Archive for 2006

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Sep 10
2006

At Feras Alhlou‘s Ambassador Training Workshop in Auckland, New Zealand, the attending Internet Consultants (ICs) asked for a tips on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Below is a list of factors that ICs can use evaluate and implement their SEO programs. This quick post is by no means comprehensive and doesn’t provide implementation details. This post is intended to provide a quick checklist for the IC to review and use when assessing SEO implementations.

SEO implementation checklist:

  • Understand products & services being offered
  • Research the competition
    • What are other websites doing to achieve high ranking?
    • What useful products & services do they offer?
    • What useful content or ideas could be borrowed?
  • Useful questions to ask clients before implementing any SEO:
    • Has any other SEO been done on this website? If yes, what was done?
    • Who designed the website? What software did they use?
    • Has anyone done any amount of link building for this site?
    • Has the content on the website been run through a spelling and grammar check?
    • Have you ever run into problems with the search engines before?
    • Will someone be able to provide new content about specific keyword phrases or themes?
  • Onsite factors
    • Meta tags
    • Title tags
    • Keywords appropriateness or competitiveness
    • Keyword density
    • Unique/relevant content
    • Grammar/spelling
    • Unethical techniques (e.g. hidden text)
    • HTML/CSS correctness
    • Robots.txt file considerations
    • Sitemap available from any and every page
    • Geographical information
    • Site structure
    • Dynamic pages?
    • Navigation/link system
      • Navigation system so you can get to any page from any page
      • Keywords in your navigation system
      • Keywords in natural content links pointing to other onsite pages
  • Offsite factors

For more information on Search Engine Optimization services, feel free to contact us at E-Nor.

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Aug 31
2006

For tips on presenting and selling PPC/Adwords, Google has a set of very good Powerpoint Presentations. You can access these presentations and other useful information by signing up for Google Advertising Professional Program (at no charge).

Meanwhile, contact us if you have any questions or need help in selling or managing your client’s PPC accounts. Feras as well as Gazlan (our Senior PPC Consultant) are both Qualified Google Advertising Individuals, (Feras is also a Yahoo Ambassador), and both are a good resource to tap into for optimizing PPC accounts of any size.

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Aug 31
2006

Site migration doesn’t have to be difficult. If you can take care of a few small tasks along the way, you can make life for the search engines and your users much easier, as well as transferring value from the old site to the new one.

  • You will want to have redirect pages with links to the same content on the new site that people can click on and search engines can follow
  • Create an attractive error page that will keep visitors from leaving when, not if, they run into pages that no longer exist
  • Have a robots.txt file in the root of the website that will allow search engines to crawl freely
  • Build all your links to point to either the www version of the site or the non-www version of the site, not both!

For more information on website migration and search engine optimization, feel free to contact E-Nor.

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Jul 19
2006

Client Background/General Information

1. e-Commerce Knowledge
Implemented an eCommerce solution previously?
–> If yes,
- The name of the solution?
- Was the solution implemented in house or with a web development company?
- Was the solution maintained (e.g. products uploaded) in house or through a web development company?
–> If no, level of familiarity with eCommerce?
- Very familiar
- Somewhat familiar
- Not familiar

2. Is the client replacing an existing eCommerce solution?
- Why?
- What features not working?

3. Client infrastructure
- Where products are produced, packaged & shipped?
- Describe existing non-eCommerce, sales and fulfillment cycles

4. Design Preferences
- Template Design (inexpensive, quick-turnaround, non-unique look & feel)
- Custom Design (expensive, 4+ weeks at least, unique look & feel)

5. Timeline
- Fastest way to deployment:
- Out-of-the-box solution (no custom development whatsoever)
- Template Design
- Client readiness (content, images, infrastructure, payment gateway, etc.)

Identify all aspects of eCommerce
A. Products
- How many products?
- How many categories?
- How many sub-categories?
- Do products come in various styles (e.g. difference colors, different sizes)
- Do you have all product description, images, pricing available?
- If yes, what format (e.g. hard copy, excel spreadsheet, etc.)
- If no, is all the information accessible form a third party?

B. Product updates
- How often do you update your product info (description, pricing, images, etc.)?
- How is product information gathered (manual, catalog, etc.)?

C. Shipping
- Do you have a preference for a shipping carrier, Fedex, UPS, USPS, Royal Mail or others?
- How do you intend on charging for shipping
- How do you intend on processing shipping, using a carriers integrated tool (e.g. UPS WorldShip)

D. Taxes
- Do you have any specific taxes requirements

E. Payment Processing/Online payment gateway
a. Do you have an existing online payment gateway?
i. If yes, please list
ii. If no, do you have a preference which gateway to use (authorize.net, VeriSign, WorldPay, HSBC, etc.)

F. Languages
- The solution default language is XYZ. Do you require your eCommerce solution to support more than one language, if so, please list.

G. Customer types
- Retail?
- Wholesales?
- Others (e.g. members)?

H. Pricing
- What is your pricing model?
- Volume Pricing?
- Do you offer different pricing for each customer type?

I. Inventory
- Inventory Management System?
- Do you intend on integrating the eCommerce solution with your Inventory Management system?

J. Accounting
- Accounting System?
- Do you intend on integrating the eCommerce solution with your accounting system?

K. Ordering
- Do you require the capability of ordering from the system admin interface?

L. Order fulfillment
- Do you manage and ship products in-house or through a third party?
- If you use a third party, do you require an automated integration with the third party?

M. Reports
- In addition to customer and products reports, are there any additional reports required?

N. Feature set
- Favorite Products
- Related Products
- Feature Products
- New Products
- Wish list
- Gift Certificate
- Gift Wrapping
- Multi-currency
- Login/account information/previous orders
- Search
- Others?

O. Other features – Do you plan on having:
- Auction
- Gift Registry
- Download on Demand
- System Admin ordering interface
- Others?

P. How do you plan on marketing the business?
- Do you intend on implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on your site? (to allow for SEO friendly pages and other SEO considerations)
- Other Internet Marketing programs such as Pay-Per-Click, e-mail marketing, banners?
- How do you currently market the business offline? Have you considered Integrated Marketing Solutions to maximize your ROI?

Q. Post Project Considerations
- Web Hosting requirements: look for reliable eCommerce, secure hosting
- On-going eCommerce solution updates and website maintenance

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Jun 30
2006

Your web design team used every ounce of creativity and design savvy to come up with a professional and stylish website based on the latest XHTML and CSS standards. Your marketing specialist spent many hours doing intense research and setting up an elaborate Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaign. Your webmaster juggled countless keywords and Title tags to come up with a solid search engine optimization (SEO) plan. Even your domain name is catchy! You’ve done everything possible to attract people to your website and keep them there, right? Wrong!

Making a website is only the beginning. Surely there is some point in having a website. Maybe it’s to promote brand awareness, selling your products online, or providing technical support & information for existing customers. How do you know if people are navigating your website in an efficient manner, finding information or products they are looking for, or moving towards your business objectives?

Enter web analytics. The first thing you notice when you look at a web analytics report is the large amount of useful data. Imagine knowing how many unique visitors come to your website everyday, how often visitors come back to your website again, or the exact city that visitors are coming from. The wealth of information doesn’t end there. You would be able to see which marketing campaigns have the best conversion rates. You would also know specific details such as which position is giving the best click through rate and conversion rate for your PPC campaigns. You can define a business goal and a series of steps (a funnel) on your website leading up to that goal; you would be able to visually see where people are joining that funnel and where they are leaving. The information available about visitors through analytics is nearly endless: you would be able to know what web browsers visitors are using, their operating systems, and even the connection speed!

But there is more to web analytics than raw information. Back to our point, surely there is some reason in having a website. Once you are able to define business objectives on your website, you can analyze how visitors interact with your website. Whether it becomes obvious through reports what you need to improve on your website or you discover what works best through A/B testing, once you make those changes you once again observe how visitors are interacting with your website. This is the true power of web analytics – to better your business by improving your website in a methodical way. Instead of trying to guess what is wrong with your landing page or why conversion rates are so low, you can work with accurate data, do your own analysis, and come up with smart recommendations.

Web analytics is for anyone that has any kind of a website. Whether it is eCommerce, lead generation, brand awareness, or informational, web analytics will make your website better and drive business success. Contact E-Nor today for more information on what web analytics can do for your business!

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