Web Design, Internet Marketing, E-commerce, SEO Blog | Las Vegas, NV

This is a little bit of Web 101.  For those of you who know it, great!  If not, read on and find out how to change your domain name servers (or DNS).

One of the first things you do before you set up a website is buy a domain name.  This domain name serves as the address to your website when you are ready to launch your site.  Sounds simple, huh?  Well, it is.  But before you can launch your domain name to the world, there are steps you need to take in your domain control panel to connect it to your hosting site (which is where your website is.)

Wherever you bought your domain name will be the place you need to go, to log in to your domain name control panel.  There, you will need to look for an option called ‘Name Servers’ or ‘DNS’.  Once you find this option, you will need to update your name servers to your web hosting company’s name server url.  An example of a name server url is ns1.<yourhostingcompany>.com or ns2. <yourhostingcompany>.com.  (Your website hosting company will provide you with this information.)  Once you submit your new name servers, it will take anywhere from 24 to 72 hours to propagate through the internet.  Once this step is completed, all you have to do is enter your domain name into the URL field of your browser and check if your website comes up.  If it does, you have successfully changed over your name servers to your new website hosting space.

For those of you who want to read up more about DNS and get a more in depth look at the overall picture of DNS and how it plays into the Internet, here’s an article I found on the ‘How Stuff Works‘ website.

I received a call from a potential client yesterday that was very new to the web and how it all works.  He first apologized for not having any knowledge about the Internet and then proceeded to ask some questions about selling products online.  I admit, I sometimes do forget that not all people have the understanding of what it takes to have a website and to sell products over the web.  Most people who are new to doing business over the web don’t realize what steps are involved and how they should go about the whole process.  So, I thought this would be a good opportunity to post a simple checklist of what you will need if you plan to sell your products online.

Simple Starter Checklist:  What You Need to Sell Your Products Online

1.  Domain Name - First and foremost, you will need a domain name.  This will be the website address a user types in to visit your online store.  (Ex:  www.netmouser.com is my domain name.)  You can purchase domain names at any domain name registrar.  I happen to use our sister company, netmouser.net domains.  At netmouser.net domains you can purchase a domain name for $8.95/year (a small price to pay to own the domain name of your choice) and you can have full control over the administration of the domain.  (We’ll get to this later.)

2.  Website Hosting - The second thing you will need is a web hosting plan.  I always refer to the a web hosting plan as an ‘office location’ for your website, only virtual.  Your domain name would be your ’street address’ on the web and your web hosting would be the ‘office’- only in a virtual sense.  Web hosting plans come in all different forms.  They can be complicated for the beginner to understand.  Sometimes you can get a plan that is super cheap (like $3.95/mo) and other times they can be quite expensive like a dedicated hosting server (which can run easily over $150/mo plus.)  Before you make the decision about hosting your website, ask the company if they provide the following hosting necessities for an ecommerce site:

• Dedicated IP Address - A dedicated IP address means your website does not ’share’ an IP with other websites on the same hosting server.  Even though the hosting can be shared by others, your site would be uniquely identified by the dedicated IP address.
• Your Own Domain’s SSL Certificate - An SSL Certificate is a certificate that is installed on your hosting server that identifies your company as the owner of the website to serve as a certificate of trust, along with encrypting your website for secured transactions.  This is an important part of the ecommerce process as it works on your server to protect your customers credit card and other sensitive data from being read when visitors are shopping on your website and go to secured checkout.  They can click the lock icon on the browser that will show your website as the company that owns the certificate so they can trust shopping there.  The only SSL Certificates I recommend to my clients are their own unique domain SSL Certificates.  There are companies that offer shared ssl certificates for their ecommerce hosting customers.  A shared ssl certificate means that you ’share’ the certificate with other clients on the same hosting server and whenever a customer would access your secured website locations, the address would not be unique to your domain.  An example of a shared SSL URL would be:  https://yourdomain.yourhostingcompany.com.  This means your HOSTING company’s domain name is the primary domain during secure checkout and other processes that require securing –not your domain.  For marketing purposes and consumer trust, I recommend using your own unique domain SSL certificate.  An example of a URL that uses your own unique domain name instead of a shared would be:  https://www.yourdomainnamehere.com.  Notice that YOUR domain is the primary domain, not your hosting company’s.  This is an important step in selling your products over the web and should never be skimped on.  You can purchase an affordable SSL Certificate at netmouser.net’s SSL Certificate Store.

3.  E-commerce Shopping Cart - An ecommerce shopping cart is the most important piece of software you will require to run and administrate your online store.  There are many different shopping carts you can purchase or download…some are free, some are available for purchase on a monthly basis, some you purchase a one-time licensing fee to use the cart.  The decision you make on your shopping cart is one of the most crucial decisions you will make.  Before you can decide what shopping cart is best for you…you should consider a few details about your business.

• Do you feel you will be selling over the web for a long time?  If you are opening up a web store, chances are you are taking this business seriously and will want to be around for a long time selling your products and services over the web.
• Is the importance of portability a deciding factor for you?  If this is the case, I highly recommend a licensed shopping cart that you purchase to use on any hosting server versus a monthly leased shopping cart.  The reason for this is most monthly leased shopping carts do not allow you to ever ‘move your cart’ away from their hosting servers, whereas a shopping cart where you purchase the license to use it means you should be able to use it on any hosting server.  (As always I instruct my clients to read over any licensing agreements prior to making their decision as most companies licensing agreements differ and may not allow for the portability of moving your cart to another hosting server.)
• Does your host have the required technology needed to run your shopping cart?  The shopping cart you will use or purchase has certain technical requirements to operate efficiently.  Know what technology is required and make certain your hosting company has these required elements on your server before you purchase the cart.  This can save you a lot of headache later.
• Do you prefer a free, open source shopping cart or are you comfortable paying for a shopping cart that may have more support?  This decision is based on how comfortable you are with technology and if there are any problems that occur along the way, which cart would provide you with the best support options to resolve any issues.  Some popular open source shopping carts are free to download and use, no licensing fees needed.  However, these same free shopping carts, can have limited or sometimes NO support options.  This means if you ever have an issue on your cart, or questions on how to do something, you better be pretty comfortable online researching forums and other sites the company sets up to ‘get support information’ all on your own.  The benefits to purchasing a licensed cart is the support you will receive whenever you need it, directly from the cart manufacturer.

4.  Internet Merchant Account - All ecommerce merchants must have an internet merchant account.  This type of merchant account is different than a standard retail store merchant account.  This type of merchant account is for internet stores only.  There are many companies that offer Internet merchant accounts and the fees can range from $10/mo to $59/mo plus.

5.  Payment Gateway - A payment gateway acts as the transfer of the payment from your web store to your internet merchant account.  Some internet merchant accounts have the payment gateway included and others do not, which means you have to pay additional monthly fees for the payment gateway with a gateway provider that works in conjunction with your Internet merchant account and shopping cart software.   This can be quite confusing and you should never feel uncomfortable about getting all the facts first from the Internet Merchant Account provider so you can avoid getting sticker shock later when you realize what all you need to make that merchant account work for you.  One of the most popular Internet Merchant / Payment Gateway (all in one account) is PayPal.  PayPal offers a free account to accept payments online along with their paid Internet Merchant Account that allows you to accept and process credit cards directly through your web store.  I normally recommend if you are new to ecommerce that you start off with PayPal, as most shopping carts are built to accept PayPal and many customers coming to your store already have a PayPal accounts and are familiar with and trust PayPal as a payment method.

This is just a simple checklist as to the specific items you need to get started to selling your products on the web.  I hope you find this checklist helpful and welcome your comments and feedback.  For more information or to schedule a free consultation, feel free to contact us directly.

Over the past year, as my clients become more aware of the web and how it all works, I’ve received several questions about PPC (Pay-per-click) campaigns. Most of my clients wonder if PPC works, what types of costs they can anticipate, and if they should even dip their toe into the water so to speak.

First, let me clarify that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process that web developers and marketers do to get your website listed higher in natural search results (or non-paid search engine rankings). SEO is the first place I start with all of my clients. This gives me the information I need from the client’s standpoint as to what keywords and phrases are the most valuable to them. Then, once I get the SEO set for the initial launch of their website, I recommend they try PPC campaigns to hedge the traffic to their website while the natural SEO is taking place.

PPC Campaigns are a great way to market your website right away, as soon as you launch it. It gives you an immediate traffic boost, and hopefully, an immediate return on your investment. PPC campaigns are a valuable source of data that help to complement your marketing analysis as to what keywords and phrases people are typing in when they go to your website. Think of PPC campaigns as advertisements, because that’s exactly what they are. But, the beauty of PPC, is the amount of control you have and how well you can analyze your conversions.

If you are interested in advertising your website with a PPC campaign, my first recommendation is Google Adwords. Adwords is always the first place I suggest, since Google has held the majority search share and continues to grow each month. Google Adwords has a great help menu, if you decide to do it yourself…or you can hire a professional to manage your account. Here are just some of the features on Google Adwords:

• You can choose your geographic location (so if you only want to advertise locally,) you can.

• You can pick your days and times you want your ads to show.

• You can choose to place your ad on the Google Search Network and/or the Content Network.

• You enter the budget you can afford and the system will work its best to stay within it.

• You can track your conversions (i.e. Registrations, Email Subscriptions, Sales, etc.) with their conversion tools so you can really analyze your ROI.

If you’ve been anxious about taking the plunge with a PPC campaign, let us help you. For more information on PPC and other internet marketing opportunities, contact us and we will be glad to help.

Ok…I have to admit it. I have a crush on the Acer Corporation. Want to know why?

One day my laptop (under a year old) just decided not to power on. I called Acer Tech Support, they put in a service order and instructed me to ship my laptop to their repair shop. (My expense on the shipping.) Wait….it gets better.

Acer received my laptop and 3 days later, they sent me an email saying the unit was being shipped back. Wow…that was fast. So I call Acer’s support line to ask what the problem was. It was the mainboard. They replaced it! (Since it was in warranty, the replaced part was free!) That’s like getting a whole new computer!!

I have never had such an easy repair process!! Thank you Acer repair guys! (You can bet I am going to purchase the extended warranty…now that I know they really do fix the units. That’s more than what I can say about some other computer MFR’s I had repair orders with.)

Great news for online merchants!!

Ecommerce just continues to grow and creep into the overall percentage of retail sales. The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2008, adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $33.8 billion, an increase of 0.8 percent (±1.0%)* from the fourth quarter of 2007. Total retail sales for the first quarter of 2008 were estimated at $1,024.2 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent (±0.2%)* from the fourth quarter of 2007. The first quarter 2008 e-commerce estimate increased 13.6 percent (±1.2%) from the first quarter of 2007 while total retail sales increased 2.8 percent (±0.2%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2008 accounted for 3.3 percent of total sales.  Read the full press release.