Know What to Look for in a Shopping Cart

The shopping cart you choose is a decision that can either make or break your online business.  In many instances, the difference between a successful e-commerce store and a failure is not the actual products or services, but how the products and services are sold.  To keep you from falling on the unfavorable side of things, we have provided some important features to look for in your shopping cart application.

SEO-Friendly

As an online business owner, SEO (search engine optimization) should be one of your top priorities.  While most site owners have a part in creating intriguing content, they often have less impact on the design and search engine indexing.  If this sounds like your situation, then choosing an SEO-friendly shopping cart is essential.  Signs of a good cart with these qualities is one that automatically produces keyword-rich URLs relative to your site or items.

Coupon Support

It doesn’t matter what you sell, it is almost guaranteed that your customers are looking for a deal.  The best way to attract this type of audience is with coupons.  Numerous reports show that customers are increasingly on the hunt for online coupons, so a shopping cart that supports coupon codes will likely do you some good.  Without this feature, you are doing nothing but limiting your potential.

Cross-Selling Functionality

Cross-selling is the concept of selling customers additional related products to increase your total per-checkout revenue.  A perfect example would be recommending accessories to go along with the PC hardware you sell.  The shopping cart you choose should offer cross-selling functionality as an either a semi or fully automated process.  The best e-commerce platforms have systems that associate products and dynamically place related items on the corresponding product and checkout pages.

Customer Reviews

Genuine customer reviews make a great way to encourage more sales.  These reviews are like having a peer recommend your store to potential customers.  Think of it as a way of allowing your customers to market for you.  A shopping cart equipped with this feature should either support a review system from within, or allow you to connect to a third-party tool such as PowerReviews or similar.

Sharing and Recommendations

Any potential customer visiting your website should have the ability to share product details via email or in other ways.  Let’s say a teen is interested in one of your products and wants to let their mom or dad know they really want this particular item as a birthday gift.  To make this a seamless process, your store should provide the teen with any easy way to send notification to their parents without having to cut and paste the details.  A good shopping cart application will include a sharing feature, typically as a part of wish list system that calls for the customer to complete some type of registration in order to use it.

Today’s e-commerce shopping carts are loaded with features and these are just a few of many that we believe are absolute deal breakers.  The good thing is that with hundreds of applications to choose from, you have the luxury to be very selective.

How to Install osCommerce and Activate SSL Through cPanel

osCommerce is one of the most widely used e-commerce shopping cart programs available on the market today.  It is also an application that can be easily installed via Fantastico in your cPanel control panel.  To help you in maximizing the benefits of this software, we  will not only walk you through the steps of installing osCommerce, but also show you how to configure it to use with your dedicated or shared SSL certificate to ensure that your website transactions are secure.

osCommerce Installation

- Login into your cPanel account and click on the Fantastico icon at the bottom of the main page.

- Navigate to the “E-commerce” section and click on the “osCommerce” link.

- Next, click on the “New Installation” link.

- Now you must go through a multi-step process in order to define the installation location:

Step 1: Choose your domain from the provided drop-down menu.

Step 2: Enter the name of the directory where you want osCommerce to be installed.

Keep in mind that the “install in directory” field is the one part where several users make critical mistakes.  Enter a single phrase of the new folder that will be created for the osCommerce application.  If you try to add dashes, the installation will fail every time.

Step 3: Return back and double check the information you entered in the above field.  If you want your customers to access your store when visiting “http://yoursite.com,“ you would then leave the “Install in Directory” field blank.  On the other hand, if you already have an existing website, you want to enter a given directory name in that field.  For example, if you decide to use “store” as the name of the directory, customers would access your osCommerce store by visiting “http://yoursite.com/store”.

- After entering the required information for the installation destination, enter a user name and password for your osCommerce administrative area.

- Next, enter the name of your store, an owner name, and valid email address.

Activate SSL

Once you have the installation destination squared away, the proceeding steps are self explanatory.  The SSL process deserves a little more detailed explanation.

- Set the “Use SSL” option to”Yes”

- Enter the hostname for your secure server.

If you have a dedicated IP address and SSL certificate for your website, simply enter your domain name in the next field.  If not, just use the server name entered above.

- Choose the information you want to require from your customers.  You will see that these options are pretty straightforward and can be either set to “Yes or “No.”

- After entering the information, click on the “Install osCommerce” tab.

- Lastly, on the next page click “Finish installation”.

You have now successfully installed the osCommerce shopping cart program equipped with an SSL certificate for security.  Now all you have to do is the click the provided link or type the appropriate URL into your browser to log in and set up your online store.

What Do You Get with a Cheap Domain Name?

A domain name is very critical to your online identity.  Though extremely valuable, registering one is actually quite affordable these days.  Be that as it may, one must remain aware of all the tricks of the trade in order to ensure a quality purchase.  There are many registrars on the market that are in the business of selling cheap domain names.  In fact, if you search long enough, you can easily find offerings for as low as $1.99 or $2.99.  Prices like these are hard to pass up, but there has to be a catch, right?  You got it.  It is important for you to realize that while they serve the same general purpose, not all domain registrations are created equal.  What we mean by this is that different registrars will include or omit different services with your registration.

Standard Features

A quality domain name with a .com extension will cost your around $10 a year.  At the very least, this service should include the following features:

- Free domain forwarding

- Free personalized email address and alias forwarding

- Free domain parking

- Free domain registration privacy

- Full DNS Access

When you purchase a cheap domain name, more than likely, you will be missing out on many of the above features.  This might not be a tremendous deal depending on your specific needs, but if you really want to make the most out of your domain name and web presence, it is definitely better to have them.

Common Tricks

To help ensure that you get the best deal possible, we have listed some of the most common tricks registrars employ when offering cheap domain names.  You may be surprised at how many of the big name companies are involved in the trickery.

Bait and Switch – GoDaddy is well known for its $2.99 special on domain names.  However, most of the time, this deal only applies to .info TLDs, which could be a rather undesirable extension for someone trying to do business online.  Chances are, you are after a .com domain which will cost you about $9.99 per year.

Limited Time Discount - Yahoo is another well known registrar with tricks up its sleeves.  The company recently had a sale for .com domain names at the amazingly low price of $1.99.  The major catch is that the price was only good for the first year and only available to new customers.  Once that year exceeds, the cost goes back up to the regular price of $9.95 per year.

Must-buy Add-ons - When purchasing service from some registrars, that price of $1.99 is only good if you also purchase additional products the company offers.  In most cases, this is a web hosting package.  If you truly need a web hosting service, then look for a provider that will sell you a good plan and provide the domain name absolutely free.

Although the tricks mentioned in this article aren’t necessarily scams, they are very confusing and could spell trouble for the newcomer.  Therefore, you want to conduct solid research because unlike most things you buy, there is no refund on a domain name registration.

Options for Your Reseller Software

There is much to consider when choosing a control panel, but one of the most important of all is its user-friendliness.  This is especially true for a reseller as your hosting customers will likely range from newcomers to more advanced users.  An ideal solution would be finding a control panel that bridges that gap between both types of users.  It is understandable that everyone would prefer a control panel which is simple to navigate as it makes it much easier to find the tools and services they need to access.  The control panel market is expanding rapidly, but we have listed some of the best options for your reselling hosting endeavors.

HostFlow

Though a relative newcomer, the HostFlow control panel is quickly shaking up the web hosting control panel market and serving as worthy competition to the industry leading players.  As of now, HostFlow is the only control panel that allows hosts to sell web hosting plans, bulk web services and dedicated servers through both direct and indirect sales channels.  A complete hosting automation system, it supports a number of modules that facilitate server, customer, order and billing management, allowing users to get the most of their reseller business.  If you are a seeking a product with the ability to automate virtually every aspect of the hosting delivery process, HostFlow could the solution for you.

Ensim

The Ensim software makes another great choice for a control panel.  It offers a wide variety of features as well four levels of administration, reseller option included.  Ensim makes it easy to create hosting accounts, manage your clients, monitor bandwidth and much more.  All of your administrative tasks can be handled in far less time as everything goes through a streamlined, centralized interface.  Ensim is known as a very flexible solution that supports both Linux and Windows platforms.

H-Sphere

H-Sphere also runs on both Linux and Windows servers.  This is perhaps one of the most advanced and complex of all web hosting control panels on the market.  The major plus as that the software gives you a lot of power as the features are virtually unlimited.  This software is ideal for experienced users as it streamlines the reselling process with extensive billing options and total automation.  If you want a reseller hosting control panel that does it all, H-Sphere is definitely worth a closer look.

Zervex DSM

While it is not as well known as the other options, Zervex DSM is one control panel that demands attention.  The software has a clean, easy navigable interface that benefits both server administrators and webmasters alike.  Zervex allows you to administer multiple websites or a multitude of servers through a powerful web-based interface.  The software has three levels: Server Administrator, Reseller and End User.  Each interface is identical from a graphical aspect, providing easy to use tools at ever level.  Equipped with the built-in Plug-ins manager, your customers will enjoy the ability to install well over 30 open-source software applications with the click of a button.  Zervex DMS makes a solid choice if you want to give back to your loyal clients.

Park Your Domain or Build a Site – That is the Question

There are numerous ways to make money with a domain name.  Two of the most common methods involve developing a website for business purposes, or parking it for profit.  Which method should you choose?  This article will help you decide.

The Allure Behind Domain Parking

Many ambitious registrants elect to monetize their domain names by parking them on popular sites like GoDaddy and Sedo.  Others build websites that are strictly designed to generate revenue from programs such as Google AdSense.  These type of sites hold little value other than trying to get visitors to click on the AdSense ads.  Why do this instead of developing a real website or blog to go with the domain?  Even though these individuals have all the intentions of turning around and selling the names, most realize that this process usually takes a considerable amount of time.  In fact, it could actually take years for you to sell a single domain.  By parking them, owners can quickly recover their registration costs and also get a shot at steady revenues until that dream sale comes along.

When it Backfires

There is definitely potential in domain name parking, but there also many drawbacks to this method.  Instead of waiting for a big sale that may or may not come, they could be investing their time and effort into developing and marketing that domain through a website.  Of course this takes hard work but as they say, hard work pays off.

More often than not, domain name parkers end up waiting longer they would like, just hoping they miraculously fall into a thousand dollar sale with very little effort.  The ones who thought they were clever by registering multiple domain names with the hopes of parking for profit are usually the most disappointed when things don’t go as planned.

What most domain parkers don’t realize is that a domain’s true value lies in the popularity it builds and the traffic it generates.  The hard truth is that a domain typically does not increase any more in value than when you registered it, regardless of your status within a particular market.  A popular website doesn’t necessarily translate into a million dollar domain name.  This is especially the case when the name is simply sitting there boasting Google ads. Thus, if you are just parking it to get a few clicks for some measly ads, then your domain is only worth a couple of pennies over the price of registration.  This is something you need to take into consideration before you buy into all the prosperous stories about domain name parking.

Your Best Bet

If you can come up with a business plan that includes your domain name, you will have a much better chance of adding to its value.  This means you are generating traffic and bringing in visitors who actually subscribe for a newsletter, join your membership site or buy products or services.  If you really want to sell your domain name for big money, this is the best way to show that it has real business potential.  Even if you have no plans of selling the name at all, you are more likely to profit by putting it to use than letting it sit collecting dust in an overcrowded corner of the net.

Introducing the nopCommerce Shopping Cart

Though you will not find it on too many store shelves, open-source software is a major hit in the internet world and the web hosting market is solid proof.  These applications are highly capable of powering websites and all the complex operations that come along with them.  Some of the most widely used open-source software programs are e-commerce shopping carts as they allow just about anyone to open up their own web-based store.  There are several carts on the market but few of them are as unique as nopCommerce.

What is nopCommerce?

nopCommerce is a stable, fully customizable, highly usable e-commerce system.  What makes this open-source application stand out from all the rest is the underlying technologies.  Unlike most similar carts scripted in open-source languages such as PHP or Perl, this one is written in Microsoft’s proprietary ASP.NET 3.5 and thrives off a MS SQL back-end database.  This gives nopCommerce the best of both worlds has it is extremely powerful and very cost effective.  In fact, the shopping cart is totally free to use.

nopCommerce Features and Capabilities

The nopCommerce software is easy to use and perfectly suited for online shop owners who have outgrown their existing systems.  How easy to use is it?  nopCommerce can be installed, setup and maintained by virtually anyone possessing the basic computing and website administration skills.  A secure and scalable e-commerce platform, it offers a user-friendly interface and administration tools that allow you to effectively manage your online storefront and customers.  You have control over features such as discounts, coupons, wish lists, tax options, shipping methods and much more.  nonCommerce is capable of handling multiple languages and supports most of the popular gateways including Authorize.net, 2Checkout, Google Checkout and PayPal among others.

nopCommerce provides a catalog frontend and allows complete administration on the back-end, delivering everything you need to quickly set up a fully functioning professional storefront.

This e-commerce solution comes integrated with a variety of great features that are easy to use for the new and inexperienced user, yet powerful enough to suite the needs of seasoned merchants with the most demanding operations.  Offering a built-in shopping cart, easy catalog management, shipping calculation, credit card processing, template customization and a wealth of other powerful tools, there isn’t much you can’t do with this amazing e-commerce system.  The nopCommerce package comes with access to a well organized base of resources, technical support and valuable information provided by a fast growing community.

A Solid Choice for Open-source

The fact that you will not find too many open-source programs boasting the ASP.NET tag makes nopCommerce something truly special.  This flexible e-commerce system is growing rapidly in popularity, making it easier to land a web hosting provides that offers support for the application.  Because the software is relatively new, it remains to be seen whether or not nopCommerce can hold a candle to well known open-source shopping carts such as osCommerce, Agora and Cube Cart.  However, the software has generated a lot of buzz in a very short time and as of now, industry reviews are indicating that this e-commerce platform is all good.

4 Critical Factors to Consider Before Choosing a Cheap Host

Even though cheap hosting has become more prevalent in recent times, there are many factors you need to consider before signing up for service.  Because you never know what is behind that unbelievably low price, here are four critical factors you should keep in mind:

Downtime

A web host could provide you with all the tools needed to create a professional, feature-rich website that garners the attention of your audience.  However, if your site is constantly unavailable, its beauty will not mean a thing to the users who cannot access it.  Realizing that excessive downtime is one of the easiest ways to kills your online popularity, it is critical to find a cheap host that is more committed to reliability than a low price.

Limited Bandwidth

Before entering any type of hosting arrangement, it is vital that you consider the monthly bandwidth allocated to your account.  It is a known fact that bandwidth is a key component needed to support website traffic and plays a huge role in its success.  If your site has a large number of visitors, it will obviously require more bandwidth.  The challenging part of it all is that you may experience traffic spikes when least expected and be left with a sudden shortage of resources.  This is definitely a situation you don’t want to find yourself in as it could once again lead to dreaded periods of downtime.  If traffic is of any importance, make sure your cheap hosting plan comes included with enough bandwidth to support your current and future traffic requirements.

Technical Expertise

The technical expertise of the hosting provider is one area that doesn’t get enough attention.  This doesn’t necessarily refer to the company’s infrastructure or hardware, but the people behind all the technology.  Web hosting providers must be technically inclined for the simple fact that many of their customers are not.  This expertise will be needed to provide you with support and encounter all the technical issues that might arise.  You may not know a thing about servers but there is no excuse for your web host, cheap service or not.

Level of Support

One of the biggest drawbacks of cheap hosting services has been the lack of support.  It seems as if some companies are cutting cost in various areas to provide affordable service and the critical department of support is often the one to suffer.  Support is very important and should come at no additional cost.  Even if you are only paying a couple of dollars per month, ensure that your plan comes with world-class support that makes you feel like a million dollar customer.

At the end of the day, it is not impossible to find a company that provides a cheap service yet works hard to keep up the reliability.  However, it may take you a little extra time so exercise a bit of patience and make your selection wisely.  After doing your research, it should be much easier to find a premium service that comes at a bargain price.

Choosing a Keyword-rich Domain for Your PPC Campaign

A domain name can provide a plethora of benefits.  First, it gives your potential audience a glimpse of what your site is about and in theory, makes it easier for them to find you online.  It can really be advantageous from an SEO aspect for someone who is trying to leverage traffic from the search engines.  When it comes to a Pay Per Click marketing campaign, the importance of a keyword-rich domain becomes clearer with each day.

Why is it so Important?

Marketing products and services through Pay Per Click campaigns has proven to be effective but these days, almost everyone is doing it.  Because of this, it is important to implement any method you can to lower your cost per click.  One if the best ways to lower your cost per click and increase your click through rate is to enhance your visibility on elite search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.  All throughout the web, successful PPC advocates are raving about the importance of registering a keyword-rich domain name to improve marketing efforts.

A keyword-rich domain name can be a very effective weapon in your SEO arsenal when it focuses on the three critical areas of a PPC campaign: the headline, the ad text and the clickable URL.  Keeping this in mind, here are some factors to consider when choosing a domain name to aid in your Pay Per Click marketing scheme:

.com TLDs are the Best

Whether it is for a PPC campaign or other endeavors, you want to register your domain with a .com extension if at all possible.  It just tends to resonate better with internet users and also makes you look a bit more established.  On the other hand, extensions such as .net and .biz have been doing well as of late with PPC campaigns so these would definitely be your best alternatives.  In the end, choosing a good domain name with relevant keywords is more important than the extension you decide on.

Get Innovative With Your Name

With keyword-rich domains becoming more scarce, you might need to get a little more creative when registering a name.  Something as simple as adding a hyphen in between your keywords could get you that much closer to your ideal domain name.  Although some don’t recommend it, this proves to have little to no negative impact on a PPC campaign.

Capitalize Your PPC Keywords

After settling on a good domain name, you need to optimize your ads in a manner that makes them more attractive in the eyes of the search engines.  When it comes to PPC campaigns, MyProduct.com can be far more effective than myproduct.com.  Check the statistics and you will likely see that you get more clicks by doing this.  Though it seems quite simple, the difference can end up being more than a 300% difference in your click throughs.  In the end, it can raise your PPC quality score and lower your cost per click as well.

Registering a keyword-rich domain is only practical for a Pay Per Click campaign.  When coupling the tricks in this article with a few others, you should notice results in a very short time.  In the highly competitive world of online marketing, one must take advantage of all they possible can.

Getting Comfortable with the Yahoo Control Panel

Webmasters throughout the world will probably agree that website administration tools have come a long way over the last few years.  The software these days has been injected with more features and functionality than many ever imagined was possible.  One of the most powerful management tools on the market today is a type of software program known as the control panel.  This application provides you with an easy way to maintain a complex web server and all the essential features of your hosting account.

Different web hosting providers tend to utilize and offer different control panel applications.  For example, some use the industry leading Linux-based cPanel, while others prefer Plesk because of its ability to support both Windows and Linux platforms.  You also have hosting providers that offer their own custom or proprietary control panel software.  One such company happens to be one of the largest and most well know entities in the internet world.  This article will introduce you to the Yahoo control panel, very underrated yet highly effective and easy to use.

Tools and Features

In order to access the control panel, you must first sign in with the username and password designated for your Yahoo web hosting account.  After entering the required information, click “OK” to log in.  Once inside, you will see that you have a variety of options to work with.  Below are some of the options you will find:

Home - The Home tab lets you view your daily website traffic in the form of detailed reports.

Email – The email tab allows you to create additional email addresses that will be associated with your website and domain.  Simply click on “Add an Email Address” and enter the required information in the short fields.

Create and Update – The Create and Update tab allows you to incorporate a number of add-on programs and utilities such as the WordPress blogging platform, and intuitive file management tools.  It also offers a variety of helpful support resources for beginners.

Manage – The Manage tab lets you add or remove files from the web server and password protect specific domains, sub-domains and web pages.  It also allows you to generate online snapshot backups of your website data.

Promote – The Promote tab is a powerful SEO tool that allows you to submit your URL to all the major search engines in one easy click.  Underneath this tab you can also send news about the launch of your website via email and create a Yahoo local listing for your site or business as well.

Help – The Help tab offers a comprehensive menu that can be used to assist you with all the functions of the control panel.  This is where you want to go if you get lost creating emails or maintaining your domains.

Index – The Index tab gives you an alphabetized index of the features and options that come included with the hosting control panel.

While the Yahoo control panel in not the most sophisticated piece of software, it does provide all the tools you need to create and maintain your hosting account.  Hundreds of thousands of personal and business customers agree that it delivers more than enough functionality for their needs.

How to Select the Approprite Load Balancing Technology

Load balancing is a hot topic in the web hosting industry as the technology is being increasingly used in server farms and shared hosting environments.  Its purpose is to fine tune computer systems and networks in a manner that better evenly distributes data and processing across available resources to prevent a single device from being overloaded.  Some of the busier websites utilize two or more servers in a load balancing scheme. Therefore, if one is overwhelmed, traffic is forwarded to another with more capacity.

Common Types of Load Balancing

The process of load balancing is one that can be achieved in a variety of ways.  If this is a technology you are interested in, it is best to know what methods are available to you.   After learning a little more about the types of load balancing, you will should be able to better determine which option works best.

Round Robin DNS Load Balancing

One of the earliest adopted techniques, round robin DNS load balancing uses the round robin feature built into the BIND DNS server to facilitate cycles through the IP addresses corresponding to a farm of servers  This is one of the easiest and most inexpensive methods to implement.  The downside to this type of load balancing is that the DNS server doesn’t have any knowledge of the server’s availability.  Therefore, there is a possibility that data could be continuously forwarded to an unavailable server.  There is also a chance that an IP address will be cached by other nameservers and not sent to the server designated for load balancing.

Hardware Load Balancing

With hardware load balancing, TCP/IP packets are routed by a device to numerous servers in a cluster, a method that leverages circuit level gateway to route traffic.  This method is said to create a powerful topology with a high level of availability.  The one big drawback is a cost that is often considerably higher than other methods.

Software-based Load Balancing

The software-based variation is the most commonly used load balancing method.  These type of load balancers are typically integrated as components in proprietary web servers and application server platforms.  This technique is more configurable and offers the ability to implement intelligent routing based on various input parameters.  In many cases, software-based load balancing requires additional hardware be provided to isolate the load balancers.

Narrowing Your Options

The decision of choosing a load balancing configuration based on hardware or software should be made on one’s particular needs.  For instance, if your website only requires load balancing to serve HTML pages or lightweight dynamic, data-driven pages, the round robin method should be sufficient.  On the other hand, if your traffic and data processes are more demanding, you would probably get the best performance out of the more advanced software or hardware methods.  Whatever method you take, keep in mind that the load balancer should be able to deliver intelligent monitoring to evenly distribute the load.  Depending on your situation, different techniques can better direct the loads to the servers that are more capable of handling them than others in the cluster.

Digitalus CMS Review

Released in August of 2008, the Digitialus content management system is a relatively new player in the open-source CMS market.  Version 1.5 recently hit the scene and sparked developers’ attention with features such as a web-based installer, globalization capabilities and the 960 Grid system page layout management tool.  Some of these features are incredibly easy to use while others call for you to be somewhat of a technical geek.  And even though Digitalus is still in the early stages of development, it has made some notable improvements by adding functionality found in some of the more well known systems.  Here is a rundown on the latest version of the Digitalus CMS.

The 960 Grid

One of the major highlights of the new Digitalus CMS is its integration with a CSS framework known as the 960 Grid System.  This system strives to streamline website development by providing dimensions based on the common width of 960 pixels.  The built-in Grid 960 Helper builds the CSS grid that allows this method to work, ultimately making it easier to create cross-browser friendly template layouts and cater to various users.

The helper is essentially a PHP class in the Zend Framework.  According to Digitalus Media president Forrest Lyman, the Grid 960 Helper is now referred to as a component and a part of the core library.  The component creates an XHTML layout grid and all the appropriate classes to incorporate with the Grid 960 CSS framework.  While this feature is incredibly useful, it is not mandatory as you can also build standard PHP scripts to use for your layouts.

User Management

Another major draw to Digitalus CMS is the user management, which should be quite simple to grasp for most people.  The software allows you to create two types of users: a Site Administrator and Super Administrator.  The former has granular control while the latter has access to everything.  If you check out the Digitalus Wiki, you will see that adding multiple users can be a rather “tedious task.”   The good thing is that the software lets you clone user permissions with a featured called Copy User Permissions.   For the most part, the user and permissions management tools are simplistic but could use a little more in terms of functionality and user-friendliness.

Conclusion

All in all, Digitalus is a nice content management tool that still has some maturing to do.  In an open-source CMS market saturated with products that all seem to do the same thing, the choice usually boils down to what best suits your needs as well the drawbacks you can deal with.  Because Digitalus is a newcomer and therfore is not yet proven like other systems, it may not be the solution for all applications.  If you need a CMS or publishing tool that offers basic capabilities, try taking a look at some blogging platforms such as WordPress or b2Evolution because they are a bit more functional, user-friendly and able to cover a greater range of needs.