We’re excited about the launched of the new home for the TeeCompressed.com blog at blog.teecompressed.com. We’ll be moving our discussions and news on our Compressed T-Shirts and other promotions and marketing, over to that blog. As we’ve mentioned before, a blog is an important tool for every business and having a blog dedicated to just our Compressed T-Shirt efforts will help us focus things specifically to the promotional products industry, news and support.

Check out the new blog at blog.teecompressed.com and tell us what you think!

Post 5 of our ongoing case study - Project Tee Compressed

It’s been just about 3 months, almost to the day, since our last post on Project Tee Compressed. We haven’t blogged about our progress but development has been moving full speed ahead. It’s hard to squeeze in the time to write about our progress and milestones, while at the same time actually doing the work.

We are, however, excited about the progress we’ve made with our new site at TeeCompressed.com. One of the decision points every project has is deciding when to launch. The critical question of when the design and programming is good enough to go-live. We eventually reach this point with all of our clients and many of them develop a strange hesitation, almost a “stage fright”… a failure to launch. They want to continually refine the site and tweak the design, constantly polishing the look and wordsmithing the content.

Launching a new website requires a leap of faith. At some point you have to weigh the cost of not launching the site and whether the last 5% of development and adjustments are worth the lost exposure and potentially lost sales of a delay. I’ve always been a fan of rapid prototyping (or rapid application development). Rapid development allows us to build the framework of a website quickly, paying as much attention to detail as possible, but not allowing it to slow down the process. Building a website (or any application) quickly, gives us a chance to get more done sooner and learn from any mistakes earlier in the process so that we can incorporate those lessons into the final design. Rather then waiting to make major changes after extensive development, we build quickly and make minor adjustments along the way, saving money and building a more useful and more testing final product.

The reason I bring up rapid development is because this was our process with building TeeCompressed.com. Our goal was to get the site up and running, make the search engines aware of our existence and get the clock ticking on organic rankings and exposure.

By having a under-construction page already live, we were seeing some search engine activity. We went through several more design revisions before going live but we always kept our number one goal to launch the site as soon as possible. We launched the site in first week in June. We registered a new toll free 877 phone number to route all customer service and order inquiries to a single point. In the past, we’ve written about using a service such as Ring Central (see our post on Expanding your Digital Office) and how important (and inexpensive) it is to represent your company correctly and invest in doing things right from the start. A simple toll free line can be as little as $4.99 per month.

After launching, our site had been live about 3 days and our toll free number had been live about 48 hours when we received our first phone call and request for a quote. The quote for almost $3000 in compressed t-shirts. This situation is a great example that we share with our clients, about the importance of launching the site as soon as possible and as soon as it is ready. Had we delayed our launch, we would have missed a great opportunity for getting a new customer and potential sale.

In the interest of keeping this post short, I’ll run the numbers to-date. As a prospective website entrepreneur,  you should expect to invest (over time) an appropriate amount to see things through to success.

• Total time elapsed: 25 weeks.
• Total time site has been live: 11 weeks.
• Purchased 5 domain names at about $9 each for a total of $45.
• Hosting fees at $39.95 per month x approx. 6 months.
• Toll free # at $4.99 per month.
• Total graphic design time to date: approx. 45 hours
• Total website development, search engine optimization & programming time: 75 hours.

Total cost to date:
120 hrs x standard $65 per hour rate = $7800 + $45 domains + $239 total hosting + $15 phone #

Approximate cost: $8099.00

Keep in mind that we were only working on this site part-time and very often had to stop work completely while we switched over to other client work. We’re excited about the Compressed T-shirt product and our site traffic is slowly growing but search engine optimization takes time. As the graph below shows, we are trending up. But as we say to all clients, even with a personal trainer, it takes months to get in shape. You don’t fire your trainer after 3 weeks because you don’t yet have that perfect body.

See all posts on Project Tee Compressed.

Post 4 of our ongoing case study - Project Tee Compressed

In our last post, we discussed kicking off the design process, some logo ideas and coming up with a draft sitemap. While our design team is busy being creative, our web development team has a task list of their own to start. We’re going to illustrate how it’s important to get some forward momentum by doing a quick "under construction" page and plugging in some basic SEO can get your new domain indexed by the search engines weeks or months before your launch.

If you are doing a redesign of an existing site, then putting up an "under construction" page isn’t appropriate. You will simply develop the new site in the background and then just switch over to the new site when ready. Your visitors will continue to see the old site until the redesign is launched. But if you are building a site for the very first time where a domain name had no existing site, then it’s a good idea to put up a new public "under construction" page while you develop the site in the background.

This helps in a few areas: First - it let’s people know that there is a new business coming in case they stumble upon your website for some reason. Much like any retail business would put up a coming soon banner, you should also let passers-by know that you are opening up shop soon. People interested in your product or service may want to bookmark your site for future reference. Another option to consider is to put up a simple newsletter signup form as your homepage to begin capturing email addresses for your mailing list. This puts customers on your mailing list to be notified when the site is ready and your store is open.

The second major reason to put up an "under construction" page is to start the SEO process. It takes search engines a while to work their way around the internet and find your new domain, so the earlier you get site content up there for them the better. It can take Google as long as 6 months to index a new site for the first time. They do this on purpose to keep their search engine index from getting overwhelmed by quick build-overnight spam sites. Putting up a very basic "under construction" page with some text and images lets the search engines know about your site and gives them a headstart on ranking your site.

At a minimum, you should provide a quick text write-up of your new site, what it’s about, what products you are going to be selling and maybe some images. You should also cover the basics of search engine optimization techniques:

• Give your images ALT and/or TITLE tags with your most prominent keywords
• Include your TITLE, KEYWORDS, and DESCRIPTION META tags in the page header.
• Use as much text as possible that includes your prominent keywords.

The other thing you can do to give your site a major jumpstart on the search engines, is to Blog about your site or business and get it cross-linked on sites such as Digg, Reddit and Sphinn. These aren’t fool-proof ways to get indexed but they help get the ball rolling on your organic rankings.

For our new site at TeeCompressed.com, we put up a static screen shot image of our new site design with an "under construction" graphic - (at the time of this post, you can see it at www.teecompressed.com).  We optimized all our images using ALT and TITLE tags for our favorite keywords and put in the appropriate META tags. You can view our homepage source code if you want to see what we used. This new "under construction" page has now been up for about a month and we are already seeing some activity on the major search engines. We are also blogging about our new site (obviously, you are reading about it now).

To track keyword performance and measure other SEO analytics, we use a great tool called Web CEO. I’ve pulled the most recent report of our keyword rankings on the major search engines for TeeCompressed.com. The results aren’t spectacular, but considering we don’t even have a functioning site up yet, the fact that we are even listed in Google is a pretty amazing achievement.

The major rankings to-date are:

All The Web:
page 5 - compressed tee shirt, compressed tees
page 2 - tee compressed

Altavista:
page 5 - compressed tee shirt, compressed tees
page 2 - tee compressed

AOL:
page 3 - compressed tees
page 5 - compressed t-shirts
page 1 - tee compressed

Google:
page 4 - compressed tees
page 5 - compressed t-shirts
page 1 - tee compressed

Yahoo:
page 3 - tee compressed

There are several other search engines on the report but many get their data from the same place.

Click here or the image below for an HTML popup version of the report:

As you are beginning to see, launching a successful online e-commerce website involves more then just throwing up a couple of basic web pages with products. It requires planning, research, tracking and knowledge of your industry. Building your online business from all sides - design, programming, SEO and marketing is a keystone to your success or failure. You could say it’s like building a new house… you "could" skip hiring an architect and contractor and do it all yourself, but honestly should you? And having a team of professionals to guide you along the way is a must.

Post 3 of our ongoing case study - Project Tee Compressed

In our last Tee Compressed post, we discussed deciding what to sell and what domain names we will use for our new online e-commerce business. In this post, we will get into some design considerations and begin designing our logo and color palate.

As with any new business venture, it’s a balancing act of time and resources and this project has been no exception. We have not been as aggressive at rolling out the site as we had hoped, but in truth this is proving to probably be even more realistic then ever to the timeline of a new e-commerce business. Many people begin the planning of a new website while still working a full-time job or while still maintaining the primary source of business revenue, such as a retail store etc. So being pressed for time and keeping focused and on target is a real world dilemma to account for.

Our next task is to get our graphic designers rolling on new logo ideas. The logo needs to be stand alone but also match the theme and overall branding of our future site and marketing materials. Coming up with a logo can sometimes be the best experience or the worst. It can be fun if you do your homework, necessary research and take the right steps when thinking of ideas. First step is to think of your target audience and think of elements that inspire them. Also, think of all the ways that the new business mark can be reproduced (can it be reproduced in black and white, embroidered, or decorated with the seasons and still maintain its identity). One of the directions we anticipate going is to target the extreme sports industry since there seems to be a gap in the compressed shirt market for the urban culture. Before starting in Photoshop we first did some snooping for a font we liked, adjusted the spacing, printed it and pulled out the coloring pencils. You can see a sketched result below.

This is to get our creativity flowing. We are certain to go through many many versions of our logo before deciding on a final design.

The next step is on to the website construction! This is where our real thinking begins. Before we start with the design concepts we must first come up with the website “blue print” or “navigational” outline. You can do the design concepts first but creating a “site map” initially will give us a better idea of how creative we can become with the site flow and how deep the site will be (in regards to content). Last thing you want to do is come up with a rockin’ good design that doesn’t have any space for all the navigation you need. While we think of the perfect site map we make sure to check out the online competition. It’s very helpful to see what others are doing to get an idea of what you think works and what doesn’t. For our site map we also look at our target market to get a feel of their lifestyle and cool terms for our navigation (ex. instead or “contact us” we might use “get a hold of us” etc). Also, while digging around we keep tabs on design styles we can keep in mind when we reach the design phase of our site. We look for consistencies and the things that are popular such as: colors, patterns, photography, product description, ease of navigation, etc. We take all of this information and come up with our tee compress site map. Below is a format we like to follow when outlining site maps (click for a larger version).

In our next post we will tackle the design process in more detail and begin to flush out the actual site mockup, a non-functioning image of the site homepage.

Before we end though, let’s run the numbers to date:

• We made our first blog post on March 11, 2008, but we actually conceived of the idea before that, so we can estimate time elapsed to this point at approximately 9 weeks.
• We purchased 5 domain names at about $9 each for a total of $45.
• We have our new hosting account setup as well. Since this is going to be an e-commerce site, we chose to go with a hosting company that also provided MIVA Merchant, our preferred shopping cart system for development. Hosting fees run at about $39.95 per month.
• Our designers have been running with the ball and so the time clock is ticking on accrued design time and industry research. For this we are at about 5 hours.
• Total time - design, hosting setup, domain research & purchase, & team meetings: about 8 hours.
• Total cost to date: 8 hrs x standard $65 per hour rate = $520 + $45 domains + $79.90 hosting/mo = approx. $644.90.

Post 2 of our ongoing case study - Project Tee Compressed

Most startup businesses probably already have the answer to our next question but for the sake of our case study, we need to decide - What product are we going to offer in our new online e-commerce store? Surprisingly, we didn’t need to think too long or too hard about this one before we came up with our answer. Usually, however, when considering your options, you should do considerable research before making a decision. Sifting through the thousands of product options, we could have gone with more popular products but usually that translates to heavy competition and thousands of websites already selling your product. Electronics for example, is almost impossible to compete in because the market is just too saturated with high volume sellers and keeping competitive pricing means slim profit margins. Ideally, you want to consider niche products that have a wide shopping audience but not much competition. Making a list of your favorite things or hobbies can be helpful. Selling what you love doesn’t always mean it’s a good business idea, but it’s a good place to start. It’s difficult to find that one product that nobody else is selling but doing your own research and investigation usually pays off. A key ingredient is making sure you can actually source your product at a price that allows you to resell it at a profit.

For a number of reasons that we will dig into later, what we decided on as our product is the innovative promotional product called the compressed t-shirt - "compressed tee". We believe this is a great product idea that has a lot of potential if marketed in the right way.

The next step is deciding on a name. The direction we took was to keep it close to the product we are selling. We followed our own advice and went with an easy name to understand rather than acronyms, numbers, or something too long. In coming up with a short-list of names, we had to make sure the correct combination of domain names were also still available. This is an important step everyone should consider before choosing their business name. Before getting too attached to a clever name, you have to make sure the domain name, and all variations of it, are still available. You don’t want to invest in branding a company name and not have your website reflect that investment. If you get too far down the road with the wrong domain name, you will quickly regret it. Most online shoppers today will hear a name and try for that exact URL. Your domain name will also play an important part in your search engine rankings so it should be relevant to your product. Try to avoid acronyms or clever misspellings, unless you also own the correct spelling to catch traffic from both sources. It’s important to really put some thought into your domain name, it’s going to be the retail face of your business for years to come. While getting the .net or .info or .biz domain name extensions isn’t that critical, getting the singular and plural versions is important. Ask yourself what people will hear when speaking your domain name. Is it easy to say without having to spell it out and are there dashes or hyphens. For our compressed t-shirt store, we decided on TeeCompressed.com - along with tcompressed.com and TeeCompress.com. We also grabbed a few "inspirational" names in case we want to experiment down the road - teeshrink.com and compresstee.com.

Domains are inexpensive so it pays to buy several variations of your name. The last thing you want is a competitor on your heels with a name too similar to your name who is stealing away your customers.

In our next post we will roll up our sleeves and talk about designing our official store logo and begin mapping out our online store.

Welcome to Durrani’s first blog entry for our latest in-house project - “Tee Compressed”. If you’re asking yourself what in the world is Tee Compressed… don’t worry, we’ll dig into that shortly. We’re excited about this project because, we hope, it will involve everyone and will benefit us all. As website designers/developers and Internet consultants, we are constantly faced with the ultimate client question, "What will it take to get my website up and running and make money?". Most of the time this lengthy discussion with the client results in a very steep learning curve for the client as they come to the realization of what they are about to embark on. If you are not prepared to dedicate money, resources, time and patience to your dream website, then you will fail. When we lay out the plan for the next 6 months to a year, most clients are skeptical. They think they can have the quick money and the next get-rich-quick million dollar idea while building a website in their spare time sitting on their living room couch. The reality is that you can build your dream site idea part-time, but you have to be committed to your business idea and be willing to see it through.

We’re tired of showing our portfolio and asking clients to take our word for it. We want to have a true-life story, a real journey of time and money and effort, to show what really goes into building a profitable website, from conception to sales. So we have embarked on an ambitious project to create our very own e-commerce store while giving, you the reader, a day-by-day view of our every move. Our Durrani team has been helping other companies develop e-commerce sites for so long that we feel it’s time to let everyone know what exactly is involved in making a successful shopping site. And, selfishly speaking, if we do it right and follow our own prescription for success, we’ll have one more stream of revenue.

Each blog post along the way will show our step-by-step process on how our brains work when a client asks us to help them build their future cash cow. We still have a business to run in the meantime but we are going to *try* and give as many updates on our progress as possible so that you can follow things from start to finish without missing a beat. Without giving away the secret recipe, we hope to demonstrate how successful an e-commerce site can become when done correctly.

We’re not trying to flex our ego, nor are we trying in anyway to say "I told you so". We believe that we will learn just as many lessons along the way as our readers. Analyzing and documenting the process will help us refine our methods and improve the work we do for our clients. We don’t claim to be experts on everything web related and I’m sure we won’t think everything so we encourage comments, feedback and participation along the way.

In the end, we think our project will illustrate how to build a successful website, but more importantly, will show how important it is to actually have professionals behind the wheel of your online venture. This isn’t a "do-it-yourself" guide for your e-commerce store, but in fact a "don’t try this at home" demonstration.

We hope you stay tuned and join in on the conversation.