assisting entrepreneurs with e-commerce strategies alan barefield university of tennessee...

Assisting Entrepreneurs with E-Commerce Strategies

Alan Barefield

University of Tennessee

Agricultural Extension ServiceAgricultural Extension ServiceThe University of Tennessee

Steps for getting online

Planning Your Web Site Finding a Web Hosting Provider Registering your Domain Name Selling On-line Creating your Site Attracting Customers to Your Site

Agricultural Extension ServiceThe University of Tennessee

Planning your site

What do you want to do? What kind of site do you need? How much do you have to spend? Look at your competition Storyboarding DIY or contract it out


Finding a web hosting provider

Types of providers Internet Service Provider (ISP)Free Web Hosting ServicesVirtual ServerDedicated/Co-located

Locating a provider


Considerations for finding a provider

Cost Access Speed Types of Servers Used Redundant Connections Bandwidth Allocation Customer Support Access to Web Files Features Experience


Registering a domain name

Domain Name as Business NameEasy to RememberShort but MeaningfulName Variations

Name Types (.com, .net, .org, .biz) Whois Search


Selling online

Affiliate Programs Payment Processing Services On-line Auctions eShops/Malls Merchant Accounts Shopping Carts


Creating your site

Tools

Templates

Style Manuals

Usability/AccessibilityAgricultural Extension ServiceThe University of Tennessee

Attracting customers to your site

Advertise Everywhere E-Mail Marketing

Search Engine Submission Refine Meta Tags, Title, Descriptions & Home Page Tools to help you

How do you maintain your site? Is Your Content Fresh? Reviewing Your Site


Why use e-commerce?

An e-commerce strategy can have many goals Increased market share Increased market size Increased market potential & feasibility Increased market perception Increased company profits


E-commerce strategies

Consumer education Product information Technical specifications Product support Customer assistance Purchase facillitation


E-commerce Components

Part IIvisibility

Part Isearch engines

Part IVeverything else

Part IIIemail

marketing


What clients need to knowabout search engines There are only nine search engines that

really matter Understand search engines and how they

are used This enables you to understand how

people use search engines Carefully prepare your website before

search engine submission


What clients need to knowabout search engines Submitting pages to the various search

engines takes very little time, usually only about ten minutes

The only person that can effectively submit a website to the search engine is the person that best understands the company


Search engines that really matter

AltaVista Google

Inktomi Fast

Excite Hotbot

Lycos Northern Light

Direct Hit


How do search engines work?

database

search resultskeyword

user



database

submit URLcompany

ownerAgricultural Extension ServiceThe University of Tennessee


database


submit URL

user

companyownerAgricultural Extension ServiceThe University of Tennessee

Search engine example


Directories that really matter

Yahoo! If you are a business, you must pay a submission fee

to be reviewed A one-time fee of $299 is required It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to revise a

Yahoo! Directory listing https://ecom.yahoo.com/fast/add

Looksmart Open Directory


How directories work

database


user



database

submit URL

$$$$

reviewer



database


submit URL

$$$$

user

reviewer


Directory example


How do users search the web? They typically start with broad, general

terms When 10,000,000 websites are returned,

they use additional terms to narrow the search

They typically don’t search for a company name

They almost never search for the term “Welcome To”


Preparing your site to get found(this is the hardest part)

Choose ten words that describe your business, product(s), and/or service(s)

Take your time and plan carefully

Above all, think like a searcher


Using html codes wisely

There are three types of html codes to be concerned withhtml titlehtml descriptionhtml keywords

These codes are the key to the effectiveness of a website marketing strategy


html title

The html title is the words seen at the top of the browser window when you access a web page

This is not necessarily the banner in the website content

It is displayed as the link for a listing on the search engine


Ole Smoky General Store


Source code<head><title>Ole Smoky General Store Brand Tennessee Ham</title><meta NAME="Keywords"CONTENT="country hams, ham, bacon, country, kitchen, christmas, gifts, cookbooks, Christmas Presents, gifts"><meta NAME="DESCRIPTION"CONTENT="Country Hams, Slab Bacon, and Other Goodies for Your Country Table"></head>

<body BACKGROUND="graphics/pale3.gif">

<table cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3"> <tr> <td><a HREF="default.htm"><img SRC="graphics/oslogo.gif" WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="75" BORDER="0" alt="Return to Ole Smoky Front Porch"></a></td> <td><strong><font SIZE="-2">Even more bargains galore <br> at the <a HREF="Default.htm">Ole Smoky General Store</a>!</font><br> Order on-line or call us: <font COLOR="#FF0000">1-800-453-8788</font></strong></td> </tr></table>

<h2 align="center"><font color="#800000">Country Hams, Slab Bacon, and Other Goodies forYour Country Table, Camping Trip, Holiday Celebrations</font></h2>


html title

Keep the title under 75 characters. Make each title relevant to its page. Spend the most time writing the title for

your home page. Write a title for the beginning page of each

major website section For all other pages, use the beginning

page title(s) or use breadcrumbsAgricultural Extension ServiceThe University of Tennessee

meta description

The meta description details the content of a web page.

It is displayed below the web page title in the search engine listing.

Keep it under 150 characters to ensure it doesn’t get truncated (especially important with directories).


meta description

Make each description relevant to the page that it is on.

Entice potential visitors with clever copy so they will be prone to click

It’s not about ranking; it’s about marketing Not all search engines use the meta

description


meta keywords

The meta keywords tag can be the same for all pages in the website complex

Not all search engines take these tags into consideration when sites are ranked

Use a list of words and phrases with no commas (search engine spiders are pro-grammed to read only a certain number of char-acters in the keyword tag if they read it at all)


Use your keywords

Work your keywords into the text copy of every page as many times as you can without making it sound ridiculous

This may sound obvious, but many company owners don’t follow this advice

Focusing on keywords when writing the web page copy can help reduce jargon


DON’T

Use irrelevant keywords in meta tags Repeat keywords several times in a row Hide text by making it the same color as the

background Use a string of keywords for the html title Submit exact copies of pages with different file

names Use abbreviations in the keywords unless

abbreviations are commonly used Send e-mail to search engines


Search term suggestions

Go to www.overture.com

Click on Advertiser Login at the bottom of the page

Click on Search Term Suggestion Tool

Enter a search term in the appropriate fieldAgricultural Extension ServiceThe University of Tennessee

Overture search term suggestions



Go to www.spellweb.com

Enter the words or phrases you wish to compare

Choose either the Webcrawler or FAST search engine


ALT tags

Every image on your website should have an ALT tag associated with it

The ALT text is what visitors see if they move their mouse cursor over the image


Search engine submission

Bookmark the pages of the search engine submission pages or see http://members.attcanada.ca/ ~lillyb/search_engine_submission.html

Enter the site URL in each submission page

If the site is relatively small, submit all pages


Then you wait…

It may take from two to four weeks for your site to be included in a search engine database.

It can take weeks after that before you see your site appear in the search results.

Every time the database is re-indexed, your ranking will change

Re-submit every month and monitor your results


Don’t pay someone else to submit your website for you No one else understands a business as

well as the owner/operator understands it. It would take longer for to explain a

business to a stranger than it would for the owner/operator to submit the site.

Most submission businesses will submit the site one time only; you can develop a site submission program for the cost of your time


Paid inclusion and placement

Paid inclusion Yahoo It’s well worth the investment

Paid inclusion LookSmart If you can afford it, pay to be included

Paid placement GoToDon’t waste your money; do you use GoTo?


assisting entrepreneurs with e-commerce strategies alan barefield university of tennessee...

Documents

dont search

search enginescarefully

various search engines

knowabout search enginesthere

engines work

companysearch engines

web sitefinding

sitewhy use ecommerce