Page 268 – Practical Ecommerce

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Business
Copyright Infringement: What If Someone Is Stealing From You?

January 15, 2007 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

As attorneys specializing in the litigation of Internet disputes, not a day goes by that we do not hear about a small online business getting ripped off through the theft of online content. Sometimes the property taken is a website or part of a website. Other times it is certain code or...
Design & Development
Is The Mobile Web Right For Your Ecommerce Business?

January 15, 2007 • PEC Staff

Among the topics of conversation for those who make 2007 business technology predictions is the extent to which the "mobile web" — cell phones and other devices that access the Internet for information and ecommerce — will gain traction in the United States. In parts of Europe and Asia...
Design & Development
Preparing Your Website For Mobile Devices

January 15, 2007 • Brian Getting

With the growing number of consumers using mobile devices, such as cell phones and PDAs, to access the Internet, it’s important to make sure your website can be accessed by ...
Business
Ecommerce Companies: You Are Responsible for Sales Taxes

January 15, 2007 • PEC Staff

One of the most common misconceptions for ecommerce retailers is that sales taxes are not due on Internet transactions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ecommerce retailers, in fact, are responsible for sales taxes and are subject to penalties and fines for the failure to pay th...
Business
Video Tutorial: Creating an RSS Feed

January 10, 2007 • Brian Getting

Learn how to create a simple RSS feed in this tutorial by Practical eCommerce's Online Director Brian Getting. Walk through creating the XML file needed to establish a syndicated feed, and a look at the minimum tags, or feed elements, required to have a meaningful feed. No explanations...
Conversion
Quick Query: Restaurants & Email Marketing

January 10, 2007 • PEC Staff

Abby Weaver is the marketing director for Fajita Grill (Fajitagrill.com), a small restaurant with locations in Oswego and Fulton, New York, that successfully uses email marketing and its website to boost sales. PeC: When did Fajita Grill launch its website? Weaver: Even before we op...
SEO
SEO: To Buy Links, or Not to Buy Links?

January 10, 2007 • Stephan Spencer

If Google engineer Matt Cutts had his druthers, buying links would become an extinct SEO practice. Cutts has addressed the topic of link-buying on a number of occasions on his blog and in blog comments elsewhere. He's admonished webmasters who buy links for PageRank and encouraged webm...
Business
Web.com’s Jeff Stibel

January 10, 2007 • PEC Staff

Jeff Stibel is the CEO of Web.com, a company providing an all-in-one hosted solution for business owners wanting to launch a website. Jeff discusses how easy it is for a ...
Conversion
Outsourcing Pay-per-click

January 8, 2007 • PEC Staff

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a long-term, time-consuming endeavor. Business owners that are serious about search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns, and who want those efforts to lead to strong sales, must realize the implementation of PPC is not something to take lightly. To achie...
Business
Identify your KPIs

January 4, 2007 • Mat Greenfield

One of the things I love about Internet marketing is that it is so measurable. But I understand that for many web marketers, it's a challenge to dig through the sheer amount of data that is available through most web analytics tools. I'd like to suggest a New Year's exercise that will ...
Business
Ten Simple Ways to Get Sued

January 2, 2007 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

Want to stay out of trouble? Unless you have been sued before you probably have no idea how expensive, time consuming, and emotionally draining it can be. A little legal preventative maintenance can keep you focused on growing your business uninterrupted. Our firm specializes in litigat...
SEO
SEO Report Card: Freshpair.com

January 2, 2007 • Stephan Spencer

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the SEO Report Card. During this time, I have received many kind words from both readers and report card recipients — words of gratitude and encouragement — for which I am grateful. I hope to render even more assistance in 2007. Now that y...
Business
Welcome to the New Practical eCommerce

January 1, 2007 • Kerry Murdock

Practical eCommerce is changing, growing and improving. <img src="/images/articleimages/1167938482/pecrev.gif" alt="Practical Ecommerce" class="imgLeft" /> Our new website is bigger, more interactive and completely free. This follows from user recom...
Business
Protecting Intellectual Property

December 11, 2006 • PEC Staff

You may not realize it, but you deal with intellectual property (IP) every day. If you own a website, that website is your intellectual property. The way you deal with IP — yours and others — can directly impact the success of your business. What's Intellectual Property? Registered pa...
Fraud Prevention
Fraud-Proofing Your Ebiz

December 11, 2006 • PEC Staff

I know a business that had its website hacked: Its entire customer database was hijacked and thousands of customer credit card numbers were stolen at the same time. In the following months, the hackers did their best to steal as much as they could from this business through a number of...
Business
Creativegood.com’s Ed Dawidowicz

December 4, 2006 • PEC Staff

What is one sure-fire way to reduce shopping cart abandonment? Ed Dawidowicz, senior consulting director for Creativegood.com, provides his advice in the second part of an interview with Practical eCommerce’s ...
Conversion
The Three Best Website Traffic Sources

December 4, 2006 • PEC Staff

Not a day goes by that any serious website owner doesn't wonder how to get more traffic to his site. This intense desire to generate more clicks makes virtually any online entrepreneur easy prey to many of the traffic schemes and scams that pervade the Internet like conmen on a carniva...
Conversion
What is Viral Marketing?

December 4, 2006 • PEC Staff

I flipped on VH1 recently and sat enthralled as a rap artist with colorful language skills hosted "Web Junk 20" where they played 20 videos plucked from the web and played them on cable TV. Last night I saw that Bravo Channel now airs a show called "Outrageous and Contagious Viral Vide...
Conversion
Quick Query – Michael J. Katz

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

<strong>Do ecommerce businesses do a good job of marketing to existing customers? </strong> One of my favorite questions to ask somebody is, "What do you do now to systematically stand in front of the people you already know?" I always get a sort of embarrassed si...
Business
SLI Systems’ Shaun Ryan

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Shaun Ryan, CEO of site-search provider SLI Systems, discusses distinctive aspects of his product with Practical eCommerce’s Mitch Bettis. The two discuss the benefits of faceted search, learning navigation, the ...
Conversion
Usability Report Card: eBladestore.com

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

The team at eBladestore.com asked us to review its site for usability issues. eBladestore sells knives of all types and sizes through a basic, three-column storefront. There are several good things about this site, including a quality site-search function. While the site has a basic, cl...
Business
Craigslist.com’s Craig Newmark

December 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

Craig Newmark is the founder of the intensely successful Craigslist.com. As far as he is concerned, less is definitely more when it comes to website design and his business.
SEO
SEO Report Card: Scrappopotamus.com

December 1, 2006 • Stephan Spencer

It is time for another MIVA Merchant-powered ecommerce site to get picked apart. I will try to be gentle. This month's "selectee" has the coolest name - Scrappopotamus. It is a pretty nice-looking website as far as ecommerce sites go, but with an Alexa rank of 1,338,118 (i.e., the 1,338...
Design & Development
Internet Explorer 7 is Coming

December 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

The upcoming release of the Windows Vista operating system also means the impending release of the full version of the web browser Internet Explorer 7. Like most website developers, I toughed out a brief bout of panic as memories of the release of Internet Explorer 6 came rushing back t...
Design & Development
Tech Support – December 2006

December 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Question: I'm confused by all the prices out there for domain-name registration. My hosting company occasionally offers free domain name registration, yet I see some other companies charging up to $29.99 annually to register a domain name. Are the more expensive versions somehow better...
SEO
SEO Toolkit

December 1, 2006 • Stephan Spencer

If you consider that search engine optimization (SEO) is a scientific discipline, then you'll agree that obtaining empirical measurements using a comprehensive suite of tools is an absolute must. Every day should be filled with experimentation, data collection and more experimentation. ...
Customer Retention
Selling After Dec. 25

December 1, 2006 • Pamela Hazelton

For the majority of online stores, the holiday shopping season is what makes an entire year’s worth of work pay off. With the bulk of shopping taking place the first two weeks of December, it’s typically considered the highest grossing month of the year. That may be so, but the normal s...
Business
Finding Treasures With Tapestries

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Patricia Elkins caught the ecommerce "bug" just like many people do - by successfully selling a few items on eBay. It wasn't long before Elkins was building a dynamic niche business on eBay selling one-of-a-kind tapestries. The business has grown to more than $500,000 in sales, and it'...
Business
How to Waste $4,000

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

How do you waste $4,000 in a few weeks? Patrick Coughlin knows. In fact, most ecommerce owners can attest to mistakes they made during the early phases of launching their new business. Coughlin has owned and operated American Diamond Importers, an independent brick-and-mortar jewelry s...
Business
Demandware’s Stephan Schambach

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Stephan Schambach, CEO of Demandware, provides a host of helpful tips to improve a customer’s experience at your website in a recent interview with Practical eCommerces Mitch Bettis. Schambach also ...