Page 275 – Practical Ecommerce

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Business
Greatlookz.com: Persistence Pays for Zoovy Store Owner

May 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

"I always wanted to be a pioneer coming across the plains in a covered wagon,” says Marion Keisling. However, there is not much need for covered wagon driving these days, so Keisling has done her pioneer thing in the ecommerce business. She runs a company called Greatlookz.com and does...
Keyword Research
SEO: Optimizing Your Content

May 1, 2006 • Stephan Spencer

This month, I'd like to build on what I've already covered in past issues regarding keyword research (November 2005 issue) and writing for search engines (December 2005 issue) and integrate them together into a plan for optimizing your site's content. A “SMART” goal is one that is spec...
SEO
SEO Report Card: Airtroductions.com

May 1, 2006 • Stephan Spencer

This month I decided to evaluate a different sort of ecommerce site – not your standard run-of-the-mill online catalog website. AirTroductions is an ecommerce-enabled matchmaking service for road warriors (currently over 11,000 of them) who are looking for someone interesting to sit nex...
Social Media
RSS Basics

May 1, 2006 • Paul Chaney

Want more traffic to your ecommerce site? Need an easy way to distribute news and updates? An RSS feed may be your answer. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a format for syndicating website content such as might be found on major news sites like CNN, as well as on blogs. ...
Design & Development
Web Analytics: Data Collection Methods

May 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Web analytics software helps ecommerce operators understand what their online visitors are up to. Which search engine did the visitors come from? How long did they remain on the site? Which web pages did they exit the site from? And so forth. Utilizing the data that web analytics packa...
Conversion
2nd Tier Search Engines – Are They Worth It?

May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

As far as most advertisers are concerned, there are only two pay-per-click search engines that deserve their attention - Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. After all, these are the most popular search engines that dominate the industry in terms of traffic, technology, and popu...
Business
Web Hosting: Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst

May 1, 2006 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

Last month we discussed web development agreements. Next question: Who is going to host your site? My advice is to know whom you are dealing with, and then make sure that if something goes wrong you have an exit strategy. In other words, do your due diligence. Then hope for the best and...
Inventory
Quick Query: Jeremy Hanks of Doba

May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Jeremy Hanks, founder of Doba, a product sourcing provider, introduces the company and its benefits to ecommerce merchants.
Conversion
Website Conversion – Revisited

May 1, 2006 • Mat Greenfield

For those of you new to the concept of web conversion, I thought that it might be useful to address some of the key ideas around this strategy. What is Conversion? A website is a corporate resource, and like any other resource, it should provide a return on investment. That return sho...
Design & Development
Tech Support: May 2006

May 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

What is “keyword density” and how does it affect me? Keyword density is a phrase that is used to describe how relevant a keyword “topic” is to text on a web page. Keyword density is measured in much the same way that normal density is measured- by comparing the number of times a keywor...
Checkout Tactics
Giving Them What They Want

May 1, 2006 • Pamela Hazelton

Listen to your customers. Part of my job is to rip online stores apart and present solutions, all focused on existing and potential customers. It still shocks me to see so many online businesses implement bad ideas because the head honcho thinks something is “good”, without ever asking...
Business
Payment Options and Simple Checkout

May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

A truly successful and customer service friendly ecommerce shop will have an intuitive and welldesigned checkout system. The more difficult it is to purchase something from you, the less likely a customer will try. Here are some tips to ensure you’re running a customer service-friendly ...
Design & Development
Credit Card Processing: How It All Works

April 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

The credit card processing system is confusing. The players are numerous and the process is complex. To understand how it all works, it helps to grasp the types of companies that are involved, and how much money they typically charge for processing a transaction. David Schwartz is dire...
Fraud Prevention
Payment Processing: Choose the System that Fits

April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

One of the most critical decisions business owners have to make is how they are going to process payments from their website. Entrepreneurs frequently find themselves asking if a merchant account is what they need or if they need a private payment system (a “PPS”) such as PayPal or the ...
Fraud Prevention
eCommerce Fraud: Build a Human Firewall

April 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

There is a fellow from Europe named Kevin Mitnick, who can find your Social Security number online in 15 seconds. He was the hacker who was elevated to “computer terrorist” status by the FBI and Interpol. They caught him and put him in jail for five years, but there are thousands like h...
Design & Development
Web Analytics: Translating the Wall of Data

April 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Assume an ecommerce operator launches a paid-search advertising campaign. That is, assume the operator purchases several keywords on Yahoo! Search, Google, MSN and others, and then assembles text ads on those search engines to attract visitors to his site. Assume that the campaign start...
Platforms & Apps
Shopping Carts: Features to Consider

April 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

A shopping cart system should be able to accommodate a business’ needs, rather than requiring the business to adjust goals and strategies to match the capabilities of the shopping cart. We've put together a template of sorts that you can use to help decide on a shopping cart system base...
Design & Development
Accepting ACH Payments and eChecks

April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

A consumer must have a credit card to purchase products from an ecommerce site, right? Not necessarily. There are payment-processing options that allow ecommerce operators to deduct the purchase price directly from the bank account of a customer, without the customer having or providin...
Social Media
Email Marketing: Tips for Success

April 1, 2006 • Paul Chaney

MAKE THE INTEGRITY OF YOUR LIST YOUR NUMBER ONE GOAL. "If you are serious about wanting to do email professionally, you need to be diligent in how you sign up contacts, using double opt-in techniques. Otherwise, you're building a list that will never perform at maximum levels," says Ji...
Fraud Prevention
Winning the Fight Against Click Fraud

April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

If somebody were to tell you that 20% of your advertising budget was being wasted on fraud, would you be worried? If you advertise on pay-per-click search engines, such as Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture), MIVA, or others, you have reason to be concerned. Acc...
Link Building
SEO: Tools for Link Building

April 1, 2006 • Stephan Spencer

In last month's issue, I discussed links and their importance in search engine optimization. Now let's get acquainted with some powerful tools to aide us in our link building efforts. Yahoo! Site Explorer offers a quick way to review competitors' and your own inbound links. PageRank Se...
SEO
SEO Report Card: Golfgods.com

April 1, 2006 • Stephan Spencer

This time around we're going to be taking a slightly different tack, as I was privy to a redesign in-the-making–of golf equipment seller Golfgods.com – with numerous SEO and usability improvements, along with a shift in ecommerce platforms. In fact, by the time this article ends up in p...
Business
Authorize.Net President Roy Banks

April 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

The credit card industry has come a long way since 1951, when Diners Club issued a credit card to about 200 members, which they could use at any of 27 restaurants in the New York City area. Then in the 1960s Bank of America began issuing Bank Americard, then came MasterCharge, American ...
Business
TheGroceryGame.com Scores With Coupons

April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Owner: Teri Gault URL:Thegrocerygame.com Established: 1999 Products: Weekly list of grocery coupons; system for saving on groceries. Shopping Cart: Custom Payment Gateway: Authorize.Net Quote: "I calculated that I made 80 cents per hour my first year." When Teri Gault and her fami...
Business
Quick Query: Comodo’s Melih Abdulhayoglu

April 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Internet commerce depends on safe and secure transactions. Because of that, we’ve asked a few questions to Melih Abdulhayoglu, an Internet security expert and CEO of Comodo, a leading provider of security software and encryption products for smaller ecommerce merchants. PeC: What does...
Conversion
Effective Landing Pages, Part 2

April 1, 2006 • Mat Greenfield

Last month we introduced the concept of website landing pages, and discussed a few key ideas on how they can be used. This month, we’ll look at some ways to develop effective landing pages. I mentioned last month that landing pages are typically used when you have an understanding of wh...
Customer Service
Is Live Chat Worth It?

April 1, 2006 • Pamela Hazelton

It was a phase, until it started costing money and taking time away from already busy schedules. Too many business owners had the wrong expectations, so links to the tool are seen less these days. I’m talking about live chat between online stores and visitors. If used properly, though,...
Design & Development
Tech Support – April 2006

April 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

What’s a page rank and how does it work? PageRank is Google’s system to rank the relative popularity of a website. Developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, the PageRank system uses the Internet’s vast linking structure to measure an individual web page. A link from o...
Business
Web Development Contracts

April 1, 2006 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

We get an interesting mix of client inquiries each week. Sometimes we are asked to draft a “simple” or “basic” contract, neither of which really exist in the online world. We don’t even attempt to do that. Or, in the other extreme, we are asked to review and provide a legal analysis of ...
Conversion
Finding Loyal Customers in Cyberspace

April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

This year, one of the most popular topics at online industry conferences such as eTail and Shop.org’s FirstLook has been the development of customer loyalty in the fickle medium of the world wide web. While returning visitors are the norm for sites like Amazon and eBay, for the most par...