How to track craigslist ads

July 26, 2007 | 8 Comments

Tracking craigslist ads can be a little tricky because javascript, flash and other useful scripting languagaes are not allowed. It is possible however to track ads using a simple image tracking program. This is limited compared to full-featured javascript tracking script, but it will at least give some idea of the amount of views that your ad is getting.

This should also work on myspace, and other networks that allow html, but do not allow javascript or flash.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General, Marketing

10 tips to maximize your ecommerce productivity

July 11, 2007 | 4 Comments

I started this out with five and quickly went to eight and finally split into two five part categories, where I’ll stay. This is for the ecommerce businesses that have only one person or just one person that runs all of the online stuff, for webmasters, and for anyone that spends a lot of time developing online. From web design, to marketing, database programming, and shipping, these tips are to help you maximize your efficiency because there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done.

Personal:

Wear a suit to the office.
Optimize your computer monitor situation.
Make a daily schedule, and stick to it.
Work on one task at a time.
Outsource if you can’t do something yourself.

For your website:

Make very good use of FAQ and self help pages.
Properly integrate and automate payment methods on your website.
Make sure you are using a good website host.
Optimize advertising landing pages.
Optimize your website’s structure and navigation.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General, Usability

Where wikipedia fails

June 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment

I love the idea of Wikipedia. A user generated encyclopedia, where people decide what information needs to be addressed under each topic. Theoretically, people who are well studied or professionals in a particular field can contribute to a topic and make it a great resource of information. However, I feel that the current Wikipedia is a complete failure.

Wikipedia’s failure can be summed in a single word: ‘accountability‘.

Because there is no accountability for what is written, people write about topics that they have no business writing about. Because there is no accountability for creating false information, people correct topics that they have no business correcting. And because of the lack of acknowledgement due to the lack of accountability, the people who actually do have the knowledge and ability to write informative, professionally and concise, don’t!

Here’s how I would fix it: Give credit to those who write, and penalize those that spam and those that create inaccurate or personally biased information.

I have seen several good contributors driven completely away from Wikipedia because their articles were mutilated, or some passerby thought their resources were spam. The articles that those authors had created or edited to a professional level, have since been reduced to garbage. I myself have downgraded to only removing spam links (which is a daily event) and no longer actively contribute content. When 10-year-olds question the whole concept, maybe it’s time to make some changes!

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General

404 error, File not found: What your custom error pages must contain!

June 26, 2007 | 1 Comment

When a visitor reaches a page on your website that doesn’t exist, by default they get a nasty, ugly document, that very well may end any future interaction with your company.

It is extremely important to create a custom 404 error document for your website. More than any other error page, you must customize your 404 error page to hopefully route those lost visitors back to your mainland.

404 error’s are for the most part unavoidable. I have never seen a website that doesn’t serve a 404 error every once in a while. Whether you mistyped a link, the visitors misspelled a page in their address bar, or anything else, at some point your server will send a 404 error.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General, Usability

My favorite time-saving programs and hardware

June 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Mitch at practical ecommerce posted an article about helpful gadgets for ecommerce owners.

I decided to throw together my own list of programs, and hardware that I currently use that really makes developing and managing websites, and generally using a computer much more efficient. Many of these are not free however, they have all paid for themselves many times over in the time they have saved me.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General

Internet Explorer (Auto Complete) stores your passwords unencrypted!

May 22, 2007 | 7 Comments

When you check the auto-complete option in Windows internet explorer, you just opened yourself up to a mess of potential problems. Internet explorer stores all of the user names and passwords that you tell it to learn, in a single flat-file that is unencrypted and can be easily read by a variety of program.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General, Security

How your website’s style affects your website’s visitors

May 21, 2007 | 1 Comment

If you’ve seen the movie ‘The School of Rock’ this video should be pretty humorous to you.

If you haven’t seen the movie, then this looks like some sort of suspense thriller movie about a deranged teacher, when it is actually a comedy.

How does this apply to a website?

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General

Ecommerce How-to List for Do-it-yourself’ers

May 16, 2007 | 2 Comments

Following a post from Matt Cutts, I have been collecting how to’s every time I come across one that I use. I have about 900 saved up now, in just about every area imaginable.

There are so many how to guides that people need for running their ecommerce website’s. With that in mind, this is a list of very useful how to’s related to ecommerce. Hopefully this post will be a good resource for site owners, and those looking to get into ecommerce. Topics include everything from setting up a web server, marketing, to integrating a website with a payment gateway.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under Development, General, Marketing, PPC, SEO, Security, Usability

Google Checkout Desperation

May 1, 2007 | 3 Comments

I went to login to my Google Checkout account today. For some reason instead of clicking on my bookmark, I did a search for Google Checkout and clicked on the link. Something really caught my eye with the Google Checkout listing in Google.

Google Checkout

Google doesn’t even have their own listing as the title for Google Checkout in the SERPS. They are advertising an auction company (hibidder.com) in the title of the Google Checkout listing.

Andy Beal recently blogged about Google Checkout taking a dive after their $10 and $30 coupons went away. Coincidentally I had commented about how Paypal was able to get very large only because of the wide use of eBay, and that without a site like eBay, Google Checkout would have a hard time catching on. It looks to me that Google may be thinking the same thing, and that they are trying to get users away from ebay and onto sites that support their own payment system.

I cant believe that Google would do something this seemingly desperate. In addition to this, it also looks like they had manually changed their title in the SERPS, as nowhere in the Google Checkout Homepage does any of the altered title text appear.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General

Making a poor image

April 13, 2007 | 1 Comment

I was driving home from work a few days ago, and I saw one of those Best Buy geek squad cars. They are really noticeable as they are a VW beetle, and they are painted black and white, like an old police car (SEE PICTURE HERE).

Now this may seem like a fairly effective practice. They are definitely noticeable, and they probably appeal to a fairly wide audience. The car itself is a representation of simplicity and clean lines something that Geek Squad would definitely want people to associate them with.

Posted by jestep | Filed Under General

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