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Building
a Secure Site
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How
Transactions Processed
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Marketing
and Testing
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Build
your brand
If you're interested in hiring a professional web designer,
visit these popular online resources and find a developer for short-term
or long-term projects.
1. Review your favorite e-commerce sites and adopt the best design
and marketing
2. Focus on the homepage: this is the first impression you'll have
on the visitor and it should be organized as clearly with the following
items visible: Company name, logo, slogan about what company does
and visible navigation.
4. Link to an "about us" page.
5. Site map listing the subsections of your site and keep this in
the same place on each page
6. "What's new" section for news, announcements and product
promotions
7. Contact information should be visible on each page
8. Privacy statement describing business policy for protecting customers
personal info
Market
your site
Make it easy to explore your site and order your products or services.
It's a good rule of thumb to build the site so it takes no more
than 3-5 clicks from the homepage to the checkout page. Don't make
the links dominate over the product information.
KISS (Keep It Simple
Stupid)
Don't make the visitor think too much about where to start by filling
site with too many graphics, animations and other visual bells and
whistles. Stick to the same basic colors and fonts your company
uses in other communications like your logo, brochures and signage.
Try to stay away from dark colored backgrounds, which can be difficult
to read on a monitor.
Download time
1. Keep the download time short so pages are not overloaded with
graphics
2. Minimize the size of graphics and for large graphics and headers,
slice them into pieces for faster download
3. On average, most web pages take 3-11 seconds to load (depending
on modem speed).
4. Most users click away or log off if the page takes more than
8 seconds to load, which becomes a lost lead
5. Host your SiteSelect your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to
visit your site, users must connect to the web server via internet
to view the files you have posted on your web server.
6. The web server should be fast, reliable and powerful enough to
respond to all the visitors' requests to view the site.
7. Instead of investing in the hardware, software and infrastructure
to get online, use an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or hosting
company.
8. For a monthly fee, an ISP will connect your site to the internet
at high speed via one of their web servers
9. The host provides space on a server and offers web server software,
access to its high-seep internet connection, tools for managing
and maintaining your site, customer support, e-commerce features
and more.
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Usability
Testing
Take time to review and test your site thoroughly before going live.
You will only have one change to make a first impression on each
new visiting customer, and broken links, incorrect phone numbers,
grammar, or spelling errors diminish the professional polish you're
striving for. Test your site's functionality and design with Netscape
4 and above, Internet Explorer 4 and above, 56.6kb modems as well
as a Macintosh and PC computer. Walk through the entire ordering
process to test its usability, so you understand how easy or difficult
it is to order at your website. A general rule of thumb is to allow
no more than 4 clicks from the homepage to the order page. Here
are some questions you should ask yourself when combing through
your site.
1. Is it clear exactly what customers need to do to purchase? Try
buying a product: is the page on which you supply payment information
secure?
2. Is the payment-processed correctly through your payment gateway?
3. Are you prepared to confirm a customer's order has been received?
Are you following up with an email message that confirms order and
reassures customers? Auto responders often work best for this.
Promote
your Site
Once you've established a secure, easy to use storefront for your
products and services, it's time to let people know about it. Here
are a few tips on how to advertise and drive traffic to your site.
1. Target Keywords: Learn your target market and
research the top keyword phrases that define your niche market.
Target about 6 keyword phrases per page and use them throughout
the text of your site and within the Meta tags.
2. Register with the search engines: Over 90% of
Internet users search one or more of the top engines to find what
they need. Make sure your business is part of the results when
customers look for the products and services you offer. You may
want to use a SEO company to manually submit your site. It is
important to manually submit your website to the search engines
and directories since automated submissions can get your domain
banned from inclusion.
3. Place your domain name everywhere: Include your
domain name on all your printed materials, press releases, white
papers, brochures, business cards and email signature. Use your
email address to promote by signing up for an address under your
domain name. For instance johndoe@YourDomainName.com clues users
in to where your business location can be found online.
4. Advertise: Place a banner ad on other well-trafficked
sites can attract huge numbers of prospective customers.
5. Sign up for affiliate programs to encourage other
online companies to advertise and promote your services. These
"sales agents" do lots of the legwork for you, but expect
discounts and/or commissions on the sale leads they send you.
The following is a list of reputable affiliate programs and resources
to track and monitor your affiliates' sales.
