Thursday, January 21, 2010

How Healthy Is Your Web Site

By Christopher Rom

You should not wait for the holidays to keep track of your sales. When having an e-commerce Web site it is crucial to pay attention to the possible e-store problems. Most apply to the entire year but some need to be tweaked around the holidays because monster holiday sales makes them more likely to pop up. We will start with credit-card processing.

Tip No. 1: Knowing the limits of your credit processing. Getting more business than you anticipated with a limit on the volume of credit-card transactions that are too low relates to customers' cards being refused. First be sure your system is prepared for the increase of business during the holidays. Make the changes you want during the season but they should emphasize the functional aspect of your site, But decorations should not be ignored; a festive look will encourage shoppers to purchase your products. When people open a page, they are downloading all the files that make up that page.

Now don't be dependent on automation as this can have problems. Computer programs do have their problems and you want to know as soon as you have a problem. You do not want to lose sales due to a glitch that you miss. You don't want customers that are trying to check to receive a message "We're sorry. We cannot process your card at this time." or stating the customers' cards are invalid or out of credit. So, double check often.

Tip No. 2: Watch the home front. Your credit-card and fulfillment contractors can get stressed during the holiday season. If you have increased business during this time it can stress your computer systems and network. You haven't had any problems but don't assume everything is OK. Computer problems appear at the worst times. That goes for both hardware and software. Having someone available who can fix problems quickly will help your online sales. If you can put them under contract or having programs to double check your systems will decrease the likely hood of lost sales. That ensures that failures are taken care of promptly.

When having a poor set-up it will indicate that you are not paying enough attention to your online INCOME. Which means you are not going to make the money you are capable of. The promotion of your web site and the systems that help you run your site is the key to your online work. So of course you need to keep track of everything you do with your site and how your site interacts with your potential customers. Also large files could significantly slow the download and because of this it may frustrate the customer.

Tip No. 3: Not monitoring your site. This goes without saying if your site doesn't work your customers could conclude that you're incompetent. A below par operating system will drive people away from your web site. What people are doing at your site and input from your potential clients may show you that your site is poorly designed. Some glitches have an easy fix. You can fix those on the fly during the season but hopefully you have them fixed before. More serious problems would require some site reconfiguration, obviously.

Several reporting programs out there that can tell you about how your site is working internally. And also showing the traffic patterns of your visitors, this will give you an idea of what most interests your customers. And it will tell you where your traffic is originating. Also a link checker will only tell you that the links work. Recheck your site for dead links. If you don't keep up with them frustrated customers may just go to a competitor and may lose you several hundred dollars over time. Things on your site will get moved around, and to forgetting a link that no longer works happens. Keep in mind that making sure everything is current and your descriptions of products and "Terms and Conditions" are not out of date is another key to keeping your site working properly.

So, I will just wish you all the best of luck with your online sales and I hope that these few tips will help you with your web site and your online income.

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