Originally posted by Cheryl Duffey cheryl.duffey@verizon.net at www.alon-cohen.com

When designing a website, you must first consider your goals. Are you providing a service, conveying information, featuring entertainment, or selling something? If you are providing information of a serious nature, your website design should reflect it. An informational website addresses a specific issue. Such a site would be geared to the people who will be using it, with links to other useful sites. Information should be accurate and current. If you are providing a service, you need to state your services and provide a way for customers to access them. Entertainment sites may have graphics and music and other features. Personal sites showcase one’s interests and talents. They are usually self-designed and may be of limited appeal. Retail sites will have pictures of the items, the prices, and a way to place an order. You select items, place them in a shopping cart, then proceed to checkout. Your website design will reflect your goals.

It is a good idea to visit other websites to decide what you would like to integrate into your own design. Ease of use is one of the most important factors in website design. A user-friendly site will be successful in terms of popularity and frequent use. Sites can be very simple with one page, or very elaborate, consisting of several pages with links to other sites with related information.

If you have a target audience, the website should be designed to be attractive to this group. A youthful audience may respond to music and flashy graphics. Audio and video clips will make a site more dynamic, but an older crowd may prefer something simpler.

Many sites have features like chat rooms and message boards where visitors to the site can communicate with each other about common interests. A feedback feature allows users to ask questions or make comments through e-mail. Feedback can help you to make improvements to your site. An “about us” feature gives information about the site and its creators. This makes your site more personal.

Some shopping sites give the consumer options like custom design and a virtual model. By providing measurements and body type, a virtual mannequin is generated. You then have an idea of how the clothing will look on you without trying it on first.

A retail site should be designed with the shopper in mind. It should be easy to use, with accurate descriptions and pictures, and checkout should be simple and secure. Most sites allow you to register your personal information and log in and out with a password. Credit card numbers and other sensitive information is encrypted and access to it is limited. Online customer service lets you track the status of an order or report difficulty using the site.

A website should be designed carefully and thoughtfully. It should reflect your goals and personal taste. A professional website designer can bring this all together. They possess the technical knowledge and the experience to make a successful website.

Originally posted by: Jenifer Underwood, C.P.S.M.
Market29, Inc. http://www.market29.com
jen@market29.com

In my opinion, the best way to track online advertising campaigns is to combine the information gained from web statistics tools with the information from third party ad campaign tools. I say this for a few reasons.

As a programmer, I love data projects! However, I also value efficiency. I could technically write program code to read in the data from web server logs, format it into tables, create queries and develop reports with graphs. It would be a feasible project. However, my time is expensive and this task has already been done many, many times. Why would I write the same code if I could purchase it (already debugged) for a reasonable price? Needless to say, many ISP’s offer this service free of charge! I would be a fool not to tell you this.

I have similar feelings about third-party ad tracking campaign tools. These typically are not free but are well worth the minimal investment for the specialized information you receive in formats you can use and understand. These tools create specialized views of your campaign results, unique visits, clicks, actions, purchases and a variety of custom configured activities. They key here is the unique visit or user session. Many programs count hits not unique visits. Hits are a completely arbitrary figure. They include all the images contained within one web page, web browser refreshes and other web server hit data that is not relevant. Hits do not take user session state into consideration. For example, one web page with four images would be considered five hits on a web server when in reality there was only one user session. User session is imperative – hits are bogus. My point here is that these programs were coded to take into account the oddities of web marketing and can give you a very specialized picture of your campaign.

Web statistics programs and ad campaign managers contain different views of web site data. The former gives you an overall picture of your web site activity and the latter gives you an accurate idea for return on investment of an individual ad campaign. With the advent of specialized web campaign tracking programs tailored meet the unique reporting needs of marketing professionals, structuring and reporting results in financial terms a business organization understands for tactical decision making is much, much easier! If you are still importing server log data into a spreadsheet or database and creating queries – STOP! Unless you are the type of person that enjoys typing on a typewriter rather than taking advantage of a word processing program, then using web statistics tools in conjunction with ad campaign managers is hands-down the best approach for tracking results for your online marketing efforts!

Originally posted by: Cheryl Duffey cheryl.duffey@verizon.net at www.alon-cohen.com

If you would like to add shopping capability to your website, you will need shopping cart software. Retailers can build an online store with full service shopping options. Shopping cart software handles transactions and sets up a system to process orders and maintain a catalog.

When a customer is shopping your website, they place items in the shopping cart. They can add or remove items until they are ready to proceed to checkout . Product information is tracked on the server when a shopper clicks “add to cart”. The most basic shopping cart software keeps track of user information in the form of items ordered and quantities. This information is necessary to process the order.

There is no limit to the number of items to be sold on the website. The size of your product line does not matter, since items are only processed when placed in the cart. The shopping cart keeps track of the quantity in stock. Inventory holding costs are kept low, as the retailer can carry the amount of inventory necessary to fill current orders.

You need to know what type of server the software runs on, in order to avoid incompatibility. Problems with browser compatibility lead to increased CPU time. If there are many visitors to the site, the browser becomes overloaded and the page will not be displayed.

Many shopping carts can be set up within an hour. You add HTML tags to you web pages to get started. You will need a credit card merchant account to accept credit cards for sales at your website. Some carts are set up as a subscription service. Shopping cart software is also available for purchase and self-installation, or a website designer can install it for you.

Custom database applications are available, depending on the needs of the retailer. Shopping cart software can track shipping and handling costs. It can provide online calculation of taxes, which completes the transaction quickly and efficiently. A feature that many customers like is “express checkout”. If a shopper uses a certain site frequently, the software recognizes them by name and keeps their credit card information on file. Unless there is a change in payment information, the customer presses a button and the transaction is completed. There is no need to re-enter account information. For security reasons, the information is encrypted, and the account is accessible through a customer password. These conveniences suit the needs of customers and retailers.

The retailer is provided with an efficient means of record keeping , and a reduction of paperwork. Through data collection and reporting, you can collect customer feedback and keep track of consumer trends. Shopping cart software can also create a dynamic presentation of your product catalog, maximizing sales and site loyalty. The shopping cart should be dependable and easy to use. It should allow you to fill orders quickly and keep your business running.

With an effective shopping cart, a company can expand the reach of their products and their marketing campaign. A shopping cart is a cost effective way to manage a catalog and provide customer service. Your website designer can help you decide which shopping cart is best for your needs.

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Please Note: This article only touches the surface on some of the things that you should check. Should you require a consultation on choosing the right shopping cart solution for your web site feel free to http://www.ecommerce-shopping-cart.biz.