2. It’s hard to place an order

Have you ever left a checkout line because it took too long? Or have you abandoned an online shopping cart out of confusion?

So have your customers! If your shopping cart system is difficult or hard to use, you’re losing sales.

Gather some data

Most popular e-commerce systems have some valuable data that you need to examine. You should be able to see shopping carts that your customers abandoned.

If you don’t know how to view this information, contact your support team. They’ll help you find out.

With this data, you can tell if your ordering process is turning customers away. Some customers might abandon carts due to other reasons, but a portion of them can be attributed to your order process.

Clear instructions

People hate guessing when they’re trying to buy something. They put their thinking into the purchase decision. If you make them think too hard during checkout, they’ll just leave.

Make sure each step of your checkout process has clear instructions. Walk the customer through it in plain English, even if it seems really easy to you.

Friendly errors

Cryptic error messages just confuse buyers. Unless they’re really motivated to purchase right now, they’ll probably give up.

Since there are lots of errors that could happen during checkout, make sure the messages are friendly and informative. Give the customer directions on how to fix the error. And if possible, provide an alternate order method, such as a toll-free phone number.

Few steps

People like simplicity. You can’t draw out the order process over too many pages. But you also shouldn’t put every field on one page.

Strike a nice balance of 2-3 order pages. But also provide a visible key that shows the customer what step he’s on and what is left. People like seeing the big picture.

Always confirm

Data can get lost or mangled before it gets entered in your system’s database. That makes the process uncertain for the user.

To put your buyers at ease, confirm their information before the order is completed. Show them the address they entered, their total, the payment method chosen, etc. Make sure they’ve entered everything correctly.

How can you improve your order process?

1. You Don’t Accept the Right Payment Method

How many payment methods do you accept? One or two? You’re losing sales!

What happens if a store doesn’t accept the payment method you want to use? You don’t buy from them. It’s not a coincidence that most brick & mortar stores accept cash, credit cards, and checks. These are the common payment methods!

What’s in your e-wallet?

Which payment types does your website accept? Sit down right now and make a list. Break it out as detailed as possible, including which types of credit cards, etc.

If you only accept 1 or 2 payment types, you’ve got work to do. If you accept 3 or more, you could still benefit from adding a couple new ones.

Let’s go through payment types you should be accepting.

This one’s a no-brainer. People use credit (and debit) cards to shop online. But are you accepting enough brands?

At minimum, your website should handle Visa and MasterCard. To gain more sales, try adding Discover and American Express.

Electronic checks

Not everyone has a credit card. And some people might just prefer to pay straight from their bank account. Using an e-check makes that possible.

An e-check uses the account & routing numbers from the purchaser’s checks to send a payment to you. Your shopping cart system will ask the purchaser to simply copy the numbers from an actual check. It’s easy!

PayPal

Frequent online shoppers typically have PayPal accounts. This allows the buyer to have a single online method of payment wherever he goes.

PayPal has been around a long time, and it’s not going away. In fact, PayPal even supports mobile phone payments!

Bill Me Later

This option enables buyers to pay you without a credit card or any other online account. Buyers simply select Bill Me Later at checkout, and they’re done. They obtain a credit line from Bill Me Later, and you get your sale today!

Any more?

Since you probably shop online, think about payment methods you’ve run across. Perhaps you even use them. Offer those on your website!!

What good online payment methods did we miss?

What are supplemental results?

Google has two content indexes. Supplemental results are the B-list. As Google explains, there are fewer restrictions on the supplemental index.

But supplemental results show up after results from the main index. Also, Google doesn’t regularly update the content in the supplemental index. In other words, it’s not somewhere you want your pages.

Jim Boykin even coined the term “Google Hell” for this index. We clearly want to keep your pages out of there.

Are my pages in supplemental results?

A quick way to check your site is to enter this search at Google (instead of “example.com” enter your site’s name, such as “google.com”):

site:www.example.com * -asdf

You should now see some pages that say “Supplemental Result”

How to get out of Google’s Hell

Link to your pages. A page without a link to it is considered “orphaned,” and Google doesn’t look too kindly upon that. Spread the link love around your own site and get links from other sites. Don’t just focus on the home page, since every page needs its own Google juice. Google’s own Matt Cutts claims this is the best way out of supplemental results.

Remove duplicate content. To be on the A-List, you need unique content. If you stole somebody else’s content, shame on you. If you’re duplicating your own content, stop. WordPress users should use post excerpts everywhere.

Hunt down copiers. Somebody else might be duplicating your content, getting their own page in the A-List. You can use a service like Copyscape to find infringers and shut them down.

Put your robots.txt to work. This file talks to search engines. It can tell Google not to index parts of your site that might contain duplicate content, such as print versions of articles. In addition, there are several WordPress pages you might want to block.

Add more content. Pages with little or no content can end up in supplemental results, because Google doesn’t think they’re valuable. Beef up the content, impress Google, and provide more value to visitors.

Direct all requests to www. For most servers, “domain.com” and “www.domain.com” bring up the exact same page. Google could consider this duplicate content, since two URLs bring up the same page (for your entire site). A simple server tweak can redirect all requests to either www or no-www.

Write unique title and meta tags. If every page of your site is titled “My Site,” you’re not as well positioned for the A-List. Tailor every title, description, and keyword tag to the actual content for each page.

Make your site shallow. How many levels deep is your site? In other words, how many clicks away from the home page does it take to get to the lowest peon web page? If it’s more than 2 or 3, you’re not passing enough link juice to your pages. Simplifying the architecture will please Google and your visitors.

Use search-friendly URLs. Google isn’t a fan of long, complicated URLS. Make them reasonably short and actually readable. Instead of “domain.com/?adfasd=09098″ use “domain.com/page”

Report a page to Google. Andy Beard took an interesting approach to supplemental results. He reported one of his own pages to Google as a paid link. It ended up pulling all his pages out of supplemental results.

Create a sitemap & submit it. You’ve got to tell Google where your pages are, especially if you’ve changed things following these tips. Make a new sitemap and submit it for Google to index. You’ll find the webmaster tools helpful with this.

Any more questions?

What have we left out of this guide? Is something not clear? That’s what the comments are for.

We’d love to talk over issues you might have and help other people with supplemental results problems. Let the conversation begin.

One of my favorite tips is about usability & navigation:

Click here: Why? Change this phrase everywhere on your site. It doesn’t make sense out of context. The user has to read the whole paragraph (which they probably won’t) to understand why they should click there. Consider phrases like “Download the profit/loss graph” or “Listen to the podcast entitled food for thought.”

Not only does “click here” confuse users, but it also doesn’t help the search rankings for your site. Using keyword phrases in your links will enable quick navigation and improve your site’s search traffic.

Be sure to check out the other 24 tips from Fadtastic and see which website improvement ideas you can implement.

Does your website show up in search engine listings? If you can’t find it, neither can your customers. Lucky for you, there are easy steps to take that will solve this problem.

This is Part 1 in a series on the basics of search engines and what you can do to make your site findable. It’s easy; I promise.

Where is my site?!

I was recently contacted by a panicked organization. Their website did not show up in search engine listings, but their competitor did. In fact, if you searched for the group’s site, you found the competitor.

If you’re in a similar boat, keep reading. Search Engines 101 will teach you the basics to get your website on the map. It’s written in plain English with thorough explanations. Let’s get started!

Think like a robot

Search engines are robots. They’re increasingly smarter, but they are still dumb compared to humans. Your website must spell everything out for them.

More importantly, these robots can only read text. Images and fancy animations get ignored by search engines. But that’s OK, because we’ll go through the key things your website needs.

Put up a big sign

Brick and mortar businesses have big signs, right? Your website needs one!

Look up at the top of your web browser and read the text that is displayed in the title bar. This is called the “title” for the page. You can change what it says. Sadly, many website designers forget this important step. The title might be something like “home” or jibberish letters.

Your website’s title should contain something like you’d put on a real-life sign. You’ll want your website name, along with a short description or witty slogan.

Here’s how you change your website’s title. You can open your page in an HTML editor and change the title with the menus (FrontPage instructions). Or you can simply edit the HTML directly, by pasting this code in between the “head” tags (they should be at the top of the page):

<title>Your Title Text Goes Here</title>

Remember that every page on your site has its own title, so you can customize the title for each page’s content. In fact you should do this. Tell the robots what that page contains!

Describe your content

After your sign is in place, you need to give search engines more information about each page. This info is put in “meta tags.” That’s just a techie name for little descriptors of your content.

There are two descriptors for every web page. First, you need to write out an actual description. Make it a simple sentence or a couple phrases. Maybe something like, “Bob’s Doorknob Shop sells custom and special-order knobs in Richmond and Henrico County.” Easy, right?

The second descriptor is called your page’s key words. These are words and phrases that describe the page’s content. To help think of these, put yourself in a potential customer’s position: what terms would you enter into a search engine? Make a list of key words and phrases, including different spelling variations. Don’t forget geographic terms that might be important, like cities and counties you serve, etc.

Your website editor can now update your “meta tags” for you, or you can edit them yourself. You should add this code directly below your “title” tags from the previous section:

<meta name="description" content="Your Description Goes Here" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Your Key Words Go Here, Separated By Commas" />

Just like every page has its own title, they all have descriptions and key words as well. These will definitely help you be found.

Feed the robots text

The search engine robots are hungry for your text. Like I mentioned, they ignore images and animation. If your content is all done in Flash or graphics, the robots can’t find it very well, even with your titles and descriptions.

The best way around this is to make the heart of your content plain text. You can spice it up with colors and different fonts if you want, but keep the foundation basic.

Now it’s time to make sure your site is designed in this manner. If it’s not, you can always add some extra text at the bottom of the page that describes your content. Don’t go overboard, but a little bit can help. Just make sure to integrate your additions into the overall site.

Stay tuned for more

Now you’ve got a great start on making your site findable. What you’ve done so far is considered part of the “on page” optimization process. It’s about making sure the site itself is ready to be found. In Part 2, we’ll start looking at things you need to do in other places.

Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed, so you don’t miss the next installment!

1. Don’t spam. If you start putting links to your website all around a forum, you’ll be frowned upon and probably banned. That’s not the way to build positive brand recognition. Just remember: if it feels like spam, it probably is.

2. Choose a good username. If you run Susie’s Flower Shop, don’t make your username “coolguy25.” The best bet is to make your username your company name or your own real name. Try “flower_susie” or “susie’s_shop.” Creativity is fine, but you want people to associate the username with your goods or service.

3. Use your avatar. Most forums allow users to have a small picture by their username. This is your avatar. It appears next to every post you make. Edit your user profile, and make your avatar be your company logo. Nobody will complain about that, and people might even get curious and check out your site.

4. Signatures are your friend. You can probably setup a “signature” in the forum, which will appear below every post you make. Do NOT fill it with links (see tip #1). Instead, choose one or two good links and add a few words, describing what they are. Other users might like having additional information about you or your company. But be sure to label the links appropriately.

5. Post links when on topic. You can post relevant links from time to time. The keyword is relevant. If a thread is ongoing, and something on your site would be useful to the discussion, post a link with a short description. If you’d like to start a new thread about something on your site, be sure it is appropriate and put it in the correct forum. And remember that moderation is important.

6. Contribute to the community. Don’t just stop by the forum to post links about your business. Help other users solve their problems. Provide quality responses to posts that have nothing to do with your business. If you truly are a member of the community, a few marketing plugs here and there will be well-received.

Have you had success marketing through a message board? What tips or guidelines did you follow? Let us know in the comments.

As we discussed before, there are many great ways to find links for your website. Squidoo will be today’s focus.

Sign up

Creating an account at Squidoo is extremely simple. Go to the sign up page and follow the easy directions. Enter some basic info about yourself, and click the “Continue” button.

Note: When entering your personal info, be sure to enter what you want internet users to see. Thus, your “desired username” might be a condensed form of your company name, or the username you use on other public websites. Maintain your brand.

You have now registered. I told you it was simple.

Create a lens

Now you can be a lensmaster. Click the button to “Create a Lens.” There are several steps to the process, so we’ll take them one at a time.

1. Enter your lens’ subject. What you select is up to you, but don’t forget your brand and what you’re actually marketing. If you sell doorknobs, you might enter “Find the best doorknobs at Bob’s Knob Shop.”

2. Now Squidoo wants to know what type of lens you need. The lens is customizable later, so we’ll go with the first choice - “I want to get the word out about…” It provides the basic info you need to get started.

3. This step is crucial for marketing. First, select a title for your lens. Squidoo enters your subject by default. You might leave that or slightly alter it. You’ll want to have your company name in the title and a keyword or two, such as your primary product.

Second, you get to pick the URL for your lens. For Bob’s doorknobs, you’d enter something like “doorknobs-bobs-knob-shop” You cannot enter spaces; only use lowercase letters and hyphens. Be sure you like what you pick, since it’s not changeable.

Third, pick a category for your lens. If your product or service fits in one of the categories like “cars & trucks” or “entertainment,” select that. As a fall back, select “business.”

Fourth, rate your lens. Since this is a business site, you should definitely make it fit the “G” rating. You want as much exposure as possible.

4. Enter keywords for your lens. These help search engines and users find your lens. Make sure they’re good. For Bob’s Knob Shop, the “best keyword” would be “doorknobs.” Go ahead and enter the optional ones. Maybe pick “knobs,” “door knobs,” and “bob.”

After you enter the security code, you’re ready to see the lens. Click “Done!”

Edit the basics

Squidoo now takes you to the “Lensmaster Workshop” for your lens. This is where you can tweak your lens. It’s your lens’ control panel.

There are lots of buttons on this page, but don’t be overwhelmed. I’ll walk you through the basics, and you’ll see it’s not difficult.

This image at right shows the four things we’ll focus on, with little red numbers by each one.

1. Write an introduction. Click on the “edit” button to modify your lens’ introduction. This text will display at the top of the lens. Use it to hook your visitor and show him why he should keep reading. You can also use the editing tool to create a link to your main website or blog. Click “Save” when you’re done.

2. Write your bio. Click the “edit” button by the default bio, and write a bit about yourself. You can also create links in this field, perhaps to your blog’s “about” page or a similar page on your company’s website. While you’re in the bio, upload a photo to help personalize the lens.

3. Add your RSS feed. If you have a blog, this is an easy way to give your lens fresh content. Click on the “edit” button and fill out the fields. The most important one is the actual URL for your RSS feed. Default values for the other fields should work fine, and you can optionally create a catchy title and description for the content.

4. Publish! Squidoo will not make your changes live until you click the “Publish!” button in the upper right. Once you click this, the public can see your modified lens. You can view your lens by using the “View this page” link, directly above “Publish!”

Customize like crazy

Even on your basic lens, Squidoo includes many different “modules” for you to use. You can customize all of these in a similar manner. The “edit” button lets you configure them. Move them up and down on the page with the little orange arrows. Remove a module by clicking the “x”. To add a module, click “Add Modules” at the top of the page.

There are lots of module possibilities. You can add photos from Flickr, plain text, lists, YouTube videos, and much more. Provide fun and interesting content for visitors, but always tie it back to your brand.

The benefits

Squidoo provides a free way to create a fun entry-point for your main website. More internet users are discovering this site everyday, and that means they will be more likely to find you. Squidoo has a good Google PageRank (currently 6), which means that links from this domain are valuable.

You can create a basic Squidoo lens in 10 or 15 minutes. Why not give it a try?

Know the rules

Wikipedia is run by people like you and me. Anyone can edit it, but other users can also remove your content. However, once you know the rules, you’ll be ready to go.

For our purposes, there are two important things to remember. First, Wikipedia strictly prohibits advertising. This doesn’t mean that you cannot create an article for your business or organization. Rather, it means that the article must be verifiable and from a neutral point of view.

Second, an organization must be notable to have its own Wikipedia article. This basically means that you’ll need reliable secondary sources to back up whatever you include on your company’s page. Things like newspaper articles, television coverage, and books qualify here. If a source has very shallow coverage, you will need more sources.

Sign up

To create new articles, you’ll need a Wikipedia account. The sign up process is simple. You really just have to pick a username, set a password, etc.

Once you’re signed in, you have lots of preferences you can tinker with. But we’ll just cut to the chase and create your article.

Start a new article

Like all things at Wikipedia, there’s a great help page that you’ll want to peruse. To boil it down, you just create a page, type your info, and save it.

Before you start an article about your organization, it’s important to make sure one doesn’t already exist. You can use the yellow search box at Starting a new page to verify this.

When you search using this form, it will only look for articles with that title. Be sure to look for variations. Assuming an article is not found, you’ll see a link below the search box that allows you to “create this page.” Click that link to create your article.

Edit your article

You should now see a large text box on your screen. This is where you can type your article. Once you’re done typing, click “Save Page” below the box. It’s really that simple.

You’ll want to include formatting in your article, which you can do with the markup buttons above the form. Fortunately, there’s a handy page on editing articles that includes commonly used formatting.

Don’t forget to “Save Changes.” If you don’t, all your hard editing will be lost.

The result

When a person looks for information about your company, they should quickly find the Wikipedia article. It’s a trusted domain, and you’ll have a link from there to the company’s website. This should help with your website’s overall search engine placement as well as generating new traffic to the site.

Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy your hard work.

You are selling Widgets. You create an account at Google Adwords and offer to pay $.25 for each visitor that Google sends you. Google then looks at your keywords (buy a widget) and whenever someone searches for “buy a widget” your ad gets shown.

Unlike traditional media, you don’t pay anything unless someone clicks on your link and goes to your website.

There are only a few good PPC engines so start with Google Adwords and if that works, expand until you can’t handle the load any longer!

Here are my top 10 places to look for links for a new website or new company.

1. Squidoo.com - Squidoo will allow you to create a “lens” (mini-website) on their website that you can use to link to your company website. That is a free link from squidoo.com to your website.

2. Create a Google Page - Google pages are also mini-websites hosted by Google. They are easy to create and you can easily link back to your website. This is a free service.

3. Create a Blogger Blog - Blogger is a blog hosting service that will help you create a blog. On your blog you can link to your company website. This is a free service.

4. Create a Wordpress Blog - Wordpress is like blogger, create a blog on each site and make sure it links to your company website.

5. Buy Links - Buying links is the quickest way to get tens, hundreds, or thousands of targeted links to your site. Cost is usually between $5 a month to $100 a month per link. Use this link and get the first $100 in links free!

6. Create a Newsvine account - Newsvine is a social news website that allows you to create your own “vine”. In your vine you can link to your company website. Cost is free.

7. Create a MySpace account - MySpace isn’t just for teens, you can create a MySpace for your company name and link back to your company from MySpace. Free to everyone.

8. Create a Wikipedia page - If your company is large enough, create a Wikipedia entry defining what your company does, it’s history, founders, market demographics, etc. This will get you a free link from a very trustworthy website.

9. Leave comments on blogs - If you have a few minutes per day, find a blog that has something interesting and leave a comment that links back to your company website. Free.

10. Create a blog and post to it - If you are a leader in your niche, or can write great linkbait, a blog is a great idea. A good piece of linkbait that makes it to all the social websites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Netscape, etc can easily get you 1,000 awesome links.

I saved #10 until the end because I feel that it is the most important part of building links. The links that come in will be from similar websites, will be free, and Google loves them.

Use those 10 tips to get thousands of links to your website and watch the new traffic and customers come in!