E-Commerce Website
Need to sell you business products on-line then why not have a shop built which integrates URL Re-Write. By using this your products ad pages will all have search engine friendly URL's. This will help your website on all the search engines as it is part of the Search Engine Optimization process. If you are going to pay alot of money for an E-Commerce Shop then why not have it built so that it works to its full potential and have it optimized and the correct meta tags put in place.
E-Commerce Considerations
To make things easier for an e-commerce websites to be built, we have put a list below of some items you need to consider before attending your first meeting with any website company.
- Website Address (Domain Name)
Don't tell anyone this because if the domain name is available then they could buy it before you. To check your domain name is available then visit 123-reg and they will show you a list of which are and which are not available. - Colours
What colours/graphics do you prefer for your website? - Design
Make sure you agree with the design of the website, because if you don't then wnat it changing later you may have to pay. - Product Images
Where are you going to get your product images?
If they look cheap then people may leave your site without buying anything as they think you may not put the effort to put decent images to show decent products. - Layout
What layout do you want for you e-commerce website? - Content Management System (CMS)
Do you need this or are you going to take out a support package for the website company to do it for you? - Terms & Conditions
Each company is different and no company will have the same terms and conditions, they will always differ in some places, we suggest you seek legal advice. - Support & Maintenance
Do you need support for your website?
Most companies do have support but in the first few months you will need bits altering until you are happy with it. An e-commerce website can take alot of time to keep updated, as an example we would suggest putting 5 hours a week aside for updating your website. - Testing Stage
You need to make sure the website will not be seen by any search engines whilst it is being tested. Even during testing you will find things you do not want or things you would like moving around. - Payments
Never pay the full amount up front, always agree on a payment in stages. This will allow you to make sure you are happy with the way things are going before you make the final payment. - Tie in's
make sure you are not tied in for any long period and that you own the full website, we have had a few new customers who have tried to leave only to find out they only own the Database for the website and nothing else.