For many online businesses, the shopping cart is the heart of the online business, enabling site visitors to browse your product offerings, check prices, shipping options and finally place their order.

As the heart of the online business, having a shopping cart that is tailored to your business cannot be over emphasized.

If you are looking for a shopping cart, here are some questions to start off the process. Ask yourself these questions before talking to a web development company.

• Tax options for your jurisdiction
• Shipping options for your products. If you are selling a virtual product then you will need support for downloads. If your product is large and heavy, shipping to countries outside North America may be expensive. Do you customers want your product in a hurry, or is a slower shipping method acceptable?
• Search Engine Friendly? Regardless of the type of business you have, you are going to want the search engine crawlers to access the pages that make up your shopping cart. Crawability is only one Search Engine issue. Other issues include, duplicate content and Session IDs.
• Abandoned Carts. Just as in brick and mortal stores, customers do not always complete their purchase for one reason or another. The problem of abandoned carts online is a multi-million dollar headache for online merchants. Some shopping carts, notably OsCommerce come with plug-in modules for emailing customers who do not complete their purchases. This is a fairly simple functionality to program into an existing application and will pay for itself many times over.
• Product Display. Does the Shopping Cart software display your products to best advantage? Depending on your product, you may want 3 or 4 pictures, showing different views of each product. This is a very easy functionality to program, and if it displays your products to better advantage, it will be well worth it.
• Inventory and Statistics. Many merchants prefer to keep their inventory software separate from their online shopping cart, while others prefer an integrated solution. Integrating your inventory control programs for online and offline sales may be more than it is worth, especially at the outset, nevertheless it is worth considering and asking your web development company for details.
• Accounting Integration. Many shopping carts offer a feature where the sales information collected in the Shopping cart can be exported to popular accounting software such as Quickbooks.
• Content. Is your website going to be simply an online store, or are you going to have other areas such as articles, free information, resources, or information about your company? This is very important to decide at the beginning! Generally, the search engines prefer sites with content and information over simply an online store.
• Options. What do your customers want to, or have to know about your products before they purchase? If you are selling jewellery such as rings, the ring size is important information. Do your products come in different colors? Different sizes? How many options does the Cart allow per product?
• Search. Browsers are going to want to search your products, so a basic search is absolutely necessary. After the basic search, you may want to incorporate other more specialized searches. Visitors may want to search for all products under $25, or for all products in a particular size or color for example.

Most of these are functionalities may already be included in the Shopping Cart your web development company suggests, and if not, they are easily added either through custom programming, or through plug-in modules.

About the Author:
Shakir Husein is the CEO of Dynamic Intel Dynamic specializes in secured ecommerce solutions and content management systems. More articles on ecommerce and CMS can be accessed at Pacific Articles.

This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_210719_47.html

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In a recent interview, Stu McLaren provided his recommendations for the best tools to provide your affiliates when creating a top affiliate program that will result in the generation of maximum sales.

“You want to do everything you can to take the thinking part out, to take the hard work out. And, if you do that, they’ll be much more likely to continue promoting your products month in and month out and that’s what we’re really looking for, that on-going activity from our affiliates.”

Stu McLaren

When you provide your affiliates with effective tools, straight out of the gate, they can focus on marketing your products as opposed to creating marketing tools to market your products. Some affiliates will simply get frustrated and give up if they don’t have the right tools.

So here are the recommendations of expert Affiliate Manager, Stu McLaren regarding the basic tools to provide your affiliates in produce maximum sales.

1. Email Templates

Provide your affiliates with at least 3 email templates - one short and two longer emails.

The short email will get more or less straight to the point and direct the reader to a call to action. Whereas the longer email templates can provide more of a story and give more background, etc.

Choose two different angles when crafting your longer emails to give your affiliates more options. The longer emails also provide your affiliates with greater scope to add their personal touch to the content.

2. Blog Reviews

Provide your affiliates with 2-3 blog reviews. These should be written as though coming from a third party.

Your reviews should be balanced. So give the pros and cons without belabouring any negatives that your product or service might have. At the end of your review you should provide your conclusion or summary.

3. Articles

Provide about 3 articles. These can be used by affiliates in multiple locations, for example on their websites, blogs and newsletters. They can even be used offline in magazines, newspapers and in direct response mailings.

The articles can also be recorded to create podcasts. In fact, the number of ways in which the articles can be used is down to the imagination and creativity of the affiliate.

4. Banners

There are a variety of different size banners that you can use in affiliate marketing and they should be created so that your affiliate’s code is automatically embedded into the banner. You want to provide the html code for your banners so your affiliates can simply copy and paste the code onto their website.

Some affiliate programs provide banners that are no more than pictures and it is left to the affiliate to work out how to link their affiliate code to the image. Remember, you want to make the life of your affiliate as easy as possible. If you take care of the technical aspects then they can take care of just marketing your products and services.

Common banner sizes are as follows:

Standard 468×60 px

Skyscraper 120×600 px

Box banner 125×125 px

Very Small 120×60 px

Banners which are 125×125 or 120×60 are very popular with bloggers because they are small and compact and can easily be integrated into a blog template or a blog post.

5. Video

Videos are more advanced tools. However, with the rate at which the Internet is evolving and with the increasing popularity of videos they will become more and more commonplace. So while videos are not expected as part of the basic package of affiliate marketing tools, they are a great asset and definitely something to consider for the future. A short video which redirects through your affiliate’s link can be a very powerful marketing tool.

So provide these tools to your affiliates and you will have a very well equipped affiliate marketing sales force indeed.

For tried, tested and proven techniques to generate traffic to your affiliate links send an email to Instant Affiliate Traffic for a FREE report. Plus sign up for FREE training on creating and managing top affiliate programs and more expert Internet marketing strategies with some of the world’s leading Internet Marketers. Click the link for full details Expert Internet Marketing Training. Available for a limited time only.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nickolove_Lovemore

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Author: Jeff Casmer

As noted and experienced by many, the Internet offers boundless opportunities to make money off a website. This is extra income that anybody would like to have. Aside from the wares you are selling off your website, you can still make money off other ways. One good example is with affiliate marketing. Having a good affiliate program can provide you a five-figure income as well as a noticeable increase in website traffic.

While many webmasters have started their own affiliate program directory, not so many have flourished and have gained success with it. In fact, it has been said that almost five percent of websites with affiliate programs can really claim success and a good steady income. Many have failed to get themselves in an affiliate program directory, which can open their affiliate programs to a wider and bigger network.

An affiliate program directory is the next step to make your affiliate program a success. So just what is an affiliate program directory? It is a website wherein everything that you will need to start an affiliate program or to jump-start your affiliate program can be located.

There you will see different links wherein affiliate program software can be acquired. Such software will help make your affiliate program easier to operate and maintain. This affiliate program software is either free in a limited trial period or can be purchased with all the features included.

Affiliate program directories can also provide reviews and articles wherein the newest and most innovative affiliate networks are being presented and offered. Affiliate networks have a list of all the affiliate programs you can join. There you can find the affiliate programs that are best suited for your own affiliate program. Having the right niche and similar market will work best since the customers are inclined to search for similar products.

Aside from that, you can get a lot of tips and guides in how to make your online business and website make more money for you. You can read some or all of these tips to educate yourself in the ever-competitive world of online business. The more you know, the better you will be at thinking of your own ways of getting ahead. Also, you can get newsletters every month that can keep you updated and well informed of the advances in affiliate marketing programs.

The great multitude of affiliate program directories that can be found on the Internet provides for a wide choice. You can find which one will be suited for your own affiliate program. You can base this on your budget and the size of your company.

Some affiliate directories will provide you the step-by-step guide on how to join their affiliate directory. Once a member, your own affiliate program can be viewed in their directory for others to browse. With the affiliate directory more businesses will be able to know of your business’ existence allowing for a bigger market and more partners.

Get the chance to see the potential of your business grow. Affiliate program directories are the next big step that can elevate your business. The more affiliate program partners you have the more potential customers you can reach. All you need is some diligence in joining as many affiliate program directories that you can.

In any business, advertising and marketing is the key. Online businesses don’t differ. Exert the time and effort to be a part of as many affiliate program directories as you can and it may be well worth your effort.

About the Author:

Jeff Casmer is an award winning entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and internet marketing consultant with sales over $25,000,000. He is currently featured as a “Top” Affiliate of ThePlugInProfitSite. His “Top Ranked” Earn Money at Home Directory gives you all the information you need to start, maintain, and prosper with your very own Internet Home Based Business in the 21st century.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/affiliate-programs-articles/affiliate-program-directory-getting-an-effective-affiliate-program-listed-21650.html

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The idea of using affiliate programs is to produce extra income and in the process attain total financial freedom. More and more people from all over the world are looking for a real winner.

The problem is, affiliate programs are sprouting up all over the place and there's just too many of them to keep up with. This makes the choice of the best one or ones to signup for a frustrating and time consuming process.

Before you signup for any affiliate program, I advise you to run through this check list:

1. Think about the product:

Is it a product that you would use regularly and freely recommend to your friends? Is it lower priced and more convenient to use than similar products/services available elsewhere? Finally, what about delivery. How much of a time interval is involved from when your customer orders until they receive the product/service?

2. Find out as much about the operation as you possibly can:

Beware of chain letters, pyramid scams, and exorbitant claims relative to distributor profits. Be sure to find out exactly what you will be getting in return for your initial signup fee.

3. Find out about the companies financial backing and corporate officers:

Are they in it as full-time professional sales people? Be sure to understand/know how the company keeps track of all the incoming orders and when as well as how you will be paid.

In essence, before deciding to become involved in an affiliate program and expect to make a profit, it is essential that you understand:

It is a selling proposition. You will be required to do atleast some advertising.

You must have a product/service that appeals to most people. In other words, information or services that will enable people to fulfill their basic wants and/or needs.

You need assistance, instruction and help, in not only selling the product/service but in how to find new customers on an ongoing basis. Once you have decided to try your hand at affiliate programs and you have become affiliated with a company that has a product/service you feel will appeal to most people. The next thing is to determine how YOU want to sell it.

Remember the amount of time you spend in actually trying to sell the product will determine the amount of money you will make.

It's up to you to decide just how much time you will spend with your extra income producing project.

Picking a winning affiliate program can be exasperating because there are so many to choose from, but the ordeal can be a lot more profitable if you will ask yourself the questions I have outlined for you here.

Article Source: http://www.articleset.com

About the Author

Signup for Business-As-Always Ezine and get 2 ebooks free plus info. on 2 excellent affiliate programs that have residual income!

http://www.business-as-always.com/ezine
» Read more articles by Brent Hollins

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Author: J. Stephen Pope

How To Start Your Own Affiliate Program by J. Stephen Pope

1. Why Start Your Own Affiliate Program?

Multiple web sites and distributors selling your product can
result in increased sales and profits. Unlike conventional
advertising, affiliate programs pay only for performance.
Commissions are not paid out unless sales are made.

Also, with many more web sites linking to yours, your link
popularity is sure to increase in search engines, resulting in
additional traffic and income.

2. Combine a Merchant Account with Your Affiliate Program

If your product is downloadable (such as electronic books or
software), you might consider ClickBank.com. For a $49.95
initial fee, you can process credit cards and on-line cheques
for $1.00 per transaction plus 7.5% of sales. As an added bonus,
you have your own built-in affiliate program.

ClickBank gives you a listing on their web site and visitors can
buy your products and join your affiliate program. You choose
the commission rate you are willing to pay. All commission
payments are handled by ClickBank. One downside is that you
can`t run a two-tiered program.

To learn more about ClickBank affiliate programs, visit
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/cbap.html

3. Use an Affiliate Program Script

If you are comfortable with running CGI scripts, you may wish to
install your own affiliate program on your server and administer
the affiliate program yourself.

Be forewarned, though, that this is a lot of work. You will be
responsible for all the testing, security, commission payments,
promotion and so on. Another downside: Will your potential
affiliates trust you since their commissions are not tracked and
paid by an independent third party?

You will find an example of an affiliate script program at
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/buy/simple-affiliate.html

4. Use a Hosted Solution

There are good reasons for not hosting your affiliate program on
your server. Perhaps you don`t have the time to administer all
the aspects of an affiliate program. Maybe your time could be
used more productively in other areas of your business.
Additionally, an independent third party tracking and paying
affiliate commissions inspires confidence in prospective
affiliates. Finally, you just might benefit from the additional
exposure that an affiliate network brings you.

ClixGalore.com is an example of an affiliate network. You will
need to pay a $75.00 deposit to cover affiliate commissions.
They charge 25% of any affiliate commissions paid. For example,
if you paid an affiliate a 10% commission on a $100.00 sale, you
would pay the affiliate $10.00 and ClixGalore $2.50.

With ClixGalore, you can also have a two-tier program. Taking
the above example, if you paid affiliates for finding other
affiliates, you might pay 2% on your second tier. That would be
another $2.00 commission and $ .50 affiliate network fee for a
total of $15.00 in commissions on both levels.

To learn more about ClixGalore affiliate network, visit
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/clixgalore.html

5. For All Affiliate Programs

Setup your own web page (or pages) outlining the benefits of
your affiliate program. Offer articles, suggestions, text and
banner links, and other useful support for your affiliates.

Offer a generous commission so that others feel motivated to
sell for you. Obtain the e-mail addresses of your affiliates so
that you can keep in touch with them to aid them to sell more.

For increased traffic, sales and profits, start your own
affiliate program.

For more information about affiliate programs, visit
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/affiliate.html

RESOURCE BOX

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc.,
http://www.popeconsultinginc.com/ has been helping clients to
earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.

For valuable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/

About the Author:
RESOURCE BOX:

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been
helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over
twenty-five years.

For profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/

To see how autoresponder services can improve your profits,
visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/autoresponders.html

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/affiliate-programs-articles/how-to-start-your-own-affiliate-program-373.html

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There are millions of different affiliate programs on the internet and also offline to join and most are free. During the past 7 yrs, millions of people from all over the world have joined these free affiliate programs in order to generate supplemental incomes or full time as home based businesses. Since most of these affiliates have full time jobs and have little or no computing, website or business marketing and management skills, most have found it very difficult to generate affiliate commissions and reasonable income because they dot know how to generate website traffics. Therefore, some of them were forced to flock to the so-called internet-marketing gurus to buy internet-marketing e-books, website promotion software’s and read gazillion numbers of silly e-zines to learn how to promote their affiliate programs and websites. For more detail go to:www.affiliate-windfall-secrets.com. Some of these so-called gurus went as far as seducing these internet newbies into attending their over priced internet-marketing seminars in different cities in America and other countries of the world.

www.affiliate-manager-pro.com

www.articles-page-machine.com

In some of these internet marketing e-books, the so called internet marketing gurus told them that the big secrets of getting rich on the internet were to get massive traffics by placing free classified ads, advertising in FFA (Free For All) websites, placing banner ads, doing pay per click advertising, creating thousands of blogs and pinging them, buying expensive text ad links, doing reciprocal link exchange with other websites, doing opt-in e-mail marketing, joint venture marketing, optimize and submit their websites to search engines, write articles about topics relating to their internet business and affiliate programs and submit them to thousands of article directories so as to get one way links, high page ranks and top 10 ranking so as to get massive traffics. for more help visit to:www.affiliate-directories-online.com. The so-called website marketing gurus seduced them into believing that to be able to do all these promotions they must use certain software’s and programs, which they must buy from them (the so-called internet marketing gurus!) Some of these internet marketer newbies followed all these advices diligently and bought the software’s, did all the recommended internet marketing and promotions. They have done the internet promotion work, but they were generating little or no traffics and sales despite spending thousands of dollars and their valuable time for 1yr-2yrs. Finally, they became fade up and were forced to begin to scream, Where is the money? What they did not realize was that most of the internet marketing strategies, which the so-called gurus had recommended, had been out of date, stale, invalid and did not work any more. They did not know that the gurus do not even use those internet marketing and website promotion strategies. This is because most of the so-called gurus had already made their money in various businesses before they got involved in internet businesses. Most had built large customer base for about 10yrs-20 yrs before they began internet business. One so-called internet-marketing guru sold his offline business for about before he began his internet business and had more than e-mail list to market any product to and generate thousands of dollars easily and instantly. It is clear that what these gurus have been selling are half-truths. They do not tell their customers the whole truth for obvious reasons. This is a no-brainer. It is irrational. No right thinking, rational and profit-motivated businessperson will do that: cut his/her nose to spite his/her face. This will explain why only the so-called website marketing gurus have been getting richer in their internet businesses while the buyers of their internet marketing e-books and website promotion softwares have been doing poorly, and not succeeding as much as the website promotion gurus have in their affiliate programs marketing and internet businesses. Website traffics, visitors and customers are the lifeblood of every business, both on the internet and off the internet.

This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_694907_81.html

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Author: Dean T Whittingham

A successful ecommerce business owner requires a product or service to sell, traffic to a web site, and converting traffic into sales. Success can not exist if one of these three is missing. Step 1 is the easiest but steps 2 and 3 are where things can become hard because there are so many choices out there; it is extremely easy to get confused and frustrated with it all.

But let’s break steps 2 and 3 down into a more manageable list of categories. You’ll need a domain name, a web site and web host with web hosting related services, a shopping cart, a merchant account, multiple marketing tools, traffic, training and support. You can see why things can become confusing for someone who is looking to become serious on the internet. All of these aspects will all come at a cost, if not just from your pocket but time too.

The three biggest issues are too many choices, logistics and costs.

Too many choices cause a headache right from the beginning. If you’ve ever tried to search for a decent and cost efficient web hosting service you’ll more than likely end up with no hair (sorry if you’re already bald!). The problem is that almost all web hosts that have been reviewed on public forums, have been because of a complaint and not the other way around. Unfortunately you will find this with all aspects of the ecommerce business world, from domain name registration services to merchant accounts; and so you run the risk of choosing the wrong ones. It can be a complete pain having to change an integral part of your ecommerce business.

Logistically speaking it can get very messy. Let’s say you approached a separate company for every single aspect of your ecommerce business because they focus on the specific aspect, for example domain name registration. You have to browse through their site to ensure you get what you want; you’ll have to create an account so you can use their service, and then learn how to use their online interface where your account is housed, and then get to know their support module because it is guaranteed you’ll need it, especially if you’re new. Now assume you have to do this for every aspect of an ecommerce business.

Then there are the costs. In actual fact the most taxing cost is time, however the financial costs increase the more services you use. You’ll also have the administrative hassle of having to know which time of the month each service is going to bill you.

Then there’s marketing, driving traffic and training. The list of marketing methods becoming available on the internet is increasing all the time. Many ecommerce business owners think they have to use them all, and what’s worse, learn them all. Internet marketing is about reach and automation; getting the most reach efficiently to attract traffic, and automating the process of dealing with this traffic. When you consider there’s pay per click, banner, newsletter, link and classified advertising, all with costs associated, how do you know which method is working the best?

When people visit your website you’ve got to convert them to sales. You’ve got to test headlines, graphics, colors, guarantees and sales copy. You need to determine the most wanted response, whether it is a direct sale, or to sign up to your email list. But once again, you need to test and automate the whole process, not to mention store the customer’s details - another service that will cost money.

Having affiliates sell your products and services is one of the greatest ways if not the best way to gain more reach but how do you manage them? You’ve got to track the traffic, clicks and sales they generate not to mention pay them. This requires another service you have to pay for.

In recent times some companies have become multi-service. The more of these services a company can offer the cheaper it becomes for you, not to mention the time saved logistically because of a shorter learning curve and support for all the services is in the one place. Imagine being able to build and operate a complete ecommerce business from the one service and the one bill?

Finding a solution to all of the above requires finding a company that offers domain registration, web hosting and web hosting related services including a web site builder; a shopping cart and merchant account to accept online payments; marketing tools including opt-ins, auto responders, email and newsletter list management, affiliate tracking and promotional services, ad tracking and customer interaction; and to top it off, have training materials by way of online videos, online user guides, a knowledge base and an expert support team experienced enough to deal with all aspects of running an ecommerce business including technical support. Find one of these and you have the most powerful partner possible to help you in operating your successful ecommerce business.

About the Author:

Dean Whittingham has built many Full Blown Internet Businesses Using One Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/can-you-get-a-full-blown-internet-business-in-one-ecommerce-shopping-cart-solution-303482.html

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