Next week is the SMX West Expo in Santa Clara, California.  For those of you who are not familiar with this event, SMX West is one of the premier expos for the search marketing industry.  This industry as a whole does not have too many of these events to look forward to, so several days devoted to the changing search engine market is pretty exciting for me.

This will my my first SMX West, but hopefully not my last.  I expect to sit in on some educational seminars, meet some interesting web marketing guru’s, and take in all the networking parties.  Most of all I hope to get a good feel for how this industry is going to take shape over the next few years.  There are some exciting new search technologies I have heard some whispers about, and I hope to hear more about them.

This change to “web 3.0″ may really change the way we surf the web forever, and I think that will be the theme at this event.  More personalized, more intelligent web surfing is the way of the not so distant future.  How do the major search engines plan to accomplish this without breaching personal privacy? And how can we, as industry professionals, use this to best profit our clients?  We will find out soon.

If I were to sit in on an SMX event a few years back, would I have been able to predict some of the exciting changes we have seen in the industry lately?  Probably so.  There will be several seminars and key-note speakers that might shed some light into the future of Search Engine Marketing and how it will evolve with web 3.0/web 4.0.  I will make sure to keep you up to date with what I learn, and blog directly from the event.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

• Ten Reasons You Do Not Want To Stay at The Hyatt Regency Santa Clara
• Is Internet Marketing a “Real” Profession?
• Need Website Help Now Offering Advertising
• Guide To Search Engine Domination: Plan Before You Develop
• March Madness is Incredible (Off Topic)

If you have a product or service that you’d like to sell online, then an ecommerce website is exactly what you need. Ecommerce websites can range from fairly simple to very complex depending on what functionality you want and how many products or services you are offering. We are going to take a look at exactly what you need to get an ecommerce website up and running.

1.) You need a product or service.
Without a product or service to sell online, you are dead in the water. Don’t even create a website if you have no idea what you will sell on it. Ideally, the product or service that you intend to sell should be something that interests you. If you don’t believe in the product or service you are marketing online, then others won’t either. Make sure you have a vested interest in the product or service before you go any further.

Product Research Estimated Cost: $0 (if you have a product) - $1,000

2.) You need a domain name.
Once you have your product or service, you should pick a domain name. This domain name will be the address to your website. You can pick a keyword rich domain name or a brandable domain name. Whatever you choose, this will be the face of your website so choose wisely as it’s hard to change a domain name once it’s been running on a website for awhile. Check out GoDaddy.com for available domain names that suit your ecommerce website.

Domain Name Estimated Cost: $9.00 - $50.00

3.) You need a website and shopping cart software.
Once you get your domain name, you will need to create a website that has shopping cart software integrated into it. This can be done in a variety of ways depending on what functionality you’d like for your site and how simple or complex you want it to be. The website is what will display your business information and your shopping cart will allow you to accept payments via the web. There are all kinds of shopping cart packages, many that are free. A great free option is Zen Cart.

Website & Shopping Cart Estimated Cost: $1,000 - $100,000+ (obviously this is a complex one!)

4.) You need a web hosting account.
A web hosting account holds your website files. This is where you will make any changes to your website and this is where your domain will point to. A web hosting account is what allows your website to be viewable by website traffic. There are many types of hosting accounts but a basic one will do to start. You can always upgrade at a later time when your website grows or you can even purchase your own servers to host your website. This is for the advanced website owner and not really in the scope of a new website.

Web Hosting Estimated Cost: $5 - $25/month

5.) You need a merchant account.
If you plan to accept credit card payments over the web, you will need some sort of a merchant account. Per Wikipedia, a merchant account is, “a specialized bank account issued by a merchant processing bank that allows a business to accept credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard, debit cards, gift cards and other forms of payment cards. This acceptance is also known as payment processing, credit card processing or merchant card processing.” There are many different merchant accounts to choose from so do your due diligence and research various types to find the right merchant account for your website. Some charge higher fees than others so be careful what you sign up for and make sure to get a list of the exact charges before signing any agreements. If you pay too high of fees, this will cut directly into your profit margin and a bunch of little charges eventually add up and make a huge difference. You can also choose merchant accounts that only take web orders or you can get a combo merchant account where you can take web orders or get a hand held to punch in orders yourself. You can determine the best solution for your business.

An alternative to a merchant account is PayPal. There are various PayPal accounts and this allows you to set up credit card processing as well. The downside is that you have less control over the look and feel of the payment processing section of your website and you will have to direct your traffic to PayPal to complete the purchase. Regular merchant accounts are seamless and the website user remains on your site at all times while completing transactions or purchases.

Merchant Account Estimated Cost: $100 - $1,000/initial setup fees plus monthly fees based on transactions

6.) You need a gateway account.
You need a payment gateway to process the transaction. The gateway is essentially a middleman that authorizes the transaction and gets the money into the merchant bank account. Per Wikipedia, a payment gateway is, “an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways encrypt sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant.” A popular payment gateway solution is Authorize.net. If you use PayPay, you will not need a payment gateway solution. This is only if you have your own merchant account and are processing transactions within your website.

Payment Gateway Estimated Cost: $100+ to set up and monthly transaction fees

7.) You need (or should definitely get) an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate.
If you are processing transactions on your website, you will want to get an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate for providing secure transactions. These can be purchased through companies such as GoDaddy.com.

SSL Estimated Cost: $20 - $1,000/annually - basic ecommerce site will be around $100/annually

8.) You need a web marketing plan.
How will you market your website? Word of mouth? Pay per click campaign? Search engine optimization? Print media advertising? You need a plan to get the word out on your products or services. This is a good time to talk with a web marketing agency to figure out the best way to go about marketing your new website.

Estimated Web Marketing Costs: $0 - $10K+/month - depends on how creative you get.

9.) You need patience.
This might be the most important thing you need when launching an ecommerce website. People assume that they can create a few products, throw up a website and the sales will come pouring in. This is SO far from true. You will be sadly disappointed if these are your expectations. Be realistic. You will have to try many things before one will stick. Don’t get discouraged. Don’t quit. Keep trying different things and one day one of them will work and you will see your business grow.

Estimated Cost of Patience: Priceless

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

• Need Website Help? Starter’s Guide To Building a Website
• The Social Millionaire Ripped Us Off!
• Does your Website Have a Positive ROI?
• Do Web Surfers Pay Attention to Pay Per Click Advertising?
• Brandable Domain Names vs. Keyword Rich Domain Names

For all you adwords advertisers, Adwords has finally announced changes to their display URL policy.  What exactly does this mean for you all out there? You can no longer try and trick people into thinking you are somebody you are not. Google’s sponsored advertising is moving away from the trickery, and more towards legitimacy.On April 1st, Google will require your display URL (the www.____.com you see in green) and your landing page URL (the address the advertisement actually takes you to) to match.  The adwords blog says “This includes, but is not limited to redirects and vanity URLs,”.  If you were making money by confusing web surfers, and pretending to be somebody else… you will need to find new tricks.

This has been an issue with adwords that has ALWAYS bothered me, so the fact Google is requiring these changes is long overdue in my mind.  In past adwords advertising, you could pretend you are somebody you are not… how does that build credibility among advertisers and web surfers?  Also, Google was never willing to remove ads that blatantly use trademarked company names, even if you have already proved you own the trademark.  I guess this online giant got tired of hearing complaints, and finally decided to take action.

I would like to personally thank Google for making these changes (not that they really care what I think), and also personally apologize for being “that guy” who always complained about this policy via email and web chat with their staff.  It is really nice to see that the adwords staff is finally taking some steps to benefit the legitimate and ethical advertisers out there.  This change will benefit google advertising and advertisers in the long wrong.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

• Google’s Adwords Preview Tool is a Must Use
• The Cost of Paid Clicks Increasing… Advertisers Take Note
• Yahoo says “No Thanks” to Microsoft Bid
• Keep Google Happy In 2008 and Beyond
• Need Website Help? Stopping Pay Per Click Trademark Violators

Coming from a non-web marketing background, the term “Guerrilla Marketing” was often used to describe grassroots marketing efforts. You can apply similar concepts to marketing on the Internet. Gorilla web marketing campaigns are used by many fortune 500 companies. They usually are a way to get people to find out more about a new product or service, and create “buzz”. Purchasing and developing an alternate website domain, solely for the purpose of marketing a new product, is a great idea for companies of any size. As an example, if you sell makeup products and have created a new waterproof eyeliner, have you thought about purchasing the URL “www.AreYourEyesWaterproof.com”? I have no idea if that is available, but you get the idea. That alternate domain name should only cost you $9.99 from Go Daddy.

If you own a more detailed URL name, you are more likely to get targeted traffic from the search engines. Also this is another great branding method. Website domains have become a branding technique over the past years. If you combine online and offline advertising under the same catchy domain…. people will remember your URL. Also this is a great way to grab attention on message boards and directories.

That leads me to my next guerrilla web marketing concept which is message board interaction. If you want another non-web marketing analogy, you can compare online message boards to posting a flyer in the middle of Time Square in Manhattan. Who wouldn’t want their company flier to hang in the middle of time square for millions of people to read as they walk by? When you post on message boards, you will have targeted traffic at your fingertips. The people reading those boards are already interested in your niche market. By leaving a detailed description of your product and a SEO optimized link, you gain web page viewers and optimized links (which the search engines love). If you post enough of these, you may soon find yourself on the first page of google for your selected keyterms.

If you need help finding proper forums for your product, let us know. We are aware of public online forums and communities that you might not know of. We can even help with the optimization of your links on these sites. Here is something you may not have thought of yet… many news websites now allow you to comment back on articles. Using the same waterproof eyeliner exaple… Lets say you are online and you see an article on MSN about how make-up technology is changing, why not find a tasteful way to get your company name on that message thread as a comment. You know if somebody is reading the viewer comments that they may have an interest in your product.

As I mentioned my main background is not in web marketing, I started out making my foundation in general marketing and public relations…but good marketing is good marketing. You need to be placed where people will see you, and see you in a positive light. This is one way web marketing firms can help. They can guide you in the right direction, and after that you should be able to do it yourself. A good web marketing firm wants to teach you how to market yourself online, so they can move onto other clients.

There are dozens of other guerrilla web marketing strategies that I will talk about in future posts, but think about giving these a try for now.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

• Brandable Domain Names vs. Keyword Rich Domain Names
• Yahoo says “No Thanks” to Microsoft Bid
• How To Build An Ecommerce Website
• Guide To Search Engine Domination: Pick A Keyword Rich Domain Name
• My First Bad Experience on eBay…Tips For Watching your Back

When it is time to search around for an Internet Design/Marketing agency, think of this the same way as consulting with a home contractor. You will be overwhelmed by the price, and you will be overwhelmed by the task ahead. Most of all, you may be overwhelmed with the cost. This should be expected, but the upfront costs will soon be forgotten when you are pumping out business on the web.Ask anybody who has gone through the home building process from start to finish. Before and during the whole process they are complaining about the cost of all the additional add ons. The premium counter-tops, cabinets, bathroom fixtures, flooring, etc. When the project is done, and they are excited about their house, you are not very likely to hear more gripping. When the job is done and somebody takes you on a tour of their new house they will be quick to brag about all the great features, but they won’t be so quick to complain about the cost they had to pay to get it built.

Relate this to the development of your new website. If you complain about the costs upfront, just remember that when it is making you money and bringing on new clients, the gripping will come to an end. A few years after development, I can almost guarantee you that you won’t even remember how much you paid for your site. Another way to relate this to home building is that you wouldn’t want your home built with shoddy workmanship, so why would you wan’t your website done the same way. Pay the right price to get the job done right.

Just like everything else in life, you get what you pay for. If it seems like a deal too good to be true, it probably is.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

• None Found