the wind beneath the
wings
of this website.....
No one can stay in business without the
help of others. Following are
some of the individuals, networks and companies---paid and
unpaid---that play a part in the success of our website. We highly
recommend them to other business owners who want to create a presence on the web.
Leslie Nord probably develops larger, more sophisticated sites most
of the time and does more of the creative work. But we'd done much
of our design when we found her, and she graciously stayed with our
plan, re-worked what we couldn't do, pulled it all together
and got us launched. She still saves our bacon when we get stuck
and gets an A+/100 for being a good sport. You can find Leslie at
http://www.websyourway.com
J. "Cricket" Walker's free online classes have
helped us improve our search engine positioning. Cricket and her
team of volunteer helpers emphasize ethical optimization, no liberties
or short cuts taken. The lessons require a lot of time and focus,
but we're rewarded when more people find our good stuff. You
can find information about the Search Engine Optimization class
here:
http://www.gnc-web-creations.com/seo-optimization.htm
We can't say enough about the shopping cart we use from Mal's e-Commerce. Mal's has a free cart for subscribers who accept only
PayPal, but we use the Premium Cart at modest cost. If you can't
find answers for your questions in Mal's FAQ's, the user forums are helpful, and Mal himself has answered our e-mails. Though
the canine cookery
sells only in the U.S., Mal's cart will support
trade with many countries. Find more info at
http://www.mals-e.com/
We also want to mention the merchant account that let us start
accepting credit cards without a hefty upfront payment, just a monthly charge and processing fees: Website Payments Pro (WPP) from
PayPal. Though PayPal instructions said that using a shopping cart
integrated with WPP (as Mal's is) would make set up easier, our
technical helper Leslie had to handle the installation for us.
We're easily able to process orders and payments now, and we really like
the Virtual Terminal for entering payments manually, which is handy for
phone orders. For information about PayPal accounts, click on
Merchant Services at https://www.paypal.com/
