E-Commerce for All

Words of Wisdom

Answering the phone around here can really be a very disheartening task most times. Shop owners call in with the saddest stories, or worse they think they have a small problem and we discover a major issue. Don’t get me wrong, that’s what we’re here for…. But, it can be very disappointing and even tug away at my heart strings to hear these problems from store owners whose “small” investment will not be returned in even a year.

My goal when I started PRO-Webs, is still our primary directive. We want business owners to be educated and in full control of their business. Seems simple enough… But you would be quite surprised at the sad stories you would hear manning our help desk here for a day. Anyhow, I have some solid words of advice for ecommerce site owners to help you remain in control of your business and avoid common mistakes.

Ecommerce Words of Wisdom

1. NEVER let a company manage your domain in their name…. Just don’t do it. You need full access to your online store’s administration section, hosting and FTP. We frequently get calls from shop owners whose “webmaster” is nowhere to be found and they haven’t even the ability to provide us access to help them.
2. Use your head, common sense can help you avoid the worst of bad decisions. If it looks like a bad link… It is. If it looks like crap… It is. If they have promised you page 1 search rank in a month… Its a lie. When you have an SEO company or “webmaster” working on your site… This does NOT relieve you of your own responsibility. Ask questions, look at the work, ask more questions. Don’t let them talk circles around you or dodge questions… Ask for examples and reasoning…. Like grandma says “If they tell you to jump off a bridge, are you going to?”
3. NEVER BUY OR SELL LINKS. This is no gray area, this is just one of the most dangerous things you can do or allow to hurt your site the worst. Google has very clear and specific rules about this…. and these rules apply to all links, whether you buy it or not. ANY LINK WHICH IS FOR ADVERTISING MUST BE PREVENTED FROM PASSING PAGERANK TO THE RESULTING PAGE. So have a look at your backlinks to see what your SEO company is building for you…. It’s really very important and requires your attention and dedication.
4. Never put PPC Ads on your online store…. Again with the common sense thing, you can have a shot at a sale… Or send them elsewhere for a nickel. Pretty straight forward.
5. Have a look at this handy guide to PCI and DSS compliance… You are not exempt in any way if you process credit cards and its great advise, even if you don’t. This one should perhaps be number 1, because most small online businesses could not absorb the penalties and fees for a breach… This one single thing can mean the end of your business and have deep reaching personal financial implications for small business owners.
6. You absolutely need proper analytical data to have a successful online store. Google Analytics is free and very well suited for ecommerce… But getting it going isn’t the issue….. YOU MUST USE IT AND PLAN TIME TO STUDY IT. There are some excellent tutorials and articles to help you understand the data…. But you will learn the most by setting aside 15 minutes everyday to poke around in your stats. How else can you measure your SEO companies or your own results?
7. Write great content, which is easy to follow and useful to your shoppers….. Not the search engines! If you are writing content for the search engines, concentrating on pumping pages full of keywords or adding spammy link lists to your site… You got it all wrong. You see, targeting content for specific keywords when you write creates more problems. You are finished writing and your targeted keyword is too dense, its spammy, its poorly written and worst of all you have inevitably screwed yourself out of a ton of long tail keyword phrases that generally perform better and will support the future rank of the related bigger box phrase as well.
8. UNIQUE! Wrap your head around this word for every single metric of your site. Unique titles, unique content, unique pictures…. If you haven’t the time to write great unique information for your store, you are in the wrong business.
9. Monitor vendors, their work and access to your site and hosting. Delete old FTP and admin accounts for vendors after they are finished. Would a department store owner give the furnace repair guy a key to fix something and never retrieve it?
10. Last and most common…. THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH! If you got in to this business because you think you will make wild cash for no work… You are sadly mistaken. You must publish new content regularly and often. You must monitor your stats and make improvements. You must update your software and install patches and bug fixes when necessary. Fact is many will find that what they need to do to have a successful online store is substantially more work than their old 9-5 job.

I am a retired restaurant manager. The restaurant business is tough, long hours, tough budgets and hard work to be successful. Many managers I have trained will leave their training and immediately head to “the dark side”… Call it lazy I guess. Fact is, if you really look at the things you have to do… Doing them right will take the same amount of time or less than the time spent cheating. Not to mention, when you take the easy way out it generally has longer term issues to create more work as well. So if you really want to be successful, roll your sleeves up and get to work… Decide and make a commitment to do things the right way. Work on your site often and with sustained regularity.

Or you can just copy the manufacturers descriptions, build spammy links and ignore your store… Then retire in a year as a failure. Really your choice.

Melanie Small Business, So you want to be a Shop Owner Series

Zen Cart Survival

I am quite sure I have mentioned each of these Zen Cart tips many times before — Just not in this consolidated form. We receive many calls and emails from frightened and surely scammed ecommerce site owners. These calls range from outrageous to just plain poor planning. To help you get started or make your current ecommerce business more manageable we will share these crucial tips all in one place today. Stop back as I may add to this list, as we hear new nightmares frequently.

1. Your Zen Cart is not a free meal ticket. It’s not easy, nor work free. Very likely you will find it to be a great deal of time and effort. Make the commitment early on — and stick to it.
2. NEVER, EVER, EVER allow a webmaster or Zen Cart designer/developer to register YOUR domain in his/her name. If you have to ask why, you have not done enough research to get started in this business.
3. Demand that your designer/developer maintain a fully transparent line of communication regarding your Zen Cart project — Start to finish.
4. Get it in writing! If your Zen Cart developer cannot give you a maximum quote (at least), then he/she is not experienced enough to give your project the quality it deserves.
5. Sometimes, you get what you pay for. Certainly our Zen Cart store packages are more expensive than some… But many times shop owners call us with a great looking, terribly coded and broken Zen Cart (which was quite expensive in many cases). There is so much more to a website than its design. I cannot even count how many Zen Cart owners have contacted us after a year with little or no sales and a really spiffy looking, broken cart!
6. Demand full access control including user names and password for your hosting account and Zen Cart admin. You don’t want to be calling us because your webmaster skipped and you can’t access your cart — or worse you don’t even know where you are hosted!
7. Question everything! If your designer/developer cannot at least try to explain everything they are doing…. You likely chose a lemon.
8. Do not let the designer/developer tell you what your cart is going to look like and how it will function. They should be giving you the opportunity to describe your envisioned dream site and then guiding you and helping you avoid problems and future issues.
9. Ask around. While you site is in development, there is no reason you cannot seek the opinions of other web professionals, friends and family.
10. Plan to spend a great deal of time working with your designer/developer on your site. To do this right, requires great and descriptive communication… Plan for this in an ongoing capacity and do not wait until he/she is done to ask for changes.
11. Get an SSL… Even if you use PayPal, trust me you need it and it will increase your ability to convert sales.
12. During and after development plan to learn to use your Zen Cart. While this is no easy task… it is a crucial piece. NEVER depend solely on someone else to manage YOUR business.
13. Make use of the wealth of knowledge and excellent community support in the Zen Cart Forum.
14. Don’t be afraid to ask your designer the what, why, how and other questions regarding the layout, design and functionality of your Zen Cart.
15. Make sure you have installed Google Analytics — You will be a while learning how to extract the data you need to succeed, but in time you will learn and Viola! the data will be there for you.

Remember, this is your business… Would you have a brick and mortar business you don’t even have the door keys for??

Melanie So you want to be a Shop Owner Series

Business Blogging

If you run a small company, like an ecommerce store, you may find that the world of blogging for business owners is a great tool that you want to make use of. Blogging is a excellent way to get the word out to consumers about your products or services, and it can even be surprisingly useful for inspiring employee participation. If you are looking for a way to take your business to the next level, consider what starting a business blog might be able to do for you and moreover for your store.

Blogging for business owners has a great deal in common with other types of blogging, but it has its own unique pitfalls and independent strengths. The key to having a successful business blog as a store owner is keeping your goals clear and solid at every step of your new blogging adventure. It can be all to easy to get sidetracked and even single tracked, especially if you are just learning about the exciting possibilities and benefits of blogging technology, but if you want your blog to succeed you need to stay focused and think about your visitors. Write up a detailed plan for how often you will post on your blog, how you will promote your blog and retain readers, whether you will feature photographs or video,  and then stick to it with the same kind of determination that you use to promote your store with other tools.

Blogging Block

Right out of the gate you will find yourself drawn in by that magic word : KEYWORD. While I can certainly tell you you need to blog about topics related to your website…. I really hope you will think about your visitors a great and less about the search engines. A blog can definitely enhance your website and its content, but spam is spam, even if you call it a blog. Sure, you can use your blog to promote sales and special offers…. But, these types of posts cannot be the meat and potatoes of your blog if you are going to be a success. Blog about niche related topics, tips and useful advise, so that your visitors have a reason to share your blog with others and return.

Setting a schedule for posting and sticking to it is every bit as important as the content you post. Do overdo yourself and attempt to blog everyday… I did this for a year and was so burned out I then went 3 months without a post, which basically destroyed the fruit of my years worth of all out effort. The key is consistency… Blogging or adding any content to your website on a regular basis will bring the search engines back more often and raise your index rank to boot. Once again, however, this has to be a sustained effort to be successful.

Stuck? Now idea what to blog about? The best cure for bloggers block is reading. Reading about topics related to your business will give you ideas for your own topics and expand you own knowledge as well. The last bit of advise is really something very close to my heart…. BE YOURSELF! If you blog reads like a dictionary or phone book visitors will bounce like a super ball right out of your site, never to return. Write with some passion and with some approachability and you can be a great success blogging for your store.

Melanie E-Commerce SEO