eCommerce and Marketing News & Tips

Duplicated content - the Myth is busted by Google

Google has been on the warpath to dispel some of the rumors that have been circulating the net about...

Add your url to the content people copy from you – great for SEO

Posted in SEO Tips August 1st, 2009 by admin - Comments (6)

The number one signal that search engines use to determine how relevant your site is, and therefore how high your site ranks, is the number and quality of links that link back to your site. Tracer automatically adds a link back to your site when content is copied and pasted. When your content is pasted onto a blog, Twitter, or another web site it has a direct impact on your search ranking.

By seeing what words and phrases users are copying from your site you can better understand how you might select your keywords, meta-tags, tags, and even AdWords.

Also, Tynt.com is an increasingly popular place for people to find interesting web sites and content and generates visits to your site when content is copied. (Read more: http://tracer.tynt.com/features-and-benefits-of-tracer#ixzz0MzVttmTd)

A Screen Shot of Tynt's Analytics dashboard

You just have to place one single of line of Javascript on your web pages, and whenever a copy action occurs, Tynt’s software tracks it, records it in your Tynt analytics and places a link back to your site in the “pasted” version, all done automatically. While some people will still remove that link manually, the automatically added link makes it easier for attributors who want to give you back links (credit links) to do so. As your content flies around the web, so will your links.

Try it to day at http://tynt.com/

(By the way, I have just installed Tynt on our blog and site as well)

Design an online store with hundreds of thousands of products

Posted in eCommerce,Web design's Tips August 1st, 2009 by admin - Comments (2)

Recently we have been working with zencart stores that have thousands of products with over a hundred categories and sub categories. We have also seen other zencart stores with more than 100000 products, pretty amazing right? The dilemma is how to present these products and categories in a user friendly way yet still allow search engines to index them well (remember: search engines don’t necessarily index all your links especially if you have too many links and if they are too “deep” in the level. (By levels, I mean something like this: site.com/level1/level2/level3/…. If you are using the default zencart you won’t have this type of link, but if you use some Zencart SEO URL such as Simple Seo Url(SSU) you do have the ability to create links with levels like that. By default SSU uses only 2 level which is really good).

You can put products in multiple levels of categories, allowing users to drill down to the exact category that contain the products they want.
Cons: too many levels will drive the users nuts and you will your your sales. Also, search engines will more than likely ignore many of your product links or update them very slowly.
You can put reduce the category levels, but then you will end up having too many top level categories or putting too many products in one category.
Cons: too confusing and inconvenient for users to easily locate their products (zencart’s search happens to be NOT the best search one can have).

Lethaldiesel – our latest zencart project with all the bells and whistles

Posted in Projects August 1st, 2009 by admin - Comments (1)

We have finally finished a whole new look for Lethaldiesel, this is the second Zencart Customization project we have done for Jonas at LethalPerformance. Be patient while we are working on the new design of our home page (if you haven’t seen it yet, you should check it out, much cleaner and more elegant design) and we will share all the cool new features and smart conversion tricks we used on this latest project. In the mean time, you can pay LethalDiesel a visit and enjoy the new “evil” look it sports!

Best wishes to Jonas and his business!

Speed up your website with CSS Sprite

Posted in Web design's Tips August 1st, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

First, let us look at reasons that may cause a website to load too slow on the users’ ends:

1. The server has to process too many things before sending back the output to the user’s browser: in this case we have to optimize the server’s process. By the way, if your Zencart is slow, have a look at our Zencart Speed Up Guide.

2. The user’s Internet connection is too slow or your page’s size is too big (over 1MB for example): we will have to reduce your total page size as much as possible, that including using less images, flashes, and minify and compress your css and javascript. You can check the above guide for some ideas.

3. The page makes too many requests: if you have 10 images on the page, 5 background image, 5 css and 5 javascript files then the browser has to make at least a total of 25 requests to the server just to load the page. This whole process will obviously slow down the users’ load speed and increase the load on your server.

Bing & Yahoo deal will change how you do online marketing

Posted in SEO News and Analysis July 30th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

A search deal struck between Microsoft and Yahoo! has been officially confirmed by both companies. As expected, Microsoft will power Yahoo Search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ advertisers.

This is a 10 year agreement
Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms
Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.

Ajax Checkout 2.0, ready to go be released any time!

Posted in Ajax Checkout July 29th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

Shorter checkout

This time we make the Zencart’s checkout process even faster by combing the shipping/billing address steps into one.

Cleaner layout

Yes, we removed many unnecessary parts on the layout to make it much more cleaner.

Easier Config

Yay, 1 step reduced. We also moved most configuration settings into admin so you can easily change the settings without having to edit the config file via FTP.

Faster

Yes, it is faster. We reduced a bunch of necessary loads to speed it up.

Bugs fixed

A bunches of minor bugs were fixed, so now the checkout process will be as smooth as it can be.

The new version will be available on Eazy-Template soon. If you have bought a previous version of this module, you will see the free upgrade package available in your account section soon.

Is your Zencart slow? Zencart optimization guide

Posted in Tips & Tricks July 29th, 2009 by admin - Comments (5)

Did you know that, unless the users really need to see the content on your site, most wait no longer than 5 seconds before moving to another site. And with the huge number of sites on the internet, they have MANY choices. To avoid losing potential customers, one of the most important things you want to make sure is that your users can experience lightning fast speed when they visit your site, and here are several tips for you:

Best Practices in Shopping Cart Design Part 2

Posted in Zencart February 7th, 2009 by admin - Be the first to comment

(You can read the first part of Best Practices in Shopping Cart Design here)

Too much candy can distract the eye

When planning the overall design or theme of your site try to keep things somewhat low key, too much eye candy will pull your visitors attention away from the actual products you are promoting. Try to avoid extensive use of flash animations, JavaScript effects, video and sound. A simple header logo along with graphics introducing special offers or discounts should be plenty for the actual store front. The only place the on-line shopping cart can be graphics heavy is within the actual product information pages, here the rule of thumb is the more pictures the better. If your store visitor spends time looking at a good selection of images for a product then they are being forced to concentrate upon it, a single picture can be viewed and dismissed in a split second. Add an image gallery for the product, with suitable image navigation and your customer is effectively locked into that product for the time they spend browsing the images.

Here is an example of an on-line store which uses a simple theme which does not cause the visitor to lose focus on the products:

simple theme which does not cause the visitor to lose focus on the products

Our latest project – Gift Card Store

Posted in Projects February 2nd, 2009 by admin - Comments (3)

Our latest project was to build a store using Zencart where customers can buy GiftCards for local stores, and they will be able to print those GiftCards and redeem at those stores.
The features we delivered:
1. A random 16 digit key automatically generated for each GC purchased.
2. The card is available for use only after the payment is made (if payment is made by check/money order then the card is not available until the check/money order is cashed in).
3. The 16 digit key will be printed on the GiftCard of the specific store, which customer can then print out for use.
4. Customers can track the GiftCards they have purchased so far, as well as the status of each card.
5. Local store owners can track the use of the GiftCard, they can also mark the cards as “redeemed” when the customer uses it.

All of this was done without modifying Zencart core code, thus allowing the store owner to easily upgrade in the future. This also demonstrate the capability and flexibility of Zencart to do things you never think it can do.

Page 10 of 11« First «...7 8 91011 »