What You Need For An Ecommerce Site: Make Online Shopping A Pleasure

September 12, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Choosing The Best Web Host, Website Talk 

eCommerce Sites( The Best Web Hosting Service )- Have you ever thought of setting up your own online business or perhaps dreamed of expanding your local business to all parts of the country; maybe even in a global scale, across the world? Then you are on the right track; you’re about to take a great stride to reach a wider market span.

One of the fun parts in the exhilarating venture of running an online business is creating an online store, generally known as Ecommerce; which, some may say, is just a glam name for a business website where purchase of goods or services by customers is done. If done correctly and efficiently, Ecommerce can result to a well-organized business that will enhance your trade and boost your customer-base.

Of course, preparation and careful planning are key elements to kick off to a good start. You have to be familiar with some necessary and particularly crucial features to ensure the success of your online business as well as maintain the integrity and security of sensitive payment information of customers; otherwise, current customers may feel apprehensive at the thought of their information being in your possession and potential customers may be cagey at the idea of entrusting such vital data to your website.

Now you may have the mistaken notion that you have to be an expert or maybe spend a fortune to run your online shop. Creating an online store is a lot simpler than you think but only if you have the basic knowledge of what you need for a full-featured Ecommerce site to get going.

Obviously, the first thing you need is to have a product/s or services to sell – either physical/hard goods or downloadable/soft goods. Below is a list of the essential things you will need to push off a successful Ecommerce website.

Power Up Your Ecommerce Site

Before you can get your Ecommerce site underway, there are three key elements that you cannot do without:

Domain Name
This is your business identity by which your online store will be associated with; it is the online business address that shows customers – both existing and potential – the way to your site. More importantly, it is a determining factor to your page ranking in search engines. The ideal domain name should not only identify your business by name; it should also give a brief yet full description of the nature of your business, and what products and/or services are being offered.

Website/Website Design
Whether you build an Ecommerce website from scratch or have an existing website that you can add Ecommerce features and capabilities to, it’s important to remember that resultant Ecommerce site should convey a high level of trustworthiness. Your web design should reflect your excellent brand and quality products/services. An Ecommerce website with good design combined with functionality inspire a sense of trust as well as depict convenience. Bear in mind that nobody wants to do business with an “anonymous” entity. When building trust among customers, you must show your credibility and get across that you’re not just a fly-by-night business so make sure that you include “About Us”, “Contact Information”, and “Terms of Service” pages in your web design.  Although, not quite an easy task, it doesn’t have to be technically challenging. You can simplify things by either getting the help of professionals that offer services to get your Ecommerce site up and running; or by doing it yourself with the use of tools available for such purpose – like WordPress, for instance.

Web Hosting Provider
Of course, you need a place for your site to reside and get hosted. There’s a huge number of Ecommerce hosting companies all too willing to offer their services but keep in mind that getting the most reliable one is crucial to your online store’s success. Pricing may be a factor but the Ecommerce features you get with package are critical to the smooth operation of your site. However, there are Ecommerce hosting companies such as BigCommerce that offer plans fully-loaded with up-to-the-minute features at very reasonable prices.

Ecommerce Tools – Your Site Won’t Survive Without Them

These are actually what will make or break your online business. The ease and proficiency of merging and integrating Ecommerce tools is greatly influenced by the platform you use. Simple-to-use Ecommerce tools work best, especially for those that are not so tech savvy. Here’s a list of some basic and essential tools to look out for:

  • Shopping Cart System. This is absolutely one of the most imperative components of smooth Ecommerce operation and management. You need to incorporate this into your site right off the bat, as it is indispensable when processing orders, calculating payments, and issuing invoices. A really great shopping cart can be a bit expensive, so try to go for a host that includes several options for shopping carts as part of the hosting plan/package.
  • Payment Gateway/Credit Card Processing. Needless to say, you need a system/method of accepting online payments; which generally means credit card payments, although there are other forms of payment that your shopping cart may be capable of (e.g., Checks, PayPal, COD, etc.).  Simply put, the payment gateway processes payments from your website and essentially converts electronic transactions into actual funds that eventually go to your bank account. You have two options to make this work. You may set up free accounts with gateways that authorize credit card payments then deposit the amount to your bank account. These gateways usually charge a percentage (about 3% or less) for every transaction. Be aware that your customers will be redirected to the secure page of the gateway provider and once done, brought back to a pre-identified page you have chosen on your site. Or you can go for the more professional look and enable your customers to complete their checkout and payment process direct from your own site.
  •  Merchant Account. If you want to process check transactions and credit card payments right within your own website, a merchant account is required.  It is very much like an ordinary bank account but besides the usual similarities, a merchant account allows you to accept and process credit card payments/charges for goods and services. It is typical for banks that cater to merchant accounts to charge a percentage of all transactions and may also impose additional setup fee and/or monthly fees.
  • SSL Certificate. It doesn’t need reiterating that security is extremely important, especially when you process credit card payments.  “Security” here means that all your customers’ sensitive data stored in your shopping pages and transferred through your Ecommerce site are totally protected through encryption. This is accomplished with the use of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate, indicated by the LOCK ICON on the browser. This little “lock” tells the consumers that your website is secure and can be trusted; without it, potential customers may have second thoughts about buying your products and entrusting their data to your online store. SSL certificate can cost anywhere from $100 (for shared SSL) to about $300; thus it is ideal to find a host that can provide this along with the Ecommerce plan you purchase. Another option is to find a host that will let you “piggyback” off their SSL certificate for free.
  •  Marketing and Site Promotion Tools/Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You need to think about how to attract customers to your site. A good marketing strategy that includes search engine optimization is critical. Blogs, banner ads, keywords, social media presence and the likes are some of the things you should keep in mind while you’re working to boost the sales potential of your Ecommerce site. Find a provider that offers hosting packages/plans that include these requirements.

There are several other things you need to keep your Ecommerce website running smoothly, among them: Product Catalog, Mailing List, Database Support, and more. The point is to make your customers’ online shopping a pleasant and convenient experience. And you can attain this by having an Ecommerce solution provider with simple and user-friendly apps that allow hassle-free integration of fully-functioning features. It’s guaranteed; your customers would love doing business with you again…and again!

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Akismet WordPress Spam Plugin

September 5, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Wordpress and Blogging 

Akismet Spam Plugins( The Best Web Hosting Service )- Probably the most common plugin used by every WordPress user is Akismet.  Well, this is plainly because this is by default a part of the standard install, since the release of WordPress 2.0.  However, since this is a common plugin, many users still do not understand its whole purpose – why is it there and what does it do.

Simply put, Akismet is a very useful comment spam blocker, getting rid of the annoying spam comments of totally no irrelevance to our posts and topics, and are just used to create backlinks.  You wouldn’t want these, and there goes Akismet for your protection.

Sure there are lots of spam blockers already out in the market, but Akismet works differently than these.  Every time it detects a comment, it sends the comment to its home web server where it is distinguished whether as a spam or not.  This is different from other spam blockers which already have a programmed algorithm from where comments are based on the site’s page already.  Akismet does a better job in giving an accurate rating for legitimate or spam comments.  You don’t have to do a thing to monitor and check your comments for spams anymore.

For some reason, you may still be worried about some good comments that might get blocked.  Akismet does keep a spam comment for at least 15 days just for you to check them out, and then it gets deleted permanently after.

Akismet’s system of spam detection, which is done offsite, actually shows that there is a collective real-time detection that it can provide, given that it learns from all the users who have it on its site.

Akismet is free to use with any WordPress blog, however, to be able to use it continuously and for more protection, one must have an API (application programing interface key) which one can get for free by having a WordPress.com account or through paying a small amount depending on the number of blogs you would use it, and whether you would use it for business or personal blogs and websites.

Having a good spam comment blocker is more than just preventing annoyance and wasted time on getting these comments deleted, since having lots of spam and irrelevant comments on your blogs can actually drop your page ranking, as they get your site out of its original focus, thus losing its reliability.  So whether you just have a personal blog or you make a living out of your WordPress site, make sure you’ve got Akismet with you!

Click here to check out the Akismet WordPress Plugin.

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