Now that local or “on-site” search capability has become more pervasive, the ability for online shoppers to locate desired products and services has increased manifold. Instead of spending time and effort browsing through a website, online shoppers can simply type in a few keywords and —abracadabra— the product or service they are seeking appears right in front of them! As a result, online shoppers have become increasingly dependant on local site search functionalities.

Given both the popularity of on-site search and the short time most visitors spend on a website, it is imperative for online merchants to provide better site search capabilities. In this article, we provide you with tips to improve overall site search experience of your visitors.

Improving the Site Search Experience

Today’s site search tools have moved much beyond a simple text box that search only through HTML Meta data. Site search functionalities have evolved to provide a visitor with accurate results and provide greater flexibility to define a search term.

Make Site Search Customizable

Online buyers have come to expect both simple (full text) and advanced search capabilities on ecommerce sites. An advanced search feature typically allows user to search based on specific criteria’s like price, weight, and manufacturer.

A well-crafted and comprehensive advanced search can be used to guide customers more effectively. For example, a visitor looking to buy a Toyota costing $10,000, should be able to select Toyota on the advanced search page and define a price range of $8-12K. The result of such well defined search would save a customer the ordeal of scrolling through a list of non-related products.

Make Site Search Relevant

Similarly, if a customer searching an online gift website for “rose flowers” is returned results related to “Sunflower cosmetics,” it’s very likely that visitor would leave the store with a bad impression about that entire online business. Thus, it is mandatory to build a relevant search capability that does not return irrelevant results.

Make Site Search Fast

Many shoppers consider site search as the fastest way to reach to the desired product. The last thing they want is to have the search results being displayed at a slow pace. Make sure that the site search engine is fast enough to process and retrieve any search results quickly, even incase of websites with large number of products.

Make Site Search Informative

Search results should provide precise information about a product and allow visitors to make buying decision without visiting the individual product page. Important information that should be displayed in search results are product name and its price.

Site Search Functionality Paramount for Web Merchants

If you’re currently looking for a ready-made ecommerce solution, make sure that you fully understand its search functionality, assuming it is available. Look for a shopping cart that provides powerful search settings, so that you can control the requirements for search results, as your business grows.

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Even with all the flaws that we will find in an Ajax based website, there are security measures that we could do to ensure security in our website.

Before we go to different security measures, let us first note one of the biggest problems in an Ajax based website and application: Source Code Availability. Some call it “Overly Granular Server API” referring to the API built from the server which provides little to nothing in terms of security.

Almost every hack that I have seen related to Ajax stems from this security flaw. In simple words, the biggest problem in Ajax is the availability of source code even to regular users.

Developers who follow this practice do this thinking that the code will eventually help regular users in browsing the website. Take for example an Ajax based shopping cart. Instead of having to go through different pages in security and setting up parameters, developers will just place everything in a single page. That exact page will hasten the process of regular user’s shopping. When this process is used, developers have achieved the purpose of the coding it that way.

However, they pay the price of showing the source code of the website. If they are hoping that no one will notice this and use it for bad intentions, they are definitely wrong. The source code is essentially the key to every hack in an Ajax based website. The easier hackers get their hands to the source code, the faster they could attack the system. A source code in an online store is a sitting duck for hackers. They could easily bypass the admin and change the security settings and even the prices so they could easily shop online without any problem – or payment.

To counter this problem, we pose two different security measures:

The first security measure is the way we build our website. We go back to the shopping cart where the price is presented to the online shopper. Hackers could easily see the source code and change the parameters. Instead of presenting the price altogether, it’s always a better practice to divide the information in every page. With that practice you should be able to set specific parameters in every page. That way, every time a new page loads, it should be able to detect changes in any part of the system. Hackers would have to change everything in your website just to hack the price and before they could do that, you already detected the attacks and prevent them.

If ever you will be forced to place the entire transaction in a single page, you should opt for a secured coding practice. Our usual practice is to place comments within the code so that other developers will easily understand the process even though you are not there to explain. Doing that in the source code means suicide when it comes to security. Instead of placing comments right in the website, build another copy of the code with the comments. Although it does not provide that much of a protection, a comment-less web program can help with the website’s security.

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What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands and then to millions.

Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they’re easy to transmit. Viral e-mail marketing works great on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better. Remember the K.I.S.S. standard….Keep it Simple Stupid.  The shorter and easier to remember is always better than long and complicated.

Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. The desire to be cool and greed drives people. So does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages.

Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. People on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion.

If you can design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, you have a winner.

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In the fight for attracting consumer preference, your domain name can become a very handy tool. Focused understanding of your consumer with a pinch of creativity, can help you in choosing the right domain name for your ecommerce store.

We believe the following domain name resources can give you out-of-the-box domain name ideas:

Easy to Remember & Easy to Spell:
Domain name should be lucid & your visitor should easily remember it. Use simple words that are spoken very often by your audiences. Choosing a domain name that is easy to remember may help in discounting the efforts spent by your prospects in coming back to your store.

Incorrect spelling can cost you dearly in ecommerce. In choosing a domain name, be careful about the spelling. Any mistake while typing your domain name may divert a visitor to your competitor web site. Choose a domain name that is short and easy to spell.

Single Name:
In case you require a domain name that comprises of more then one word, do not use space or any other divider, like hyphens or underscore, to differentiate the words. Visitors are more tempted to type a combination of words without using space or any other dividers.

Extension:
45% of total domain registrations have a “.COM” extension (Source: Verisign). Online shoppers are more likely to type .COM as domain name extension while shopping online. Hence, while choosing your domain name, look for dot COM extension.

However, the domain name may be given a priority over the domain extension. Highlight the entire domain name, with its extension, in branding your store, especially when you do not have a .COM extension in your domain name.

What Should a Domain Name Represent?
A major dilemma in choosing a domain name is the choice between business name, brand name and business expertise. We believe domain name choice depends on your business goals and the anticipated business future:

A) If your store specializes in one business category and does not plan to expand to other business categories, then your can use your specialization in the domain name. For example: if your ecommerce store would specialize in selling all kinds of sports shoes then you can use www.SportsShoesAtoZ.com as a domain name.
B) On the other hand, if you are planning to expand your business into other diverse business categories (say books, electronics), then it is advisable to create an attractive Brand Name for your store. Using proprietary name would allow you to sell diverse products in your ecommerce store.

In brief, your business strategy and goals should be kept in mind before choosing a domain name.

We hope, our domain name resources will help you in easing your domain name decision. In our domain name glossary page, you can find simple definitions of important domain name terms.

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Referrer logging is used to allow web servers and websites to identify where people are visiting them either for promotional or security purposes. You can find out which search engine they used to find your site and whether your customer has come from a ‘linked site’. It is basically the URL of the previous webpage from which your link was followed.

By default, most hosting accounts don’t include referrer logs but may be subscribedd for an extra monthly fee. If your web host does not provide a graphic report of your log files, you can still view the referrer logs for your website by logging into the host server using free or low-cost FTP software, like these:

FTP Explorer
LogMeIn
SmartFTP
FTP Voyager

The log file is available on your web server which can be download into your computer later. You can use a log analysis tool, like those mentioned below, to create a graphic report from your log files so that the files are easier to understand.

Abacre Advanced Log Analyzer
Referrer Soft
Log Analyzer

You can view the files using Word, Word Perfect, txt or WordPad files even if you don’t have the right tool. This information is very crucial to your business and marketing plans and is not advisable to neglect it.

In addition to identifying the search engine or linked site from where your visitor arrived, referrer logs can also tell you what keywords or keyword phrases your client used for searching.

As referrer information can sometimes violate privacy, some browsers allow the user to disable the sending of referrer information. Proxy and Firewall software can also filter out referrer information, to avoid leaking the location of private websites. This can result in other problems, as some servers block parts of their site to browsers that don’t send the right referrer information, in an attempt to prevent deep linking or unauthorized use of bandwidth. Some proxy software gives the top-level address of the target site itself as the referrer, which prevents these problems and still not divulging the user’s last visited site.

Since the referrer can easily be spoofed or faked, however, it is of limited use in this regard except on a casual basis.

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