WordPress on Steroids - Texas Custom Choppers
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Four months of hard work finally pays off! This week I launched pehaps the biggest WordPress project I've ever undertaken.
OK. I have to admit it. This was one of those projects that on several occasions I really wondered whether or not WordPress was the best platform to build on.
The client was very particular about how they wanted the pages to layout and it required a lot of customization of the theme. I actually started with the WPRemix theme but ended up with a hybrid of the WPRemix and my own customizations.
So why was I so insistent on making this work in WordPress?
Well, partly because I'm just stubborn and I wanted to prove it could be done. But, mostly because I really wanted to be able to take advantage of all the SEO and content management features that WordPress offers. I wanted everything from static pages, to blog posts, to shopping cart, to forms all in one convenient admin area. It took some work but, I got that using WordPress.
While we did launch the site on Wednesday, April 23rd there is still much work to be done. The plan is to do a very heavy Web 2.0 marketing campaign and eventually build a biker web 2.0 community sister site. We will also be constantly adding / updating content and plan to launch a series of short web videos soon.
Marketing Note: We have approximately 4 different forms that a user might fill-out to contact us, schedule maintenance, apply for motorcycle transport, etc… All of these forms are connected to Aweber so we are building our list every time someone contacts us.
If you want to see some really killer custom choppers and motorcycles I recommend you go and check out the gallery, and the rest of the site. While you're there be sure and read the bio on the owners. They are a very interesting trio and not your typical motorcycle shop owners. Their resumes range from Chairman of the Texas Republican Party, to Energy Expert to Special Ops anti-terrorist expert formerly operating in Basra, Iraq.
Plug-Ins Used:
- Akismet
- All in One SEO Pack
- cformsII
- Dofollow
- FeedBurner FeedSmith
- Global Translator
- Google Analytics
- Google XML Sitemaps
- My Category Order
- My Link Order
- My Page Order
- ShareThis
- Subscribe me
- WP-DBManager
- WP Shopping Cart - Required some serious customization.
Theme Used:
- WP Remix - Seriously tweaked.
Please leave your comments and/or questions below and let me know what you think about the site. Oh yeah,and please be sure to hit the Share this button on my site and the Texas Custom Choppers site, if you like them.
Barry O.
1Cat.biz Tags: Content Management System, web 2.0, WordPress Themes |
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Another great site Barry… How about you create some training videos on how you do some specific websites. I'll be one of the first to buy them!
Very clean, easy, amazing…I ride as well (on the back, lol)
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Great presentation! I commend the hard work. I would be delighted if we could get such a great input into adsense on Wordpress where monetisation seems a little inconclusive.
[...] WordPress on Steroids - Texas Custom Choppers … [...]
Barry - this is a great site! It doesn't even look like a blog - it's so clean and easy to navigate. Is the shopping cart part of WordPress?
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David,
Thanks. I'm working on a webinar video series. I also have these videos available for beginner to intermediate WordPress users: http://1cat.biz/wordpress-training-video-series/
Barry O.
Tami,
Thanks. Yes, the shopping cart is done in WordPress using the WP Shopping Cart plugin: http://www.instinct.co.nz/
Barry O.
How much programming is involved when customizing this theme? Can a relative novice tweak it half as nice or is there a lot of code knowledge necessary?
Beautiful site.
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Matt,
Thanks for the kind words.
To say that I used the WPRemix theme on this site is really a little misleading. Let me explain.
While I did start with the WP Remix theme I did so much customization to it that it is not realistic to say that you could buy that theme and easily make a site like the Texas Custom Choppers site. Ultimately this is a custom theme that was built off of the WP Remix theme.
If I had it to do all over, on this iste, I would have just built the theme from scratch.
That having been said I do like the WP Remix theme and think a novice could get a killer looking WordPress site from using that theme.
If you want something more user friendly I recommend going with the Dream Theme, Revolution or even an iThemes design.
Brian Gardner, from iThemes and Revolution, actually just released a brand new Real Estate series of WordPress themes that look pretty good.
Thanks, Barry O.
Barry.
Nice site. You must have done a lot of work on customizing the WP Shopping Cart plugin as I cannot get it to work on another Revolution theme site. It seems to duplicate things on the site. As it is probably too much work for someone of my knowledge I will probably have to go for a store template such as OS Commerce.
Can you give any clues as what needs doing to the plugin without taking up your time to get it to work
Thanks for showing your plugin list, most useful.
Bruce
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Bruce,
Thanks. I did do quite a bit of tweaking to make WP Shopping Cart match my theme. But, it pretty much functioned the way I wanted it to (except for shipping) right out of the box.
I've only used WP Shopping Cart on a few blogs so far. It worked well on all of them except Semiologic. I could never get it to work with Semiologic. Even the plug-in creator couldn't get it to work with Semiologic.
I have not tried the WP Shopping Cart with a Revolution theme yet. But, it "should" work. Have you tried deactivating your other plug-ins?
Barry O.
Barry,
I've been playing with the Gold version of WP ShoppingCart and some of the layout you have on your product page is awesome. I like the 3 column layout you have and the ShoppingCart content box. Would be great if you could give some ideas on how you did it.
David,
The layout on the products pages is, for the most part, configurable from the WP Shopping Cart Plug-in control panel. You can add the little drop down shopping cart to your pages by selecting the "Page" option in the Cart Location section. I did however, tweak the CSS to make it match my site better.
The product drop down menu on the top left-hand side of the products pages was custom built. The plug-in by default just displays ugly text links.
The other change I made was to remove all links to the product details page. I just didn't want those and the plug-in didn't provide a link for the user to get back to the products category from the product details page. So, I just axed it.
In all honesty I spent so much time hacking that plug-in that it's hard for me to remember exactly what I changed where. I just kept trying things until I got it the way I wanted it.
Customizing this plug-in is not easy. It took me a lot of trial and error.
That must be why the guys over at Instinct charge $160 an hour to work on it. And they're the ones that created it. They should know their way around it pretty good.
Good Luck, Barry O.