Frequently Asked Questions

If you're looking to further your understanding of what HEROweb and MightyMerchant have to offer - you'll find answers here! We want to make sure you are armed with all the details and information you need to choose the website developer who is right for you!

We'll cover some questions that are commonly asked about our custom website development and design, our shopping cart and site management system, and even get into some technical jargon - such as our server specs.

We've divided these topics into sections to help you locate the information that most interests you.

Have more questions? Please contact us and we'll be happy discuss any other concerns.

Billing Policies FAQ

Need to submit a payment? Have a question about what's covered in your monthly bill? Find the answers to your billing-related questions here.

Top 3 Questions:

  • What is included in HEROweb's free support?

    Technical support for the MightyMerchant eCommerce Platform Site Manager is free for our customers. Examples of technical issues include:

    • Helping users correct shipping miscalculations 
    • Assisting with fixing image uploading errors 
    • Assisting with setting up a shipping zone 
    • Showing users how to add links to another web page

    HEROweb also provides limited technical assistance for email accounts, free of charge. If you can't connect to your account or are not receiving email, please feel free to contact us at webhelp@heroweb.com.

  • What is not included in free support?
    Free support does not include: 
    • General desktop computer assistance 
    • Business consulting 
    • Site updates 
    • Custom programming 

    These services are billed in 15 minute increments and may include the following: 

    Desktop Computer Assistance
    • Upgrading web browsers
    • Opening PDF files
    • Formatting Word, PDF, or Excel files 
    Business Consulting
    • How can I get more traffic to my site?
    • How should I price my products to get more sales?
    • What should I charge for shipping?
    • Do you think I should use this video or that masthead?
    Template Changes/Site Manager Content Updates

    Any requests for changes to website templates, Site Manager content updates, or custom programming will be billed in 15 minute increments. 

  • Is a deposit required to start my project?
    Yes. HEROweb requires a 50% deposit to reserve a spot in our production queue for your project. The remaining balance is due upon HEROweb's completion of the contract deliverables.

See more like this

Design FAQ

The design of your site is of huge importance for obvious reasons - let us set your mind at ease that we can handle your requirements

Top 3 Questions:

  • Can I modify my website design if I want?
    Our designers make modifications to the 'site design', while you control most of the 'site content'. This means you can modify images and text on your pages but you can't modify the overall layout of those pages.

    The MightyMerchant system makes it easy for you to control the settings that are most important for you, but prevents you from making changes that will 'mess up' your site.

    You have a lot of control through the MightyMerchant Site Manager. If you have specific questions about what you can and cannot modify, give us a call.
  • Do I have to choose a template for my website design?

    No, we will design your site from scratch based on your ideas and preferences.

    You can also browse through the design library to look for ideas about your custom design.

  • I already have someone else designing my website, can you use that design?

    Yes, we'd be happy to work with your existing design. We may need to make some modifications to accommodate MightyMerchant features. We can go over any changes that may need to be made after we see the design you have. Here are a few sites we've put together where our customer had someone else design the site:
    www.crosbyandtaylor.com
    www.thatstyleworks.com

See more like this

Development FAQ

We do our best to make building your new website a smooth process but there are a lot of details that need to be covered. We hope the answers to these questions will help you better understand the process.

Top 3 Questions:

  • Can I have a mailing list sign up on my website?
    Definitely! All of our websites come with a mailing list sign up so you can invite your customers to join your emailing list. It's optional though so we won't place it on your site if you prefer not to have one.

    If you additionally send out marketing pieces by regular mail, we can add that information to your sign up form.
  • How do I get my products into my website?
    Most often our customers enter their own product data using the MightyMerchant Site Manager. Before you begin, we will set up your Site Manager specifically for your business so you can easily enter the data for each of your products on a single screen. For example; pricing, product weights, photos, descriptions, color and size options - we'll tailor the entries to match your needs.

    We will show you how to set up your categories and enter your products. In addition, we provide a "fast add" option, that allows you to enter product details for up to 10 products at a time.

    For stores with more than 300 products, we can usually set up a data import for you if you can provide your data to us in an Excel spreadsheet. Call us for pricing or to learn more about data import.
  • How long will it take to complete my website?

    The answer to this question will vary depending on the project, but generally it takes three to four weeks. We can give you an estimated timeline for your project, and if you need to have your site completed faster, let us know.

See more like this

Internet Marketing FAQ

It's one thing to have a great website. It's another thing to get potential customers to see it. This is where our marketing services come in. We look forward to helping you understand the world of internet marketing.

Top 3 Questions:

  • Can you guarantee me a top ranking?
    Our diligent work will certainly result in improvements but we don't guarantee that your website will reach a particular position on any search engine. We do guarantee to work closely with you to develop a successful search engine optimization strategy for your business. Although we employ a proven method of website optimization, each site presents its own unique set of challenges and opportunities for long term success. We do promise that we will not engage in SEO practices that violate search engine webmaster guidelines for honest and ethical standards. We do promise that you will receive the very best in customer service. A real person is available for you to talk to, and your phone calls and emails will be promptly returned.
  • How long will it take for my site to make it to the top of Google?

    Comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) work is a process that typically takes several months. The factors that influence the speed that your site advances in the rankings include the age of your site, the existing quality of the website and how it is optimized, your competition, and the skill of the firm who is optimizing your site. That said, you should see positive change in your rankings within the first month. We have helped clients with brand new websites rank on the first page of Google for competitive keywords within one to two months.

  • What are your rates for search engine optimization?
    We have three major marketing packages: the Site Intensive, the Hero Plus, and Hero Paid Search Management. Rates for other work, such as press releases or copywriting, are determined on an individual basis. Please contact us for more specific information about our prices. While most of our clients receive the services they need from one of our packages, our marketing packages and services are fully customizable.

See more like this

Maintenance and Support FAQ

You have a great new website, however, to keep it great you need to maintain and improve your site on a regular basis. Let us explain how we can help.

Top 3 Questions:

  • Can you set up my email accounts?

    Yes, your website hosting package comes with at least three email accounts. We will help you figure out the best way to handle processing your business emails, whether it's setting up new accounts, or forwarding your emails to your current address.

  • Do you offer an email program to send out messages to my customers?
    MightyMerchant has partnered with Constant Contact, the leader in effective email marketing to help you market your web site via email. We'll set up your web site to collect email addresses from visitors who want to "opt-in". We can seamlessly integrate with Constant Contact.

    Sending out a regular email newsletter to your customers and visitors is great way to increase sales on your web site.
  • How do you handle PCI scans?
    As Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards become increasingly important for the credit card processing industry, a number of companies have begun to offer services that periodically scan your website and identify potential vulnerabilities or concerns that could effect your level of PCI compliance. Some of these vendors, such as McAfee and Trustwave, offer badges you can place on your website to demonstrate that you are taking a proactive approach to credit card security.
     
    We welcome these scans and appreciate the ongoing data they give us regarding our performance and how we can improve our security practices. However, these scans and the related monitoring and communication result in additional resource / service burdens.
     
    To help our clients understand the nuances of PCI scanning, we have put together this list of concerns and situations and how we will handle them.
    • PCI scans are evaluations of your specific website, as well as the web server where your site resides and the core software that is running on the server. Results of PCI scans are used to report your PCI compliance status to your merchant account provider.
    • We have never had a situation where a problem identified by a PCI compliance scan could not be fixed and/or resolved.
    • We cannot know how long it will take to fix a vulnerability or problem until we have seen the PCI scan report. Most problems can be resolved within one week, and frequently in one day.
    • If a PCI scan identifies a problem that is in our core software or our servers, we will fix these at no charge.
    • If the PCI scan identifies a problem with a third party software integration, a feature/functionality we developed specifically for your website, a data feed, or data/content taken from another site/source, we will need to charge you to fix the issue (at an hourly rate of $65 or $100, depending on the nature of the problem).
    • PCI security scans are programs that run automatically and autonomously. They scan thousands of websites built on a massive variety of platforms and servers and, needless to say, they are not set up to run custom scans for each possible variation. Sometimes, a PCI scan will identify something incorrectly as a vulnerability or it will mark something as a problem that is irrelevant to your website. We call this a false positive. In such cases, there is not something for us to "fix", instead, there are standard procedures (each company is different) we have to go through on your behalf to get the matter resolved. Depending on the vendor, there can be a significant amount of communication involved. We will need to charge you to review and/or resolve the issues (at an hourly rate of $65 or $100, depending on the nature of the problem).
    • PCI scans are very thorough and often present non-critical issues that do not effect PCI Compliance or website security (i.e. Level 5 issues vs. Level 1 issues). These are usually informational or not relevant to your website (false positives). Our policy is to ignore these. If you would like us to evaluate / deal with non-critical issues we will need to charge you to resolve the issues (at an hourly rate of $65 or $100, depending on the nature of the problem).
    • Many vendors require you to fill out a twelve part questionnaire describing your security practices. Some of the questions may relate to the website and some may relate to your internal business practices. If you have specific questions for us related to our security practices, we can usually answer them. If you would like assistance with filling out the questionnaire, we can assist you at a rate of $65/hour.
    We offer a robust PCI compliant payment solution through Element Payment Systems that eliminates the need for the credit card information to travel through your website and our web servers. This solution helps to avoid the hassles related to PCI Compliance and provides an excellent level of security. Please let us know if you would like to find out more details.

See more like this

MightyMerchant Platform FAQ

All of our websites are built on the MightyMerchant eCommerce / Content Management System (CMS). Some of the most common questions are answered here - if you want to find out even more please check out our website: www.MightyMerchant.com

Top 3 Questions:

  • Can I offer a shipping special?
    Yes, you can set free shipping for orders over a certain dollar amount (or all orders), or you can offer free shipping on individual items. Your free shipping settings are set per shipping method, so you can offer free shipping on UPS Ground and still charge the regular price for Next Day Air.
  • Can I set up a special sale price on my items?
    Yes, you can mark any item as a sale item, and enter the regular and sale price. Your customer will see clearly that the item is on sale. You can feature sale items on your home page to get even more exposure.
  • Can I show a product in more than one category?
    Absolutely. It's easy using the MightyMerchant site manager. You simply click a checkbox for each category you would like to show the item in! MightyMerchant shines when it comes to organizing your site. You can add, rearrange, rename, hide or delete categories any time. You can organize your categories into as many levels as you like.

See more like this

Pricing FAQ

How much will your website cost you? All of our quotes are custom, however we work hard to make our pricing straight forward and transparent. We hope these answers will be helpful in giving you confidence in doing business with us.

Top 3 Questions:

  • Do you charge for technical support?
    Technical support for the MightyMerchant system is free. If you experience a technical problem with your website or shopping cart's function we will always repair the problem promptly, at no cost to you.
  • Do you charge per transaction or sales percentage fees?

    No, your monthly fees for MightyMerchant will be the same regardless of the number or volume of sales on your website. If you have a merchant account you will incur monthly fees from your merchant account provider for credit card processing fees.

  • What am I am getting for the monthly fee?

    Mighty Merchant brings a lot of value for the monthly fee we charge. It includes the following services:

    Reliable website hosting
    Secure shopping cart
    Unlimited Site Manager access
    Online Order Manager
    Free technical support
    Optional email accounts
    Website traffic statistics

See more like this

Research and Development FAQ

We are always working on improvements to our website platform MightyMerchant. Our goal is to keep on top of trends / changes in the industry and to continually develop great new features and functionality to give you and your website the capabilities you need to stay competitive.

Top 3 Questions:

  • Do you keep current with search engines changes?

    Search engine optimization is a tricky business. MightyMerchant has had years of documented success with creating sites that gain top search engine listings. Don't take our word for it! Visit our portfolio and do your own searches for the sites you see listed. As the search engine industry has consolidated and evolved over the past several years, MightyMerchant has continually refined our system to give site owners and SEO experts the tools they need to author pages that work well for shoppers as well as search engines.

  • How do you deal with spam email?

    Our technical staff has spent considerable time developing and deploying a strategy for effectively combating spam. This strategy includes spam filtering software that runs on our server, protection of email addresses on websites, and guidance for our customers for creating email addresses and protecting them so they don't get in the hands of spammers. Our multi-pronged approach has proven quite successful.

  • How often do you add new features?
    We are constantly responding to feature requests from our customers and technology innovations to improve MightyMerchant. We generally release several upgrades to our software each year through a controlled roll-out process. Unlike many of our competitors we do not outsource the development of our software so we can make adjustments and respond to feature requests quite quickly.

See more like this

Technical FAQ

Website hosting, servers and technical stuff

Top 3 Questions:

  • Can you install a security certificate on my website?

    You may choose to use our shared security certificate, or we can install one specifically for your website (for an additional monthly fee). Our security certificate is an SSLv3 certificate issued by GeoTrust. Your customers are equally protected with our shared certificate versus installing your own; the only benefit to installing your own is that the URL in their browser will always show your domain name, rather than ours.

  • Do you shut down your servers for routine maintenance?
    Not on a regular basis. If your site will be unavailable for more than a few minutes, we will schedule the maintenance in advance and you will be notified via email.
  • What kind of maintenance do web servers require?
    The maintenance that web servers require is not that different from the computer you're using right now, though it is more complicated and more people are affected when something is broken! There are many software components used to deliver a web page when someone requests it, and we need to keep informed of any bugs or security issues with that software, and keep it as up to date as possible. There is also the daily maintenance of removing old log file entries, backing up site files and database data, and many other tasks that keep your site available and running smoothly.

See more like this

    Take Your Website From Zero to Hero!
    Let Us Know
    How We Can Help!
    MightyMerchant