Held Hostage By Dealer Fire

[Gayle Rogers]

To be fair, the same definitely applies to Joomla and Drupal, but doesn't apply to much smaller CMS with less functionality.

I was trying to make a similar point...each comes with baggage, and certainly don't disagree that WordPress is without it's shortcomings.

USER=3505]@craigh, & @Gayle Rogers, Re: WordPress. From my experience dealing with developers over the years... most code sucks (when asking another developer especially). Just about every good developer will want to rewrite whatever it is they just finished the moment they finished it...

Truth!

At the end of day, the goal is to help @nickb find a solution he can own, control, afford and maintain/improve overtime.

That said, I would also endorse Car Dealer Press.

 

[MikeFitzpatrick]

At the end of day, the goal is to help @nickb find a solution he can own, control, afford and maintain/improve overtime.

Agreed.

 

[nickb]

Hey guys,

Sorry for the late reply I was fumbling around trying to toss together a temporary website. I lost a ton of traffic and my leads literally fell off the map. I will be feeling the pain this month, after a decent growth so far this year! Thanks for all the support, this is why I love this forum!

I read through everything and will sit down after dinner and re read them all again. I know I will have more questions and concerns after taking some time to analyze all this.

As far as gathering information and taking the layout and theme from my old site, I think I am screwed. After the huge fight that I got in with them about my blog, the content writers, and billing. It ended with them taking my site down. I did not have any admin privileges on my wordpress blog that they owned. So extracting them is impossible. What I did do is save all the text in word documents. So I guess I can reschedule them in a new blog. Everything as far as landing pages and blog traffic is gone. So now I need to start from scratch.

@MikeFitzpatrick @craigh @Gayle Rogers, Maybe you guys can help me with these questions, because I need to act fast!

1. Is there such a solution that allows for a one time setup fee? Then I just pay for hosting per month? Then pay for any design or tech work as needed?

2. Can I create a wordpress, get it dialed in where I actually own it. Then have someone come in and get my theme and layout in place?

3. Is it possible to feed from Dealercenter or carsforsale back end?

4. If I decide to change to a different website provider down the road can I still use the traffic built up from blog posts to help push traffic to my new site? If I decide to jump off wordpress..

5. Can I set up google anyaltics to see traffic how they got there and if the hit a goal/lead form?


I get confused when it comes to landing pages and how they integrate when switching providers. If I can have the design that I desire and it can generate great traffic with keywords I would assume I will be happy with wordpress for years to come.

Thanks again for taking time to help me get back on my feet and own my site!

 

[MikeFitzpatrick]

@nickb Sorry to hear that you have had so much trouble.

I have answered your question below based on our tool and what it can do. Hopefully we are a fit for your needs.

1. Is there such a solution that allows for a one time setup fee? Then I just pay for hosting per month? Then pay for any design or tech work as needed?

This is possible with some of the WordPress plugins and themes if you are okay manually adding and managing your inventory on the site itself. Where the monthly subscription comes into play is in the inventory management software, support for feeds, etc.

2. Can I create a wordpress, get it dialed in where I actually own it. Then have someone come in and get my theme and layout in place?

This is what our focus is on. There are several automotive companies that use WordPress as their platform, but it is on their hosting and they essentially lease it to you. There is no right or wrong in this, just depends on the dealer's (your) preference. With CarDealerPress you can host your own WordPress site that you own and use our plugin to integrate the inventory.

3. Is it possible to feed from Dealercenter or carsforsale back end?

Yes, Dealercenter currently uses Cargigi for their exports, although I know they are working on something else and carsforsale also has an export that can be utilized. I am speaking to our system only for this by the way.

4. If I decide to change to a different website provider down the road can I still use the traffic built up from blog posts to help push traffic to my new site? If I decide to jump off wordpress..

As long as you can implement 301 redirects with your new company this is possible. Would need some planning on your part to make sure and redirect relevant pages.

5. Can I set up google anyaltics to see traffic how they got there and if the hit a goal/lead form?

Would recommend that you do this on any platform. With CarDealerPress we have tutorials on how you can setup custom dimensions to track VDP views in addition to some other automotive specific reporting.

 

[craigh]

2. Can I create a wordpress, get it dialed in where I actually own it. Then have someone come in and get my theme and layout in place?

You can and should absolutely go down this road.
If you're low to medium traffic, you can sign up for any $10 host (just add some security layers to your setup) or a $50/month VPS that's more than you need. Get Wordpress installed and setup, but give consideration to the theme before you add content - some of them handle content very differently.