Some interesting questions of the week. I just want to apologize to those whose questions I haven’t been able to get to just yet. I will get to all of them eventually, I promise.

I am trying to start my business but I’m having a heck of a time with dreamweaver. It’s got to be the most unintuitive thing i’ve ever tried to learn. Especially with CSS considering one change on one page changes something else you didn’t intend in a different page. I’ve come close to throwing my laptop several times now.

Anyway, I was initially trying to build my own website by myself and just add an “add-on” shopping cart to it that I can drop “add to cart” buttons anywhere on the page. However, I know that html or “static” front end websites are more search engine friendly and can have a more custom look but I’m also considering just giving in to one of the “ALL IN ONE” shopping carts. These are usually open source like zen cart, os-commerce, or magento… etc… however they are also php driven and have crazy extensions like ?\ lkdjfke.php … I think you know what I mean.

Anyway, I’ve heard these .php carts are simpler and functionally superior in every way, but are not search engine friendly.

My question to you is this.

If I give up on creating my own site from scratch and buy a zen cart template or Magento template. Will it hurt my searches in the long run?

Also, what shopping cart did you go with for your store?

I’m going to be frank here. If you are having problems with basic HTML/CSS using Dreamweaver to design your website, then I would say that you should DEFINITELY stop trying to design something from scratch and go with an open source shopping cart or even an all-in-one solution like Yahoo Merchant Solutions.

Designing shopping carts from scratch is extremely difficult. Even if you manage to get a skeleton of a shopping cart working, you still have to worry about security issues. I’m just guessing that if are not proficient in html/CSS that you are probably not proficient in php either. Therefore, it is a much better use of your time to grab something off the shelf and modify it over building something completely from scratch. If you haven’t already, you might want to read my guide on How To Create A Profitable Online Store

The second thing I would like to make clear is that all of the open source shopping carts like Magento, ZenCart etc… can all be easily made to be search engine friendly. In fact, if you are new to SEO, then arguably these shopping carts will do a better job than you can by yourself. Your URLs don’t have to appear dynamic like ?abcdf.php. You can change the way your URLs look very easily.

We use a heavily modified version of OSCommerce for our online store, but if I were to do it all over again, I’d probably start with something different. My advice is to take a test drive of the different open source carts out there. They should all be very straightforward to install and it’s free.

If you find all of this overwhelming, then I would suggest a fully hosted all in one shopping cart solution like Yahoo

If I am planning to do affiliate marketing of an e-book, do you still recommend that I get a separate FEIN, business license, permits, etc? It seems like these are only necessary if I am the seller. Please advise.

If you plan on treating your business like a real business and intend to take tax deductions on business expenses, then you should get a FEIN and keep all of the finances for your business completely separate. I would then open a brand new bank account with this FEIN just for your business.

The business license is not necessary since you are not selling physical goods nor do you need to worry about getting any permits either. In fact as an affiliate, you are just pushing someone else’s products so you are technically not the seller.

I purchased a domain to use for affiliate marketing of health/fitness related products…..Eventually, I may want to branch out and sell different types of products (not specifically fitness related), which would require different domains. Then do all the domains require a DBA? It’s a bit confusing.

The purpose of a DBA is to allow a customer or the government to track you down in case of bad business practices or fraudulent behavior. In your case, you are throwing up a website to do affiliate marketing so you are technically not selling any product yourself. You are simply referring others to a product on a completely different domain. Just to make sure though, you are not accepting payment on any of these domains correct?

If you are not selling anything on your website, then you shouldn’t need a DBA. But as soon as you start accepting money for goods and services, that is when you have crossed the line. In any case, I would check with a small business accountant or lawyer just to make sure.

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