To choose the means whereby we put our products on the world-wide-web, we proceed by a process of elimination.

The chief criteria for judging a shopping cart is the number of credit card processors and shipping services it supports, and the number of people that support *it*.

Why? Because credit card processors and shipping services mutate all the time, and thus your cart will require updating. Which service works today may go out of business tomorrow, and leave you with the orders piling up.

Other important criteria are how easy it is to set up, and add products, and how easy it is for the customer to use.

(May I say parenthetically that I was introduced to Perl programming unwillingly by an early version of one of the carts below; it had a bug, and I had to learn some Perl to fix it. A shopkeeper should not have to learn bricklaying in order to open his store, therefore a bit of research is time well spent. )

When you set up your shop test it using a wide variety of the oldest and buggiest browsers you can find. If your web store works under them you’re home and dry.

So, having taken all the above into consideration, what are the options?

Having gone though twenty-plus different sub $500 shopping cart software solutions, I now present, in order of preference, the cheapest, simplest, and most effective solutions:

1. Oscommerce (free) – http://www.oscommerce.com

A very good, full-featured, cart. Uses Php and MySQL. Not easy to set up for a ‘newbie’. Cookies are used to track the order. If you have PhpMyAdmin installed in your web account, it’s easier. Requires a customer to register before they can make a purchase. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.

Bad point: Technical support is limited to the Oscommerce forums, which are not helpful to newbies. You may need to pay a few bucks to an expert via a freelance site like Scriptlance.com, if you run into difficulties.

Also, it may be a while before an update is available to a payment module. These are done by unpaid enthusiasts.

Good point: Oscommerce is supported by thousands of unpaid enthusiasts; this means updates do eventually arrive, and it’s less likely to go out of business, unlike a commercial cart.

2. X-cart (commercial) – http://www.x-cart.com

Similar to Oscommerce. Commercial. Requires a customer to register before they can make a purchase. Lots of features and add-ons. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services. Has an affiliate program add-on, and lets others sell products though your cart.

3. Dansie Cart (commercial) – http://www.dansie.net

A well specified cart. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.

Bad point: Apparently the Perl code is obscured, to make it harder to copy, which is annoying if you want to customise it.

3. Interchange (free) – http://www.icdevgroup.org

A version of the old Akopia / Minivend carts. Complex product with lots of files and a lot of setting up to do. A complete solution, and includes the option of third party credit-card real-time order processing. Encrypts orders.

4. Agora (free) – http://www.agoracart.com

A Web-Store/Commerce.cgi hybrid.

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Even if you’re not an accomplished webmaster you can still have a professional looking website. You may be like I was five years ago—you’re teaching yourself web design and you’re starting to catch on to that HTML stuff. You’re so excited about your new bag of tricks—but slow down partner, sometimes less is more. In fact the only time more is more is when it concerns chocolate cheesecake or something like that. (I can never get enough chocolate!)

You’ve worked hard to get the traffic—now don’t drive them away.

Fatal Flaw One—Bouncing, Wiggling Animated Clip Art

This one is really annoying to website visitors, and a sure sign you don’t know what you’re doing, especially if you have them all over the place. Just because they’re free, doesn’t mean you should use them.

SOLUTION—You’re probably not a graphics designer if you resort to using clip art, so don’t worry about your weakness, just choose a nice color scheme instead in your tables. (More on that later.) Colors don’t take extra time to download either.

Fatal Flaw Two—Embedded Music Clips

Good grief. Don’t do this. I don’t care how catchy your elevator tune is. No one wants to hear it. Sometimes speakers are turned up and a sudden blare of music will scare the heck out of your visitors. They’ll probably leave!

SOLUTION—If you have a site that sells music, then people will expect to hear it sometime somewhere at your site. Make your music links clickable—a choice that visitors can make to listen!

Fatal Flaw Three—Unstructured Text

I can’t stand it when I land on a site that I have to read from each side of my screen to the other left and right as well as up and down. Even if you want to write one long sales letter—which obviously works fine for hundreds of rich webmasters, you still need to format it into a legible width.

SOLUTION—Put your text in one single data cell of a simple table. Center your table. Voila.

Fatal Flaw Four—Out of Control Scroll

Similar to number three, is the out of control scroll. This is when you have to scroll text left to right as well as up and down. This happens when newbies design their websites larger than 800 pixels wide.

SOLUTION—Most people view resolution at 800×600. Set your table widths around 750 and everyone will be able to look at your site without using a bottom scrollbar.

Fatal Flaw Five—Gargantuan Images

This is when newbies take photos directly off their scanner or digital camera without resizing and without compressing. And nothings worse than landing on a page that has an image taking over the whole screen, taking forever to download.

SOLUTION—Using a photo program like Paint Shop, Photo Shop or other, resize images to fit in the table you intend to put it in. (Usually under 500 pixels wide.) Compress to 72 dots per inch. (DPI) Photos scanned or taken for print are large and usually at 300 dpi—no one wants to wait on those!

Fatal Flaw Six—Nonsense Affiliate Links

This is the same as “sites with no value.” There’s nothing that looks more like a newbie did it than a page full of banners, buttons, and text links taking visitors away from the Newbie’s site.

SOLUTION—At least publish free articles on the topic of your affiliate program. For example, let’s say you’ve signed up for a “make money selling traffic” idea. There are thousands of free articles that you can publish on getting more website traffic. Put your affiliate link at the bottom, top, or middle of the page the article is published on. Not only will having content make your site more interesting, it will also make your site more valuable to search engines.

These are just 6 little mistakes. But if you can at least change these, you are well on your way to having a more saleable site!

About The Author

Mitone Griffith has been designing websites since 1999. Her streamlined 24 Hour Website Wizard will assist you in getting your website running in less time than it would take to get that book on HTML to ship from Amazon. Give her Wizard 24 hours. Invest a low $199. You’ll have a complete and custom website overnight. You’ve got nothing to lose. 100% satisfaction money back guarantee. Just visit http://24hourwebsitewizard.com to learn more, or email to thewiz@24hourwebsitewizard.com.

Should You Use Testimonials on Your Website?

We have all seen websites showcasing their testimonials either spread strategically throughout the site or all together on their own glorious page. They’re there with the intent of leading us toward that high dollar purchase or convincing us of something’s legitimacy. Sometimes we read them and sometimes we won’t. Sometimes we believe them and sometimes we don’t. Well, are they really worth all the time and effort?

The quick answer: Only if you do it right. When done correctly, testimonials can really serve you in establishing your site’s credibility. Testimonials give you an opportunity to back up your claims. Believe it or not, as soon as someone visits your site you have immediately begun a relationship with that person. Your site will be one of the determining factors in solidifying that relationship and your testimonials can be a key component in building their trust. When done improperly, you might actually drive people away from you and what you have to offer. If your testimonials aren’t believable and honest then you probably don’t want them posted in the first place.

Here are a few guidelines to follow if you decide to use testimonials on your website.

Testimonials Should be Brief. You want your reader to get the point quickly and read the entire quote. You might have a great testimonial, but it is a page long. The odds of someone reading it in its entirety are pretty small. A good idea would be to break it up into sections.

Don’t Fake It. Your testimonials should be believable and the best way to assure yourself of that is not to make them up your self or have someone else do it for you. Honesty is always the best policy. Phony testimonials will ruin your credibility immediately. Say “adios” to your customers if you want to fake it.

Specifically Identify. Testimonials should be signed with a full name and a specific title. Don’t use something like “Businessperson” or “Professional”. People wan to see a name and area of expertise. It is also a good idea to put a link to their website. This will help establish the legitimacy of their testimonial.

Ask Permission. Before you publish someone’s comment make sure that they are aware of what you are going to post and that you have their consent in doing so. It is easier to “sell” the idea if you agree to post a link to their website beneath the quote.

Address a Specific Benefit. A specific positive result has much more impact than something generic. It is better to post something to the affect of “Your product helped cut costs by 18 percent last quarter” as opposed to “Your product is great”.

Spread Them Out. You can have a page dedicated to testimonials. It’s a good idea, but you can’t guarantee that a visitor will visit that page. In addition to your testimonial page why not post a testimonial or two on each page throughout your website. You can even interweave your quotes into your content. This can most likely increase the strength of your message as your visitors peruse each page.
SPECIAL TIP: Anytime you have a good experience with a website or online purchase send your own testimonial adhering to the above-mentioned guidelines. If published, you’ll probably get a link to your website. Over time that can add up and increase traffic to your site.

When it comes down to it, testimonials help provide an independent and unbiased medium to promote you and your website. You have the option to use them or not. If you decide to use testimonials on your website then use them properly. Well-positioned and authentic testimonials can easily make a positive impact and strengthen your site.

About The Author

Cal Hyslop has a background in business and technology with a Masters in Business Administration and is an owner of a website design firm located in Houston, Texas. The mission of his company, WebChrysalis, is to help individuals and businesses look like a million dollars online through the use of web templates and expert design.

cal@webchrysalis.com

I’ve read that a good web site is all about content, content, and oh yes content. Now if you’ve managed to design your site so that you can fill it with great content, what next, how do you know what good content is?

This may be one of those things that you know it when you see it kind of thing but I think that there are a few basic points to make in regards to having good content on your site. Considering how important content is we should all really focus on adding good content to our sites.

Relevant. Your content must be relevant to your site. Why would you have articles or information that has nothing to do with whatever it is that you’re selling. You would think that this would be obvious but I’ve seen web sites that just have gobs of information that really doesn’t match their site.

Accurate. The information that you give must be accurate. Part of the reason that you’re adding content to your site is to add to your reputation as a knowledgeable person in your field so if your information isn’t accurate then you don’t look like you know what you’re doing.

Free. Now if you make your living by selling information then not all of your content should be free but some of it should. How are people going to know that you know what you’re doing if they can’t read or see any of your work. I sell stock photography and I offer all of my short informational articles for free, not only because I enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience but it allows my customers to see that I know what I’m doing.
One last point but I’m not giving it as much importance as the first three, it would be ideal if all of your content was your own. Now there are exceptions to this, if you can’t write well then there is no point to writing poor articles with good information. The good information will be lost in the lack of writing ability. So it’s okay to use some of the free content, furnished by others, on your site. (Don’t forget to give them credit for their work though.) If you can create your own content I think that it the best case scenario for adding good content to your site.

If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography and Design Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

About The Author

Copyright 2005 Kelly Paal

Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. She owns her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

In this article you’ll be provided with helpful information about how to choose a web host. There are several things to look for when choosing a reliable web host. Below, you will be provided with frequently asked questions and the answers to common questions.

Q. How reliable is the service of a web host?

Most surveys indicate that reliability is an e-businesses main concern. You should look for at least a 95 percent guarantee uptime, to ensure that the service is indeed reliable.

Q. What kind of performance can I expect?

A great hosting company has one or more T3 lines that are always connected to the Internet, not going through someone else’s network operations center. The servers should be fast, ideally Pentium Pro or Linux. You should also let your host know if you plan to use bandwidth killers such as streaming audio or video.

Q. How good is phone support?

When it comes to phone support, you should look for 24/7 phone support that’s always available with a live operator. Once you have found out, you should always check it. Call or email the technical support line at 10 o clock on Sunday night then expect it to be answered.

Q. How much will it cost me?

The entry level hosting service with a single domain name, 20 – 30 MB (Mega Bytes) of hard drive space, email services, and up to a 1 GB (Giga Bytes) of monthly bandwidth should cost you no more than 50 dollars.

Q. How is security handled?

The passwords to your website or domain should be required to control the host as well as manage the web site. Every file on your server should also be backed up on a daily basis. You should always look for a host that offers you secure transactions as well.

Q. How much bandwidth will I need for data transfer?

Roughly estimating, 2GB of bandwidth should be perfect for a very small personal site. If you’re going to running a medium site with text and images but no large files, 5 GB would be ideal. Larger sites on the other hand, require 30 GB of bandwidth. Good hosting company’s will send you an email if you’re about to run out of bandwidth, letting you know that your site may go offline if you exceed the quota. This way, you can upgrade your plan if you choose to do so.

Q. What about a control panel?

Almost all hosting packages come with some type of control panel, enabling you to configure your hosting packages as well as your settings without having to learn the entire operating system that powers the site. Control panels can be accessed through a secure webpage, and then they will appear in your web browser. The most popular control panels are Helm, Cpanel, Hsphere, Plesk, and Ensim. The most common is Cpanel, which only runs on Linux. Most beginners and other users would be more suited to Cpanel, as it runs on the cheaper platform of Linux.

Q. What about a POP3 account?

When sending and receiving email, POP3 counts are very important. These types of accounts you can assign to individual users as their own email addresses. You’ll need enough POP3 accounts for the amount of email addresses that you wish to assign to other people. Often times this number will be quoted as being unlimited, although there are only so many email addresses that you can actually create.

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