Beautiful Web Sites Seldom Make More Sales

Beautiful Web Sites Seldom Make More Sales

by: Vishal P. Rao

Designing an Ecommerce Web site is not as simple as having a กprettyก site that is a pleasure to visit. While it is important to have an attractive site, as much thought must be given to functionality as to appearance.
Many Web designers seem to focus more on appearance than functionality, and while an attractive site is helpful, visitors that become frustrated by the inability of a site to function well, will leave almost immediately, never to return!
Just as important in designing an ecommercestyle Web site, is a somewhat basic knowledge of Web site design, with some simple design skills included. While a thorough knowledge of design and functionality is not important, designing an ecommerce site does have some requirements, or else youกll always find yourself going back relentlessly and changing the features and functionality in a vain effort to stay abreast of your site visitorกs needs.
Ecommerce sites need to focus on some main areas of functionality in order to ensure maximum sales:
1. Load time, page size, and navigability. Slowly loading pages, overly large or small pages, and difficult navigation will only frustrate visitors. Visitors should never have to กwaitก for a page to load, should never have to scroll back and forth in order to read a page, nor should they have to กsearchก relentlessly for the information they want in order to purchase. Clean, simple lines, with fast loading, well laid out pages, make the most sales.
Hereกs a great service to check your Web site load time:
http://www.tracert.com/
This one actually pings your Web site from different locations worldwide and returns the average load time for your site, instead of simply returning a theoretical value based on the size of your Web page.
2. Less use of graphics. While graphics are pleasant and intriguing, they don’t necessarily achieve more sales. The opposite may be true if too many graphics are used. A page that is graphics heavy loads more slowly and the graphics themselves may take the visitorsก minds off the main purpose of the site, i. e. กsalesก. If graphics are used at all, they should be optimized for Web placement, and reduced to the smallest size possible for viewing. Most graphics can easily be reduced by approximately twenty percent without affecting the quality of the graphics.
Hereกs a neat tool for optimizing your Web site graphics if you are not very familiar with graphics software:
http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot/optimizegraphic.htm
3. The use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS effectively eliminates the need of entering repetitive tags like FONT, reducing your page size significantly. Such tags can consume up to 57% of your page size. Imagine how much bandwidth youกll save if your Web site has more than 100 pages!
4. Breaking the site up into smaller tables as opposed to enclosing the entire body of a site in one large table. This technique enables the page to load in progression rather than make your visitor stare at a blank screen until the page is fully loaded. This is an often overlooked aspect.
5. Use of sitemaps. Sitemaps not only increase rankings and placement within the Search Engines, they effectively give visitors a กguideก by which to view the site, and eliminate confusion on larger sites, such as ecommerce sites. A site map is what its name implies, a road map for your visitors to follow while they are on your site. Itกs also a road map for the Search Engines, so a site map serves two very important purposes on an ecommerce site.
6. Content that is keyword rich and wellwritten will aid in placement within the Search Engines, and keep visitors on a site long enough to purchase. Horribly written sites drive visitors away, while the lack of keywords negatively affects placement and rankings. The writing on any site is the FIRST IMPRESSION potential customers have of you and your products or services, so paying strict attention to the content usually engenders additional sales.
7. Keyword rich title tags will increase traffic overall, and more traffic, of course, means more sales. Title tags help with placement and rankings. Appropriate keywords should also be used for linking internal pages, as this also helps with rankings. Since ecommerce sites are for the most part, larger than personal pages, or other types of sites, the internal linking does lead to more effective initial indexing by the Search Engines also. Care should also be given to the กaltก tags that surround all pictures of products, as nonoptimized กaltก tags can lead to poor rankings and placement.
8. Ecommerce databases and purchasing procedures that are user friendly. Nothing is more frustrating to future buyers than databases or purchase procedures, that are difficult to use, or that keep going down throughout the process of purchase. A database and purchase procedure, should be easy to use, yet reliable enough to prevent lost sales, or lost monies from sales.
9. A security feature that ensures visitors that personal information is กsafe and secureก within the confines of the Web site and that reassures them that their personal information will not be shared nor sold. This is a major concern of online visitors, as the Web is such an กanonymousก type of medium, so any กassurancesก as to safety and security will benefit sales.
10. A thankyou page that is presented immediately upon ordering. This ensures ‘return purchasesก as being courteous and polite is always in style and does leave an overall good impression on visitors!
All in all, an ecommerce Web site is significantly different than a personal Home page, or pages of a nonprofit organization. The focus of the design and navigation, as well as all other aspects need to focus on the primary purpose of the site, and that of course, is the SALES!

About The Author

Vishal P. Rao is the editor of http://www.homebasedbusinessopportunities.com A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for starting a home based business. He is also the owner of the http://www.workathomeforum.com an online community of folks who work at home.

This article was posted on June 09, 2004

by Vishal P. Rao

How To Get Higher Ranking Through Website Promotio

How To Get Higher Ranking Through Website Promotion And Website Optimization?

by: Thomson Joseph

Recent studies suggest that more than 85% of website visitors to any website come from searches done with search engines. If this is to be believed the study suggests getting top placement on search engines is the key to bring quality traffic to your website.

I have few tips how to optimize your website for a better search engine placement .

Search engine friendly website optimization : There are thousands of search engines out there on the web 90 percent of the web traffic comes through these three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN so your website promotion should be focusing on these three search engines. Top search engine placement allows you to target and attract potential buyers and sellers through the Internet and generate qualified leads

Website promotion should targeting you business audience: Do research and figure out what are the closest keywords and phrases your prospective customers would be searching for. This keyword optimization should be related to your business, local area and most common keywords.

Optimize your Meta Tags for Internet Marketing : Most of the Expert in the industry says Meta tags are dead and all search engines doesn’t give priority to Meta tags. But I believe it is still the key to higher placement on search engines. The most important are Title, Description and keyword. All these three should have your targeted keywords.

Title tag for website promotion : is very important because search engines gives weight age to that so place your most specific keyword over there.

Page Heading for search engine placement: As heading in newspapers or any media give importance to media it also gives importance to search engines as well. It is so important to website promotion so place your most important keywords in these Headings tags.

Keyword research and Web site optimization: keyword research and optimization is an important for keyword placement and selection it involves lot of keyword research. I have the expertise in web page keyword placement and optimization to my clients since 1999 successfully.

Highlighted text for website optimization: Search Engines consider Highlighted text like bold and italics tags, so place your targeted keywords here too.

Image optimization for website promotion: Most of the search engines started indexing websites by images found on the website, this is achieve by looking at the ALT description of the image found on the site. The important keywords should be included into this ALT tags.

Title tag on your links for search engine placement: Text link plays an important role on the anchor links of the website. Search engines spiders on these text links. Most of sites still don’t use the link title tag, so when you do, you gain an advantage. The link title should be a short keyword or phrase.

Link popularity for optimization : When we talk about website optimization and search engine placement the important aspect is Link popularity. There are different types of link of link building reciprocal links and nonreciprocal links

Check for broken links and errors: Before submitting to search engines and website promotion run your website pages through a HTML checker and a spell check. Search Engines penalize for these errors

This article was written by Thomson Joseph of http://www.websitepromoitonexpert.com

Article source http://www.digitallabz.com

About The Author

This article was written by Thomson Joseph of http://www.websitepromoitonexpert.com

Article source http://www.digitallabz.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 21

by Thomson Joseph

The Benefits of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimiz

The Benefits of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization): What Organic SEO Entails and WHY It Is Preferred by Some

by: Vishal P. Rao

If you’re going to sell any type of product or service online, you’re eventually going to have to optimize your Web site for the Search Engines, in order to boost traffic and sales.
Many years ago, it was quite easy to draw effective traffic, as a good contentdriven site, with good products, was enough to get a Web site ranked highly in the Search Engines. The competition has increased one thousand times over since then, with billions of Web sites existing online now, making for some very stiff competition in the area of Search Engine placement and rankings.
This increase in competition has given rise to many different styles, and many different methods of Web site optimization. Optimization is simply the method of making a Web site กSearch Engine friendlyก, by using methods of enhancement that will increase rankings and placement by placing the Web site higher in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).
Everything from software to increase rankings and placement, to Search Engine Management and Marketing Firms exist, with many online merchants becoming confused about what or กwhomก to use and how to effectively use the various services to increase rankings and placement.
The real battle seems to exist between those that favor กOrganic SEOก as opposed to those that prefer กNonOrganic SEOก. The term กorganicก itself is defined by Websterกs Dictionary as: instrumental; acting as instruments of nature or of art to a certain destined function or end (Websterกs: 1913: 3).
กOrganic SEOก, also called กNatural SEOก, is the most time consuming, and the most tedious method of optimization for placement and rankings. However, it is prone to longevity of results, as it has a focus on content, metatag enhancement using proper descriptions, keyword enhanced copy within the appropriate specified densities of the Search Engines, and link exchanges. In addition, keyword dense reports, articles, and other content materials are usually added in a routine fashion to a site to maintain the densities necessary and increase rankings and placement.
กOrganic SEOก, if done properly in a stepbystep approach, can literally promote increased traffic and rankings for years. It can also contain overall marketing costs, as the use of PPC (Pay Per Click), is not needed as much with this method. The main drawbacks with this type of SEO, however, are the length of time it takes to properly implement all the steps necessary, and the length of time it takes the Search Engines to thoroughly spider and index a site that has implemented กOrganic SEOก.
กNonOrganic SEOก, also called กArtificial SEOก, can take many forms, and can use some กOrganic SEOก coupled with other techniques. These techniques can include software generated keyword enhanced pages, some methods of redirects, whereby traffic is shunted off from other sites, with their permissions, and software generated doorway pages and metatag descriptions. There are many different techniques that can be employed including rather controversial ones such as hidden text loaded with keywords, and tiny text.
Overall, กNonOrganicก SEO methods are quite popular, as it is a much quicker means to rankings and placement. Links might be purchased from กlink farmsก which are simply services that specialize in the promotion of links to others.
Although กNonOrganic SEOก can speed up rankings and placement initially, care needs to be given when using any of these methods. If keyword dense pages are automatically generated en masse, the Search Engines might view large sites, with large numbers of such pages as กSearch Engine Spammersก and a risk of being banned does exist. In addition, pages may initially place very high, only to drop lower rather quickly, as the Search Engines still place a great emphasis on good content, which is not usually the focus of the กNonOrganicก type of SEO.
All in all, it really depends upon the overall purpose of a site, and the longevity of results desired by a Web master/site owner. It also depends upon how quickly results and sales are needed. For some seasonal sites, such as holidaytheme sites that only remain up for a few weeks or months, then the quicker method of กNonOrganic SEOก can be quite effective. On the other hand, if a Web master/site owner promotes a product or service to which they are committed for years, or perhaps a lifetime, then กOrganic SEOก would definitely be the better choice of optimization method.
No matter which type of SEO methods are chosen or implemented, an ongoing campaign of optimization does need to exist, as the parameters that are used for the rankings and placement by the Search Engines, change frequently, and research into current methods needs to be done routinely.
As the old saying goes, กDifferent strokes for different folksก, really applies to Search Engine Optimization and rankings and placement. The whole Search Engine Optimization process is really more กart than scienceก, and continues to change daily.

About The Author

Vishal P. Rao is the editor of http://www.homebasedbusinessopportunities.com A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for starting a home based business. He is also the owner of the http://www.workathomeforum.com an online community of folks who work at home.

This article was posted on July 13, 2004

by Vishal P. Rao

Optimize your Search Engine Placement Five Easy Wa

Optimize your Search Engine Placement Five Easy Ways

by: Judy Cullins

If you are like me, you created web site metatags with the help of your Web master. Maybe like me, you didn’t spend time or money submitting to search engines because you weren’t techie enough.

Now you can optimize your search engine placement these five easy, nontechie ways. My Web site is now # 1 in Google.com and others. If you are in the top ten listings in your category (mine was book coaching) you are in good shape. This placement has put my web site URL on 4700 other sites with a link back to mine. With targeted viral marketing my sales are 30 times what I started with each monthnow over $4500.

Hereกs Five Ways to Get Search Engines to Boost your Ratings:

1. Makeover your signature file that goes out with every email you send. Include your fre.e report or ezine offer, your email, URL, and phone numbers plus a line with your product or service name on it. See more on this in my fre.e article ‘top Ten Things to Do to Make your Signature File Sellก at www.bookcoaching.com/freearticles/article124.shtml.

2. Submit short articles to dozens of optin ezines who need content daily. Make a special offer in each signature file that relates to your article. Through a hyperlink, offer a free ezine with a free report by autoresponder. To get started, go to www.yahoogroups.com and subscribe to one of the optin ezines (no spam).

3. Rewrite your best list of key words and phrases you used for your Web site. Incorporate them into your excellent, welledited short articles or tips. For more information go to www.goodkeywords.com or see my special fre.e report กKnow Which Key Words Will Bring Targeted Visitors to your Web Siteก at www.bookcoaching.com/freearticles/article47.shtml

4. Submit to top Web sites looking for new content.. They want and need your information, because that is why people visit any sitefor free information. Follow directions for each site. Many want a list of key words and a description. Others require your article by autoresponder. Four years ago, my URL was on 987 other Web sites. Today itกs on 4700. Amazing viral marketing!

5. Makeover your Web home page. Place those top key words and phrases in the top half of this page and in the links you list along the bottom or side of your page. Search engines pick up these and you receive a higher placement. For instance, my top key words include: book coaching, eBook, ePublishing, selfpublishing, Online promotion, Web copywriting, Free Publicity.

Yes, you can buy key words and put paid ads in Google and Overture, but when I tried that I got almost 0 results and spent a lot of money. The above ways to boost your search engine placement are totally free. Itกs a building process this viral marketing, but if you are willing to stay a while, youกll get money results as well as becoming well known and trusted for your product or service.

About The Author

Judy Cullins, 20year Book and Internet Marketing Coach with small business people who want to make a difference in peopleกs lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent lifelong income. Author of 10 eBooks including กWrite your eBook Fast,ก กHow to Market your Business on the Internet,ก and กCreate your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz,ก she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, ‘the Book Coach Says…ก and กBusiness Tip of the Monthก at http://www.bookcoaching.com/optin.shtml and over 155 free articles. Email her at [email protected].

This article was posted on November 19, 2004

by Judy Cullins

A Visit with Adam Soroca, a Representative from Te

A Visit with Adam Soroca, a Representative from Terra Lycos

by: Robin Nobles

A Glimpse into the Lycos Search Engine. . .

A Visit with Adam Soroca, a Representative From Terra Lycos

By Robin Nobles

Recently, the Academy of Web Specialists (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) had the good fortune of having Adam Soroca, a representative from Terra Lycos (http://www.lycos.com), attend a chat session to visit with our students. Mr. Soroca provided some excellent information about Terra Lycos as well as their plans for the future.

As means of introduction, Adam is the Group Product Manager for Lycos InSite and is in charge of building a comprehensive suite of search marketing tools. He has general management responsibilities for the vision, execution, and delivery of the Webbased platforms.

Adam explained further,

ขI am charged with building a search marketing platform for Lycos. We launched our first product based on paid inclusion into the FAST Web index in February of this year. We were very quickly able to prove that by nature of our brand and presence, search marketers would come to visit for search marketing services.

ขTwo weeks ago, we launched our second product, InSite AdBuyer, a costperclick ad auction engine. Both of these products are designed around the concept of contextual advertising, so that a searcher is presented with highly relevant information when performing a search.

ขWhile our platform is currently focused on our own index, we seek to provide onestop access for all search marketing needs, including multiple index submission and multiple bidmanagement capabilities. All of these are designed to drive traffic (i.e., customer acquisition). We are also looking further down the visitor experience to the ROI side to encompass campaign management.ข

The following are questions asked by Academy students to Mr. Soroca.

Question: ขI see when I do a search on Lycos that there is an กadvertisementก on the right side. Is this the InSite AdBuyer?ข

Adam: ขCorrect. Those are the AdBuyer costperclick ads. Our advertisers bid to be in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd positions.

ขThese are highly targeted ads as they are exact match keyword driven. So behind the scenes, advertisers are involved in a bidding auction to vie for that space.ข

Question: ขWhen someone clicks the กplace your ad hereก link, does it show what the bids are for the keywords in question, so you know what you have to bid against?ข

Adam: ขNo, actually we don’t display the prices on the front end. To view the prices for particular keywords, advertisers must sign up for an account and view that in the advertisers’ area.ข

Question: ขWhat results does FAST supply to Lycos?ข

Adam: ขFAST currently provides Lycos with our search results. Our paid inclusion platform enables Web site owners and marketers to guarantee that their Web content is included in the Web index and frequently refreshed. This differs from paid placement in that the paid inclusion customers do not necessarily show up in the top of the results just because they paid us. This content is viewed by the relevancy algorithm and displayed appropriately.

ขCurrently this program is available to small/mid size companies for an annual subscription. For larger companies, it will be available at a costperclick (those sites >1,000 URL’s). Paid placement and paid inclusion are two separate products. If you bid for placement, you pay for actual clicks. If you buy paid inclusion, that means that your pages are guaranteed to be in the Web index (spiders can’t find everything), and the content will be updated every 2448 hours. So, if your content changes, the index will reflect that much more quickly. With an index of 2.1 billion documents, it can take FAST a while to recrawl the entire index. This program guarantees you are in there.ข

Question: ขSo, you have to pay for inclusion before you bid for placement? Is this what I understand?ข

Adam: ขThey are two separate programs. The paid inclusion relates to FAST and the Web index. The paid placement relates to the three ad panels that display on Lycos Search.ข

Question: ขAnd your placement number in Lycos is then based on the algorithm of the page submitted?ข

Adam: ขCorrect!ข

Question: ขWhere the paid placement is a cost per click, your placement is then based on the bid placed for a particular keyword?ข

Adam: ขYes, exactly.ข

Question: ขIf you aren’t indexed and would like to buy pay per click, where would the cost per click be linked to?ข

Adam: ขThe costperclick ads go to any page that you want provided that you have content that is relevant to the keyword that you bid on. The costperclick ads are completely separate from the index. You do not have to be in the index to bid on the ads. The ads are the กadvertisementก on the right hand side of the page.ข

Question: ขWe are talking about cost per click (ad placement) and paid inclusion. My question is, if you don’t pay for inclusion and pay for ad placement, would you be indexed with FAST or Lycos search engines?ข

Adam: ขNo, they’re completely independent. Paid inclusion gets you into the Web index. Paid placement buys you space on the Web results page. You can have either or both, but they do not work together per se. However, it helps to purchase both for broad exposure through paid inclusion and targeted exposure through the CPC ads.ข

Question: ขIn your new InSite AdBuyer program, FindWhat provides the technology but NOT the results for your payperclick ads, is that correct?ข

Adam: ขWe have private labeled the FindWhat ad auction platform endtoend. Lycos engages in relationships with the advertisers directly.ข

Question: ขWhere are the sponsored listings from?ข

Adam: ขThose are provided by Overture, which is similar in concept. Advertisers are bidding for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd positions throughout Overtureกs network.ข

Question: ขWhat is the purpose of the ขFast Forwardข button in your search results? I notice that using the button opens up a framed page where the left frame shows the search results including Overture ads, and the current site is highlighted. Does this button make it easier to visit the current results, and is that its purpose?ข

Adam: ขThat is exactly the purpose. We are trying to give the searchers an easier way to browse through the pages that are served as results.ข

Question: ขIs it necessary to submit to both FAST and Lycos, either through free Add URL or pay inclusion, or does submitting to FAST get your site listed in both indexes?ข

Adam: ขWeb site owners and marketers can submit to the FAST index either through Lycos or directly to FAST. There is no difference in the indexes. Lycos search results are powered by FAST.ข

Question: ขDoes the #1 result from Kanoodle still show up in some Lycos searches?ข

Adam: ขNo. Kanoodle does not provide results on Lycos.ข

Question: ขAre the results from the Lycos Web Sites Directory (ODP results) mixed in with the FAST results or only available through the Web Directory link at the top of the page?ข

Adam: ขOnly FAST results appear in the Web result listings.ข

In Conclusion

If you don’t have visibility in the Lycos search engine (http://www.lycos.com), you have several choices. You can pay for inclusion in the FAST index (http://www.positiontech.com/fast/index.htm), which will get you in the regular search results for Lycos. You can also participate in their InSite AdBuyer program (http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/), a new costperclick advertising program. Or, purchase keywords through Overture (http://www.overture.com), which will also get you visibility in Lycos.

At the top of the Lycos page, you’ll see a link to the Web Directory, which is where ODP results are found. ODP results can only be found through this link, and they’re not mixed in with the FAST results. However, making sure that your site is listed in the ODP (http://dmoz.org) is another way to get added visibility through the Lycos search engine.

About The Author

Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) and is the content provider for (GRSeo) Search Engine Optimizer software (http://www.seoptimizer.com). She also teaches 4day hands on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 15, 2002

by Robin Nobles

Microsoft Great Plains Payroll module customizatio

Microsoft Great Plains Payroll module customization scenarios

by: Andrew Karasev

It is now common thing when large corporation selects midmarket ERP or socalled standard functionality MRP solution as its corporate accounting system. Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is very good candidate. As all MBS ERPs it has MS SQL Server 2000/2005 database platform and allows you to deploy customizable and altered solution, serving large corporation HR department. If you use US / Canadian Payroll module as paycheck solution for internal employees – you probably don’t need custom logic. In this small article we’ll show you the way of tailored integrated solution for nationwide placement agency.

• The Market. There is huge placement market in healthcare – registered/certified nurses, also we see growing placement market in other industries, especially looking for temporary workforce: wholesale & retail, manufacturing, agriculture, etc.

• Paychecks. Temps might work for one or several of your regional clients and they may decide to walk in to one of your regional offices to request immediate paycheck for their weekly work. Each office should be capable to issue paycheck immediately and the problem is to process and post it in Great Plains. Definitely you can use eConnect to create work checks, but eConnect doesn’t allow you to post transactions, this is why you need custom solution. If you are large company – you may have a need to issue several thousand checks per day – automatic posting is the must.

• Additional Complications. US and Canadian payroll regulations have specific payroll deductions. If the paycheck amount is small – there is no sense to withhold the deduction (it is designed for regular employees, who get their paychecks twice per month). So, these deductions should be accrued in the custom logic and then paid when specific criteria are met.

• Customization Tools. In the described case we suggest to use SQL stored procedures for calculating checks and Dexterity process server to post checks (creating SQL stored procs for posting would be virtual rewriting 40% of Great Plains Dexterity based payroll module). And of course eConnect should be used to pull employee/temp master record: deductions, state tax, local taxes, address, etc.

• Targeted Clientele. We certainly understand that placement & recruiting midsize and small market is underserved. We have to tell you here that proposed solution is for large corporate clients only. It is expensive to tailor it for the unique business (we know that each placement business is unique).

Currently we are confident in MS Great Plains ability to automate the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Advertising & Publishing, Distribution & Logistics, Beverages, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Pharmaceutical, Nonprofit, Healthcare/Hospitals, Wholesale/Retail, Manufacturing/Assembling, International Business/Multinational Corporation, Government.

You can always have us help you, give us a call: 16309615918 or 18665280577, [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is consultant and CTO in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Business Solutions partner, serving clients in Illinois, New York, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Minnesota, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, Asia, Russia. He is Microsoft Great Plains certified master, Great Plains Dexterity, Microsoft CRM SDK C#.Net, Crystal Repots developer. You can reach Andrew: [email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 02

by Andrew Karasev