Ecommerce Website: Most Important Tasks to Do

Ecommerce website development is something most businesses look for these days. Ecommerce solutions give them the opportunity target customers beyond their geographical proximity and sell products directly to the end user without having to pay anything to the intermediaries such as distributors and retailers. To make the most out of your ecommerce development you need to adopt the right strategies to stay ahead in the race. Here are a few important things that you should do once you launch your online store. 

1. Create XML Sitemap and Robots.txt – It is very important to attract search engine crawlers to your website and XML sitemap does it for you. You can upload your sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. Apart from this you should also set up a robots.txt file to prevent search engines from indexing unwanted pages such as privacy policy, FAQ etc. on the results pages.

2. Set Up Google Analytics – If you know who visits your online store, from where, using what keywords and what are the most popular pages in your website this data can enhance your marketing campaign. Google Analytics is a free analytic tool which gives you valuable stats on your website. You can also set up goals and try and achieve this within and set time frame.

3. Use 301 Redirects – It is quite common for you to have multiple URLs for the same page such as http://www.mystore.com, www.mystore.com or http://www.mystore.com/index.htm. Now you should consolidate all this traffic into a single page and this can be achieved using a 301 redirect. This small tweak can help you rank considerably higher on the search engines.

4. Set Up Product Feeds – Feeds can be difficult to setup but is a worthwhile effort as this can drive in tons of traffic to your ecommerce store and add to your sales and revenue. You can create feeds and submit it to sources such as Google, MSN Shopping, Price.com etc. and this will boost the SEO score of your website.

5. Cash In On Social Media – Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are awesome marketing platforms and allow you to market your online store virally. You should set up a well-designed Facebook Page and create a Twitter account for your store and post regular updates on them. Apart from this other social media networks which you should target include YouTube, Flickr, MySpace and Scribd among others.

6. Create A Blog – You are aware of the fact that fresh and unique content helps your website stay on top of the search engines. You may not be adding new products to your store regularly. In such a case a blog gives you the perfect platform to keep your website updated. You can write product reviews, talk about the launch of new products etc. Blog also gives you a perfect opportunity to connect with your customers.

7. Customize Product Listings – It is a common practice to copy and paste the products description sent out by the manufacturers. But when dozens of other stores do the same it doesn’t add value on the search engines. Thus it is advisable that you write unique content for all products listed in your website and if you can’t manage for all do this at least for the bestselling products.

8. Localize – If the online store is merely meant to support your brick and mortar store you should localize your online store to figure in the local search results. You can do this easily using Google Places, Yelp, Yellowpages, CitySearch, Bing Local and Yahoo Local etc. This will give you the edge for highly targeted and localized searches.

More About Ecommerce:
What Features an Ecommerce Website Should Have? 
Is Open Source Ecommerce the Right Choice for Online Store Development?

Read More

Steps to Make Your Ecommerce Shopping Cart more Secure

Ours is the age of technology and is dominated by the trend of online shopping. People across the world prefer to buy online. It not only saves time but also spares you the effort of going out and doing all the shopping. Moreover, almost everything is available online. You name it and you have it. Business organizations have realized the importance of ecommerce website development and the benefits offered by it. It t only improves a business' chances of gaining more potential customers but also helps in expanding the business. This is why a majority of businesses opt for ecommerce development.

It is a fact well known that when it comes to online shopping, people do not easily trust a website. They prefer to buy from credible, reliable and secure websites. If a website is not secure, it will be abandoned by visitors. And more often than not, the major reason behind shopping cart abandonment is the lack of security. Therefore, good security is a must for every ecommerce shopping cart. If an ecommerce store does not provide good security, it will not be trusted by visitors and consequently the business will suffer. Read further to find out how to make your ecommerce solution more secure.

Get the SSL certificate. When it comes to ensuring the credibility and consistency of an online store, an SSL security certificate is all you need. SSL stands for secures socket layer certificate.  SSL ensures secure communication and transmission of the customers personal information including credit card data back to the server or payment processing gateway. By employing an SSL certificate in your website, you can improve your web presence and can also enhance your conversion rate. An SSL certificate helps in conveying the message of safety to potential visitors; ultimately it will affect your conversion rate globally.

When you employ an SSL certificate it creates a secure connection of HTTPs. It also creates an icon of a padlock within the address bar. All the sensitive information provided by your visitors is kept protected through SSL certificates. You can get one from any one of the major brands like GeoTrust, VeriSign etc. To offer best security, you can opt for the strongest SSL security encryption levels which are 128 bit encryption and 256 bit encryption. However, the 256 bit encryption are highly recommended for the protection of online stores. With a strong SSL certificate, you can rest assured that all the sensitive information provided by your customers will be kept safe.

Another important thing you can do is to inform your customers. A business should be able to explain to its customers that their website is completely safe and secure. While it is important to maintain the security of the site, it is also equally important to have a clear and well planned security policy that a potential customer can read. It not only satisfies the visitors but also boosts their trust in your site. When a visitor lands on your site, the security policy helps in assuring him that the personal information provided by them will be kept safe. In absence of it, the chances are high that the visitors will abandon your site.

From the above discussion it is evident that security is very important for ecommerce solutions. Without offering quality security, an ecommerce website can not do well. If you follow the above mentioned points, you can make your shopping cart highly safe and secure and can expect a huge volume of traffic on your site. It will augur well for your business and it will fare well than the competitors. It will also help a lot in enhancing your business' reputation among visitors.

Read More