While I was talking to him, I was checking the shop he had problems with. I wouldn’t have bought from it. Here’s how I checked it:-

1. Check the Page

Open the front page of the site in one browser window and then use another window to get to a page that ought to be secure (the payment/checkout page is my usual one). Look at them both. Do either of them show any logos from well-known payment (Barclays, RBS, Protx, …) or security-checking services (thawte – who else?)? That’s not entirely reliable, but it’s usually a good sign because those companies attack people using their marks without permission.

Look at the payment/checkout page – does the address in the address bar start “https”? If so, is the padlock in the browser status bar (usually bottom right) closed? That usually means it’s encrypted with a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.

2. Check the Certificate

Open the certificate details. In Firefox-based browsers, double-click the padlock, then click the “View Certificate” button. Then pick “Subject” in the second list box. Usually, it looks like this:-

Basic Certificate Screenshot

Some shops now use Extended Validation certificates and give a bit more information. Here’s one from a train company:-

Extended Validation Screenshot

3. Check the Registrations

By this point, the payment processing and actual transaction are looking pretty good. Finally, I check the recipient. Find the business details on the web shop. Does it include a geographic address? If it contains a company registration number, look it up on the Companies House website.

Then I find the business details on the domain names – you can use CoolWhois to look up domain names. If any of the addresses or numbers don’t match (Website, SSL Certificate, Whois), then I call them to ask why their website says they’re based in Bristol but their domain name is registered to Bolton. If they don’t answer messages, or – worse – the domain name says “Non-trading Individual” and the address has been omitted from the public listing, I give up on them and look for another shop. There’s no point securely paying someone that you can never reach if there’s a problem.

4. Buy Stuff and Check the Statements

All being well, I then buy stuff and check my credit card statement each month before I pay it. I think any web shop owner (or webmaster – I help some people with this sort of thing) should be taking care of the basics above. Do your shops measure up?

Despite the above checks, I can only remember not buying something online once in the last year. A couple of times, I’ve worked through the above steps and it’s changed which shop I bought from – and I’m pretty sure it saved me from losing £400 on one purchase.

“Expat-like terms” – made available in a way that is freely sharable, modifiable and redistributable, similar to the Expat software package, whose terms are published at http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt – this is often used as a clear, simple example for encouraging wide distribution of electronic resources (software).

“clandestine Google Analytics” – Google Analytics is a service from Google, Inc for tracking users through a website in various ways. I believe the Data Protection Act means that English websites should obtain informed consent from users by publishing a Privacy Policy on their site which discloses what the GA service will be used for and linking through to GA’s own Privacy Policy. Some websites attempt to run Google Analytics on users’ computers without explaining why and without any Privacy Policy. That is what I mean by “clandestine”.

“valid xhtml” – validating against the eXtensible HyperText Markup Language standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – the underlying language of the web. There is a test service provided at http://validator.w3.org/ and passing it is a key stepping stone towards making an accessible website. There’s not really such a thing as “invalid xhtml” – if it doesn’t pass validation, it’s not xhtml. So I guess I’m guilty of using a tautology sometimes – sorry about that.

Is it worthwhile knowing those three phrases? Are there other key technical phrases which you think site owners should know?

Disability laws require firms to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to their sites to make them more user-friendly but most are completely unaware of the legislation.

Websites shouldn’t discriminate against people with disabilities – and that means everything from colour blindness to motor neurone disease.

But more than that, it makes good business sense to make your website accessible to as many potential customers as possible.  It’s not only UK law but a good advert for your business to set a policy of inclusion for all.

Official figures show that 80 per cent of UK company websites aren’t accessible to a fifth of the population.  Problems for people with disabilities include no including text as an alternative to images for translation by audio readers, and having an effective background & text colour contrast.

Simple changes can make the world of difference to someone with disabilities.  UK websites that don’t comply with the first level of accessibility compliance are not only missing business opportunities but are also ignoring their legal duty to make their websites accessible.

Buzzin’ Fly has specialist knowledge of disability law compliance and website accessibility which can be very useful when having your business website desgined and developed.

For more informaion on website accessibility visit the W3 website.

1. JavaScript or other crawler-unfriendly navigation that may impede indexing

This one is best avoided at design-time, by including Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Level A in the design brief, but if you’ve ended up with JavaScript-based navigation on your site (check by doing “View Source” and searching for the code for your home page link and so on – if you can find it, then it’s probably not javascript) and it’s based on some template system, a webmaster can probably do a whole-site edit to put the navigation links in the page properly – or at least add a useful <noscript> tag.

2. Navigation that buries important pages within the site architecture.

The structure of the website’s files and the structure of the link menus do not need to match, so if there’s a page that you feel is important, get your webmaster to add it to the navigation links across the whole site.

3. Duplicate “pages” getting indexed under multiple URLs.

This usually happens for one of two reasons: one is inappropriately-parked domains, which is mistake 6 below and often fairly easy to fix; the other is a misbehaving web application, which you’ll need to get a programmer to fix.

You can do a simple test of your web application by starting at your homepage and following links to a particular page; then open a new browser window and try to reach the same page by different links (or a site search) and compare the address bars (the bit of your browser showing http://) – do they match? If not, you’ve got this problem.

4. No keyword phrase focus in the content or conversely, keyword phrase stuffing

You can use a good word-counter on the text to see how common different keywords and keyphrases, or use the “webmaster tools” section of some search engines to see what they’re focusing on.

Keyword-stuffing can be fairly easy to see. If you “View Source” on a page and there’s a large block of keyword-intensive text somewhere in it that doesn’t appear it when viewed in a browser, then it’s probably stuffing. Many sites regard stuffing as a sort of spam, so you don’t want to be found doing this.

To fix these problems, rewrite the page text appropriately.

5. An optimized home page, but that’s it

Repeat your checks from problem 4 on a few pages other than the home page to discover whether you suffer from this. Also, see whether your website statistics show search engine visitors arriving at a variety of different pages (these are sometimes called “Entry Page” statistics).

6. Additional domains owned by the company are not properly redirected

If you usually use .co.uk, but you also have a .com domain, try visiting a random page on your website, then click in the address bar and replace the .co.uk with .com – what happens?

If the page is Not Found, then your domains aren’t properly redirected and you need a Redirect adding to the second one.

If the page displays but the address doesn’t change itself back, then your domains are probably pointing at the same webspace but aren’t properly redirected, which will mean you’re probably making mistake 3 above. Usually, the simplest way to fix this is with a conditional redirect. On Apache webservers, you can add a .htaccess file containing something like:-

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.co\.uk$ [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.co.uk/$1 [R=permanent,L]

That even works on BT Business web hosting, by the way. If it doesn’t work, try asking your web hosting provider to enable mod_rewrite for you or ask them to suggest how to achieve the same result.

The above list of mistakes was published on Search Engine Land last week. The correction methods are all things used by my webmaster cooperative.

It should be a vital part of your strategy for business growth to keep a record of all your existing customers and others who may have visited your online store but left without buying anything.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is of the utmost importance.  It will help to build your customer base. Develop innovative ways to inform past customers about new products and the latest updates to the eCommerce store. As recommended in my previous post, Better eCommerce Business Success #5,  you can send newsletters to both customers and potential customers who have requested email notification of special offers, new products or services etc.

Some eCommerce solutions include a CRM system but a bespoke CRM system may be more suitable.   To get ahead of your competitors, try different ways of communicating with your customers.  Be sure to keep a record of any campaign results.

Always remember the point I made earlier, it is easier to make money from existing customers than find new ones, so look after your customers and make them feel special.

This is called push marketing. It is when you go to a store for one thing and come out with another!
Don’t create an online shop and expecting your customers to browse your eCommerce site in the same way they may walk around your bricks & mortar shop, looking for bargains or whether you sell their size in a particular colour.

The quicker they can find what they are looking for, the stronger the impulse is to buy.

Design your online store in such a way that the customer is left in no doubt what you sell and what your selling points are, whether it be free delivery, tax free or low prices. Your customer may not have been ready to buy, but when they are, you want them to think of you first.

Offering a free newsletter sign-up is a good way of continuing to push your products and services at customers and potential customers alike, while they are not actually on your website.

Place your best products or services, or those you want to promote, on your home page. Make them stand out so visitors to your online shop notice them.

Your website needs to give a great first impression, and leave visitors wanting to return and possibly even telling others to visit the site because of the good experience they have had, whether that be the usability, cool design, available product range, competitive prices or better still, a mixture of all of the above.

The other important thing to consider is that to be successful, your eCommerce website needs to be found. Unless someone knows your website address they are more likely to be introduced to your site via a major search, such as Google, than any other way. It is therefore critical to consider making sure your online shop has been ‘optimised’ to gain the highest ranking possible. This is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

You should make sure you know if your eCommerce developers are undertaking SEO as part of the development, or whether you will need an online marketing company to undertake the work once the website goes live.

I have already suggested that OS Commerce is by far the best eCommerce software you can use. It comes with its own awful templates. They do the job but you can spot an OS Commerce template site from the other side of cyber space.

Always use a bespoke design, one that will attract your target audience. It will be more expensive but worth every penny. If visibility is the first rule of having a successful online presence, then a visitors’ first impression must be the second rule.

Your website needs to be professional looking, appealing and attractive to your desired customers. A professional looking, well designed website will give an impression that your website is safe and secure. Not just your website, but more importantly, your company.

Users will feel more obliged to do business with you if your eCommerce store is easy to use, allows the customer to find what they want and feel in-control of their actions. This last point is very important. If the customers feels in control of the situation, they are more likely to proceed and buy your products and services.

Learn more about your customers and create unique branding by using distinct colour combinations, site layout and an innovative and appealing logo.

Get your designer to create an attractive display logo that will help distinguish your eCommerce site from your competition.

Choosing the right eCommerce software:
There are many eCommerce solutions to choose from and every “expert” will have their own opinion. I believe this is the best independent and impartial advice I can give.

When you are choosing your web developers ask them what eCommerce software is best for you and your business and why. If they say any of the following, I would consider they are thinking of themselves, and not your business:

a) We have built our own eCommerce software
b) We use an off-the-shelf “Shop-in-Box” solution
c) Not sure, this is our first eCommerce site
d) We were hoping you wouldn’t ask
e) What’s eCommerce?

I recommend using OS Commerce (OS stands for Open Source) for the following reasons:

a) It is free to use
b) There is no need for a license
c) It is open source and therefore you are not tied to one particular company such as Microsoft.

OS Commerce is developed in PHP and uses a MySQL database, both of which are industry standard and the most commonly used programming language and database for website development. Therefore, if you become disenchanted with your developers you will have no problem finding someone else who should be able to understand and undertake management and further development of your eCommerce site.

Furthermore, there is a world wide community of web developers who are continually adding new modules and plug-ins for OS Commerce.

Always remember you need the best team and the right software to make your online business a success.

It might sound simple, but so many badly designed business websites are so obviously designed by a programmer.  And so many poorly developed websites have been cobbled together by a graphic designer with limited expertise in programming.

The truth is, for a successful business website, you need a professional looking design for a great first impression, a clear and visible menu structure that allows your visitors to find what they are looking for, quickly; and a user-friendly website with accessibility and inclusion for all in mind.

The development of the site is as equally important to the success of your online business.  A good looking website must also deliver the required functionality and offer great user experience.

So when I’m on a skiing holiday I can relax knowing that my designers are designing and my developers are busy developing!

A recent survey stated that a visitor will spend an average of just 46 seconds on your website before moving on to the next site. (Source: Clickz.com)

The next website they visit could be one of your competitors, and they could have been your next client.

The current UK economy makes it difficult enough for small businesses to compete and survive, but the competition you will face online is going to be tenfold and so it is imperative that you consider the following advice & tips to guide you towards better online business success for you and your company.

The total number of registered domain names now stands at a staggering 60 million. Some of these domain names are owned by your business competitors. Only a fraction of these sites will have considered the following tips. This is your advantage.

The following series of advice will substantially increase your chances of achieving better eCommerce business success.

Know what your target audience want

Research your target audience, and then understand and consider their requirements. Be careful not to allow your idea of what is right to interfere and overshadow the wishes of your target audience. This may be your business but they are your customers. When people trot out the old saying, customers are always right I say, the customer is NOT always right but as long as the customer pays me, they can think what they want!

The internet is full of good ideas, but like the offline business world, it’s not always the original ideas that make good businesses. It’s the businesses that get the plan right!

Consider the global success of eBay. I remember being contacted by eBay wanting to place adverts on a music website in 1997, when they first opened a UK office eBay. At that time eBay was one of a few websites offering the peer-to-peer trading place concept. Ultimately eBay grew and quashed its competitors because it was easier to use and adapted to its targeted audience.

eCommerce helped eBay create the marketplace website but it was their adaptability, flexibility and end-user focus that ultimately led to their success.

Buzzin’ Fly is a successful website development and internet marketing company based in the UK. WE specialise in eCommerce solutions for small businesses and SME’s in the UK.

I am proud of the work that we do and the testimonials from satisfied customers that we receive.

To find out more go to Buzzin’ Fly.