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There are many steps one must take to successfully create, and learn how to build an ecommerce website. You must take into account a variety of factors, and use them all together. Although the process itself can appear daunting to someone who has never done it before, learning how to build an ecommerce website isn’t overly complicated. With proper planning, and following the steps outlined below, you too can create your own ecommerce website in no time. Step 1 – What are you going to sell? The most important question you must ask yourself when building an ecommerce website is what product are you going to sell. Let’s assume you’ve already chosen a product at this stage, or at least have one in mind. You must do extensive research if you want to succeed. You have to look deep into the numbers, and accurately gauge what costs you may encounter along the way. This should always be the first step in building an ecommerce website. Some potential questions to keep in mind are. – What profit margin can you expect after all operating costs? – How many products must you sell to reach these profits? – Is the profit margin worth your overall effort? – Are people going to buy your product, and if so why? As you can see, there are many questions you must answer when deciding what product you’re going to sell. The above list is only a small sample of the many questions you should be asking yourself. Take a hard look at the numbers, and be realistic. You don’t want to waste time and money selling a product that won’t sustain your business efforts. Step 2 – How are you going to sell it? The next question in learning how to design an ecommerce website is deciding how you’re going to sell your products. Yes, this is going to be done online, but how? Here are some of the questions you should be asking yourself. – Are you going to use an existing ecommerce platform, or build your own website? – If using a platform, which one should you choose? – How will you accept payments? – Are you selling one item at a time, or by wholesale? Obviously if you have web design experience, you may consider building your own ecommerce website, but what if you don’t have any? Luckily for you, there are …

By creating your own online store, it gives you the freedom of providing your customers what they want. Learning to create an online store is not as complicated as it may seem. You do not have to be a web design expert to create an attractive e-commerce platform to promote your products and services. Before you begin, you should have a general idea of the type of products you want to sell in your online store you want to build. Once you have decided on the type of online store you want, here are a few important steps to follow: Engaging Web Design An online store with an attractive web design typically gains more customers than a boring, unorganized website will. Your design should complement your brand name. If you know how to create designs or want to hire a web designer, you can create an attractive design. You can also choose from a predesigned e-commerce template that will fit your industry and products or services. The design you choose should have colorful, well-designed images with very little text to distract the customer from your design. Interesting About Us Page The “About Us” page should be informative for your site visitors, without adding information not relevant to your services or contacting you. It should tell who you are, what your vision or goal is, what products or services you offer. It should be clear to visitors how to they can contact you, place an order, and where you are located. This page is a good place to put customer reviews and attach links to your social media networks. Online Support Customers enjoy the convenience and ease of shopping at an e-commerce store on their time. When a customer runs into a problem with ordering or needs more information on a product, having online support available will ensure your customer is provided all the help they need. Multiple Payment Options When choosing a payment method gateway, ensure it accepts various payment options such as PayPal, major credit card, e-check. Your shopping cart should be easy to navigate and use. Ensure your customers have a way to save the products they want in case they need more time to decide. The most popular payment gateways include Authorize.Net, Google Checkout, PayPal. Major shipping carriers to use for your online store are USPS, UPS, and DHL. Advertise on Social Media Using your social media …

Ecommerce covers very diverse areas and fields, with one common denominator – All transactions are conducted through the internet. Both for-profit and non-profit organizations have sprung up and blossomed as result of the internet. Millions of transactions, if not billions, are conducted every day on the web, using business models and procedures undreamed of thirty years ago. What Types of Businesses Use the Internet? What business does not use the internet today? There must be a couple of them out there, but not too many. Ecommerce covers literally every type of online transaction: buying and selling of products and services, Electronic Funds Transfer between buyers, sellers, banks and credit cards, Inventory Management Systems keeping track of a manufacturer’s supply of raw materials and parts, reordering from a designated supplier when the inventory level drops too low. Online Marketing and Advertising presents some unique and challenging experiences for an old trade. These Online Retailers, or e-tailers, can list, advertise, market, sell, ship and collect money on a transaction without leaving their home, office cubicle or store. Online transactions can take place Business-to-Business (B2B), or Business-to-Consumers (B2C). Are They Strictly Online Businesses? Online businesses are either called Pure Click or Brick and Click. A Pure Click business is a company that ventures into business with no previous experience. Since their transactions are rarely face-to-face, a dynamite web site and superior customer service is extremely important to increasing the online exposure and business. The other online business is called Brick and Click because they started out as a company prior to the advent of the internet, and have expanded to include an online business. Some Brick and Clicks keep both operations running, and some close down their Brick presence and operate strictly online. How are Businesses Online Regulated? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates Ecommerce. They generally investigate the same unfair business practices that may exist in the brick and mortar world. The Federal Trade Commission monitors things like false or misleading online advertising, fraud involving credit cards, or mail fraud. They also investigate online companies’ solicitations of consumer’s personal information as to the validity of the solicitation, and the promises of security a company might make about keeping that personal information safe. The rapid creation and development of the internet has brought about immense changes in the world of ecommerce. Some personal examples I can relay to you concern a hobby of …

  We live in a connected, small world where reaching the other end of the world is just a click away. This interconnected world also means that for businesses, the world could be a marketplace. Products and services can reach the farthest corners of the world giving new opportunities for an exponential business growth. However, unlike a local store, your customers cannot swipe a card or pay cash to the cashier. So the challenge of receiving payments, giving receipts and other aspects of ecommerce make it necessary for websites to be able to generate invoices, receive payments and give receipts without human intervention. This is where ecommerce integration comes in.   What is Ecommerce Integration? Ecommerce integration is about integrating a payment gateway, shopping cart and other elements of ecommerce into a website to facilitate buying and selling of products and services online. Technically speaking, the two way communication between the visitor through the website interface that a visitor sees and the databases and back-end systems that allow online ecommerce. It is the system that lets the website know what the customer wants, what color, how much, any other specifications, shipping details, and much more. Ecommerce integration gets an entire process rolling that includes inventories, accounting and billing, customer history and relationship management, logistics, cancellations, refunds, returns, feedback and much more. Importance of Ecommerce Integration Success in ecommerce is much more than merely integrating a shopping cart and payment gateway on the website. These two would give ecommerce capability to your website. But ecommerce is also about the experience of doing business with a website. This is where back-end ecommerce integration can make a huge difference by eliminating inefficiencies and building an integrated system that ensures customer delight. For instance, how do you track a customer’s past purchase history and make recommendations? A simple thing like knowing that a customer purchases a certain brand and quantity of coffee in the first week of every month — and then suggesting it while the customer returns to the site in the first week of the month can go a long way in delighting the customer. Or suggesting a gift purchase a week before an anniversary or sending a discount gift cart just ahead of an important date can mean maximizing business in addition to building customer loyalty. These are just two examples of customer experience. Like this, there can be thousands of …

Every serious website owner has one thing in common – they all want to learn how to increase website traffic. The best thing about increasing website traffic is that there are several ways of going about it. If you want to become a pro and learn how to increase site traffic, try the following website traffic building tips: Become a Guest Blogger Becoming a guest blogger is an excellent way to help boost traffic to your website or blog. All it requires is a little research to find the best blog sites out there and reviewing their blog writing guidelines. Most blog owners will allow you to include a link directly to your website. Then it takes time to create the blog article. If you don’t enjoy writing, consider hiring a professional blog writer to create the article for you. Article Marketing When you write interesting articles and publish them on popular article directories, you can increase traffic to your website. The most popular article directory sites include: Article Dashboard, Article Base, Ezine Articles, Go Articles and many more. Create a Facebook Fan Page Creating a Facebook fan page will help increase your exposure. Consider hiring a web design company to create a custom designed page for you. This will not only improve your brand image, it will separate your page from the rest. Whenever you write a new article or a blog post, you should tweet it. This will help increase traffic to your website. You also will increase your exposure every time a person re-tweets or shares your post. Twitter Whenever you write a new article or a blog post, you should tweet it. This will help increase traffic to your website. You also will increase your exposure every time a person re-tweets or shares your post. Forum Posting Posting comments and posts on forums can help increase your traffic if it’s done the proper way. In order to increase traffic, you must be able to provide your fellow forum users with engaging topics and conversations. Make sure you are subtle about promoting your site. Most forums will allow you to post a link to your website in your profile. Some are even more generous by allowing forum guests to post a link to their website after posting a comment or a new thread. Comment on Blogs Don’t comment on just any blog. Make sure you post comments …

If you are new to the online business world, you’re probably be wondering what is online traffic? Understanding what is web traffic will help you establish a successful website. The majority of your success will stem from the amount of website traffic you receive. Think about it, if no one sees your website, then you are not going to gain sales or subscribers. If you have been asking what is website traffic? The following article will help shed some light on the subject matter. How Many People Visit My Website? Although most people compare the word ‘traffic’ to being stuck in commuter traffic, in the Internet world, the more traffic you have, the more successful your website becomes. Website traffic is actually the measurement of how many people visit your website daily. This number will vary from day to day. In order for a website to be successful, you need to have people actually visiting your website. Why is Website Traffic Important? If you ask yourself what is website traffic? Then you probably have never thought about the number of people who will actually visit your website to research and read your website content. You need to have a website so that you can bring more action to your cause or reel in more interested clients for the services that you provide. Without people coming to your website, it is pointless. There are many ways to generate this sort of traffic whether it is via a newsletter, search engine optimization or linking from one website to your own site. How Many People Should Visit My Site? The amount of people who visit your website depends on multiple factors. If you are a business owner and want to make online sales, then it is imperative that you have as much targeted website traffic as possible. Remember, you do not want just any kind of visitor. There’s no point in owning an online couture jewelry store if all of your visitors are interested in buying used car parts. You want visitors who will actually be interested in what your site has to offer. This is the only way that you can generate a sale or fulfill the overall purpose of your website. There are many techniques that can be used in order to drive the traffic up for your website. You can use PPC (Pay-Per-Click), social media marketing, link building and more. …

If you’ve found yourself asking the question, what is Joomla?, then you’re in luck: this article will detail exactly what you can expect from Joomla, including why it’s one of the best content management systems out there for website owners, developers and Fortune 500 companies alike. What is Joomla? To put it simply, Joomla is a content management system (CMS) that allows you to control and track every component of your website from an easy-to-navigate user dashboard. Joomla is incredibly popular due to its uncanny ability to be used by individuals with a range of technological prowess. Whether you consider yourself a newbie to building websites or you could build one in your sleep, Joomla can be used by anyone. Additionally, Joomla is an open source content management system, meaning it’s free to use. Given that Joomla is such an innovative CMS, it’s regarded as the go-to content management software system online today. The Benefits of Using Joomla Now that you know a little more about what Joomla is and how it works, let’s take a closer look at the incredible benefits of this free content management system: If you need multiple users for your website (and chances are, as a busy website owner, you do!), then Joomla has exactly what you’re looking for. Joomla allows you to set various permission levels for your website’s users, meaning that the structure or content of your site won’t be accidentally changed while you’re on vacation. Joomla works off an easy template format, which is visually simple and incredibly user-friendly. For example, if you want to update a webpage or create a new one altogether, simply drop your new content into the template and your website will automatically adjust itself to include this new addition. Website building and updating has never been this efficient! As previously mentioned, Joomla requires little to no technological experience to use it. Unlike older content management systems which required significant coding knowledge, you can build web pages without even knowing the difference between HTML and CSS. Finally, as Joomla is an open source content management system, you can expect that it will continually be updated with even more efficient tools and resources. Recently, Joomla has incorporated WordPress and ecommerce software options into its CM software, which makes it the perfect choice for entrepreneurs looking to build an online empire. A Powerful Content Management Option While there are some …

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is often described as an identifying resource on the Internet. The URL was created by Tim Berners Lee in 1994. Parts of a URL A URL has a scheme name, also called protocol, followed by colon, two forward slashes, a domain name or IP address and a port number. The purpose of the scheme name is to define the namespace, syntax and the purpose of the other part of the URL. A software processes the URL by its context and scheme. For instance, if you type https://xyz.com:80, the web browser will reference the URL by sending an HTTP request to the xyz.com host through port number 80. Likewise, if you type the URL mailto: admin@xyz.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , the email composing application on your PC may launch to execute the said task, with the email address admin@xyz.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it listed in the “To” field. Some other scheme names include ftp, https, gopher and ways. An https scheme ensures that the requests and responses are only made across a secure connection to the site. For schemes that require greater security, authentications in the form of username and password may be embedded. The domain or IP address used in the URL points the location where the requested web page or website exists on the internet. For instance, the domain “facebook.com” is the address of Facebook website. Domain names are not case-sensitive. It is optional to enter the port number. If you omit the port number, the default port for the scheme will be used. For http scheme, 80 is the default port number, whereas for an https scheme, the port number is 443. What is URL : Absolute VS Relative? When you have uploaded a Web document or image, you will need to think how to best link to them. Generally, there are two accepted ways of creating links: Absolute paths Relative paths Absolute URL As the name suggests, absolute URLs refer to a specific location that includes the domain name. For instance, the absolute path to a document can be: https://xyz.com/sports/football.html.The absolute path is typically used to point to elements of a web which are on a domain other than your own. On the other hand, if you refer to an element that …

Many of us have heard the term PHP but do not know what is PHP? PHP is one of the most popular and widely used scripting languages for the development of web pages. Working with PHP scripts is fairly easy if your server supports it. All you need to do is create your files with .php extensions and upload them to your web directory. The server will take these files and parse them without any extra compilation steps. PHP is used for server-side web development and hence is deployed on web servers, operating systems and platforms. PHP is a free software and also has a command line interface. It is packed with multiple features that provide enough controls if you want to move into advanced programming. How to Use PHP? The main areas where PHP is used are: Server side scripting: Most widely used, where you can run the web server with PHP support and create dynamic pages Command Line support: Run the PHP script without any browser. In this case you will only need PHP parser. Desktop applications: PHP is not very widely used for desktop applications but an advanced programmer can use it with separately available PHP programs like PHP-GTK. Features of PHP The following are the major feature sets and functionalities supported by PHP: The operating systems supported by PHP are Linux, UNIX variants, MS Windows, MAC and RISC. Most web servers support PHP like, Apache, IIS, and any server that utilizes Fast CGI PHP binary. You have the flexibility of many outputs like, HTML, images, PDF files, Flash movies, XHTML or XML files. There are many databases supported including DBA, ODBC, MySQL and many more. PHP can use variety of communication protocols like, LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, COM and many others to communicate with other services. Text processing features are very useful where PHP standardizes all XML extensions on libxml2. PHP Against Other Web Programming Languages ASP – ASP is used only on the Microsoft Information Server (IIS) Platform. This is one of its major limitations. If you are using IIS platform, ASP comes by default and might be a good starting point but you will need to buy additional components for advanced programming. ColdFusion – It is available only on Windows, Solaris, Linux, MacOS and AIX. An excellent competitor initially but the latest PHP version matches its performance on error handling, database abstraction and …

Congratulations, you’re thinking about starting a blog. You can finally join the ranks of thousands of blog owners on the web who are connecting with readers daily. Whether you’re starting a blog to promote your business, to sell ad space or to promote affiliate products, there are a few things you need to know. After you have selected a catchy blog name, domain name and hosting company, make sure you consider the following tips for blogging: Focus on your audience. Many people will start a blog without even considering the preferences of their future readers. It is important that you think about your audience before starting a blog. Many blogs fail because they don’t focus on their readers needs. If you want to find subscribers (and keep them), you have to be willing to provide content that will actually interest your readers. For example, let’s say that you want to start a fitness blog to promote your new fiber drink. If all of your content reads like a 2 for 1 sale advertisement, you will lose your readers interests. People could care less about your products. You have to be able to hook their interest with content that will provide solutions to their problems and answers to their questions. Then offer your product as a solution without sounding like an annoying sales pitch. Provide user-friendly content. Unless your blog audience consists of techies and science geeks, avoid using complicated words or technical terminology. There’s no point in using complicated words to stay-at-home moms who just want to learn how to save money on home school supplies. A blog’s written content should be easy to read and scannable. This is how you generate interest and credibility among your readers. Add quality photos. Make sure you add eye-catching photos to your blog. You can purchase quality photos from stock photo sites if you don’t have your own photos to post. Avoid using photos from free-based sites and never steal photos from your fellow web bloggers. When you use photos from other sites without getting permission, you could run the risk of getting sued. Be consistent. If you want to receive good results from blogging, you must be consistent with providing content regularly. Often times, many new bloggers are gung-ho at first and then their enthusiasm dwindles. If you’re unable to feed your readers with great content regularly, consider hiring a professional blog …

We all know the importance of good, relevant, quality content in any marketing and advertising communication. Your website and its content is key to your business. It is important to keep your content updated regularly for search engines to index more pages and display your website at the top of search results. A blog reflects what your company stands for, acts as the company voice, and is a great way to reach out to the target audience. It is also a channel that lets you communicate in an informal – and often humorous – tones to your audience. Blog posts have the potential to be shared on various platforms, thereby increasing reach. Blogs also enable comments from users around the world and serve as a great platform to interact with existing or potential customers. Businesses strive to reach their target audience with superlative, keyword-rich content and blog. However, they often overlook a vital factor that is essential to attain and more importantly, to sustain the attention of visitors: Design. In the words of Thomas J. Watson, Chairman and CEO of IBM (1914-56), “Good design is good business.”   How do you design a blog? Below are factors that can help you create a well-designed blog – or improve your existing blog. Blogging Platform: There are several blogging platforms you can choose from – Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr and the more recent Squarespace and Ghost. If you are not sure which one to finalize, you can test out their trial offers. If you’re well-versed with coding, you can even create your own blog from ground zero and make it an extension of your existing website. Template: Select a blog theme and a design layout that supports your business goal. If it resonates with your brand and your website without compromising on user experience, then you have made the right choice. A lot of ready-made (free and paid) templates are available to choose from. You can customize the templates to suit your blog purpose and need. Colors: If your company has brand guidelines, don’t veer too far away from them. Explore the primary, secondary and tertiary colors that you can incorporate and use them as standalone or in aesthetic combinations. Do not use too many colors and several bright colors in the same space. Search Box: If your latest post is not what a visitor to the blog is looking for, he/she can …

Today there are many computing and computer programming languages that are in use. Different programmers have different languages that they are fluent in. As a computer programmer, it is usually important that you make sure you understand a particular language to be able to use it adequately. One of the most widely used computer languages is HTML. HTML simply means Hyper Text Markup Language. This computer language is one of the most basic, and almost all computer and web programmers know about it. As a matter of fact, it is considered a basic requirement for anyone who wants to have a great career in computing and web design. Though you can advance to some other web languages later on like PHP and Java, you need to gain a basic insight on how to work with HTML for you to advance to greater things. The importance of HTML cannot be emphasized any further than necessary. If you are to understand something about web pages and their design, you will realize that the pages usually have a way of linking between each other and communicating with each other. The language through which the web pages communicate is called a hypertext link. Therefore, whatever computing language you use, the basics and the building blocks of these languages has to be HTML. The Importance of HTML Apart from being the starting point of all the web design languages, HTML does have a lot of other uses. First of all, it is through HTML that all the web pages within a website are linked together. Besides linking pages within a website, you are also able to create multiple links from your web page to so many other web pages on the internet, thanks to HTML. Understanding HTML is very helpful, especially if you are a web designer. Knowing HTML will open up several pathways for you to get creative with your web page. So many people today are running flash and other applications on their web pages, and the only way through which they are able to do this is by making use of some of the knowledge that they have mustered about HTML. With HTML, you are able to introduce a lot of new and interesting features to your website. This includes the use of multimedia messages and interfaces on which users can share and enjoy the functionality of your website. The other reason …

Just about anyone these days can build a website. It has become easier over the years with website building tools available online. You can choose to use a website builder such as Squarespace or Wix or use a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress or Drupal to have more creativity. This article provides steps on how to build a website in a short amount of time. Step One -Choose a Platform There are several platforms to choose from, all of which are easy to use. However, you need to ensure the one you decide works for you and your business. If you are not familiar with HTML or CSS coding, it would be wise to select a website template-based platform that you are familiar. However, the second alternative is to hire a web designer such as Flying Cow Design. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are all CMS platforms where you can be more creative with the look of your website. Step Two – Register Your Domain Name Go to ballisticdomains.com or any other domain site and search for a catchy domain name. Make sure you choose a domain with keywords relevant to your business and content. Keep your domain name short and sweet. Avoid numbers; people do not want to remember if they were supposed to spell out the number. Choose a name people will remember and one that is easy to type. Make sure your domain name will stand out from others in your industry before choosing it. Ballistic Domains offers affordable pricing for a multitude of budgets. Step Three – Select a Reliable Web Hosting Provider. Do not just choose any web hosting provider, find a reliable web hosting provider. The company you choose could make or break your business. It is important you choose a reliable hosting company that helps guarantee your customers access to your website 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. Depending on the hosting provider you choose, many providers offer domain names and hosting plans under one roof. You can choose a variety of extensions (.com, .net, .org, .us, etc.). Step Four – Choose a Template You have one of two options. You can buy a pre-designed template or hire a professional web designer to create a custom designed web template. The advantage of purchasing a pre-designed template is that you can purchase, download, and upload it directly to your website within …

A static site is usually written in plain HTML, and the content that gets created through this code is the only matter which is displayed to the user…