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Choosing the Right Merchant Processor - What to Look For

01 2008 Monday

By Frank Kern in Ecommerce

Almost all the businesses today accept credit cards. If your business doesn’t then its high time it began accepting debit and credit cards, as they are being increasingly used by customers to make purchases on account of the convenience factor.

The credit card industry has revolutionized the way people make their payments and are constantly coming out with new innovations like cash-back bonuses, mileage credits, and numerous others to make them more acceptable for customers. Small, online business owners are circumspect about processing sale on a credit card, because they are unsure about choosing the right merchant processor.

Given below are a few tips that would help you select the right merchant processor. So without further ado here they are:

Your Business Bank can be a Good Option

Your search for a good merchant processor can end with the bank you are doing business with. However, not all banks offer merchant services to start-ups or new businesses. The standard practice of most banks is to avoid offering merchant processor services to a business that has been in operation for less than a year.

However, if you can convince the bank, you can’t choose a safer merchant processor than where you do your business banking.

Peer Referrals

Choose a merchant processor that your peers might refer to you. A peer might have been using the services of particular merchant processor company for a significant period of time, and hence can give you his feedback and enable you to make the correct choice.

The Transaction Fee and Percentage

You will find that there is not a single transaction fee and percentage across all banks. The transaction fee and percentage for credit card purchases as well as debit card purchases differ from bank to bank. Do extensive research on the specific rates offered by each bank pertinent to specific cards like MasterCard, Visa, Discover, American Express etc.

At times various businesses come together through a trade association to negotiate rates with a merchant processor. Herein, the processor might just charge less, as compared to the existing market rates. Explore this opportunity to see if you can get some benefits

The Independent Sales Organizations

Try not to choose those merchant processors who act as an agent for an independent sales organization (ISO). Pick an ISO who works with major banks. You won’t go wrong there. Your local chamber of commerce might be able to help you out in this regard or the local board of trade.

The Primary Bank

Choose a merchant processor who is associated with a big-time primary bank. This ensures good services and timely payments to your checking account, which is an absolutely must for any business.

Track-record and Clientele

Find out how long your merchant processor has been in business. This should not be your only parameter of selection, but it does give you a good indication of what you can expect from the merchant processor. Moreover, it will be infinitely easier to work with a well-established merchant processor.

You must also try to get some idea about the clients who have formed an association with a particular merchant processor. The more the clients the better it will be. More importantly if the processors have some big clients up their sleeves, then the better for you.

Contract Length

Most banks would ask you to sign a 3 year contract. If this is the case, then select the services of a bank that gives you good rates with respect to the time frame. Always try and choose the bank that offers you advantageous rates if it asks for a long term contract.

Manual Processing of Cards

Choose a merchant processor who gives you an option to manually process the cards. This makes for a great convenience if you have a power cut.

Customer Support

Your merchant processor must be known for its superior brand of customer support. The hours of operation must be commensurate with the hours of functioning of your business. You also might want to get in touch with your merchant processor at odd hours at times, in case of problems. Choose somebody by taking into account all these aspects.

We hope these pointers would enable you to choose a merchant processor who you can have a successful working association with. Study all your options thoroughly before making your choice.

Author: If you are selling products on the internet then check out Frank Kern’s Mass Control marketing system. Also, visit our Make Money Online Project.

Increase Conversions by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment Part 2

01 2008 Thursday

By Andy MacDonald in Ecommerce

In part one of Increase Conversion’s by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment, we shown you the first 10 top tips to increasing your conversion rates. In part 2, we conclude with our final 10 tips, and a conclusion. Read on for more top tips…

11. Give the visitors the option to call.

If visitors have a problem during the checkout or just feel uncomfortable using their credit card online, give them a phone number to call. Use a separate telephone number that is different from the one you use for the rest of your site. this will help you track, evaluate & understand shoppers’ needs and behaviors. While you are at it, give them a fax-order form so they can complete their order by fax if they prefer.

12. Make it always about your new customer.

Make the focus of the checkout process easier for your new visitor with whom you do not yet have a relationship with, than for your registered customer. It is much harder to acquire a new customer than to keep selling to loyal customers. Registered customer’s will find a way to sign in (if they don’t already have a cookie), but don’t make the registration and log-in a barrier in the way of the new visitors finding their way to check out.

13. Add third-party reinforcement messages.

Verisign, BBB or logos of credit cards have either greatly boosted conversion rates, or kept them neutral. in other words, they never hurt. HackerSafe certification seems to be helping clients all across the board, especially in sites with larger average order sizes. They claim a 15.7% average increase in orders - directly attributable to earning the Hacker Safe certification.

14. Present coupon codes carefully.

Be careful how you handle these - you don’t want to decrease your conversion rate. You might want to think carefully about where you present this option and how you label it. Coupons should add to the experience, not create doubt for those may not be shopping with a coupon.

15. Deal with pricing issues head-on.

If you sell name brand products and your store is price competitive or truly provides better value, why not try a “Lower Price Match” guarantee?

16. GTC: Get the cash.

Offer more payment options and add other ways to collect the cash. You can offer visitors the option to pay by cheque, PayPal or any other means you can to get the cash.

17. Offer point-of-action reassurance.

Check how often information critical to your customers buying decision gets buried in tiny type at the bottom of the page or in some place where it is not immediately visible when the need to know is foremost in the customers mind. If you walk into a store, its fairly easy to find out product warranty information. One can read the box at hand or chat with a salesperson.
Online, give your customer this same option at the POA where he’d figuratively be examining that box. Link right there to product warranties, your company’s specific policies, testimonials, even optional extended service plans. Right there! Maybe you take them to the information or perhaps give it to the shopper in a pop-up.
At the exact point when your customer has to start filling in a form with personal information, reassure the customer that privacy is sacred to you. At the point the customer might be curious about your company’s shipping costs, make them concretely available. Just when the customer is wondering whether or not it is possible to return the item if it doesn’t suit, make it clear that you have a no-questions-asked returns policy. Make the best use of your assurances at the right time and place.

18. Track your mistakes.

Develop a system that keeps you notified of errors during your checkout process. One client noticed a portion of their visitors had cookies turned off. He developed a cookie-less checkout option and his conversion rate and sales jumped.

19. Save it for them.

We know that customers often leave a shopping cart with items in it, but they do return sometimes. Don’t be overly concerned if visitors leave items behind. Just plan on doing your best to give them a reason and reminder to return and complete the sale. You may have the ability to save the cart for them or email them that they left items in their cart and can complete their order when they are ready. This can be done online at your website or through the telephone with interactive voice response (IVR). Remember, if they’ve gotten to the shopping cart, they are most likely considering the purchase.

20. When all else fails, survey.

Try an exit survey (think of it as an objectionator) if people abandon your checkout. Try offering them an incentive to complete your survey or even save their cart. They might just tell you why they didn’t complete their order.
These twenty tips can help you reduce your shopping cart abandonment. Of course, every site is different and has its own environment and issues. Don’t overly obsess about abandonment rates, since many people simply use the shopping cart as a placeholder for considering purchases of interest to them. These tips help you focus on those whose intent it is to check out and purchase, but may have questions, doubts or obstacles holding them back. Some of these tips will result in dramatic improvements and others might not do much. the only way to find out is to test each.

Author: Andy MacDonald owns and runs his own website design company called Swift Media UK which also incorporates logo design & reliable web hosting. Also checkout our SEO Blog which is updated regularly with posts to help you achieve a top search engine ranking.

Increase Conversions by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment

01 2008 Tuesday

By Andy MacDonald in Ecommerce

A Checkout process can be a number of steps, and each step is its own little mini-conversion. You really want to know where in the shopping cart process folks get frustrated enough to say goodbye, because that’s the point where the carts conversion process is failing. If you’ve got a tidy little cyber shop and still want to improve your shopping cart abandonment rates, then here are some ideas on how to fix your cart:

1. Check how many steps are in your checkout process. This is usually a prime knee-jerk target for results. But we have found that whether you have one step, or seven, it is not all that critical. We had one client whose checkout process we were able to bring down from six steps to one, but there was no correlation in reduction of the abandonment rate to the number of steps. Once people found what they came for, they found a way and the time to checkout no matter how many steps were involved. Should you change the number of steps? No. It may not be worth the time, effort, and expense of trying to reduce the steps in the checkout process. Try some of these other ideas first.

2. Include a progress indicator (e.g., step 2 of 5) on each checkout page. No matter how many steps you have in your checkout process, keep shoppers oriented by letting them know exactly where they are in the checkout process by step number. Be sure to clearly label the task to be completed at each step. Always give them an opportunity to review what they did in the previous steps and a way to return to their current step if they do go back.

3. Provide a link back to the product. When an item is placed in the shopping cart, include a link back to the product page, so shoppers can easily jump back to make sure they have selected the right item. Your own experience probably parallels ours. Recently, while shopping for a CD/DVD printer, we wanted to know how many and what color cartridges come with the printer. It wasn’t obvious where we should click to review what came with the printer, so we had to navigate using our “back” button until we were able to get our questions answered. Not all consumers are willing to take on this navigational challenge and choose, instead, to abandon their carts.

4. Add pictures inside the basket. Just as adding a link back to the product details page inside the checkout process reduces abandonment, placing a thumbnail image of the product inside the basket can increase conversions by as much as 10 percent.

5. Provide shipping costs as early in the process as possible. If possible, provide an estimated cost while they browse. Your visitors want to buy; they just want the answers to all their questions, when they want it, and total cost is one of those critical questions. Also, if the shipping information is the same as the billing information, include a box that shoppers can check to automatically fill in the same information. Don’t waste their time while testing their keyboard skills.

6. Show stock availability on the product page. Shoppers should not have to wait until checkout to find out that a product is out of stock. One thing that we also like to see is “Estimated Delivery Date” or this product usually ships in x days. Deal with the “I want it now” mentality, and let them know when they should expect to get their product.

7. Make it obvious what to click next. Include a prominent Next Step or Continue with Checkout button on each checkout page. If possible, give the shopper a visual cue as to where they are in the process. Make the button you want them to click next the most obvious. One Top 50 e-tailer mistakenly placed visually similar Remove from Cart and Checkout buttons right next to each other. As you can imagine, many people click before they read. At this site, they ended up clearing their cart. And when they want to checkout and found nothing in their shopping cart, they immediately abandoned the site in frustration.

8. Make it easy for the shopper to edit the shopping cart. If a product comes in multiple sizes or colors, make it easy to select or change values in the shopping cart. How many times have you bought a pair of trousers online, and wanted the same shirt in two different colors? Make it easy for your consumers to add to and edit the contents of their shopping carts. It should be simple to change quantities or options or to delete an item from the shopping cart.

9. Make it your fault. If information is missing or filled out incorrectly during checkout, give a meaningful error message that is distinctly visible. It should clearly tell your visitor what needs to be corrected. The tone should intimate that the system was unable to understand what they entered, not that they made a foolish mistake.

10. Make shoppers aware that you are a real entity. Checkout is the time when peoples concerns start to flare up. Let them know you are a real company by giving full contact info during the checkout process.

Look out for part 2 of Increase Conversions by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment, where we have another 10 top tips for you to increase your conversion rates.

Website Security Rules Explained

12 2007 Friday

By Ricardo D Argence in Ecommerce

2006-2007 has been the years that online shopping has come into its own with online consumers spending a record $65.1 billion in merchandise via the web. More and more people are getting comfortable with online shopping and are engaging in online shopping, research and exploration of various membership and subscription sites.

Unfortunately, the chances of becoming a victim of Internet fraud also increases with every site where personal information is places. The Internet National Fraud Center Watch recently reported that the average loss due to fraud the first six months of 2006 was $2,579. This is compared to the $895 average for all of 2005. Complaints relating to general merchandise purchases (goods never received or misrepresented) accounted for 30% of Internet fraud complaints, and auction purchases (goods never received or misrepresented) topped the list at 44%.

One of the big scams in 2006-2007 is the investment scam. Investing has always been thought of as a good way to build a nest egg for retirement, but there are so many investment schemes offered via the Internet that you don’t really know which one is correct for you. Further, there are so many schemes that, while they appear legitimate, are pure scams. If you take your time, do a lot of research prior to signing on to something and don’t get taken in by the hype, you can make wise decisions and avoid losing your money to fraud.

Many e-commerce sites are trustworthy and have taken the necessary safety measures to shield you, but it still never hurts to proceed cautiously. If you decide to make an online purchase consider these simple steps:

1. Make all purchases with one credit card, preferably with a low credit limit. Avoid using an ATM or debit card because that’s money taken directly from your account.

2. Be wary of unsolicited offers by sellers. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. The Internet National Fraud Information Center Watch reported that email scams was up 22% in 2006.While the offer may seem legitimate, spammers and phishers like to use this tactic to side-step reputable sites that provide consumer protection for online purchases. They will send you to a site that looks just like the real thing. You put in your information and you are a victim in about 3 seconds. If you get an email asking you to confirm our Paypal, eBay or bank account information, whatever you do, DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE EMAIL. Go to the site directly by typing in the site name, and see if there is anything related to the email. In 99.9% of the time, it is not. It’s a fraud waiting to steal your personal information. You can also tell that the email is fake because it won’t have your name in it.

3. Use only reputable e-commerce websites that list a street address and telephone number in case you need to contact them directly. If you look all over the website, and you can’t find bona fide contact information, move cautiously. You wouldn’t go into a store with no sign or street address, would you? Well, this is no different. If you can’t find a number that connects to a human being and an address, keep on looking.

4. Read the website’s privacy policy. Some websites may reserve the right to sell/give your information to a third party. Check the document to see if they allow an opportunity to “opt-out” of receiving special offers from third-party vendors or for permission to share your personal information. If you want your name sold to a ton of people you don’t know, then don’t take this extra precaution. If they do it, and there isn’t a place to opt-out, move on. It’s not worth the amount of spam you will receive.

5. In the lower right-hand corner of your browser should be a small lock icon which indicates that the site is secure. Also, do not provide your personal information if the website address doesn’t start with “https” on that checkout page. This isn’t on the whole site, but wherever you are putting your credit card must have these two things in place. If you can’t find it or you see an unlocked lock icon, don’t put your personal information and credit card information in there. While the company may be completely legitimate, it is not secure. On the web, you can’t take that chance. Find an alternative way to shop with them if you really want to.

6. Choose only verified sellers. Check to see if the vendor is a verified member of a reputable third party such as the Better Business Bureau, VeriSign, or Guardian eCommerce. These third-party sites help to ensure online consumers will be protected when shopping or conducting e-commerce transactions.

Shopping on the Internet can be both convenient and fun, if you take the proper precautions. Simply know the rules of the road and what you should be looking for on websites, and you should have no trouble. If you do, contact the Better Business Bureau.

Author: Alojate.com is the premier web hosting company in Mexico, offering a range or services for all business needs. http://www.alojate.com http://www.alojateextra.com

7 Ways To Improve International E-Commerce Usability

10 2007 Thursday

By Linda Bustos in Ecommerce

When you run an ecommerce website, you have the potential to sell products to people around the world — even from your own basement. But many online retailers expect to make international sales without doing all they should to help convert international shoppers. Here are a few ideas to help make the online shopping experience smooth for your international customers.

1. Have an International Shipping page

Sure, you could have it buried in an FAQ section, Help area or some other hard-to-find place, but why not make it easy for users to find International Shipping policies by making it its own link visible from every page on the site?

The footer menu is a common location for shipping information, as is the top right hand corner of your page. Conventions like this train users to check these areas for shipping information. If it’s not there, customers might just assume it’s not available. Placing this information in one of the two areas the customer is likely to look is a good idea. Placing it in both areas is even better.

Some e-commerce websites hide International Shipping information in the “Help” section. Avoid this, as users can’t find it by scanning the page they are on, and Help may be associated with technical assistance with a site.

2. Include Important Information on Shipping Page

Return policies, customer service hours of operation and time zones, estimated shipping times and order tracking availability should be clearly stated. A list of all countries you ship to is also recommended. Remind customers that they may have to pay additional duties and taxes depending on where they live.

3. Make Your Shipping Policy Searchable

Make sure your international shipping page can be found using your site’s internal search engine. It’s a good idea to program your search engine to deliver this page for searches for “international,” “intl,” “international orders” and “international customers” too.

4. Show International Shipping Availability on Product Pages

You may carry some products that you can’t ship abroad even if you can ship most products. For example, certain health supplements are legal in some countries and illegal in others. It’s a good idea to mention this before the customer gets to the checkout. Sure, this wouldn’t be so bad for you if you never intended to sell anything outside your country anyway, but if you irritate a user who may buy something else from you it’s in your best interest to provide this courtesy.

5. Convert Currencies, Weights and Measures on the Product Page

North American customers may not buy clothing from Korean shops that display sizing in centimeters or a children’s toy from the UK that can support up to 35 kilograms. Providing conversion tools can increase conversions!

6. Estimate Shipping Costs on Your Product Pages

E-Commerce usability rockstars offer shipping cost tools right on product pages, which not only helps international customers but also locals. FedEx, UPS and USPS all provide API access for your web developer to make this happen. Offering the tool at the product page level also will reduce your rate of abandoned carts.

7. Send a Post-Sale Email

If you can segment your customer database by location, you can send targeted follow up emails to your international customers. For example, as the Canadian dollar rises more Canadians will shop online at US stores. Motivate your Canadian customers to visit you again by offering free shipping, discounts or other offers. Or, send an email from time to time asking how you can improve the shopping experience for international users. Even if they don’t respond, you send a powerful message that your business cares about foreign shoppers.

Of course, your own usability testing with international customers is the best way to learn about how your own site can be improved. There are even consultancies that offer international usability testing services. But these seven tips will give you a head start.

Author: Linda Bustos is an Emerging Media Analyst for Elastic Path Software, an SEO friendly ecommerce software solutions provider. Linda blogs daily at the Get Elastic E-commerce blog about user experience for e-commerce and Internet marketing for online retailers.

A Beginner’s Guide To Online Merchant Accounts

10 2007 Wednesday

By Lena Crossan in Ecommerce

It’s probably one of the most misunderstood aspects of Internet business. While others make it seem so scary, truly, there’s nothing to fear. Getting an online merchant account can be one of the easiest steps in setting up your ecommerce business, if you know what to look for and what to avoid.

It used to be - in order to get a merchant account - you had to fill out mounds of paperwork at a stodgy old bank, then try and convince the branch manager that small businesses deserved merchant accounts, too. If you were an Internet-based business, the uphill battle was even steeper. Today, however, site owners have many other options including merchant account providers, independent sales organizations and more. Because the marketplace has opened so widely, getting an online merchant account is quite a simple process.

THE APPLICATION

Tip: You should never pay an application fee.

This is an old-school practice many institutions used to use to bring in a little extra cash. While applying for an online merchant account these days still requires an application to be completed, account providers stopped charging application fees long ago.

You’ll be expected to provide the basic information (company name, principle’s name, address, phone, fax, type of ownership, website address, etc.). You may also be asked for information such as estimated average credit card transaction, estimated monthly sales volume, federal tax ID number or Social Security number, bank account number, routing number and other financial information. This is typical in order to allow the online merchant account provider to assess your qualification for the service, and to determine your credit rating.

Warning: Never fill out an unsecured online application. Look in the address bar for a URL that begins with https:// to be sure your information remains safe.

THE FEES

Tip: Calculate a set number of fictitious monthly charges (for example, 50 charges at $55.00 each) using the fees each merchant account provider you’re considering charges. This way you can compare apples to apples.

Merchant account providers make money by charging for the use of the service. Certain flat and percentage-based fees are imposed on everyone who transacts business via credit card online. Let’s look at the fees you can expect and find out what each one represents.

Discount Rate - The percentage of each sale due to the merchant account provider.
Transaction Fee - A flat-rate amount charged for each transaction you process.
Statement Fee - A flat-rate amount charge for generating monthly statements of your account.
Monthly Minimum - A fee collected if your monthly sales don’t exceed this amount.
Annual Fee - As the name implies, this fee is charged annually for use of the online merchant account.
Set Up Fee - A flat-rate fee charged for setting up your new merchant account.

Warning: Many merchant account providers require no contract at all. Others offer discounts for committing to a long-term contract. If the provider you’re applying with requires a lengthy contract without offering a discount, reconsider.

LOOK FOR FLEXIBILITY

Watch for flexibility in online merchant account providers. You’ll want to work with someone who allows you to use their shopping cart or your own or to use their Internet gateway or your own. Being forced into using everything the provider offers can get complicated and expensive. The same goes for flexibility in service. You want a merchant account provider who will be there if you have questions or need advice.

THE PROCESS

Once your application has been approved, you’ll be ready to accept credit cards online! Your customers can process their orders via your site and make purchases immediately. How does it work? Once the customer enters their credit card information, that data is whisked over to the processing center.

The processing center requests authorization from the issuing bank of the credit card. When everything is approved, the sale goes through. It all happens in real time at the blink of an eye!

Just remember:

never pay an application fee
make sure online merchant account applications are secure
use a set number of sample transactions to compare various merchant providers
look for flexibility

Before you know it, you’ll be raking in sale after sale on your website thanks to the benefits of online merchant accounts.

Author: Lena Crossan is Marketing Manager of GoEmerchant.com that has offered affordable award-winning ecommerce services since 1995. Discover their proven, innovative online merchant account and other solutions today at http://www.GoEmerchant.com.

9 Tips For Getting More Sales From Your Existing Web Traffic

10 2007 Wednesday

By Josiah Mackenzie in Ecommerce

Many entrepreneurs spend time and money increasing their website traffic or search engine ranking, yet pay little or no attention to how many of these visitors actually buy their product or service. Improving your website’s conversion rate is more time and cost effective than trying to bring in new traffic. In this article, I’ll show you the nine adjustments I make to help websites improve their conversion rates.

Before you begin, you must know your numbers. Tracking key metrics of your website’s performance will enable you to make educated marketing decisions. What is measured gets improved. Some benchmarks to start with include:

Number of visitors
Number of sales
Average order amount
Cost per visit
Profit per visit
Customer lifetime value

Once you begin tracking these numbers in Excel or a similar program, you can see the improvement caused by the changes you make.

Step #1: Add Rapport
Trying to sell a visitor on a first visit is like asking someone to marry you the first time you meet. Build relationships by sharing knowledge and giving away value before you try to close the sale.

Step #2: Remove Distractions
Anything that does not directly contribute to making a sale should be removed from your webpage. Reduce the number of clicks it takes to go from the landing page to the sale receipt page.

Step #3: Add Your Unique Selling Point
Explain why a visitor should buy from you. What makes your product or service better than the competition?

Step #4: Add Trust
Build credibility by displaying awards, recommendations, and testimonials. Prove you’re legitimate by providing a phone number and mailing address.

Step #5: Add an Irresistible Offer
Develop such an incredible package that the visitor cannot leave without buying. Create so much value that your asking price seems like a bargain.

Step #6: Remove Risk
Create a guarantee that removes all fear from the prospect’s mind. Go the extra mile, like offering a 110% money back refund and free shipping both ways.

Step #7: Add Payment Options
Allow your customers to order with the payment method they prefer to use. One website I worked with increased sales dramatically by adding PayPal as a payment option. Another found it profitable to accept phone orders. It goes without saying that you need to accept every major credit card.

Step #8: Remove Checkout Hassle
Make your ordering process as simple as possible. Get rid of all barriers that could discourage a purchase, such as requiring account registration.

Step #9: Add Follow Up
Are you losing a lot of visitors once they get to your order page? Create exit pop-up boxes with a discount coupon. Setup a script that sends the visitor an email if the order page is abandoned. If people are not going to buy your product at its existing price, offering them a coupon for a 30% discount will not hurt your profit levels.

If my advice could be summed up in one sentence, it would be this: build a relationship, develop a powerful offer, then remove all hesitations and hassles that would prevent an order.

Author: Josiah Mackenzie: To see what increased conversion would do for your sales, try the free calculators here: http://www.theprofitfactory.com/sales-conversion

How To Create A Search Engine Friendly eCommerce Website

09 2007 Tuesday

By Monica Lorica in Ecommerce

Just like the other websites, an ecommerce site also aims for a higher ranking on the search engines. To be able to do this, it needs search engine optimization. SEO helps an ecommerce site on its struggle to be on the top 10 of search results. It is important that your ecommerce site rank well on the search results in order to keep up with the tough competition of the World Wide Web. Getting on a better position on the search engines compared to your competitors, you are guaranteed of a better online business. How can you get your ecommerce site listed on the top of the search engines’ page results?

Optimizing an Ecommerce Website

In optimizing an ecommerce site, you have to remember three important elements. These elements will determine whether you will be able to achieve a higher ranking on the search engines. They will be the keys that will take your ecommerce site to the top 10 of the search results.

Here are the three elements you need to consider if you want to optimize your ecommerce site:

Include a title tag that contains targeted keywords and keyphrases
Valuable web content that also contains targeted keywords and keyphrases; and
Incoming links from other relevant websites.

Basically, the elements mentioned above are the same elements that you will find in search engine optimization process for other websites. This is simply due to the fact that an ecommerce site needs the same things that other websites need – and that includes search engine optimization. Aside from giving your ecommerce site a higher ranking, these three elements are also essential in your goal to make your ecommerce site more search engine friendly.

Making Your Ecommerce Site More Search Engine Friendly

The search engines define a search engine friendly site as one that can be easily spidered or crawled. If your site is easily indexed, then you can rightly say that is search engine friendly. Aside from the three elements mentioned above, how can you make your ecommerce site more search engine friendly? Remember that your ecommerce site should not be restricted by cookies, sessions Ids and even long URLs.

Now that you know how to make your ecommerce site more search engine friendly, you can start your optimization process by checking how search engine friendly your site is now. You can do this by doing a search on the search engines like Google. To check, key in site:www.domain.com on the search box. Google will show you the pages of your website. How will you evaluate the result?

Evaluating the Search Result

After you have performed the search to check whether your ecommerce site is search engine friendly or not, evaluate the result. If Google has given you a page result containing all the web pages of your site, that means your website is search engine friendly and that Google has indexed all the pages of your ecommerce site. On the other hand, if Google has given you an incomplete result – meaning there are pages in your website that are not included – that means your site is not search engine friendly. You better do something with it – optimizing it is obviously a better choice.

The key to give your ecommerce site a higher ranking on the search engines and to make it more search engine friendly is one simple yet effective process called the search engine optimization!

Author: This article is written by nPresence an online web marketing agency that specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, Content Management Systems, Web Design, Conversion Tracking and Analysis. For all your all your web marketing needs, please see Search Engine Optimization Experts.

The Customer Experience is Not a Commodity

08 2007 Tuesday

By Jennifer Laycock in Ecommerce

Studies show that online shoppers conduct more than half a dozen searches before making a purchase. That means a shopper may visit your site once, twice, or even six times using various search terms before deciding what (and where) they want to buy. If you’re the type of web site that sells a product stocked on dozens or even thousands of other sites, how can you compete? Well, price is a factor, but customer experience plays an important role as well.

I’ve often observed brand loyalty and its impact on the buying decisions we make. For example, if I’m in the mood for fast food, I’ll take Wendy’s over McDonald’s any day. I like Target better than Wal-Mart. My husband prefers Honda to GM and I’m now in love with Born shoes. These things are commodities. I like the product the company produces. I’m brand loyal.

What I never considered until today was the idea that I’m also customer experience loyal.

Yes, it’s about the brand, but with thousands of places to go to buy a particular brand, how do I decide which location gets my money? The customer experience.

Two to three days a week, I take my children to a drop-off child care center where they play for a few hours and eat lunch while I head around the corner to work. There are two Panera Breads (re: free wifi and tasty cinnamon crunch bagels) that are equidistant from the center. For the past two months, I’ve been going to one of them. Today, I needed to run into Target, so I’m working from the other one.

I won’t be coming back here.

At “my” Panera Bread, they know me by name. On my second visit, Erin was taking my order and observed that I’d been there “for hours” that past Tuesday. I told her I drop my kids off at day care and come over with my laptop to work for a few hours. She got my bagel for me and I went on my way. The next visit, we chatted again as she asked me if I was working on a paper for school. I told her what I did for a living and she commented that it sounded interesting. Over the course of the next two months, Erin and Stacy continued to make conversation with me whenever I was placing an order. They even noticed when I came in on a Friday instead of my usual Tuesday and Thursday and when I ordered something other than my usual.

When I stopped by on Wednesday with a friend to pick up an order to go, they commented on how great it was that I was taking a break and wanted to know about where we were headed to shop. Two workers at a chain store that I thought had secured my loyalty to the Panera Bread brand.

Then I found myself walking into “the other” Panera Bread this morning. My first thought was how much nicer the interior of this restaurant was. There are more lounge chairs, more plugs and more little nooks for settling into with my laptop. “Why haven’t I been coming to this Panera?” I asked myself.

Then I went to place my order. I was the third person in line and a cashier opened up a new register and said “I can take the next person over here.” The first person in my line was getting her order, so I stepped over to the new register figuring the second person in line was only a few seconds away from ordering.

“SHE was the next person,” the cashier said to me, nodding her head at the other woman. I paused for a moment before the cashier realized that “SHE” was already placing her order. “Oh,” she said.

I stepped up and ordered my usual toasted cinnamon crunch bagel. I got my order (no conversation) and headed back to my seat. It was only when I’d taken the time to spread my cream cheese and take my first bite that I realized she hadn’t toasted my bagel.

“I miss MY Panera Bread,” I thought.

That’s when it hit me. Sure, it was about the brand to an extent, but it was REALLY about the customer experience. It wasn’t so much Panera Bread that drew me in twice a week as it was the feeling I got from going there. Stacy and Erin would never forget to toast my bagel, and they’d always at least ask me how my day was.

Same exact product, same exact price, two different locations and one had just guaranteed they would get all of my future business.

Have you ever stopped to think about how the customer experience on your web site might be impacting your business? Does your shopping cart have stumbling blocks that your competitors have removed? Do your sales copy focus more on your customer and less on how wonderful your business is? Do you make it easy to find things like shipping information and your return policy?

You may have a solid search engine optimization plan in place. You may rank in the top three for every phrase you target. But knowing that visitors will conduct a number of searches before making their purchase, are you confident your store will impress them enough that they’ll return?

Author: Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, an educational web site aimed at translating the search marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. Jennifer specializes in common sense search engine marketing, viral marketing and customer outreach via social media and blogs.

Internet Retailers’ Who Blog: Doing it Right

05 2007 Thursday

By Stephan Spencer in Ecommerce

The article “A Marketing Geyser: E-retailer blogs aid branding, marketing and search, as long as they stay on message just came out in this month’s issue of Internet Retailer. A great article about how retailers are taking advantage of blogging for marketing purposes. I’m quoted in the article, and so are our (Netconcepts’) clients: Steve Spangler Science and DMSI (HomeVisions.com).(As an aside, I’ll be speaking on the same topic — blogging for retailers — later this month at the ACCM conference along with panelists Pinny Gniwisch of Ice.com and Steve Spangler of Steve Spangler Science. Ping me if you’re going to be at ACCM… I’d love to meet up with my readers.)

Thought you’d also enjoy reading the transcript of my interview with the journalist, Elizabeth Gardner, of Internet Retailer, which was conducted over email:

What are the potential benefits of blogging, specifically from a retailer’s point of view?

Search engines - Google in particular - love blogs. So anything you have to say or sell, if done as a blog, will rank better in the search engines - all else being equal.

If you have a good blog, you can get readers “hooked” and coming back for more (either via your RSS feed or via your email ‘blogletter’), thus further burning your brand into their minds and increasing the likelihood of repeat purchases.

Having a blog helps get you links. If you are a blogger, then other bloggers think of you as “one of them”. As such, they will be more likely to link to you and to give you favorable coverage on their blogs. It is also more likely that you will be “on their radar”, because bloggers are more apt to follow your company’s movements by subscribing to you blog’s RSS feed than by subscribing to your email newsletter or periodically visiting your site.

Having a blog helps get you press from the mainstream media. That’s because journalists read blogs. For example, I received unsolicited interview requests from journalists from the New York Times and the San Jose Mercury News because of blog posts I wrote.

A blog builds your credibility and can position you as a “thought leader” in your niche. For example, a blog about stamp collecting (with interesting trends, news tidbits, insightful commentary, etc.) would position an ecommerce shop selling collectible stamps as a credible, trusted expert source for stamps.

A blog can help you get invited to speak at conferences and to author articles.

How time, effort, cost, etc., is involved in doing it right?

A blog, in order to be viewed as active, should have at least a few blog posts per week. The higher the quality of the posts, the less frequently you have to post. Posting daily is ideal. You should allocate a minimum of 5 to 10 hours per week to blog writing. Allocate another 5 to 10 hours per week minimum to commenting on others’ blogs.

Developing your blog strategy should probably involve a blog consultant and will likely run in the $5,000 to $15,000 price range. Don’t skimp on the blog strategy: as much time and energy should be put into that as any offline marketing strategy. The initial web development and search engine optimization can run in the $10,000-and-up price range.

I’d also suggest hiring a blog consultant on a retainer basis, to help guide you through that crucial first year of blogging. That can cost anywhere from $1000 to $5000 per month.

If you’re going to recruit non-employee evangelists to blog (e.g. passionate customers), then you should allocate some small amount of budget to swag and little gifts through the year in appreciation of their contributions to the blog.

Can you share a few tips on how to go about doing it right?

Really let your personality shine through. You blog should have a human voice, and should show there are real human beings behind the blog. Introduce your blogger(s) with an About page on the blog, and include a photo. People buy from people, not from faceless corporations.

It really helps if you can come up with an “angle”. For example, jewelry retailer ice.com came up with a “gossip rag” angle with their Sparkle Like the Stars blog — the blog has a trendy fasionista / gossip columnist writing style, talking about what jewelry celebrities are wearing and how to replicate the “look” yourself. That is much more buzzworthy than a “here’s what’s new in stock” blog.

Don’t just regurgitate news and content that’s already out there on the Net. Share your own insightful commentary too.

It’s good etiquette to cite your sources and to credit the blog that led you to find the newsy tidbit you are blogging about (this is known as a “hat tip”).

A good blogger is one who participates in the blogosphere and doesn’t write in isolation — commenting on others’ blogs as much as they write on their own blog. Also build relationships with other bloggers within virtual communities like MyBlogLog and in the real world by attending conferences like BlogOn, BlogHer, and Blog Business Summit.

As far as retaining readers, recency is more important than frequency. A couple weeks of inactivity makes the reader feel like nobody’s home. Conversely, having the latest post be only a day old makes the blog appear “fresh”. Personally I don’t like keeping RSS feeds in my newsreader that haven’t had recent activity.

And any warnings about what not to do?

You need to do it with sincerity and transparency. Don’t hire a ghost writer to pretend to be someone they are not. Blogs have been lambasted for trying to fool their readers (e.g. Raging Cow, Wal-Mart).

Abandoned blogs look very bad. If you’re going to blog, you have to be committed to keeping it going.

Any examples of retailer cluelessness in this area?

Hmm… http://www.blogmagazine.com — It’s from Magazines.com and it comes off as sales propaganda that isn’t even thinly veiled. It looks like they’ve abandoned it too.

You may also want to check out my “5 Tips for Multichannel Retailers Entering the Blogosphere, which is the transcript from an interview I did last year with Multichannel Merchant magazine.

Author: Stephan Spencer is the founder and president of Netconcepts, a journalist, professional speaker, and Internet Marketing Consultant. His complete profile can be found here.

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