Choosing your E-Commerce Developer

So you decided to make a e-commerce web site?

Maybe your boss just walked in your office and said `build us one of those e-commerce web sites` or maybe it is a personal project you have been kicking around in your head for some time.

Either way, you now have to make a few decisions.  First off, how are you going to build this site? There are several factors to consider, like your budget, building it in-house (doing it yourself) versus outsourcing (contracting it out), and many others.

Doing it all yourself can be a hairy experience.  What seems to be a small task can grow faster than you can produce.  Generally, I would not recommend doing it yourself unless you have a solid understanding of the process from start to finish, as well as a lot of extra time on your hands.  So, now you might want to consider hiring a professional to help you build your site.

Perhaps the most important decision, and likely the one that will have the most effect on the overall success of the project, is in choosing which developer you are going to work with.

When outsourcing your project, should look for a developer who has a solid reputation in the industry, with good client references.  This will eliminate developers who have fancy web sites, but cannot produce to their customer’s satisfaction.

Another good indicator is to find out is if the developer is using their own commerce software (one they have developed and own themselves) of if they are just reselling someone else’s commerce package under their own name.  This can certainly play a large factor in whether or not they can customize the commerce package to suit your business needs.  Very few reseller packages can be altered without considerable cost, so I would encourage you to find a developer with that owns their code.

A good developer will help you determine the components you need (checkout or membership processes) and will get involved in your project, providing insight and guidance from previous experiences with other clients.

Another big consideration - is the developer affordable?  That is to say, will they do it in budget?  When evaluating a developer’s quote, ask questions about how they handle `extras` such as scanning and data entry.  This will vary by developer, but generally the price will be part fixed (contract), and part variable (hourly).  Be certain you understand how you will be billed, and if there are extra’s, make sure the developer has the ability to warn you in advance (to avoid surprises at the final billing)

Once you have found a developer you think qualifies, you should arrange a meeting, preferably in person.  During the meeting, consider how well you can communicate with them, do they understand what you are asking, do your personalities work together?  This may seem trivial now, but as the project moves on, your relationship with your developer will play in important role in several aspects, such as how well the site suits your vision, how quickly the site gets complete, and even how fast you get support.

Considering most e-commerce sites take several weeks (sometimes months) to develop, having a good relationship with your developer will go a long way to getting the project done, with as little stress as possible.

Taking a little bit of extra time to research these points when choosing your developer can make or break the project. 

About the Author:
Ian Gruber is the Chief Web Architect for NorthStar Web Sites Inc.  As a e-commerce developer, he has helped dozens of people and companies create their first commerce site.

Source: NorthStar Web Sites Inc.

 

Basic Meta Tag Web Site Promotion Tips

Once you have published your site, it becomes immediately exposed to the world wide web!  But how does your site end-up listed on a search engine site (like Google.com or Exite.com)?

Most search engines have programs called spiders or crawlers that search the web to find new web sites.  These programs will read the source (HTML) on the page, and then add your site to their (own) database as a title, description and which keywords to match up when a person performs a search.

Each search engine program has its own set of rules for how to search and what ranking they provide, but generally speaking, all search engines look for the page META tags and Title as a starting point.

A good technique to getting a good listing is to add the meta keyword and description tags to your page source (HTML) head, and put as many keywords as possible in the page body to match.

If you look at the HTML source your home page (root, usually index.htm or default.htm) you will see a few tags in what we call the page header (<HEAD>) that seach engines use to identify and list your web site...

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html; charset=windows-1252>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Language content=en-us>

<title>Your Site and/or Page Title</title>
<META NAME=``description`` content=``This would be your description of what is on your page. Your most important keyword phrases should appear in this description.``>
<META NAME=``keywords`` content=``keywords phrase 1, keyword phrase 2, keyword phrase 3, etc.``>
</head>

The three basic tags each page should contain is the <title> and <meta> keywords and description.

The <title> should contain your company/site/page name and a short descriptive line which includes some of your top keywords.  Your title will not only be used for search engines, but will also display as the name of the bookmark (favorites) and the browser titlebar text while browsing your site.  It should be 50-80 characters (including spaces) long and not contain any special characters.

The <meta name=`keywords`> content should contain the keywords most likely used by you clients to search for your company.  Tip: some search engines only take the fist 10 keywords - so make sure you put them in order of priority and separate them with a comma between each word.  It is a good idea to have your keywords repeated in the body of your page.

The <meta name=`description`> content is how your site will be described on a search engine listing.  Most of the time, the description that will list will be limited to a maximum of 250 characters (including spaces - about 35 words).  Again, re-use keywords in the description and avoid marketing adjectives like `the greatest` or  `the best` - keep the description content based.

After you get your meta tags properly setup on your site, search engines will eventually find you and list you, but if you want to speed things up a little, you can `Submit your Site` to most search engines, adding your site to the list of sites they should index (which may be a long list!)

Finding the `Submit a Site` link for each search engine can be a little tricky (for some reason they like to hide it).  I prefer to find the search engines` Site Map` and look for the link to the submission area from that page.  Once you find the site submission area, follow the instructions to the letter, and they will eventually index your site.  (for Google.com visit: http://www.google.com/addurl.html)

Another way to increase your exposure to the web is to participate in a link exchange program with other web site owners.  The more links from other sites you get, the better your chances of being listed on a search engine.  Most site owners are eager to cross promote, so usually its a matter of emailing the site owner and setting up your own `links.htm` page on your site.

There are also several `pay` placement and CPC (cost per click) programs offered that will get you result faster, but be sure to shop around and compare costs vs results.

There is a lot of information (and theories) on the internet as to how to boost your site listing and exposure to search engines, here are a few sites you might want to visit:

As far as how long it takes, visit this page to see the averages for the major search engines:
http://www.submit-it.com/subopt.htm?tipq=8

On last tip... keep at it, do something to promote your site once a week until you start getting a lot of visitors, then you might cut back to once a month.

The web is still developing and the techniques for promotion is continually changing and evolving, so keep yourself informed and experiment until you get the results you want.

About the Author:
Ian Gruber is the Chief Web Architect for NorthStar Web Sites Inc.  As a dynamic site developer, he has helped dozens of people and companies grow their web site business.
Source: NorthStar Web Sites Inc.
Published: 10/17/2002 Ian Gruber