Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Ecommerce How-to List for Do-it-yourself’ers
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.
Google Checkout Desperation
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 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.
Making a poor image
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.
Domain parking is out of hand!
I have been searching for a domain for several hours now. I know that there are millions of website owners using billions of domain names, but the whole system is completely out of hand.
I have searched for over a hundred names, not one with an actual dictionary word in it, and only one domain has been available so far. What bothers me more than the lack of available names, is that none of the takes names actually have useful content on them. Almost every one, has a parked page or a made for adsense page, with some generic ads on it and nothing else.
Using WordPress for your Intranet website
Intranet websites can be extremely beneficial for small and medium businesses, but they are often overlooked, or simply ignored. I think that any business who’s employees spend a lot of time on computers, and any business that has constantly updating news and information can greatly benefit from using an Intranet website.
A few years ago we decided to create an intranet website for the company. We compiled a list of everything that we needed in order to have a successful intranet.
Important factors of our Intranet:
- Simple publishing platform in a blog format (Reverse chronological).
- Commenting and discussion management.
- Several static, easily accessible pages.
- Ability to upload documents.
- Integration with RSS.
After looking at a handful of idea, including some complicated CMS systems and custom programming, we decided on a blog publishing platform. WordPress was by far the most inclusive, easily editable, and free program that was available at the time, so it was an easy choice when we finally decided to get started. Upgrading is simple, and WordPress support is readily available.
Website Security Auditing
I purchased a security scan and audit for my main website this past week. The scan was done by a company called Acunetix.
Basically, a security scan is scan done by another server that attempts to exploit known and malicious vulnerabilities in a website’s code and programming.
If you run an ecommerce website, I highly recommend getting a scan like this, even if you already do a PCI / CISP scan on any regular basis. This was a complete eye opener for me.
Two great articles for business website owners.
I have been running, managing and setting up ecommerce an B2B websites for several years and every once in a while I come across an article or blog post that is exceptionally useful.
One of the best articles I have ever found for business websites is on the entrepreneur.com website and was written July 2006. The article Hit the Sweet Spot, is a simple guide covering seven areas your marketing must address to successfully sell to business owners. I printed this article out and it still sits on my desk six months after is was published. It is easily applicable to both websites and any other sales environment. Every point in the article is spot on, and it has statistically proven itself to help with the sites that I have applied it to. For people tasked to market a product to business owners, and entrepreneurs, this article is the foundation of what your marketing needs to contain. It’s more or less the seven commandments of business marketing.
The second article which was recently was recently written by Andy Beal is a great post, Five Secret Strategies to Add $1 Million in Revenue to your Interactive Marketing Agency in 2007. While the article is initially targeted at companies providing services mainly SEM / SEO services, they are very applicable to all businesses. Andy touches on using PR Firms and press releases, both are some of the more commonly overlooked areas that can really boost a business when used effectively.
Holiday rush or holiday meltdown
The holiday season is the busiest time of year for many retail businesses and ecommerce websites in the US and other countries.
Unfortunately for many B2B companies, the holiday season happens to be the dead zone for annual sales. My personal industry slows down about a week before thanksgiving, and with the exception of a few days in December, doesn’t pick back up until mid-January. Interestingly enough, I can spend the same on advertising during these dark hours and get a 70% less return on each dollar I burn.
Since there is little (Not Nothing) a business can do to maintain their level of sales, or sign-ups, the holiday offers a perfect time to make changes.
Here are 5 things you can do on your B2B website this holiday season when times are slow, to make your site even better when traffic picks back up.
Click to continue…
Why both natural and PPC traffic are important.
Pay per click advertising has become a completely integrated part of search engines, and many website owners fail to see the value in either natural traffic or PPC traffic.
A while back I found a table that compared the click through rates of Natural and PPC search traffic. I cant seem to find the original source any more, so my apologies for not citing the source of this information, although it was a reputable source.
I have placed the data from that table into an easy to follow graphic model of a common search engine result page.
Do It Yourself Ecommerce
The ecommerce times wrapped up it’s do it yourself ecommerce guide today.
The guide cover some good information about getting into the business side of ecommerce. This guide is a good read for people that are already successful with their ecommerce ventures because several good services and resources are cited throughout the article.
The ecommerce guide is broken into three parts:
Part 1 – Now Bigger and Better (General introduction and ecommerce background)
Part 2 – Nuts and Bolts (Hosting, ecommerce platforms, SSL, general operation)
Part 3 – Taking Care of Business (Ecommerce future, success story, marketing, accounting, wrap-up)
This guide is by no means a complete resource. It is more a of an outline and should definitely be read more as an information primer. For a complete guide to ecommerce, I recommend the Mind Valley Ecommerce Guide. It’s not free, but mind valley offers 7 free tactics from their guide.
I recently reviewed the mindvalley guide, and I completely recommend it, especially for persons new to conducting business online. It is a small investment, but it is sure to pay for itself many times in the time that you will save compared to learning all of the information on your own.