They was a time when doing business on the internet simply meant hangingout your electronic shingle and raking in the profits. Then it becamenecessary to build your online credibility through reciprical linkingand membership in organizations like http://i-Cop.org. Thenorganizations like http://www.paypal.com became necessary to acceptpayments without waiting for the proverbial "check in the mail".
One of the latest innovations of internet marketing is the shopping cartprogram. Basically, this let's visitors to your site prepare an onlineorder just like they would fill out an order form from a catalog andsubmit it directly to your business. Some programs are so advanced theyalso calculate payments, coupons, shipping, and inventory.
But are they a good thing?
Many online business people are finding that the fancy shopping cartprogram they have used to design or re-design their website is costingthem business. Why?
Because these programs are not search engine friendly. They omit metatags, they contain long and cumbersome universal resource locators(URLs), and they inhibit the attainment of high search engine rankings.
So what can the online business person do? Is there no way to have afriendly merchant environment? And stay visible in the search engines?
Yes, there is. And its relatively simple. Take for example, a genericgift site. You might have a front page with a link to main categorypages that each flow down like a graph to specific products. But youcannot place each of these pages directly into your shopping cartprogram. Create a regular front page which sits right on your domain,www.mygifts.com. Create category headings for your main productgroupings that also sit directly on your domain,www.mygifts.com/group1.html, www.mygifts.com/group2.html etc. Keepthese pages off the secure shopping cart server and system. From thecategory heading pages, then move into the shopping cart system.
While your individual products may never see the light of day in searchengine rankings - your front page and your category headings will. Inthis way, you have a site which is shopper and search engine friendly.
Shannan Hearne-Fortner is the president and wizard of http://www.SuccessPromotions.com, an internet marketing information andservice company. Part author, poet, mother, WAHM, and wizard, Shannanis the marketing manifestation of Guerilla marketing techniques from JayConrad Levinson, One-to-One Marketing, grass roots campaign developmentand internet wizardry combined with the Eastern-Western philosophies ofsuch gurus as Deepak Chopra, Shakti Gawain, and Alan Watts. Seasonedwith the thoughts of theological greats like Billy Graham and WAHMoriented authors like Priscilla Huff. Her marketing experience containsover ten years of online and off-line campaign development for productsand services ranging from alarms to pottery, software to hardware,jewelry to clothing, consulting to designing, and everything inbetween. Always insightful, often humorous, and occasionally downrightdelightful.
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