, and maybe a price) in a few seconds without having to do all the work maintaining your web-pages by hand.

#2 Google
Another thing is to remember that many people, when looking for a part, Google it first. If someone, for example, types "volvo 3100518" into Google your website should turn up somewhere on Google's first page.

Still looking into this and how to solve it without the website getting too cumbersome.
Thought that it was more important for now to get it online and improve it as and when expert hints arrived.

A few basic SEO hints which are definitely worth the effort:

#1 better HTML <title> tags:
http://www.born-built-beauties.eu - rather than "Home" you should write something like "Born Built Beauties - the Volvo 300 series parts specialist". This title should contain relevant keywords.
http://www.born-built-beauties.eu/html/ ... parts.html - rather than "Engine" you should write something like "Volvo 3100518 3467632 3467632 3517857 ..." but even better would be to have one sub-page for every part (a shop or a CMS would do all this for you)

#2 an HTML <meta name="description" content="The Volvo 300 series parts specialist, keeping our cars on the road ... etc etc etc"> tag on every page:
not relevant for how high up you get in Google's search results anymore, but what's in the description gets used in the search result "snippet". At the moment what's being shown on Google's search result page is "The latest news from Born Built Beauties. The Born ... Born Built Beauties is not affiliated in any way what so ever with the Volvo group nor with the Volvo brand." which isn't exactly inviting people to click on the link Better would be some friendly sales pep.

#3 more backlinks
a link coming from the Volvo 300 series facebook page would be perfect, also the V3C of course ... Rather than just writing out the link, better is something like this: Volvo 340 / 360 parts - you can take an example from the friendly SEO spammers who keep visiting V3M (there was another one today ...)

#4 http://born-built-beauties.eu vs. http://www.born-built-beauties.eu

that first link (without the "www") should forward onto your main domain straight away. If both
http://www.born-built-beauties.eu/html/ ... parts.html
and
http://born-built-beauties.eu/html/volv ... parts.html
can be accessed, Google thinks you're creating "duplicate content" (trying to get more info out using basically the same page) this is frowned on and you slip down in the ranking ...

Cheers

Tom

[macplaxton]

I like shop software so I can buy a "beer o'clock"

Just because one person doesn't really know what they want, you needn't inconvenience the other 99. Anyway, I'll have a proper look at things when I've got the welder fixed.

[volvomania]

The first changes have been implemented, sorry Richard but the beer o'clock is not one of them.

[trabitom99]

Good work. Don't forget the rest of your <title> tags, like here:
http://www.born-built-beauties.eu/html/ ... parts.html
as well as (short) meta descriptions in english. Also, keep working on the backlinks, using relevant keywords if possible. Have you posted the link anywhere on facebook?

Linking your logo on the top left to the homepage would be useful and maybe another way of linking down to the parts section. At the moment, the only way of getting there from the home is the language flags.

Cheers

Tom

[SteveP]

Have sent you another PM

[volvomania]

Good work. Don't forget the rest of your <title> tags, like here:
http://www.born-built-beauties.eu/html/ ... parts.html
as well as (short) meta descriptions in english. Also, keep working on the backlinks, using relevant keywords if possible. Have you posted the link anywhere on facebook?

Linking your logo on the top left to the homepage would be useful and maybe another way of linking down to the parts section. At the moment, the only way of getting there from the home is the language flags.

Cheers

Tom

I have not posted the website on facebook, didn't know that I had to.
Thought that it is more important to get links to and from other websites.

[trabitom99]

I don't mean setting up your own Facebook page, just posting the link on someone else's. There are plenty of DAF/Volvo fan pages around, from which you could draw attention to your website.

Cheers

Tom

[volvomania]

Don't you think that such a post holds more value if it is not done by the creator/owner of the website but by someone who gives an honest feedback about it?

[Chris_C]

Not in googles eyes, it's why we keep getting spam bots on here.

On the other hand, there is a fine balance between keeping google happy and annoying the world. I do suggest you post the link to the V3M group on there however, same with the VOC (I can't remember if you posted a link there?) VOC do have a "trader" status thing. I don't know how much of a business you are, but a quick filling in of this form http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/sendmessage.php saying what you are doing will just keep everyone happy.