Nearly every ecommerce site revolves around a database to support inventory, listings and transactions. Building out the database can be a challenge. Here is what to expect.

Issues You Will Confront When Using Third Parties To Build Out Sites

Experienced web site database developers will leave plenty of time for debugging, troubleshooting and the unexpected instances. Even the best database development companies will run into set backs along the way though. Ensuring that you work with your developer to achieve a realistic time line is very important. At times, a database development company may estimate a project overly optimistically to win a bid. Choosing a company based on the shortest time line can often lead to trouble.

Also, relying on a deadline to be met can cause trouble if unforeseen occurrences pop up. Often these occurrences are the result of the originator of the work not foreseeing a business process necessary for the system. ‘Oh by the way, for that auction you’re working on, I also need integrated forums so that every auction item can have a forum thread.’ This type of added on item is sure to stretch a timeline. If you are not realistic in dealing with timelines, relations between developer and originator can sour easily.

Another favorite of database developers is the old agree on a proposal in October, client disappears for six months, then show up and expects the same timeline. Obviously if a developer estimates a project will take four months, waiting to start the project may result in delays because other clients will have come along.

Another favorite of web database developers is the push to show progress. If the originator of a project pushes for an update in undue time, a developer may rush to get to the coding and show an update. The first steps are the architecture of the whole system. This includes planning where data is stored, how it is most efficiently referenced and how the system can be expanded. Just like a construction worker needs a solid blueprint, the database coder and designers need a solid plan before building. Insisting on a plan for your database and not a code update is a good step to avoiding the pitfall of a poorly planned database.

Designing a database driven web site for heavy traffic takes considerably more time than designing a database for low traffic sites. Designing a database for heavy traffic sites generally involves designing processes to minimize hits on the database. For starters, don’t even think about storing images in your database. Instead, store references to your images.

Moving beyond the novice level of database architecture, one can reduce database hits by publishing flat HTML pages from the database periodically, so the database is not hit on each page access. Advanced web database architecture for high traffic sites might include publishing flat pages for often searched terms to once again reduce hits on the database. Slow databases kill sites, so limiting access wherever possible is important.

Similar to high traffic site considerations, search times can be dramatically reduced by designing databases for high volume traffic. A simple example is to have a separate table just for keywords that are likely to be searched that references the related pages to those keywords. This allows a search function to search this small table of keywords as opposed to one large table of pages with all of the content in it. This concept can be related to a card catalog in the library. Instead of reading every book on the shelf, one can simply go through the card catalog and find the specific book one needs.

You need backups. Automated backups at that. If things can go wrong, they will go wrong. At the worst possible moment. That is just how it is.

With backups, there are several types. You can have a RAID system that will mirror hard drives. You can also have a server-to-server backup system that transfers data to another system. There can also be a secure download backup automated from a local machine.

Security is of course a huge issue with any web database. Even if one is simply storing personal data with no financial information, the database can be a target of spammers or identity thieves. There are a myriad of different security methods. Of those, encryption of data should be used, not just during transfer through an SSL, but in the database as well. Keeping forms secure is also very important. A periodic security audit on any major web database system is essential.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” This statement is as true with web databases as any part of life. Perhaps the Unforeseen Instance is an extra requirement that only became apparent after the project was started. Perhaps it’s a hard drive going bad at just the wrong time, or maybe even the dog ate your…laptop. Whatever it is, the Unforeseen Instance is almost inevitable, so be sure to put away a little extra time for this.

To wrap things up, when working with database developers, first ensure they have a solid work history designing databases. Be sure to insist on architecture and not to push your designer into rushing the project. Make sure to have a plan for backups and go over your security time and time again.

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“Do what you love and money will follow.”

Tell that to the starving artist. And yet, there are hundreds of other artists who are not starving.

People all over are turning a profit by simply selling their passion, which can come in the form of thoughts on paper, digital information, or recorded music and video. Kids today are smarter than we realize when they say, “When I grow up, I want to be rich.” What can be easily interpreted as a lazy – I want to make money without working hard – can be really seen as – I want to make money out of nothing and make that money work for me. Madonna used her voice (which cost nothing) to make millions. Michael Jordan used his skills (which cost his time) to market himself into millions through shoes, clothes, and advertising. And with the burgeoning commerce of the world wide web, making a profit from your passions is practically limitless.

But how do you do it?

The first thing is to realize is that your passion can be turned into an asset and by asset, I mean something you have that makes you money. Because you’re already interested in it what you mean to sell, you don’t have to start from zero knowledge.

The next thing to do is to find an idea and to find a niche market. People often get stumped because they feel they have nothing new to contribute. But you don’t need to reinvent a market, you just need to tap into an existing one. And there’s no easier one than the one you know already. Chances are you’ve bought tons of products related to your passion (music, art, dogs, skateboarding, fishing, ant-farming, whatever) already. You know which of these products helped you and which ones didn’t. If people are selling products or information to a specific market, then, with a good product, you have a good chance of doing likewise.

If you’re computer saavy, or even if you just check your email every day and once in a while google an interest of yours, you’ve already come across people who enjoy the same things you do. You’ve chatted with them in forums, and you know what their needs and desires are or even better the things that peeve them. If you can come up with solutions or make a better product, you can get a piece of that market and thoroughly enjoy what you’re doing.

Good Luck,

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Whether you own thousands of dollars or just a few hundred-at least two hundred, and you are providing a service, it may be a good idea for you to check into accept payment online from your customers. This is a type of merchant status and the first place for you to look to achieve that status is the bank you do business with. Just because you may have been doing business with them for a long time doesn’t mean they will automatically give you merchant status though, and if they turn you down, don’t worry, you have other options. You can try a couple of other banks or you can try other companies that specialize in issuing accounts to online merchants. Do a Google search and type in credit card processing, you will find many outfits looking for businesses seeking merchant accounts. This will not be a cheap endeavor either; start-up fees to accept payments online can amount to around $200 and monthly processing fees of around $20 dollars.

While searching for your merchant account so you can accept payments online, you should also realize that you are going to have to make your customers feel safe while doing business with you online. Wherever you buy your credit card processing should also supply you with a secure transaction environment, if they don’t find one some where else before you start accepting payments online. Despite what you may have heard about accepting payments online, credit card payments are still one of the safest payment methods available online. There are many fraud-prevention tools out there so check them out and get one that will suit your needs. You can also protect yourself by using the card validation code 2 {CVC2} and the card verification value {CVV2} verification systems of MasterCard and Visa, respectively. These verification services use the three-digit codes printed on all MasterCard and Visa cards to help you determine whether your customers are using legitimate cards. Also, you may want to ask prospective processors about the costs of storefront solutions that you should have to make your website a success, things like shopping carts, Web hosting, online payment gateways, virtual checks, customer tracking, databases for your orders, and a way to calculate tax and shipping charges. These are all the things you need for a successful Web site business.

Shop around for a credit card processor that best suits your needs. Talk to several different processors and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Find out about:

The discount rate: The percentage of each transaction paid to the merchant account provider. If your monthly charges are less than a certain volume, the processor may charge a higher percentage. Just make sure you read all the fine print before you start doing business with the services you need to run your own business. You want your customers to feel secure in all aspects of doing business with you, so they will keep buying your products and you can accept payments online.

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If you are interesting in learning more about merchant services, you will need to know something about setup merchant account details. This may seem like the hardest part of getting a merchant account, especially if you are uninvolved with many e-commerce or technological business systems. Here are some details that can help to give you a better idea of merchant account setup.

For setup merchant account information, you will want to contact the merchant account provider that you are thinking of working with. This could be your local banker, the one that manages your company’s regular accounts at present. Or it might be another lender with a better merchant account deal that includes lower terms or more useful services. When you select the underwriter for your merchant account, find out which fees will apply. Some merchant account providers seem to charge for a host of things, including the application, setup, gateway, membership, and maintenance, among others. After applying to your account provider of choice and being approved for merchant services, an account representative can work with you to set up merchant account details that will soon have your business equipped for credit card payments.

At that point you can ask more detailed questions about setup merchant account services. For example, if there is a service fee for setup, will you need to pay it first, will it be billed, or will it be deducted from your first month’s sales? Find out who will install the credit card processing software program and whether you must pay for it. Perhaps it will pay for itself in a few months, saving you this initial start-up cost. It is important to find out whether a customer services representative will be standing by to answer customers’ questions and deal with problems that may arise at the Website. Up-to-date contact or email information is essential to reassure customers they can get help when needed. You will need to know if you must find and pay someone for backup of this type or if the merchant services provider will handle this for you.

Your setup merchant account fees should be minimal, but make sure you find out ahead of time what to expect so there are no unpleasant surprises when you can least afford them. After all, you don’t want to go to the trouble and expense of opening a merchant services account only to find that you cannot afford to provide the necessary components to make it operational and customer-friendly. If possible, get a list of services and their prices before signing the contract on your merchant account.

The timeframe for setup merchant account operations should not be excessive. Most underwriters can have your Website ready to start accepting credit card payments within a few days. When they do, you will probably ask yourself why you waited so long to apply for this helpful tool. You also may be interested in getting a wireless credit card processor for travel-related sales and a pager to maintain office-to-employee communications. An e-check processor may be the logical next step.

The commercial sky is the proverbial limit when you inquire about setup merchant account options.

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No matter how you are looking at things, if another person looks – he will see them differently. So, to be sure you are doing the right things on the right way, you should not only think systematically yourself, but also provide channels to get feedback and other opinions.

“The manager of one car-service company phoned all his daily customers after the working time to make sure they were satisfied with the service and to ask them if they could have done something better.” This is a very good example of how one company can be closer to its customers; but on the other side – it is very time-consuming and rather expensive. There is a proverb that we can use for better solution: “If Mohammed can’t come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed.” In order to gain as much feedback and opinions from your customers, you have to be sure that they can provide it easily the moment they decide.

You have probably made a nice-looking website to provide information, promote something, get the message out there or sell something. It is now time to think of some other usage for it – gaining feedback! Here are some ways to do that using live-support software:
• Be sure to place a contact point on each of your web pages. It can include the “chat” button, the “leave a message” button or even a visible link to “contact us” – where you have all the other contact points written;

• Provide visitors with incentives to give you their feedback. For example: We appreciate any of your comments and opinions and are glad to offer prizes for 10 of our visitors each month which gave us their feedback.

• Place imbedded links in your website text to receive feedback on certain important issues. For example: We developed a new product line according to your requirements. We will be glad to chat with you to hear your opinion or new ideas;

• Place the “chat” button on the e-mails you send. That way your customers can immediately reply to your message and you get the chance to ask additional questions you are interested in;

• Make paper feedback cards which you can give together with your products or services and write on them your website address where they can interact with you and tell you their satisfaction, their ideas for improvement or simply chat with you on any issue.

56% of consumers feel respected when marketers attempt to understand their interests. So, make sure that as many people from outside the business can comment regularly on what you are doing well or badly and that way make them feel respected.

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It is estimated that over 90% of new websites fail within the first year of existence. Interestingly enough, the same can be said for the restaurant industry, as only 1 out of each 10 new restaurants experience real rewards.

With such negative odds it seems that many are taking a foolish gamble for a shot at success. Yet, there are certain individuals who are able to launch successful restaurants and online businesses time and time again with amazing success rates.

Why is this? Almost all of these entrepreneurs failed many times before they succeeded, but, the key to their success is a winning formula derived from trial and error.

The Internet is no different. Through the Dot-Bomb era, millions of websites failed and through this collective information, it was possible to develop a successful formula. A formula used by R.O.I Media to ensure the success of their websites and their clients’ websites.

Highlighted below are some of the modern principles for online success. It is guaranteed that if businesses actually adhered to these principles, 90% of them would be smiling rather than crying.

1. The 5 P’s (Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance)

The key to launching a successful online business is down to proper planning. Before launching any online business you need identify your potential target market and demand. Online Businesses have distinct advantage over traditional brick and mortar businesses due to the fact that we can identify demand for any industry based on the daily demand indicated in search volume.

For instance, the keyword “cape town accommodation” is searched for ± 350 times a day. Therefore it’s feasible to launch a site that offers bookings for accommodation in Cape Town. The demand is visible in the searches done by users.

2. Competitor Analysis

It’s surprising how many new online businesses launch and when asked the question, ‘name your top 5 competitors?’ few can give you a direct answer. By identifying your competitors, you gain valuable competitor intelligence which can help mould your business model. It’s important to see:

How much competition is in your industry?
More competition makes it harder to compete. Sometimes the better angle is to target segments with less competitor saturation.

Price Comparison
Customers in this day and age are becoming more and more price sensitive. With the internet, customers are able to shop around for the lowest price within minutes and most of the time they are drawn by a low price. It’s sometimes better to make less profit as opposed to no profit.

Don’t be caught off guard. Identify all your competitors’ prices and position yourself to be competitive and make sure you are able to make enough profit to sustain your business expenses, including marketing.

USP – Unique Selling Proposition
This is a vital question that few business owners can answer. What is your unique selling proposition? Simply put, what do you offer that your competitors don’t offer or what do you do better than your competitors. By launching a product range that is not unique in any way, will not give you a distinct advantage in the marketplace and will set you up for failure.

3. Build it and they will come (Traffic)

Many new websites spend far too much time and money on launching a website. Once the site is launched, they do far too little to promote the website and as a result few people come to the website. Being out there is not enough; you need to actively promote your website online in order to get traffic to the website. Traffic can be generated through SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay per Click services).

Interestingly, 88% of all internet users use search engines to find what they are looking for. In February 2008, there were nearly 10 billion core searches done in the US alone. Search Engine Optimisation is the process of bringing a website to as high a position as possible in the search results when a user types in a search term in the search engine.

In Layman’s terms, you go to Google and type in “Blue Widgets”, and a website comes up number 1 selling blue widgets, this is due to an effective SEO strategy.

4. Leading the Horse to water (Conversion)

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. The same can be said online. All the traffic in the world will not guarantee sales. More traffic does not always correlate to more sales.

Website effectiveness is measured using a simple metric called Conversion or a website Conversion Rate. To work out your site’s conversion rate, you divide the total amount of unique visitors (NOT hits) by the total amount of sales.

For Example: 100 unique people visit your site, 2 people buy out of that 100, you have a 2% conversion rate.
Conversion Rate = Desired Action/Total Number of Unique Visitors
The average global conversion rate is 2.4%.

The average South African website conversion rate is under 1%. What does this mean? If you are spending an average of R10 per Click (PPC), driving 100 people to your site will cost you R1000. If only 1 in 100 purchase, that sale (cost per acquisition) has cost you R1000. Let’s hope that you made more than R1000 profit or you will generate no return whatsoever. The reality is that most websites suffer from terrible conversion rates. Usually, their sites generate zero returns and actually lose money as their advertising costs exceed their profits.

Did you know that 75% of browsers back out of a shopping cart? It’s even got its own term, called “shopping cart abandonment”. People enter the shopping cart, and something freaks them out to the point that 3 out of 4 run away. Was your delivery cost too high? Did they think your site was a fly by night? Was the return policy not clear? Were they worried about submitting their credit card details? These are some of the reasons that can lead to this.

5. A website is a website, or is it?

The first step before spending vast amounts on marketing is to refine your site’s conversion ratio.
There are websites and then there are online selling machines. The difference is linked to the conversion ratio, one sells and makes money, and one does not.

By effectively increasing a website’s conversion rate, you generate more sales, and more profit without spending more on marketing.

Conclusion:

By following these key guidelines and contacting an expert company with a great track record, online success should not be contributed to luck. Proper planning and execution will ensure long term sustainable success.

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Your site is fast and getting traffic, but conversion rates are disappointing. You may have problems with the tone of your content

Do You Believe?

You must have passion for the product or service you are providing. If you don’t believe in it, why should visitors to your site? A lack of belief will result in weak content and poor conversion rates. If you are selling quality, you are doing the prospect a favor. The tone of your site should reflect this in the content.

To effectively convert prospects, every entry page of your site must tell visitors:

1. What you offer,

2. How they will benefit, and

3. Demand they take action.

Entry Pages

Many sites have conversion problems related to entry pages. Most people automatically envision the home page as the sole entry path to the site. Sweat, blood and tears are spent making the home page just write. Conversely, a fraction of the same effort is applied to internal pages. This is a fundamental mistake.

If server statistics are checked, you may be surprised to find significant amounts of traffic entering your site through internal pages of your site. Yes, a large percentage of visitors are entering the site without seeing the home page. If your “hook” is only on the home page, your conversions will suffer. Make sure you have a concise summary of your service and the benefits on every entry page to the site and conversions will improve.

What You Offer

Tell visitors exactly what you do with the first sentence. Don’t be subtle. You only have a few seconds to get their attention. Don’t waste it. The opening sentence should read something like, “At XYZ, we offer quality tools at wholesale prices.” Bam! The prospect knows exactly what you are offering and if it fills their need.

Benefits

Tell your prospect how they will benefit from doing business with you. Don’t assume they understand it. Again, be blunt with something like, “You save money when you buy from us because we have a low overhead and free shipping.” Bam! Now the visitor knows you sell tools at a low price. This combination should result in shopping activity if they have any need for the tool products.

Demand Action

What do you want prospects to do when they visit your site? At the end of your content, make sure you tell them. “Click here to order” is a perfectly fine statement, but adding a benefit is optimal. “Click here to order with free shipping” is a superior demand. Regardless, make sure you tell them what to do and make it is easy as possible to take the requested action.

If you are offering quality, you are doing clients a favor. Make sure the tone of your site reflects that fact.

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Congratulations! You created an impulse in a customer to buy your product, but there’s one small catch–without some way to process their credit card information, your sale is gone.

One of the best ways to capture and use customer credit card information is with a merchant account (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) that is tied to your electronic shopping system. It used to be hard to get such a merchant account but no longer. It seems like every company out there is ready to give (well, not give but sell) you a merchant account, but beware.

You will run into all kinds of deals from people trying to lease you credit card swiping equipment, too. But unless you do a ton of face-to-face business, you will never see a real credit card and that credit card swiping machine will serve you better as a doorstop. I can safely say that nearly all of my sales are done via the Internet or telephone. Every once in a while, I’ll get the odd fax order, but far and wide I have no use for a physical swiping machine. Even when I do sell products at the back of the room during my speaking engagements, I just fill out a form by hand to used later, and when possible, I bring my portable computer and capture customer information electronically to be used online later. And these days it seems I am finding more and more places have wireless networks to use so I can enter all the customer, account, and order information on the spot and submit the whole transaction online instantly. It’s as if the customer was logging into my shopping cart system from somewhere else.

When shopping for a merchant account, it is important to get firm numbers on up-front fees, monthly fees, credit card percentages, and costs per transaction, so be sure to get the merchant’s definition for a “transaction,” such as whether obtaining authorization only constitutes a transaction or whether processing a return does. All of these fees can add up, but still will seem like mere pennies when the orders start flowing in.

Another piece of advice to heed–don’t try to save a few bucks by signing up for a merchant account, even if it is free, before you choose a shopping system. The shopping system is much more important. Make sure that any merchant account you consider works well with you shopping system.

One final bit of information is that you must sign up directly with American Express to take their credit cards. You can do this online at http://www.americanexpress.com/homepage/mechant.shtml.

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Your site is getting traffic, but conversion rates are horrible. Everything seems to be working, so what’s wrong? Your site may simply be to slow.

Load Times – Are You Driving A Ferrari or Moped?

Give some thought to the sites you have visited of the past few weeks. Were you willing to wait 20 seconds for a site to load or did you hit the back button? Why would visitors to your site behave any differently? They won’t.

Webmasters, designers and site owners universally access the web through high-speed connections. Because of this, it is easy to forget roughly 40 percent of surfers use dial-up connections. While your site may appear to load quickly on your high-speed connection, have you tried loading it on a 56k connection? The results can be shocking.

Sites that appear to load quickly on a high-speed connection can take forever on 56k. It is not unheard of to find a “fast site” actually takes 30, 50 or 80 seconds to load on a 56k. Sometimes, the load time is so slow the browser will actually “time out” and fail to show anything. If your site has this problem, 40 percent of the hits are worthless. Worse, those frustrated surfers are unlikely to try to access your site in the future even if you fix the speed problems.

How fast should a page load on a 56k connection? As fast as possible, but no slower then 25 seconds. If you can get 56k load times below 10 seconds, you can turn a negative into a competitive advantage. Surfers come back to fast sites.

Determining Load Times

The best way to determine the load time for your site is to actually use a 56k connection. While this solution isn’t particularly technical, it will let you see exactly what your prospects are seeing when they visit the site. You will be able to see what loads quickly and what appears slowly. This should let you isolate particular elements in need of optimizing.

Server statistics can also provide you with evidence of slow load times. Are users spending a lot of time on entry pages, but not visiting internal pages? Either you have poor content or a loading problem.

Finally, you can also use diagnostic programs to test load times. Typically, the programs will kick out estimated load times for dial-up, DSL and T1 connections. Make sure you test your home page and internal pages. Diagnostic programs are excellent tools, but don’t get lazy. Make sure you physically watch your site load on a dial-up connection. The experience will prove invaluable to improving your site and conversion rates.

Improving Performance

The steps needed to improve the performance of your site often depend on the nature of the site. A database driven site will have different issue than a graphic intense site. There are, however, universal factors that can be checked:

1. Graphics: Typically, browsers have to make a connection for each image on a page. The more you have, the longer the load time. Limiting the number and size of graphics can help.

2. Tables: If you use tables, try to break them up into smaller modules. Large tables can negatively impact load times.

3. Multimedia: If it flashes, explodes, spins or blinks, consider ditching it. Yes, it looks great, but is it worth 40% of your audience?

4. Size: Scrutinize the size of your pages. The bigger the page, the slower the load times. It shouldn’t be a problem if the page is comprised of text, but large pages with lots of code will load slowly.

Cheer up if you have a speed problem! Yes, you’ve lost a lot of business, but now you can fix it. Most of your competitors will never figure it out. That puts you ahead of the game.

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