I had an interesting conversation today.  The woman runs a successful small business, and has an ecommerce website.  But her website is in need of a revamp, and there are practical issues with running it as well.  She needs a new website.

 

But, she said, the problem with setting up a new site is that you need to spend ages re-entering the products.

 

Not always, I explained. 

 

 

Sometimes, a website simply needs a “makeover”, in which the look of the site is changed.  Or perhaps it is not fast enough, or is not mobile friendly.

 

But in her case, as with many websites, the problem was bigger than that.  There was a fundamental problem with the way the site was built, and the software used to set up the site needs to change.  

 

 

Most website builders are people who know how to use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, and can drag and drop, and design, and build a website using tools.  Unless there happens to be a tool already created to convert the old format website to the new format, then yes, the copying of the data and products from the old site to the new one needs to be done manually.

 

But a very small number of website builders are also programmers (including me).  This means that I can write a program that scrapes the data (like products) from the old website.  

 

It can then either be put straight into the new site, or it can be put into a spreadsheet, like for Microsoft excel, so that the website owner can review and revise it before it is uploaded to the new site.  And, of course, I write a program to do the upload too.

 

This can save many many hours of work for the website owner.  If they choose to make use of an intermediate Excel file, they can add new products, and edit or delete others.  They can also re-categorise products to make them easier for visitors (and Google!) to find.  And they can add tags or other information to help Google to know what the site is about.

 

If your ecommerce site has become a massive problem, get in touch. Let’s discuss how having a programmer on your team can make a molehill out of your mountain.  And give you a snazzy new asset that works better, is easier for you and you customers to use, and which gets found on Google.