• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map has an extremely large number of links, you may want to break the site map into multiple pages.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the “ALT” attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.
• Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
• Review our image guidelines for best practices on publishing images.

· Why is software testing important?

· Steps in the software testing process

· What are your options for software testing

· The STRONG reasons for outsourcing your software testing

SUMMARY

Market research studies show that 40% of unplanned application downtime is caused by application failures or “bugs”; 40% by application errors and only 20% by hardware, environmental factors or disasters. Therefore, 80% of unplanned downtime can be alleviated by improvement of IT processes, pre-deployment testing and complete operations training. But not all organizations have the “know-how” or resources to perform the software testing process. Software testing is crucial, but it is certainly not the core activity of most organizations that need it. Outsourcing this process will allow a company to focus on it’s core activities while software testing experts can handle the work proficiently, ensuring quality results. The company will save time and money on a process that would otherwise be too tedious and exhausting if performed internal.

Why is software testing important?

Software testing is an essential and vital phase of any software development project. Developers and testers must ensure that newly developed products meet practical and performance requirements and that those products are reliable to operate consistently under every circumstance. The risks of launching a product that is not yet fully prepared are greater now than ever before because of the change in expectations and demands of the end users.

A continuous approach to quality, initiated early in the software lifecycle, can lower the cost of completing and maintaining the software significantly. This greatly reduces the risk associated with deploying poor quality software.

Briefly, the main improvements that come with deploying software testing and highlight the generally quoted reasons for testing are:

- Save time and money by identifying defects early

- Avoid or reduce development downtime

- Provide better customer service by building a better application

- Know that users’ requirements are satisfied

- Build a list of desired modifications and enhancements for later versions

- Identify and catalog reusable modules and components

- Identify areas where programmers and developers need training

Steps in the software testing process

Software testing providers focus primarily on evaluating product quality, which is realized through the following core practices:

- Find and document defects in software quality.

- Advise on the perceived software quality.

- Validate and prove the assumptions made in design and requirement specifications through concrete demonstration.

- Validate that the software product works as designed.

- Validate that the requirements are implemented appropriately.

A good test effort is driven by questions such as: How could this software break? In what possible situations could this software fail to work predictably? Software testing challenges the assumptions, risks, and uncertainty inherent in the work of other disciplines, and addresses those concerns using concrete demonstration and impartial evaluation.

What are your options for software testing

Independent testing denotes the test design and implementation most appropriately performed by someone who is autonomous from the team of developers. This means that the results will be impartial and reflect an objective view of product’s capabilities.

But though company literature boasts the tremendous time and money saving features of outsourcing software testing – while stressing high quality work you can count on – one should decide clearly whether it is really beneficial to outsource software testing.

How can you decide if it makes sense to outsource software testing? You’ve got to begin by carefully analyzing your needs as they relate to this critical phase of software development. Software testing means many things to many people. The main objective of software testing is to ensure the software functions as specified before going into production. But it also means making sure the software is intuitive and easy to use.

Before you make the decision to outsource software testing, it’s important to clarify what you want from the outsourcing company. As their popularity grows, so do the services these companies provide. Many also provide software design services. Or, they will plan, but not implement a software testing process for your organization. And they will even send individuals to your site to takecare of integrating the software testing tools you purchase with your hardware. In general, regardless of your exact software testing needs, if you’ve got the money to pay for it, you’ll find an outsourcing company willing to do it.

The STRONG Reasons for Outsourcing your Software Testing

ACCESS TO A SKILLED TEAM OF TESTERS

Probably the most important reason why companies decide to outsource software testing is to eliminate the learning curve.

Employees of specialized software testing companies are not only aware of different software testing tools, but they already know how to use them very well. If you work in software development, you know how tight production schedules are. Anything that saves time helps keep projects on schedule. Software delays are costly so when weighing the costs vs. benefits of outsourcing software testing, determine how project delays affect your bottom line.

REDUCE EXPENSES WITH RESOURCES

Following the previously mentioned reason, it’s also important to say that software testing providers are not only specialists in testing tools but, obviously, they already own it. And these tools are pretty expensive. So the fact that you won’t have to buy them any more is already a significant cost saver.

Moreover, oftentimes software development houses cannot afford to hire and maintain a full-time development team and an in-house software testing team. For these companies, the decision to outsource software testing is an easy one.

BETTER SOFTWARE QUALITY

Another key benefit of outsourcing testing practice is better software quality supported by:

· Organization independence, which ensures focus on quality, correctness and conformance to requirements without schedule or budget overruns

· Technical and process independence which is achieved through mature processes, specialized resources and tools for testing the application

· Central repository of testing best practices such as mechanisms to identify defects in early release cycles and approaches for reducing test case development effort

FASTER TIME TO MARKET

Organizations with an independent testing process ensure improved time to market by enabling faster turnaround of releases. This is achieved through:

· Skills in test automation strategies, enabling faster testing cycles

· Optimizing staffing lead time and improving the ability to handle fluctuations in demand

· Higher degree of predictability in testing effort, enabling adherence to schedule

SAVE OVERALL COSTS

It’s an overhyped subject that IT outsourcing in general determines significant costs reduction. But in software testing particularly, research studies show clear figures regarding companies that chose outsourcing instead of in-house deployment.

- In a study conducted by AMR Research, surveys proved a cost of finding and fixind deffects that accounts for nearly 50% of the cost for all software development projects.

- The same research reveals that offshore software testing saves companies up to 75% over in-house costs, improves quality and si a less risky method to develop mature offshore outsourcing skills

http://www.outsourcing-factory.com

1170 Rue Monfet, Quebec City

Quebec, Canada

Phone: +1-418-5590775

© 2008 by Outsourcing Factory Incorporated. All rights Reserved.

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

Accessible Platforms

Ask your Boston website design team what platforms your website will be accessible on. Believe it or not that your site may be designed one way and not accessible on all platforms. Consider the individuals using handheld devices to access the web and whether or not you want your site designed for these individuals to access as well.

Legal Action

Ask your Boston web design company if anything on your site could result in legal action. The last thing you want is a lawsuit or some other legal problem over your web design so find out in advance if this could be a problem.

Bandwidth

Using design methods like CSS or XHTML means you will save a lot of bandwidth; your site will download several times faster not to mention that you will save lots of money. So, make sure you ask your web designer what type of bandwidth will be used by your site and if CSS or XHTML are options. Your Boston web design company should be able to handle any of these and will let you know what will be best.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization is incredibly important and you will want to know what Boston SEO methods are available for your site. Basically, SEO means that your website content will be written in a manner that will help it rank higher in the search engines and get more hits. Find out from your web designer if the content is written by an SEO expert or not.

Upgrades

You will also want to find out if it will be easy to upgrade your site or not. The easier your site is to upgrade the better off you will be. So, consider paying a little more up front and having an easily upgradeable site that will save you money and time in the long haul.

Natalie Aranda is a freelance writer. Ask your Boston website design team what platforms your website will be accessible on. Believe it or not that your site may be designed one way and not accessible on all platforms. Ask your Boston web design company if anything on your site could result in legal action.

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

Brand awareness can be measured by showing a consumer the brand and asking whether or not they knew of it beforehand. However, in common market research practice a variety of recognition and recall measures of brand awareness are employed all of which test the brand name’s association to a product category cue, this came about because most market research in the 20th Century was conducted by post or telephone, actually showing the brand to consumers usually required more expensive face-to-face interviews (until web-based interviews became possible). This has led many textbooks to conceptualise brand awareness simply as its measures, that is, knowledge that the brand is a member of a particular product category, e.g. soft-drinks. Examples of such measures include:

* Brand recognition – Either the brand name or both the brand name and category name are presented to respondents.
* Brand recall – the product category name is given to respondents who are asked to recall as many brands as possible that are members of the category.
* Top of mind brand awareness – as above, but only the first brand recalled is recorded (also known as spontaneous brand recall).

Research on metrics

There has been discussion in industry and practice about the meaning and value of various brand awareness metrics. Recently, an empirical study appeared to put this debate to rest by suggested that all awareness metrics were systematically related, simply reflecting their difficulty, in the same way that certain questions are more difficult in academic exams.

Stability of responses

While brand awareness scores tend to be quite stable at aggregate (level) level, individual consumers show considerable propensity to change their responses to recall based brand awareness measures. For top of mind recall measures, consumers give the same answer in two interviews typically only 50% the time. Similar low levels of consistency in response have been recorded for other cues to elicit brand name responses

But a lot of issues actually circle the concept of branding metrics. This is because the metrics put in practice would differ from one particular brand of item to another. what works for a particular item, like a computer, just might not work for another item, like a watch. The companies producing computers and watches would then have and use different branding metrics. Similarly, what works for a particular computer company just might not work for another company developing computers as well. The objectives of each company have to be determined and considered here. this fact adds to the confusion of using branding metrics. Which is precisely why the next generation in branding metrics should focus on bottom-line results.

Making such a direct connection presents much of a challenge for all companies of any industry. There are a lot of factors to consider here as well. However, for some companies, the simple causal correlation is enough to make a direct connection between branding metrics and the company’s overall performance.

Typically, branding metrics can actually be grouped into two categories, which are performance metrics and perception metrics. Performance metrics are used in assessing how successful activities for brand-building are. Loyalty, price premium, and lifetime values of customers are the basic indicators employed by performance metrics. Perception metrics, on the other hand, monitor aspects about the brand that are intangible. Consideration, awareness, and relevance are some of the indicators employed by this category by branding metrics. This type is equally important because the indicators themselves are very effective in gauging just how efficient the company’s activities towards brand-building are. More importantly, these brand-building activities should still be linked to the overall performance of the business.

No matter what type of metrics or performance indicators you use, effectiveness is ensured when there is a clear link developed between brand and business strategies. These metrics can clearly show you how better management of the brand can be achieved, and at the same time, provide you the rationale towards effective allocation of the resources for both the brand and the business. More importantly, any business would actually benefit much if a measured approach that is consistent is used to gauge its overall performance. One such measured approach could be in the form of a scorecard.

Of course, the brand metrics incorporated into the scorecard should be minimal, and should still have a direct connection with the performance of the business. Why is there a need to keep the number of brand metrics at a minimal? Simply because when you incorporate so many metrics into the scorecard, measuring overall performance would be hazy because there are so many factors taken into consideration. Thus, you should just concentrate on the branding metrics that are more relevant to the whole picture.

If you are interested in branding metrics, check this web-site to learn more about branding kpi.

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

Talking in broader terms, promotional gifts categories include free products gifted as “marketing specialties,” given to in response to specific actions, tradeshow giveaways, business gifts, and employee incentives or rewards.

With the help of the latest imprinting techniques, your chosen products can be emblazoned with your company’s name, logo, slogan, and message for maximum effect. Promotional gifts have proved to be great tools to generate brand name recognition, create customer or employee goodwill, and popularise brand name often at very little cost.

The majority of such items are usually inexpensive and if they are bought in bulk, they cost you much less. If we go by the statistics, industry estimates indicate that such products racked up over 17 billion pounds in UK sales in 2004. In fact, they have become more popular in all types of industries, ranging from construction and service trades to academic and government.

Each and every business irrespective of its genre can benefit from the appropriate gift, but you need to get the right product for the right audience at the right price. You can get this problem easily solved at one of the many reputed suppliers, providing a wide range of promotional items. Advertising gifts certainly compliment and increase the effectiveness of other marketing strategies, only if they are directed to selected audiences. Advertising gifts can dramatically boost the sales and gifting gifts like calendars will make your company name and message stay in front of your consumers all year long.

Though every promotional item carries its own life, but advertising items remain in use for long periods of time repeating the message each time they are used without extra cost per exposure. Leading designers make sure that you get exactly what you are looking for. Unless you are satisfied, they keep on providing you advertising gifts. To know more about these and corporate , business, and promotional products simply check out the leading online suppliers.

Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet, the UK’s leading online promotional gifts and promotional items company based in the north of England. Established in 2001, he has taken the UK gift market by storm by the application of modern business thinking and the latest search engine marketing techniques. For more details visit http://www.ideasbynet.com

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

The internet has grown by 215% in the last 7 years and even this growth through out the world encompasses only 17% of the total population.[Int] Considering the figures from [Int] the opportunity for e-commerce is astounding and at the same time the risks and destabilization factors are just as great.

Simply because we can cite a couple of companies that have survived the .com bust and prospered such as Yahoo, Google, and Amazon.com, we cannot say that e-commerce has stabilized. There is no way of knowing whether it has stabilized or not.

[Lev99] illustrates that it was the human interaction that drove the rise of civilization and eventually the internet and it is this very same force that will keep e-commerce from stabilizing completely. Some businesses will never be able to transfer all operation to e-commerce simply because of the human interaction factor that humans desire. You can send an email, but it will never be as effective as a phone conversation; while a video conference will never replace throwing back a few cold ones during a business deal. As long as every business is not able to completely operate on the internet without the bricks, e-commerce cannot be considered to be a stable operating medium for a business.

Nevertheless, e-commerce is essential for the success of modern businesses because of the pervasiveness of technology and the current drive toward automation. The internet enables e-commerce to span the globe and to give companies reach into corners of the world where access was impossible previously. To leave out e-commerce form a business model could be a devastating mistake.

E-commerce security also has a long way to go before it stabilizes. Firewalls and even biometrics can be defeated with clever exploits and social engineering opening the way for significant destabilization within e-commerce. There is nothing in ecommerce resembling the vault at Ft. Knox. Even NSA computers have been hacked and White House websites defaced. Until security on the internet is stabilized e-commerce can hardly be said to have stabilized.

[Int] internet World Stats

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

[Lev99]Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger, “the cluetrain manifesto”, 1999,

http://www.cluetrain.com/

Gene Leshinsky
Techruiter
Toll Free: 1-800-791-7794

http://www.boston-technical-recruiter.com

I had surfed the internet for years and had often considered the idea of participating in the internet revolution. I had read some statistics on the use of internet and the increasing numbers of homes with computers and the increasing percentage of Christmas shopping done over the internet. So I decided to jump in with both feet.

First what is ecommerce? The online world designates web sites devoted to retail sales as an e-commerce site. E-commerce sites sell either information or hard goods such as cameras or knifes. E-commerce sites also have Shopping Carts and Payment Gateways attached to them that non-sales web sites do not need.

Ok……so you want to develop an E-commerce site. You are now probably asking do I have enough skill, mental patience or aptitude to be successful?

Well if you have average intelligence, I believe that you and thousands of people just like you could have an E-commerce web site. All that is required is the willingness to learn a few things, patience, and the determination to apply yourself.

How? I am glad you asked.

Let’s begin. We first need to discuss the basics components you will need.

1. Computer
2. Internet connection
3. Site building software
4. Graphics Software
5. Web hosting company
6. Shopping cart
7. Payment gateway

The above elements are where most people stop when they think of what they will need when they want to start an ecommerce site. However, there are other elements that need to be considered, such as getting legal and product sourcing.

Items 1 and 2 above are pretty straight forward and most people can understand why they are necessary. The other items however are a little more complex. Site building software allows the beginner to construct a web site without knowing html programming code. What is Html programming Code?

Html is the programming language of the internet and stands for Hyper Text Mark Up Language. The two best software programs currently available to write Html are Microsoft’s FrontPage 2003 or Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. These programs are more correctly known as HTML Editors.

These two programs are the best ones available. I have them both but use FrontPage 2003 primarily. I think FrontPage 2003 is easier to use and does better tables then Dreamweaver. Most professional web site developers, however consider Dreamweaver the better of the two because some claim it has more features, but I find it is a little more complicated to use. I would recommend that you surf the internet and read the reviews on both of these programs and make you own choice.

Next you will need a good graphic program such as Adobe Photoshop 6. A graphics program allows you manipulate the size of images create images in different formats and create special effects. “PhotoShop 6” is the current version from Adobe and is the best software program for graphics. Adobe
“Photoshop Elements” can also be used, but is a limited version of the full Photoshop software. The programs from Adobe are expensive so shop around for the best price.

Web hosting is very important and you need to comparison shop for features first, not on price. Web hosting and ecommerce are extremely related, and learned by personal experience the mistake trying to separate ecommerce from web hosting. The web host company is the company that rents room on their server for your web site, but they can much more. They can offer an integrated shopping cart.

The shopping cart is the heart of the ecommerce web site. The shopping cart for all intents and purposes runs your ecommerce web site so it is critical to get a good one. It contains and displays the products you intend to sell. It also does other neat administrative functions that will make your store easier to run. There are some stand alone shopping carts for sale but most come with web hosting service attached.

The “Payment Gateway” is the cashier in the store and is also known as a “Merchant Account.” This is basically a business credit card account. The payment gateway allows your se store to accept credit cards and transfer money to you. Merchant Accounts are very important and you should also carefully review their services and prices. If you do not get a merchant account you are pretty much limited to papal. Search the web and check out the available shopping carts and payment gateways.

Now what are you going to sell, and where are you going to get it? You can look every where for the products you want to sell. How do you know what will sell well? You need to do some market research. Not everything sells well, including electronics. If you have no preference on what to sell, find some marketing software that will allow you to determine which products ell well online.

Next, you will need a source for those products. Assuming you are not making them yourself. The best way is to drop ship them. The trouble is finding a reliable drop ship source and avoiding the imposters.

Once you find you product source you need to open an account and stock your store and start selling. There munch more to an ecommerce store then can be explained in a brief article format. As someone who recently went from zero to an online store Cynscorion.com), I know first hand of the pit falls that await the beginning ecommerce site builder.

If you want to learn more about what to avoid in building an ecommerce site go to either: www.cynscorion.com and go to the bottom of the page and click on “Ecommerce Book For Beginners” ,or go to: http://cynscorion.com/store/cart.php?page=what_yofuture_release_of_a_very_unique_ecommerce_book
This book is for people undecided on whether to start an ecommerce site and want to find one point of reference to assist them in making their decision.

Lastly, I wish you good luck and success in your ecommerce endeavors. If I can do it, so can you!

For additional assistance go to:

http://people.lulu.com/users/index.php?fHomepage=101573

The author created his own ecommerce web site going from knowing nothing to having a fully functional ecommerce site on the web, and wrote a book on the experience. The aptly titled “STEP 1: E-commerce for Beginners” explains to BEGINNERS what “STEP 1″ is, and what they should be prepared for and makes recommedations to make the experience of building the 1st web site less stressful.

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

Find Your Niche

The first step to creating your own e-commerce business is to find you niche. Examine your hobbies and interests for potential business ideas. If you love soccer, consider selling soccer supplies or team uniforms online. You may also consider opening a business that is similar to your current job. For example, as a nurse you may know a lot about medical supplies and how hospitals obtain them. You could start a medical supply business. Your contacts and industry knowledge could give you an advantage over a competitor who does not know the inner-workings of hospitals the way you do.

Research The Demand

Now that you have a few business ideas, it’s time to research the demand for your products or services. If you plan to sell to the general public, you’ll want to find out how many people are looking for your products or services. As a small business owner, you will not have the marketing funds to create a demand for a product. The products you sell, must already be in demand. A great way to determine product demand is to see how many people are searching for a specific product. Overture has a wonderful keyword tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) that displays the number of searches for specific keywords. It will give you a good idea of which products are popular and the specific keywords you should target when building your website.

Scope Out Your Soon-To-Be Competitors

Before settling on a business idea, scope out your would-be competitors. Visit their websites and compare the following:

· Professional Look & Feel

· Products and Services

· Search Engine Ranking

· Page Rank (Available on the Google Tool Bar)

· Keywords

· Back Links (how many sites link to them).

You’ll need to know your competitor’s websites inside and out. Spend some time exploring each one. This will give you an idea of what you’re up against. Keep in mind, that your website will need to be equally as professional or better than theirs. Don’t worry if you don’t think you have the technical skills necessary to create a professional website. The use of professional website templates will be explained later.

While you’re researching your competitors, check to see if the products you intend to sell are sold at large department stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon.com. It is very difficult for a small business to compete with these large companies because the profit margins are extremely low. You’ll need to sell products that are in demand, but aren’t sold by corporate giants.

Establish A Business Entity

In order to conduct business, you need to establish a business entity. Fortunately this can be as easy as filing a “Doing Business As” or “Fictitious Name” form with your local County Clerk’s office to become a sole proprietor. When you arrive at the County Clerk’s office, they will check their records to make sure your intended business name is not already in use. If it’s available, you will need to complete the appropriate forms and pay your filing fee. Each state has different requirements. Check with your state for requirements on becoming a sole proprietor.

You will also need a sales tax id. You will need to charge sales taxes in the state where your business resides. Contact your county office for details about sales tax ID’s and any other requirements they may have.

Open A Business Bank Account

Now that you are a legitimate business owner, it’s time to open a business bank account. Take your court documents to the bank and open a business checking account. Most banks offer a variety of business accounts. Choose the one the best meets your needs. It’s usually best to start with their least expensive account because it could be a while before you start earning revenue. You can always upgrade in the future.

Some banks require a business owner to wait specified amount of time, usually 90 days, after the court documents are filed before opening a business bank account. These rules are in place to help prevent fraud. Check with your bank to obtain waiting period information.

Choose A Domain Name

While you wait to open a bank account, you can start building your website. First, register a domain name. Names that end in “.com” are best. If possible your, domain name should include one or more of your target keywords. For example, if you are creating a yoga supply business, you’ll want to choose a name with the word yoga, such as yogacenter.com, yoga-supply.com, or yogastuff.com.

Create Your Website

One of the keys to successful e-commerce businesses is a professional website. Your website is the first and often the only impression your visitors will have of your business. A professional website can be the difference between your visitors viewing you as a home-based business operating out of your garage and a multi-million dollar business with hundreds of employees. Fortunately, you don’t need to be a web programmer to create a professional website. There are companies that sell professional website templates. You can get website templates for free, but it’s much better to pay for a highly professional template. To find these templates, simply search for “website templates”. You should expect to pay $50 – $150 for a good template with multiple pages and professional images.

Most website templates can be customized with common HTML editors and a simple graphics program. Templates can be edited without having to invest a lot of time and energy into learning how to code web pages.

You’ll want your website content to target specific keywords. This can be achieved by creating articles, product reviews, product comparisons and detailed description of your products. Avoid repeating the keywords so often that the text becomes difficult to read. There is a fine line between good copy text and spam text. Spam text is designed to increase your site’s listing in the search engines, but often backfires when penalties are issued and your website is dropped from the listing.

Host Your Website

Now that your website has been created, it’s time to find a company to host your website on their servers. You should be able to find a good hosting company for around $10 per month. This fee should include technical support and email accounts with your domain name. Domain name-specific email accounts are important for a professional image.

Your website files can be uploaded with a simple FTP program. The hosting company’s technical support personnel can walk you through the steps to upload your files and launch your website.

Implement A Shopping Cart

No e-commerce website is complete without a secure shopping cart. There are many shopping cart options. Many e-commerce business owners make the mistake of using Pay Pal to accept payments, which immediately tells visitors that their company is very small and not professional.

A good alternative to Pay Pal is a remotely hosted shopping cart. Remote shopping carts take the burden of maintaining security and credit card numbers off your shoulder and places the responsibility on another company. Remote shopping carts can usually be configured to look similar to your website. In fact, your customers may not realize that they have left your website to place an order. The remote shopping cart provider will give you the HTML to add to your website. When your potential customer clicks on the Buy Now button, he or she is taken to the remote shopping cart to enter the personal information and payment details.

Depending on your choice of a shopping cart, you may or may not need a merchant account to process transactions. Some shopping cart services allow you to use their merchant accounts for a slightly higher fee.

Stock Your Inventory

Now that your website has been created, it’s time to stock your inventory. The first step is to find the manufacturers of the products you wish to sell. You can find this information by reviewing your competitor’s websites. Some of them may list the manufacturer with the product name or description. Once you have the name, you can search for the manufacturer online.

Contact the manufacturer and tell them that you are interested in becoming a distributor. Ask for a wholesale price list and an application. The price list will help you determine if the profit margins are high enough to justify selling their product.

You’ll want to ask the manufacturer the following questions:

· What is the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) for the item?

· Am I required to sell the item at MSRP?

· What is your minimum order quantity/amount?

Some manufacturers will not sell to e-commerce businesses that do not have a brick and mortar retail location. If this is the case, you’ll simply have to find a company that manufactures a similar product and is willing to sell to an e-commerce business.

Promote Your Business

Now that your website is live and you’re open for business, it’s time to promote your website. If no one knows that it exists, you will not receive any sales. Most website visitors originate from search engines. Before search engines can list your website, they have to know that it exists. You’ll need to submit your website to search engines and directories such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Excite, and others. Search engine submission programs and services are available, but they not effective. Most good search engines require websites to be manually submitted. They enforce this by displaying an image with a series of letters or numbers that automated programs cannot read. The code embedded in the image is required to submit your website.

Search engine algorithms are extremely complex. The ranking of a website in their search results depends on a number of factors, including keywords, density, back links, page rank, and other factors. After submitting your website to the major directories and search engines, the next step is to establish back links. When search engines crawl the web and find a link to your site, they count the link as a vote for your site. The more votes you have, the higher your site will rank (assuming other criteria has also been met). You can acquire back links by sending emails to other website owners and offering to exchange links. It’s very difficult for new websites to acquire back links. Most people prefer to exchange links with established websites. In a way, it’s a catch-22, but it can be done and the results are worth it.

Starting your own e-commerce business is a lot of work. Making it successful is even more work, but the pay-offs can be rewarding. Thanks to the explosion of the Internet age, e-commerce business opportunities are now available to anyone with a computer, a few hundred dollars for start-up costs, some spare time and the desire to create a business.

Copyright 2004 ZIP Baby. All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Danna Henderson started ZIP Baby in order to provide parents with comprehensive potty training information as well as a large selection of potty training products. For more information about potty training, or to browse the potty training store, visit the Toilet Time Targets for Potty Training.

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

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

The acronym “SEO” can also refer to “search engine optimizers,” a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing, that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.