5 steps to building a successful e-commerce Web site
Step 3
Select your e-commerce application software
If you are really serious about investing in a good, professional e-commerce integrated solution, you will need more than just software. We have had excellent results and are truly happy with a solution we have been using for some time. The solution is osCommerce - more than just e-commerce software. It is a fully integrated Web store-front solution designed for serious business people.
And osCommerce is included free with every PNA Hosting Account.
Step 4
Make your e-commerce web site "search engine friendly"
Depending on the exact structure of your e-commerce Web site or any other site for that matter, the way it was done and the techniques used to interlink the pages together can materially and adversely affect the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages).
Title tags
The majority of the search engines heavily weigh the title tags in their ranking algorithms of the sites they index. Don't waste the power of the tag with something like "Our company home page". Try to incorporate your top keywords into your title tags. It will make a very positive improvement in the overall ranking of your e-commerce web site.
Description tags
Almost all search engines don't use description tags to rank web sites anymore. However, many search engines do use them for the write up they post. Incorporating as many keywords into your description tags as possible now has no effect on your ranking and usually results in very poor copy. Think of description tag content in terms of marketing copy. In short, be sure your description tags are written for people to read and something that will invite them in visiting your site as opposed to the sites that are competing for the same business.
Meta tags below your Java Script code
Search engines often have problems reading meta tags placed after JavaScript on web pages. If your web site uses JavaScript, be sure to locate all of your meta tags above the JavaScript code.
Site maps
Include a site map with text links on your site and submit it to the search engines. This will help the search engines locate pages within your web site.
Sites built with frames
Search engines just don't like frames. They can't read them either. There are ways around the problem if you must use them, but our advice is to avoid using them if at all possible.
Dynamic content
Search engines cannot index dynamically generated pages and they were not designed for that either. This can present some very serious problems trying to promote an e-commerce site using shopping carts, products catalogs and dynamically generated pages on most of the site. If your e-commerce site does deliver dynamically generated pages, try to implement dynamic pages after the home page. Also, Google is the only search engine that will index some dynamic content, so be sure to submit to Google.
Sites deeper than three levels
Search engines typically only index the top three levels of any site. Sites built like this:
www.yourweb.com/dir_1/dir_2/dir_3/dir_4/dir_5... etc. (6 levels deep) usually only get half of their pages indexed. Build as flat as possible, something like this:
Advertise, promote and market your e-commerce site
Step five is a bit rudimentary, but necessary too. Here, the old methods usually work as well as the new ones. You might try advertising your site locally, in your city using newspapers or flyers. We have a few clients that tried banner advertising, with mixed results. Banner advertising worked better in the younger days of the Internet. Today, most people look to Google or other major search engines for their buying or shopping. You could try banner advertising on a few selected web sites where you really think your audience could be.
If you have the budget, other e-commerce advertising medias could be radio or tv adds on selected "prime-time" programs. Just make certain that's really the target audience you need for the products and services you offer. One thing we strongly recommend in the regular practice of a good reciprocal link exchange program (RLEP). A RLEP is, as it's name implies, a practice where people and companies in the same industry exchange reciprocal links to increase their page ranks in Google.
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