Everything Internet Blog

4x4parts.com - Less Talk More Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac Johnson) — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Alan recently posted about emailing customers who have abandoned shopping carts in an e-commerce website. One of our clients thought this was a great idea -- Automotive Customizers (4x4parts.com) added this feature to a project already in development. Last week we took their new site live. If customers begin the checkout process and don't complete it, they will receive a helpful email asking if they encountered any problems. This is a great way to focus on user needs. It's obvious when someone walks out of your brick-and-mortar store, but with the anonymity of the Internet, a site owner could be losing sales over a simple issue and never know it.

Automotive Customizers is based in Florida and specializes in supplying aftermarket Nissan parts to 4x4 enthusiasts. We have a long-standing relationship with their team, and the site was due for an upgrade. Both the front and back end systems were completely redesigned, and we built a number of custom features specifically tailored to their business.

One of these tools allows users to specify what Nissan vehicles they own in a profile. This allows administrators to verify that customers have ordered the right parts for their vehicles, saving headaches for both customers and staff. They can also use this information to identify which customers own a specific vehicle in the event that something special is available for that model.

My favorite feature is the lightbox photo gallery where customers can upload photos of their customized trucks. In the previous version of this site, users were restricted to uploading a very small image. The new gallery allows a much bigger image to truly show off all of those customized vehicles. Just one more user-focused feature to illustrate Automotive Customizers' commitment to their customers.

Drop by 4x4parts.com to check out the new site. Our thanks to the AC team for a great project.

Now Hiring: Web Developer/Programmer

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:37:00 +0000

Corporate Web Services is now accepting applications for a Web developer to join our highly motivated design team. This person will be an integral part of our web development efforts and will be responsible for creating custom Web-based solutions for our customers. Good communication skills are a must. We prefer a full-time position, but would consider part-time employment for a highly skilled individual. Compensation is based on experience.

Corporate Web Services is a leader in providing web development services on a national basis. As a developer with CWS, you'll have the opportunity to work in a fast-paced environment with opportunities for both personal and professional growth.

Applicants who meet the qualifications below should apply online at our website. This position is located in Rochester, MN.

Development

Able to code, rigorously test and deploy Web applications.
Pursues best practices and standards-based development
Able to work with clients to effectively determine project requirements
Familiar with standard Web development tools including Photoshop and Dreamweaver (additional software is always a plus)
Understands basic relational database design concepts.
Strong working knowledge of at least one of our standard development platforms, which include LAMP (php), ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails.
Strong working knowledge of HTML and CSS

General

Excellent communication skills
Ability to work independently
Ability to prioritize and balance simultaneous projects
Attention to detail in all areas
Desire to learn

Ask CWS: Should I buy links to my web site?

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Bernhardt) — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:54:00 +0000

I have received a couple of questions about paid links and whether one should consider them. As you may know, inbound links are an important element in search engine optimization. However, the priority should be to have quality links to your web site and not just quantity.

The offers that I have seen claim to be from many web sites and websites that they own. To be honest, links from a lot of web sites can help only if the sites are truly different (content, design, and links) and are on different web servers.

Google even has guidelines about paid links and link schemes. One article states that:

"Examples of Link Schemes can include:
Links intended to manipulate
PageRank
Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods
on the web
Excessive reciprocal links or excessive
link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
Buying or selling links that pass
PageRank"

Google and the other search engines have started to seriously focus on the issue. In cases where they have good reason to suspect links being bought and sold, both the selling and the buying web sites are usually dropped in rankings or have a penalty which downgrades the ranking. This may mean nothing to the big company that has 1000's of web sites, but most small companies have one site. To be dropped in the rankings for a domain means, transferring to a new domain, or reworking your links and that can be a long process.

Google does not forbid paid links. They have this to say about links for advertising:

"Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the tag
Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file"

I have read posts and emails that say there are ways to hide the paid links, and experts show that the search engines cannot see all of the paid links. Google has made it easy for just about anyone to report paid links. They have an anonymous form to point out a web site that someone suspects of buying or selling links. There are two way to do this:

Sign in to Google's webmaster console and use the authenticated spam report form, then include the word "paidlink" (all one word) in the text area of the spam report. If you use the authenticated form, you'll need to sign in with a Google Account, but your report will carry more weight.

Use the unauthenticated spam report form and make sure to include the word "paidlink" (all one word) in the text area of the spam report.

Paid links can help a web site move up in search engine rankings. A sudden increase in inbound links can looks suspicious to the search engines and hurt your ranking. In SEO there really are no set rules to abide by right now. The search engines all operate under slightly different guidelines and what they like and don't like can change more than daily. Most SEO experts frown upon doing something that is questionable now and could cause a drop in rankings later.

What does this mean for me and my web site? Well, some paid links can help your rankings, be very wary of getting a lot of paid links. If a company offers to have links on a number of "their" web sites for a fee, remember that a sudden increase of links from a couple of web sites may look suspicious to the search engines. Trading links are not the best way to go, but if you are doing your own SEO, it is the most cost effective and safest way to build links.

CrossLoop Unveils Helper Marketplace

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:23:00 +0000

Back in 2006, I informed you about a new piece of software called Crossloop. As you may recall, they specialize in connecting two computers together for remote management. For example, I could easily connect with my brother in Texas if he needed me to assist with installing software on his computer.

But what happens if my bother needs help and I'm too busy helping my sister, my parents, my brother-in-law, and my uncle? Don't laugh, it could happen!

Earlier this week, they added an interesting component to their business model called the "Helper Marketplace". The idea is that you can connect with other "tech savvy" individuals who are experienced and can help you solve a computer problem. So, when my brother runs into an issue, he can search for a "geek" to log onto his computer and assist him.

As a "techie", I have the option to register with them and get paid for assisting others. I might make a little money and you get your computer fixed... it's a win-win for everyone.

From a business perspective, I'm impressed by CrossLoop's innovation in this area. When I first wrote about them they barely had a concept, and as of today they have served 30 million desktop sharing minutes and received some excellent recognition - CNet's Download.com recognized them one of The 10 Best Downloads for 2007, Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal recommended them and InformationWeek recognized them as one of the Top Tech Sites for 2008. That's fantastic for a little start-up with a big idea.

Ask CWS: Should I register this domain?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:48:00 +0000

Every few weeks, I'm asked a question about a domain name and if it should be registered and/or renewed from a particular vendor. Most recently, I received the following email which had been forwarded to me from a confused customer:

Dear COMPANY, Inc.,

We are Beijing Inveis Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd which is the domain name register center in China. We received a formal application from a company who is applying to register "COMPANYinc" as their domain names and Internet keyword on April 19th, 2008. Because this involved your company name or trade mark so we inform you in no time. If you considered these domain names and internet keyword are important to you and there was necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon.

Kind Regards,

Kevin zhang
Tel:+86-10-82476192 ext.604
Fax:+86-10-62477798
Beijing Inveis Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd

While I do not believe this to be a complete scam, I do find it hard to believe that COMPANYinc.cn is in high demand. They are probably simply trying to persuade the owners of the popular .com domain name into purchasing the .cn domain (by creating a sense of urgency). On a side note, I also found it interesting that the company was not using a .cn domain name themselves, they preferred the .com domain name too.

I advised the customer that there are literally hundreds of domain name extensions available (for nearly every country) and that you can't possibly register them all. Nor would you want to, as the cost of doing this far outweighs the benefits.

To keep it simple, here are a few tips to remember when it comes to domain names:

1) Know who your domain is registered with and keep this information in a safe place.
2) Know who to call if you have questions about your domain.
3) Know when your domain renews. You will receive solicitations from other registrars as much as 6 months before it will expire. If the notification is not from the company listed in #1, ignore it.
4) Have one primary domain and do your best to get it listed with search engines. Avoid trying to market/promote several domains at once. If you do have several domains, use them for testing and measuring ad campaigns.
5) If you have multiple domains, consolidate them at one company to avoid confusion.
6) When in doubt, refer to #2.

Case Study: Mayo Medical Laboratories

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Last summer, CWS worked with Mayo Medical Laboratories to redevelop the structure of MayoMedicalLaboratories.com, and we have continued to support the expansion of its offerings. We put a lot of effort into the architecture of this site's codebase, and recent statistics have shown that these efforts are paying off.

Overall traffic to the site has doubled, but even more interesting is a six-fold increase in traffic specifically referred by search engines over an eight-month period. More recently, we've worked to develop a system for public access to the catalog of medical tests offered by MML, and this tool is already drawing nearly half of the site's traffic.

Here are a few of the strategies employed to achieve these measurable results:

Good separation of content and style. Most people know that a Web page is driven by some underlying code that's not usually displayed. But what's not always understood is that not all code serves the same function. Of course the actual text you see on a page is included, but a good portion of the code that's loaded into your Web browser is about style -- the way a page looks. When a search engine looks at the page, it doesn't care about style; content is king. In modern Web design, it's possible to almost completely separate style code from written content, but this practice isn't always followed well. When it is, the results can be dramatic. In addition to giving search engines a clearer picture of content, code separation can significantly reduce the time required to load pages and make changes far easier to implement. It also opens the possibility of repurposing content for alternative devices, like mobile or print versions, without duplicating the content.
Appropriate use of structure. The third type of code that makes up a Web page represents its structure. Many types of structure can end up yielding the same visual result. Looking at a building from the outside, you might not know if its studs were made of wood, steel, or Styrofoam. But that doesn't make all three building materials equally sound. The same is true of Web pages; the underlying structure can have a big impact on accessibility and maintainability. It's also particularly helpful for allowing search engines to assign context to words. For example, human beings rely on visual cues like text size and color to identify headings and other important words on a page. Search engines (not to mention visually impaired human beings) can't do this, so they rely on the document's structure to determine what's important.
Internationalization. When websites aim to attract a global audience, it's important to correctly encode and structure multilingual content. This improves performance with international search engines and also ensures that pages display consistently across a diverse range of platforms and browsers.

CWS believes in producing Web sites and applications that are focused on meeting business objectives and producing measurable results. Contact us for a risk-free assessment.

THIS IS A SOLICITATION

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:03:00 +0000

OK, it's not. I selected that title for this article because it is important to know these four words and look for them on all invoices you receive. Two years ago there was a Search Engine Optimization scam that people asked me about often. Today, I've had two customers send me emails asking if the "invoices" they have received are legitimate. Take this one for example:

Now one might say to themselves, "this looks an awful lot like a bill." However, if you read carefully you'll see the following mixed into the text:

THIS IS A SOLICITATION FOR THR ORDER OF GOODS OR SERVICES, OR BOTH, AND NOT A BILL INVOICE, OR STATEMENT OF ACCOUNT DUE. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO MAKE ANY PAYMENTS ON ACCOUNT OF THIS OFFER UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THIS OFFER.

Well, that's nice of them to make their "flyer" look just like an invoice. The only reason they put that text in there is because it's what keeps them out of prison. I checked out their website, which had no phone number to contact them, and they are located in Nassau, Bahamas.

Apparently they don't have jails in the Bahamas... because that's where these guys deserve to be. Their legal disclaimer may make this type of activity legal, but it's far from morally correct.

Personal Touch From 1,000 Miles

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:54:00 +0000

As I mentioned back in February, my family is gearing up for the March for Babies walk on April 26th. We've been actively fundraising and spreading the word as best we can for a cause that is very close to our hearts.

This year, we decided to do something a little different and order t-shirts for everyone who joined "Team Carson". Since we were ordering a very small quantity and needed a quick turnaround, my wife decided to order them online from CustomInk.com. They had a cool web interface that allowed her to "build a design" online and send proofs back and forth with me. She ended up with a nice design (below) and placed the order.

This is where her "automated" online ordering experience turned personal. Within a few days, Kim received an email from Robin at CustomInk.

Hi Kim,

I noticed that you have designed shirts for an upcoming March for Babies charity event. We think it's terrific that you are participating in such a worthy cause! CustomInk would love to help you reach your fundraising goal by making a small donation to your team.

Could you please reply to this e-mail with the link to your individual sponsorship page, team page or an address to which we may send a check?

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Warm Regards,

Robin Matheson
CustomInk.com

In a matter of hours, we had received a donation from CustomInk via our online fundraising website. This small gesture was enough for me to become a raving fan of CustomInk.com for life. It's nice to know that other online companies have been able to connect with their customers in a personal way. Keep up the good work!

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch?

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:20:00 +0000

One of the great things about the current generation of Web-based software is that much of it is available for free. Even fee-based services will frequently offer unpaid plans as a way of letting people try the software, and these free offerings can be quite useful on their own.

All of this is great news for nonprofits, who have limited financial resources and often rely on volunteers who don't share a physical office and can't take advantage of traditional business software. These organizations are uniquely suited to Web applications, which can be used from any computer with Internet access.

Google, with its drive for innovation (and deep pockets), is often a leader in providing terrific Web-based software for free. Recently they launched a portal site that specifically highlights resources for nonprofits.

Noteworthy offerings include:

Google Docs - Create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations in a Web browser, and easily share them with others for collaborative writing. Supports opening and saving Microsoft Office documents.
Google Calendar - Sophisticated calendar management that integrates well with other software
Google Checkout - Collect donations via credit/debit card for free. Google offers a special service for nonprofits that waives all processing fees.
Google Grants - You can apply for free advertising on Google's network

If you work for or with a nonprofit, any or all of these services could be a huge boost to your productivity. It's great to see corporations like Google supporting people's efforts to give back to the community.

SEO Yourself?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:21:00 +0000

After the last post about SEO, we received an anonymous comment about the article which said:

Hello, I agree with you, Alan, that it is important to use SEO, but I do not think that it is neccessary to hire a SEO Firm.

This got me thinking about the perceived value of hiring a professional SEO firm. Is it really absolutely necessary to hire a firm like CWS for search engine optimization?

Amazingly, the answer is "No."

I must concede that one can perform SEO on their own website and not hire a professional firm. With enough research, analysis, and a little bit of luck any intelligent person could achieve measurable results without professional help.

However, I'll also argue that a professional can do it much better and faster than any novice who doesn't have the software or knowledge that comes by working with it every day. For example, a few years ago I decided to build my own deck. I studied websites on the subject, I reviewed the requirements of my local planning and zoning department, and I carefully built a deck with the help of a few friends. It took me nearly a month but turned out satisfactory.

A few weeks later my neighbor had his deck built by a professional deck builder. It took them only 3 days to finish a deck similar to mine, as they knew exactly what they were doing and were highly skilled.

To strengthen this point, I received an email from one of our hosting customers who had been doing his own web design and search engine optimization for the past few years. Frustrated, he turned to us for some help. I think his thoughts sum up the situation best:

"I just wanted to mention that working with Jon on SEO objectives and with Ryan on design for my website has been a real pleasure. I am very happy with the results so far both in terms of current rankings, which are greatly improved, and functionality of design.

For the past several years I and my wife have designed and optimized our site. This was the first year that I decided to hire professional assistance and I am very glad to have had your firm fulfill our current objectives. I came to you because of your consistent hosting of an older site, ascencionrecordings.com, which has been with you for several years."

Gordon Kreplin
Ascencion Recordings/Photography

This is an excellent example that not everyone has the patience, time and tools to perform SEO themselves. Just as some will never try to build their own deck, finish their own basement, or fix their own car. Some things are best left to a professional -- the choice is yours.

Importance of Search Engine Optimization

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:52:00 +0000

For anything and everything, the Internet users today go to search engines, and type in what they want to find out. They get the result pages (SERPs), and click and visit some of the first results. This is what is happening everywhere; millions and millions of users access Google every day for information.

When a website offering a particular service gets a hit (traffic), it has a chance to make a sale. So, all of the companies out there try extra hard to make their websites hit the top of the search engine result pages. The simple set of procedures for this purpose is known as Search Engine Optimization, the art of getting a website to rank high on search engine search result pages.

Search Engine Optimization is done through various steps, and if not done properly, it can backfire.

Basic Steps of Search Engine Optimization

For a site to be well optimized for search engine traffic, its content should be understandable to the search bots (the program used by search engines to index a particular site; also called web crawlers, search spiders, etc.) The content in the site has to be generally useful to the reader as well as understandable to search engines; keywords and descriptions in metadata help you achieve this. An important step of Search Engine Optimization is creating Meta tags for each page, with keywords and descriptions. Also the title tag should have your most important keyword.

Search Engine Optimization requires keyword-rich content. People search for keywords on the search engines. And the search engine bots look for these keywords on the indexed pages. So, keyword-dense content easily scales up the search results. However, overuse of the keyword will blacklist the site as spam. Search Engine Optimization, hence, requires an expert to prepare good quality search engine-optimized content. Also, highlighting the main keywords with such formatting as bold, italics, underline, etc., is very advantageous.

A minimum keyword density of about 2-4% is effective. And the content is best optimized targeting only one keyword or two at the most.

Another important aspect of Search Engine Optimization is the number of incoming links to the page. The incoming links convince the search engines that the page is important enough to be displayed as a result. The incoming links, however, have to be from reliable sources (there are unreliable sources like link farms, which are websites solely made for linking to other sites). So, it is very important for Search Engine Optimization to create some links to whichever page you try to optimize.

These methods just introduce you to what you should do to achieve good Search Engine Optimization for your sites. There are, however, so many other important aspects in Search Engine Optimization. Google itself is known to count hundreds of different metrics to calculate the PageRank of a site (Google's measure of the importance of a site).

Conclusion

The potential business a firm can acquire on reaching the top of search engine results is amazing. Search Engine Optimization, as I said earlier, is an art by itself. It should be done methodically and painstakingly. If done properly, you will enjoy great profits from it; on the other hand, malpractices can get you undermined very easily. Hence, it is important for you to hire a reputed, reliable professional for the purpose.

CWS Acquired by Google

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:28:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Today we're excited to announce that CWS was aquired by Google for $80.5 million. "It's an exciting day for us", said Alan De Keyrel, who was playing Guitar Hero when we called. "We were holding out for $100 million", said De Keyrel, "but then we decided that another 20 million wouldn't affect our ability to play video games all day."

Continuing its trend of gobbling up promising Web 2.0 startups, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) acquired CWS, the developers of GroupLoop.com. GroupLoop allows users to store and work with text documents on the Web and had been hailed a threat to Google Groups. Users can share selected documents, manage a group calendar, and post messages.

Google declined to discuss its plans for GroupLoop. "We acquired GroupLoop for the innovative technology and talented design team", Google spokesman Larry Fudder said in an e-mailed statement.

Google has become an aggressive acquirer of innovative software startups in recent years. Last year, it snapped up Measure Map, a blog traffic tracker. Other recent Google purchases include radio advertising platform dMarc and video sharing social platform YouTube.

"Nothing will change here at CWS", said Lyle Mullican, "except it might take a little longer for us to answer the phone". When questioned as to why this would be, Lyle said, "It takes time to pause the game console".

Ask CWS: How do Online Credit Card Payments Work?

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:00:00 +0000

As more and more business is being done online, we've seen an increase in the demand for applications that include real-time processing of credit cards. To make smart decisions when you're setting up a payment solution, it's helpful to have an understanding of how these transactions are handled. Although the whole process happens very quickly (usually just a couple of seconds), there are several different components involved that all have to work together.

Step 1: A customer submits payment information to your website. This connection must be encrypted with SSL, a sophisticated technology that prevents anyone from intercepting the contents of the request while it's being transmitted from the user's local computer to your server. As a website owner, you'll need to purchase (and renew annually) an SSL certificate for these connections.

Step 2: Your Web server takes the payment information and opens a second SSL-encrypted connection in the background to a payment gateway. A gateway is a secure server that acts as a bridge between Web applications and the payment processing network. There are many different gateway providers, though your bank may have a partnership with a particular vendor. Some popular gateways include Authorize.net, LinkPoint and Payflow Pro. Although they all perform the same essential funcion, each has its own set of features (and fees), and many factors may influence your decision. For example, if you're using an off-the-shelf shopping cart, it likely supports a particular set of gateways. Some gateways handle particular types of transactions that others do not.

Step 3: The payment gateway contacts the processing network to determine if funds are available for the transaction. The cardholder's issuing bank relays a response back to the gateway.

Step 4: What happens next depends on the type of transaction. An authorization simply gets approval for the purchase, with the actual charge to happen at a later time. For example, when shipping hard goods, the sale is not complete until the order has been fulfilled. A final sale, on the other hand, immediately charges the customer. Examples would be payment for a service or electronic download, where fulfillment occurs immediately. The payment gateway has details for the merchant account provided by your bank and will route the payment accordingly.

Step 5: The results of the transaction will be passed from the payment gateway back to your Web server. For approved payments, this typically includes a unique ID that can be used to reference the transaction later. If the transaction failed, a status code or other message will be given to help determine the cause (insufficient credit, incorrect expiration date, etc.). The Web server will then display an appropriate success or failure screen to the user.

The entire process happens very quickly under normal circumstances, and the customer never sees what's happening in steps 2-4. However, all this background infrastructure is critical and the pieces must work together. As a website owner, you must have the following to accept payments online:

An SSL certificate (see step 1 above)
A merchant account that supports Internet transactions. If you don't have one already, apply with your bank. One notable exception is a service offered by PayPal called Website Payments Pro, which bundles merchant and gateway services together and does not require a separate merchant account.
A payment gateway that supports your merchant account

Each of these services will have its own set of fees, so shop around and find the best set of features and value for your needs.

A helpful summary of the entire process can be found here. CWS specializes in developing Web applications that make businesses work better. If we can help you implement an online payment solution, contact us at support (at) cws (dot) net.

Ask CWS: How do you track customers?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:41:00 +0000

Question:

I own a small company and have a hard time tracking all of the conversations we have with our clients. We have several employees now, and it always seems like one employee tells a customer something and then another employee tells them something else. How do you keep track of communication you have with clients so that everyone is on the same page?

Answer:

This is an excellent question and one that was a challenge for us too (especially as as we grew). As you mention, it was easy at first because I was the only employee and knew everything about each customer. But as you grow, there is no possible way that you can handle every customer request. So, you do the logical thing and hire additional employees and hope that everything will go well.

It won't.

You'll soon realize that you could have done a better job training your new staff. Or maybe that they handled a situation just a little differently than you would have. Or even worse, that something was forgotten and now you have an upset customer that wants to speak to the boss! You think to yourself, "How could this have happened?"

Wouldn't it have been nice to know about this situation BEFORE it turned into a big deal?

Of course it would, and that's why we started using some web-based software called Highrise a while ago. In the most simple terms, it's a website where we track email and phone conversations with a customer. This means that any employee can pull up a customer and see who said what to them, how they communicated, and when.

I know you're probably thinking, "You take the time to re-type every email you send to a customer?" Hardly. Each employee is given a Highrise "drop-box" address that they BCC each outgoing email to. This attaches the email to the customer so that other employees can review it if the need arises.

In addition, Highrise has an RSS feed for all communcation. This means that in Outlook, we can keep an eye on all communication that we've had as a company that day. Want to know if Johnny called Customer XYZ back today? Just review the RSS feed and you'll see everyone that Johnny communicated with that day. It's that easy.

Our Highrise account is affordable at only $49/month. It's an invaluable tool as it includes information about everyone that associates with CWS. Highrise offers a wide variety of plans based on the number of contacts and emplyees you have. Check it out.

My Inbox: Abandoned Shopping Cart

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:20:00 +0000

Earlier this week, Jon wrote about E-commerce R.O.I. and mentioned that 60% of users will abandon a shopping cart before finishing the checkout process.

I was one of them yesterday.

Let me explain -- I received a catalog in the mail from a company called IDville.com, which sells employee identification tags and such. We've been contemplating enacting a security policy at our building where all visitors must sign in/out. So, I started the order process for a Visitor Log Book at IDville.

However, during the checkout process for this $17.95 item, I realized they wanted another $8.00 to ship the item to me. This made me change my mind and convinced me that I might be able to buy a similar item locally.

Now the important part of the story. IDville impressed me by sending the following email this morning:

As you can see, they noticed that I never completed the order yesterday. Since I had started the checkout process they had already captured my email. Instead of just forgetting about me and losing the sale, they then sent me an email with a link to "proceed to checkout now."

This is very smart.

Not only did it remind me about their company, but it gave me yet another option to complete the transaction I had already started. If they can get just 20% of the people to come back and complete an order by using this method, it could mean an increase in revenue of 50% or more. Great idea.

How Long Should You Keep an Email?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:35:00 +0000

I don't like to delete emails. It's true, I'm the guy that can find something that was sent to me long before Britney Spears married Kevin Federline.

This means that my inbox is loaded with tens of thousands of emails, some of which are from as far back as 2004.

This prompted the topic to come up recently at our weekly office meeting. How long should you keep an email? A week? A month? A year? Forever?! What if you delete it and then you need it again for legal purposes? Once it's gone, it's gone forever.

The discussion quickly escalated to what type of policy a company should have regarding saving emails. Up to this point, CWS has had a loose policy that we keep a copy of all email communication with customers, but delete all those emails from your brother-in-law. You know, the ones that you shouldn't be getting at work in the first place.

But if your company policy is to keep a copy of every email, how do you monitor whether this is actually being done and support mailboxes that become very very large? This brought up an interesting discussion... Does your company have a policy on deleting or saving emails? If so, what is it and how is it enforced?

Does your website make you money?

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Bernhardt) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:00:00 +0000

How profitable is your website? When people visit the site, do they take action? Do you even know what you want them to do? Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to ask these questions, and thus fail to understand their website's ROI (return on investment). ROI is a fundamental business concept, but it's too often neglected in this specific area.

According to the book Web Design for ROI, there are 3 key figures to ponder when considering a new website project or redesign:

43% of retail sales will either be influenced by or complete on the Internet by 2012
83% of businesses now use the Internet to research potential vendors
75% of users admit to making judgments about a company's credibility based on the design of its website

The bottom line is that a large number of people will make business decisions based on the form and function of your website. How appealing is yours?

Even small details such as updated content and appealing visuals can make a crucial difference in keeping people on your site. Imagine a business owner who spent a lot of time, effort and money remodeling the interior of a store, but left the outside looking like an old, crumbling ruin. Customers would quickly assess the credibility of the business and pass it by.

The average home page abandonment rate (the rate at which visitors leave a site within a short period of time) is between 40% and 60% in general. Why? Because visitors decide almost immediately if they've found what they're looking for. What the site actually offers is secondary to what a customer thinks the site offers. What if a small change to the wording or placement of elements on your homepage reduced the abandonment rate by just 10%?

E-Commerce ROI

Nowhere is ROI more critical than on websites that directly sell a product or service. Unfortunately, some studies show that 60% of customers drop their purchase during the checkout process -- after they've made a buying decision! Imagine a restaurant where 6 out of every 10 customers ordered lunch and left before it was served. Any rational business owner would consider this unacceptable.

E-commerce site owners should constantly monitor the usability of their systems. Does the checkout process makes sense? Is it simple and free of distractions? Think about it... before you lose another customer.

Converting Traffic Into Sales

More traffic does not automatically mean more sales. If the website does not effectively convert customers into sales then the traffic is not useful. Keeping visitors on the site long enough to perform a critical task is what counts. The longer the visitor stays and learns what he/she needs, the more likely he/she is to convert.

How do you track conversion rates? Measure actions -- filling out a form, requesting a free sample, ordering a product, or contacting you. Track your conversion rate on a daily basis and see if you can improve the numbers. A simple formula would be the number of people who completed the desired action divided by the total number of visitors. You can even set up Google Analytics to do this automatically and email regular reports to you.

For a consultation on website ROI, please contact us a support (at) cws (dot) net.

Ask CWS: How do Domain Pointers Work?

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Website owners commonly use more than one address to route traffic to a single website. This practice is called domain pointing. Although the concept is relatively simple, there are actually several separate systems involved, so it's helpful to understand what's happening when you set up or change a pointer.

DNS (Domain Name Service)

Anytime you ask your computer to access a website, it has to map the friendly address you typed in (for example, http://www.cws.net/) to an IP address, which works much like a phone number -- it's uniquely tied to the server that will ultimately handle your request. That DNS query is a lot like looking up a person's phone number based on their name in a phone book, but the computer also needs to know where to find the information in the first place.

When you register a domain, you give the registrar (Network Solutions, for example) two or more name servers that will provide this information. Usually these are provided by the same company that hosts your website.

Web Server

Once a name server gives the requesting computer an IP address, it can connect to the server that holds the website. Often a single IP address can be used for many different sites, so the server software acts like a switchboard operator, examining each request and sending it to the right place. When multiple addresses are pointed at a single site, it must be configured to accept traffic for each one.

Setting up or changing a domain pointer requires that, for each address:

The registrar has the correct name servers listed.
The name servers report the correct IP address.
The Web server accepts and correctly handles the incoming traffic.

People set up domain pointers for many reasons -- most commonly to accommodate misspellings or variations on a company name. Sophisticated marketers might use a particular domain exclusively with different advertising channels and monitor the performance of each.

However, there is a danger to watch out for. Search engines like Google may consider each domain as a separate website, and if there are too many with perceived "duplicate" content, they may not rank as well in search results. It's often better to choose one address as the primary, and redirect traffic from the others to it.

Registering alternate domains can be a valuable tool in your Web marketing efforts, but it's important to make sure all the moving parts are covered. Drop us a line at support (at) cws (dot) net if we can help.

The Value of Clear Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Many people think of design in purely visual terms. This kind of thinking can influence everything from the kind of car we buy to the food we eat. We're attracted by things that look good, and style is, in fact, an important component of good design. But it's not the whole picture.

A great-looking car with critical safety issues would not be well designed. Nor would an innovative packaging system that didn't keep food fresh. Good design not only means that something looks good, but that it performs well, that it's efficient and that it's reliable.

I have an ice cream scoop that fits this description perfectly. Designed by Michael Graves, it's heavy and solid, making perfectly round scoops even when the dessert is solidly frozen, and its polished surface never sticks. It's also ergonomic and durable -- a simple product that does its job well. Nothing complicated.

When it comes to the Web, one aspect of good design that's often overlooked is writing. And yet the content of your site is what will ultimately make it succeed or fail as a business tool. Visual presentation is important -- to establish credibility, as an expression of your brand, and to give appropriate structure to your content -- but the content itself is fundamental.

Unfortunately, many people write website content as an afterthought. It doesn't have to be complicated -- indeed, it shouldn't be, as people read more slowly on screen than on paper -- but it ought to be thoughtfully considered as a core component of design.

In general, writing for the Web should be:

Clear and brief. People who use the Web a lot get in the habit of moving quickly and don't like to read lengthy texts (with a few exceptions). Help them learn what they need to know with minimal effort.
Correct. English isn't everyone's field of expertise, but we all know someone who's good at it. Have your content proofread, because errors will both undermine your credibility as a professional and lengthen the time required to understand the material.
Well organized. Judicious use of headings, bold text and lists makes it easier for both humans and search engines to capture the essential points on a page.
User-centric. Address the questions that your visitors are asking, rather than just telling them what you want them to hear. Use the kind of language they use, not industry jargon (unless your audience is likely to be using such niche terms when searching).

When you undertake a website project, consider the total package. Don't hire anyone who is just an artist, a programmer, or a businessperson. It takes attention to detail in every area to make a product that's truly well designed, whether the end result is as simple as an ice cream scoop or as complex as a building.

Lessons from a 3rd Grader

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:45:00 +0000

Back in December, we heard about a website called DonorsChoose.org which has the goal of helping teachers fund projects for their classroom. The concept is rather simple:

1. Teachers ask for materials and supplies for a project
2. Donors log on and give to projects they find compelling
3. Students learn and provide personal feedback to the donor.

During our search, we found a class of local 3rd graders that needed a few hundred dollars for storing their supplies. The project was already partially funded, so we decided to top it off.

Today, we received a thank you packet in the mail from the class. I say "packet" becuase it included not only a letter from the teacher, but also each of the kids. They told us how much they appreciated our donation and explained how helpful the jabberwockies (that's what they call them) are. Even better, our thank you note was the first letter that these kids have ever typed on a computer.

We think that's pretty cool.

If you're interesting in experiencing something like this for yourself, there are several teachers in Rochester that are looking for funding right now. Searching for a project is easy as you can search by state, school, grade, subject, and much more. Check it out.

CWS Exhibits This Week

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:39:00 +0000

CWS will be exhibiting at two tradeshows this week. On Tuesday, March 4, we'll be at the Southeast Minnesota Association of REALTORS annual Affiliate Fair. On Thursday, we'll be at the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center for Business After Hours EXTRA with the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce.

Please stop by and see us if you're attending either of these events.

How to Implement a Site Search

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac Johnson) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Wouldn't it be nice for people to search your entire site with minimal effort on your end? You might be thinking this would require a substantial amount of time or money, or maybe even both. I assure you this is not the case. Maybe you already have a search feature for your site, but you are unhappy with the results that come up. Whatever the case may be, if you are looking for a reliable search tool I would suggest you check out Google Custom Search.

Google Custom Search is...

Easy to add to your site
Customizable for advanced users
Free

Rather than me boring you by telling you how it works, try it out for yourself by using this blog's custom search feature (in the right column towards top).

You can implement a search tool just like this on your own site without writing a single line of code. Google will generate it all for you, and you can get set up in just a couple of minutes. If you need help adding search or other tools to your site, just drop us a line at support (at) cws (dot) net.

WalkAmerica is now March for Babies

noreply@blogger.com (Alan De Keyrel) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:00:00 +0000

As you may recall, my wife and I had a son born 15 weeks premature in June of 2006. I'm happy to report that he is doing great, walking and even starting to talk. However, every year thousands of babies are born premature and they do not achieve such a positive outcome. Our son, Carson, spent several months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Mayo Clinic and we had the chance to meet other families dealing with prematurity.

Last year, my wife and I agreed to be the "Ambassador Family" for the 2007 WalkAmerica Walk for the March of Dimes. This year, they have renamed the walk to "March For Babies" and we're proud to be there again as a symbol for the advancements made by the March of Dimes. Without their research, many of the lifesaving technologies used on Carson would not have been available.

We have been blessed with a healthy child and want to give back both emotionally and financially. We have set a goal to raise $2000 this year as "Team Carson" and would love for you to join us. We would like for you to either walk with us or make a donation towards this great cause. If you're a customer of CWS, this year we'll again provide a credit to your account for 50% of your tax-deductible donation (up to $500 maximum per client). For example, if you donate $100 to the March of Dimes through the link above, we'll issue a $50 credit to your account.

Please join us Thursday, February 28th at 6PM for the official Rochester March for Babies 2008 Kick-Off! It will be held at the Best Western Soldiers Field. Food will be provided and there will be music by classic hits 107.7 KLCX thanks to generous sponsors.

Thank you for supporting the mission of the March of Dimes and we look forward to seeing you on Feb 29 (yes, Carson will be there) and walking with you on April 26th!

Walking a Mile in Someone Else's Shoes

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:00:00 +0000

One of the values we try to live by at CWS is user-centric design. That is, we believe that websites and Web-based applications are most effective when they're designed to make the tasks performed by end users as easy as possible. This may sound obvious, but in reality it's much easier said than done.

People tend to assume that others basically think like themselves, and it's very difficult to overcome that feeling. In the same way that a filmmaker might have a hard time watching a movie without analyzing the lighting and camera angles that the rest of us take for granted, the different groups of people using a site will come with different sets of assumptions.

This can be a trap both for the people who create websites and those who own the content. Programmers can think of a site in terms of infrastructure, or let technology drive design in place of experience. Business owners or other stakeholders may be more concerned about what they want to say than what the end user wants to know. Thinking about a site solely from our own perspective can handicap a great idea.

This principle applies both to design in general, content writing (the most overlooked component of good design) and to search engine optimization. There may be a big difference between the search terms that a business owner thinks are applicable to his website and those that his customers actually use. It doesn't do any good if a site performs well for searches on "mechanical contractor" but consumers are only looking for "heating repair." In the same way, a site that gives a passionate description of product benefits but never answers questions about price may drive away people who are doing research to build a shortlist of potential vendors.

There are many formal processes and tools to help you put yourself in a user's shoes (personas and use cases, for example), and we can help you walk through these, but the best way to start is simply talking to the people who will use the site or application being designed. Find out what people love and hate about the tools they use now.

Customer loyalty comes from giving people what they want. As Zig Ziglar has famously said, "You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."

On the Importance of Backups

noreply@blogger.com (Lyle Mullican) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:00:00 +0000

We often assume bad things mostly happen to other people -- that is, until they happen to us. But a more realistic approach to risk has immense practical benefits. Consider, as a completely hypothetical example, the data on your personal computer. We all know in theory that hard drives fail. But they mostly belong to other people, so we don't worry too much about our own, even if it has 5 years of digital photos and 90% of the next Pulitzer-winning novel on it.

Last week, the drive in my laptop failed completely with no warning at all. Since I carefully maintained regular backups on an external, bootable FireWire drive, I was able to install a new drive and recover all my data with minimal difficulty.

We've mentioned the importance of data backup before, because you just never know when disaster will strike. And as more and more elements of our lives are stored digitally, the failure of a 2.5-inch hard drive can seem nearly as catastrophic as a house fire. Without a good backup, I could have lost this photo taken from the Mont Blanc, and since I don't go to 12,000 feet every day, it might have taken a while to replace.

However, the backup was a week old -- and for a Web developer, a week of code is not something you want to lose. Happily, all the projects I work with on the laptop are also under version control with Subversion, so that missing code was easily restored in about 30 seconds.

What could have been an absolute catastrophe was averted by just a little bit of risk management. If you aren't making regular backups, start now. You never know how glad you'll be to have them until your drive starts making that little clicking sound that means it's now an expensive paperweight.