IS YOUR SHOPPING CART COSTING YOU MONEY?

They was a time when doing business on the internet simply meant hanging
out your electronic shingle and raking in the profits. Then it became
necessary to build your online credibility through reciprical linking
and membership in organizations like http://i-Cop.org. Then
organizations like http://www.paypal.com and
http://zzz.clickbank.net/r/?shannan0 became necessary to accept
payments without waiting for the proverbial "check in the mail".

One of the latest innovations of internet marketing is the shopping cart
program. Basically, this let's visitors to your site prepare an online
order just like they would fill out an order form from a catalog and
submit it directly to your business. Some programs are so advanced they
also calculate payments, coupons, shipping, and inventory.

But are they a good thing?

Many online business people are finding that the fancy shopping cart
program they have used to design or re-design their website is costing
them business. Why?

Because these programs are not search engine friendly. They omit meta
tags, they contain long and cumbersome universal resource locators
(URLs), and they inhibit the attainment of high search engine rankings.

So what can the online business person do? Is there no way to have a
friendly merchant environment? And stay visible in the search engines?

Yes, there is. And its relatively simple. Take for example, a generic
gift site. You might have a front page with a link to main category
pages that each flow down like a graph to specific products. But you
cannot place each of these pages directly into your shopping cart
program. Create a regular front page which sits right on your domain,
www.mygifts.com. Create category headings for your main product
groupings that also sit directly on your domain,
www.mygifts.com/group1.html, www.mygifts.com/group2.html etc. Keep
these pages off the secure shopping cart server and system. From the
category heading pages, then move into the shopping cart system.

While your individual products may never see the light of day in search
engine rankings - your front page and your category headings will. In
this way, you have a site which is shopper and search engine friendly.

Shannan Hearne-Fortner is the president and wizard of
http://www.SuccessPromotions.com, an internet marketing information and
service company. Part author, poet, mother, WAHM, and wizard, Shannan
is the marketing manifestation of Guerilla marketing techniques from Jay
Conrad Levinson, One-to-One Marketing, grass roots campaign development
and internet wizardry combined with the Eastern-Western philosophies of
such gurus as Deepak Chopra, Shakti Gawain, and Alan Watts. Seasoned
with the thoughts of theological greats like Billy Graham and WAHM
oriented authors like Priscilla Huff. Her marketing experience contains
over ten years of online and off-line campaign development for products
and services ranging from alarms to pottery, software to hardware,
jewelry to clothing, consulting to designing, and everything in
between. Always insightful, often humorous, and occasionally downright
delightful.

About the Author

Shannan Hearne-Fortner, President and Wizard
Success Promotions
Marketing Your eBusiness Better
http://www.successpromotions.com
ICQ # 20240138

Written by: Shannan Hearne-Fortner

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