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For Small Businesses and Home Based Businesses

E-Commerce Implementation Plan -- Topics
1. Business Plan 4. Shopping Cart
2. Design 5. Search Engines Optimization
3. Hosting 6. Maintenance
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E-Commerce Implementation Plan

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Website Design




An e-commerce website has just moments to capture the interest of each visitor. This means the presentation of products and services must convey an engaging message. The design should exemplify your target market in content, format and technology, as well as express your business image.

Three main design elements effecting a website visitors experience are layout, navigation and technology.

Layout

. The objective of your website layout is to provide visitors with the information in a format that:
  1. Illustrates the features and benefits of your products/services
  2. Relates to your target market
For example,
  • Does your product need to be viewed from multiple angles?
  • Is color an important product feature?
  • Would it be helpful for your customer
    to see the product 'in action' using a video?

Navigation

. The website navigation system is a combination of website menus and links. It must ensure that visitors can find information easily. It must also ensure visitors can easily return to information previously viewed, because if they can't they may become frustrated and leave your website.

A generally accepted design is a menu running horizontal across the web page just below a page header with a secondary menu going down the left side of the page. If the page is exceptionally long and the visitors need to scroll down quite a ways, it may be useful to have an additional horizontal menu along the bottom of the page. This menu may be a duplicate of the top horizontal menu or simple links.

Technology

. Your primary responsibility of your layout is to maximize the website value to your target market. This includes using the most appropriate technology. A secondary goal is search engine compatibility. Search engine robots, such as Google's Googlebot, should be able to collect information from your website. This information is used by search engines to determine when to list your site in search results. The technology used for a website can significantly impact how search robots view your website.

Don'ts. (1) Don't select a layout until completing this tutorial and reading all of the related articles. Frequently business owners have a visions that may look great, but is not a good implementation decision.

Do's. (1) Consult a web designer/developer and/or checkout multiple e-commerce forums before making any final layout decisions (2) Check out top rated e-commerce websites to see what is perceived as successful layouts and review the competitions websites to see if there is an industry trend that may be good or not so good. (3) Read Related Articles

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E-Commerce Implementation Plan

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Hosting




All websites are "hosted" on a computer. But rather than all website owners having their own computer, many small businesses rent space from a hosting service. This arrangement generally includes space for the website and data, email, various software packages and some set amount of "bandwidth" for visitor access. Most hosting services offer multiple packages of various capacities and features, so you can upgrade your hosting features as your website grows.

Selecting a Hosting Service

. Support and performance are the most important factors when selecting a hosting service. Price is the least important factor.

Hosting service features generally fall into three categories --
  • Technical: Bandwidth to access your
        site, disk space to store information
        and images, databases to manage
        data, programming languages, etc.
  • Functional: Software packages,
        such as shopping carts, blogs, etc.
  • Business: Email and website activity
        reporting
The evaluation of these features is mostly technical, so before signing up for hosting service, you should consult your web designer/developer to be sure the features offered by a hosting service are compatible with your website requirements.

Keeping Control of Your Website

. You don't need to understand anything technical about your website to keep control of it. To keep control you need the account logon information that you get when you sign up with a hosting service. You will need to share this information with your web developer, but you don't want to relinquish control. Frequently business owners rely on their web developer to keep track of this information. That's fine until you have a disagreement.

Domain Name and Hosting Service

. Where you register your domain name and where you host your website do not have to be the same. When registering a domain name, get the best price for the initial registration and renewals.

Don'ts. (1) Don't sign up for long-term service to get a discount (2) Don't sign up for service that does not provide a phone number as part of the contact information.

Do's. (1) Keep control of your website and your domain name (2) Read Related Articles

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E-Commerce Implementation Plan

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Shopping Cart




Functional Components

. There are four functional components in a shopping cart process:
  1. The cart itself, sometimes called a shopping basket or bag, which holds the items a visitor selects while shopping. Some shopping carts will also hold items for future purchases.
  2. The checkout process where the visitor provides shipping and payment information, plus gives the visitor an opportunity to review the order.
  3. The payment process that performs credit card validation and execution
  4. The order fulfillment and order confirmation processes

Key Attributes

. Security and ease of use are critical shopping cart attributes.
  • Security includes (1) the secure connection from the visitors computer to the checkout process and (2) the security of information stored on the e-commerce website.
  • Ease of use generally includes (1) the flexibility for customers to edit their order through the shopping process, (2) the option for customers to register or not register to complete an order and (3) providing the customer with confirmation and tracking details.

Implementation Options

. When implementing a shopping cart, options range from e-commerce sites that handle all four functional components of the process to e-commerce sites that handle none of the shopping cart components by using services such as PayPal to handle the processing.

There is also a range of technical solutions for implementing a shopping cart process, including:
  1. Developing a completely unique system ($$$$$)
  2. Purchasing/leasing a shopping cart software package and then personalizing it to match your website($$ - $$$$)
  3. Installing a free Open Source shopping cart package and then personalizing, customizing or enhancing it to match your website($ - $$$)
  4. Personalize "canned" e-commerce website ($ - $$)
  5. Social E-Commerce web page ($)
Don'ts. (1) Don't use a shopping cart setup without knowing if it can be moved to another hosting service — "canned" and Social E-Commerce sites typically cannot be moved

Do's. (1) Understand the pros and cons of the option you select before you begin setting up your e-commerce website. Each options offers particular advantages and disadvantages over the long-term. (2) Read Related Articles

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E-Commerce Implementation Plan

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Search Engine Optimization




The objective of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to increase the traffic on your website by getting your website to appear in the top positions of search results for major search engines.

SEO can be a complex task and there is a huge amount of competition for top positions. But it is certainly possible to achieve a top position in Google or Yahoo search results.

Focus

. When building your website it is important to keep your primary website focus on providing your customers with the best site possible. Otherwise, you won't make any money even with a lot of visitors. SEO should be a secondary focus and guide the technical implementation of your website.

Search Engine Processing

. Search engines use robots to browse through websites and to collect information, which is stored in the search engine databases. Then when a user does an online search by entering search criteria called "keywords," the search engine compares the keywords with the information collected from websites. The search results are based on the "best" matches to the keywords plus other selection factors.

SEO Scams

. There are reputable SEO companies and many that are not so reputable, making SEO services potentially one of the biggest scams for business owners. In fact, the are two possible scams.

  1. The SEO company receives partial payment for services but never gets your website listed in the top results
  2. The SEO company get your website in the top results using keywords that don't generate any traffic on your website, because the keywords that seem to be a appropriate for your business are rarely used by people doing searches
When there is less competition for keywords, there is a higher probability of getting your website in the top search results — the SEO company is counting on that to achieve results.

Don'ts. (1) Don't fall for something that sounds too good to be true — because it probably is.

Do's. (1) Include SEO in your website building process, but not the primary focus (2) Read Related Articles

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E-Commerce Implementation Plan

Website Maintenance




There are multiple maintenance requirements on an e-commerce website, including:
  1. Product updates
  2. Presentation modifications
  3. Search Engine Optimization revisions
Presentation modifications related to the design layout, as well as Search Engine Optimization revisions, typically need to be made by a web developer/designer because they involve technical issues.

However, in many cases it is possible for the business owner or any non-technical person to update the product information and general information without going to a web developer.

Most systems that allow a non-technical person to update web page information are based on a database, which stores information outside of the web page on the hosting service. These include e-commerce product databases and informational content management systems (CMS). Blogs and Forums are based on databases.

Unfortunately, the information stored in databases is not always accessible to Search Engines, such as Google and Yahoo, and will not appear in search results. Therefore, it's important to ensure any database/website technical design used on your website is search engine friendly.

Don'ts. (1) Your decisions about maintenance should not be based on the cost saving of Do-It-Yourself maintenance — look at what the best design is and the overall Return On Investment of your website.

Do's. (1) Research your options by joining forums, including both business owner forum and web developers forums even though you are not technical, (2) Read Related Articles

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