I’ve written about the Datafeedr service in my WordPress Affiliate Store series. I’ve setup quite a few stores since then, and the service itself gets better with new features all the time. From time to time I get emails through my contact form asking for help, mentoring, consulting, and all kinds of other things.
WordPress Consulting
Sometimes people ask me to setup WordPress, and recently I was asked to setup a basic affiliate store for a particular niche using the datafeedr service. I’m writing this post to show you how that example turned out, and also to give you an idea of what you’re in for if you decide to do some consulting for someone else.
Years ago I did all kinds of consulting for businesses, a few corporations, and private individuals. Usually I did computer repair, taught how to use the Internet and email, or showed people how to build web sites. Doing a job for someone in person can be pretty cut and dry because they usually know they have to pay you for the time you spend with them. If you’re there 3 hours, and you charge $20 per hour – you get $60. Working virtually though – is a whole different situation. People expect to get things very cheaply (nowadays), and when they can’t see you physically working for 3 hours it’s more difficult for them to believe it takes that long to get something done. This is usually why I don’t do a lot of consulting, and I’m very picky about anyone I’ll deal with as a client.
Giving an Accurate Estimate
Another thing to think about is your ability to give an accurate estimate, and how to prevent “scope creep”. This is hard to do without experience, and takes some time to be able to do well. Let’s say someone says “I want you to setup WordPress on my web site”, and you think “I can do that in 15 minutes…”. Sounds easy – doesn’t it? What you don’t know is the level of understanding the client has of either WordPress or web site setup. Immediately I have questions like “do they have a domain?”, “do they have a theme?”, “what plugins do they want?”, “what webhost do they use?”, and more.
So when I was asked to setup a WordPress affiliate store, these are the things I asked right away:
- Who is your web host?
- Do you already have a domain?
- Is your domain already setup on the web host?
- Will you be able to setup the database for WordPress on your web host or do I need to do that?
- What kinds of plugins will you need? (contact form, SEO, Related Items, Stats, Askimet, Banner Ads, etc.)
- Do you already have Title, keywords, description info?
- Are you already signed up with datafeedr?
- Do you have your merchants picked out?
- Are you a member of those merchant programs at the proper affiliates?
- How many products do you initiall want from datafeedr to open your store with?
- Do you need custom theme work / header graphics, etc?
- Do you have knowledge of SEO?
The answers that you get to these kinds of questions give you a really good idea of the experience level your client has, and it will help you start an estimate. When figuring out how much time it will take to do something try and figure out how much time it will take you total, including time for questions in email exchanges. If you exchange 10 emails and that takes you 90 minutes total over a day or two, that’s unpaid time you could be using on another project.
What to do with Unanticipated Problems
With my lastest WordPress Consulting project, I was asked to setup WordPress on a new domain and populate it with a basic datafeedr affiliate store, a couple hundred products in a few categories to get it started. You can see the store at Unique Baby Gifts. I asked the previous list of questions first – and then got to work.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a project that didn’t have “unanticipated problems”, little things that just come up. There are many reasons for this. In this project I actually forgot to ask the database question, and when it came time to install WordPress I had nothing to install it on. So I had to send out an email describing how to set it up and then wait for the response to proceed. There were other little questions along the way, like when I went to setup Askimet and WordPress stats I realized I didn’t have their account info to set them up. I also remember that the theme picked out wasn’t widgitized at all, so getting the right things in there from the datafeedR store became difficult.
Generally when problems arise with a client you need to:
- Explain the issue
- Determine what it takes to fix it
- Add to the estimate if required
- Get a concensus from the client in writing about the additional work
- Proceed and finish the project
Usually, most things can be worked out and many issues that arise don’t really take any additional time at all. The theme problem that I had had developed into too many hours, and I had to explain to my client that I could do the custom theme work to make the products display the way they wanted, but that would be additional work. In the end they picked a new theme and all was well.
Happy Clients Means Testimonials
When you do quality work and your clients are happy you’ll get some great feedback, and you should turn that into a testimonial you can use in your own blog. Link to your work and your clients will as happy for the one way link as you will be for the testimonial.
Here’s the testimonial I received for my WordPress Affiliate Store consulting:
I wanted to set up an affiliate site to promote unique baby gifts and had
heard good things about Datafeedr. I decided to give the service a try, but
was not familiar with using Datafeedr (which is a bit complex) or blogging
software (WordPress is required to use Datafeedr). After doing a bit of
research I came across John’s blog. I contacted John to inquire about
hiring him to set up my site, and I’m glad I did.John is professional and very knowledgeable. He completely set up my
WordPress site and Datafeedr account without any problems, made useful
suggestions and answered all my questions in great detail (which I
appreciate very much).I would not hesitate to use John’s services again — and I will — and I
would recommend John to anyone.Signed,
D.A.
Hi JT, thanks for posting this. All too often designers forget to take the time to consider the real costs of consulting time, especially when it comes to putting together things like a basic WordPress website which often over run timelines and budgets quickly.
I started using a tool called Billings to track my real time for doing something like that and I was surprised to discover how much time I actually lost (and couldn’t bill for).
Christopher Rosss last blog post..How much does a new web site cost?
You’re absolutely right! People expect to have everything for free. Especially when your friend’s son who has “terrific computer skills” sets up your site. Don’t worry it’s seo unfriendly, you save $100 which you could earn with good optimisation in couple of days. We won’t change the World..
I agree with Christopher and, as you say, people do tend to expect things incredibly cheaply nowadays.
I have to say that I have been oving all your recent series posts. As a subscriber I tend to read them in my email but this was certainly worthy of me popping in to say thanks. Your set of questions are very valuable. Thanks, JT!
hi pratt good post. i just wanted to check the uniquebabygifts.com page rank and no. of visitors . iam unable to get them. can u tell me where can i find the stats. I would appreciate if u can give some informatuon on it. iam planning to buy dadtafeedr from your link but before that i would like to know abt the example site stats..or if u have another site using datafeedr u can tell me…once again tahnk u for ur posts which are informative and useful for all….awaiting ur reply…..
regards, karthik
JP~
I signed up for the datafeedr service after reading your series on the service. While I was very encouraged after watching the videos when actually using the search function I was a bit disappointed.
Whenever I entered multiple negatives I ended up with very little search result. Then sometimes even after adding those negatives, the negative I entered products would show up for.
Also, after spending four hours going through all the products and blocking from store and categories they kept apprearing again in my saved search results. I would then go through page by page and edit them, but when I downloaded my feed blocked products appeared in my store.
Currently ended up with men’s costumes on my site, what a mess. I deleted the store in datafeedr to just start over, but 14 pages of products still show in my store. HELP~ How can I delete them all without going product by product? Deleted the categories already, but no luck.
Any advice or suggestion you could offer would be so appreciated.
Thanks,
Dawn-Marie
.-= Dawn-Marie´s last blog ..Can Anyone Handle You in a Sexy Pirate Halloween Costume? =-.
I actually didn’t have that problem when setting up my store, and I use negative keywords a lot. Without seeing exactly what you’re doing I can’t offer direct advice, but I would encourage you to ask questions in the datafeedr members forum. The owners (and other members) are very good at answering questions.
Hi I am just familiarisng myself with wordpress learning the basics and have started to build sites,Consulting is something I would be interested in longer term,will take a good look at your site later to see what I can pick up.I have a lot of friends with brick and mortar businessess who don`t have websites for their business,perhaps this is the route I will take first,but again it`s getting the price right.I know one pal with a catering business who pays a company £240 GBP per month to have his site stay in the number 3 postion.This is def something I would like to know how thats done .I have left me email ticked for an update,feel free to email me with info on your tips.
best Mike.
.-= mike @ Bonnie And Clyde Costumes ´s last blog ..About Bonnie And Clyde =-.