Accept Credit Cards Online - Add a Shopping Cart to Your Website

Selecting the shopping cart software

There is a variety of shopping cart software available that you can integrate into your site. We generally don't recommend that any business use a proprietary shopping cart system that is tied to one vendor, like Yahoo!. The problem is that if you don't like the service for whatever reason, you are stuck there, because the shopping cart is tied to their systems.

On the other hand, if you have a shopping cart that is transferable from host to host, such as the Zen Cart or OSCommerce shopping cart systems, you are free to use any host that supports their programming language - which is PHP - an industry standard language for dynamic Web sites.

If you want to accept Paypal exclusively, with a little programming, you may be able to circumvent installing a shopping cart. The transactions are handled off-site on Paypal's secure server. Paypal's website has a lot of valuable help for developers if you wish to look into that.

SSL Certificates

In order to accept credit card payments directly on your own website, you will need to have an SSL certificate. Check with your bank before buying your certificate. Some banks are very fussy about the security of your site, and you may need to buy a more expensive grade of SSL certificate.

Merchant Account

A merchant account is an organization that accepts the money from credit card purchases on your behalf, and deposits the money in to your bank account. You might get a quote from your bank for an Internet-capable merchant account. Sometimes your own bank can offer you better terms, faster deposits, etc. than a third party.

Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is the organization that manages getting the credit card information from the client, checking to be sure that the card is valid, gets authorization (or declined) information form the client's card bank, then hands the information to the organization that handles your merchant account (above) to get the money into your account.

A popular payment gateway is Authorize.net.

Paypal is also a Payment gateway. They handle all of the legwork of getting the money out of the clients account and getting the money to you. Paypal is very convenient, but usually more expensive than traditional Payment Gateways.

Another Payment Gateway that handles the secure transactions on their own server (remotely) is 2Checkout.

Final notes

Setting up an e-commerce website is not for beginners. Most people will need to find a reputable party to install the software, and set everything up. Your web host may offer development services, or can probably refer you to someone. Once the initial setup is done, a good shopping cart is easy enough for someone who is moderately computer literate to maintain and operate.

Be sure to check with your Payment gateway and merchant accounts to find out their fees. Especially if you have a very tight profit margin.

About the Author
Allen Howard is the senior Technical Support Representative for InfoServe Media, LLC. InfoServe Media is a full service Houston Website design company specializing in custom Web site design. In addition to superior website design that even a new business can afford, we also offer hosting and domain names. We can integrate a shopping cart on your website, and provide guidance for setting up your payment gateway. Or we can build a website for you from the ground up. See our website for complete website design and hosting solutions including website promotion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services, SSL certificates and more.

Videos Are The New Selling Medium

By Matt Ide

If you have been an Internet marketer for any length of time you know how important it is to drive traffic to your website in order to make more sales. Traditionally, having great keywords and articles linking to your website along with great back links as in the way to generate more sales with your website.

But recently research is showing that videos are the new medium to making more sales online. There are several factors for this. The first being that it is an easy way to get a message across reviewer in a very short amount of time, often within a minute or less. Second, more people are willing to watch a video for two or three minutes then they would to read an article and especially if that video is entertaining.

Videos to sell online products and inform viewers of your website is an amazing new concept that it's just been recently discovered to work very well and conversions of individuals clicking through from the video site to your website can be astronomical.

Here are a few tips on how to use video to get more traffic to your website.

Studies have shown that using watermarks in your video to medically improve the chances of an individual clicking through to your website. However, some sites do not allow watermarks and there for you to find the sites that do.

Using a good background music is a wise choice in using videos to sell or to gain clicks to your website as you can generate excitement by having a good quality soundtrack playing in the background.

So the best converting videos for creating massive traffic to websites has been through the use of funny videos. Many viewers go to video sites in order watch funny videos. By having a link at the bottom of the video combined with a funny video in and of itself you can dramatically increase click through his to your website much more so than through an article or an ad.

Another recent study has shown that using videos in e-mails has often converted the click through his dramatically simply because of the fact that there is a link to a video that the viewer might want to watch and that is hopefully related to the subject of the e-mail.

Using video to gain traffic and make more sales is a cutting-edge technique that is just now being discovered on the Internet. Apply these principles now and you can be generating a lot more traffic than you have seen previously.

If you'd like to learn more techniques on Internet marketing please visit http://www.make-fast-cash-online.blogspot.com/


About The Author
Learn better ways to make money online by going to http://www.make-fast-cash-online.blogspot.com/

E-mail Marketing: Increasing Your Conversions and Exploding Your Sales

By Brad Semp

The internet has allowed businesses from around the world to increase visibility and exposure to more potential customers. Businesses that use e-mail marketing are able to increase customer conversions leading to higher sales and profits.

The world of internet marketing has opened doors for businesses in more ways than one. In general, the internet has destroyed traditional boundaries by connecting businesses with client prospects and potential customers from around the globe. Unfortunately, the worldwide exposure doesn't necessarily translate to increased sales.

In order to take advantage of the increased exposure that the internet offers, the key component to improving your sales revenue is to convert your site visitors to customers. The percentage of the visitors to your site that buy your product or services is referred to as the conversion rate. Understanding, tracking, and improving your conversion rate should be the goal of any online business.

For this reason, business owners will place a heavy emphasis on those items that entice a person to buy. These items often include but are not limited to website graphics, sales copy, and sales mechanisms necessary to close a transaction. Although all are important and vital to the success of your online business, most businesses will only convert somewhere between 1 - 4% of visitors (for sales transactions).

To better illustrate this situation, let's look at an example of a site that receives 1,000 unique visitors per day. We'll assume a fairly high conversion rate of 4%. This means that 40 of your visitors are purchasing your product or service and are converted into a customer. The other 960 visitors leave your site without a completed sale.

What happens to the 96% of visitors who leave your site without making a purchase? In most cases, you've lost this person as a potential customer. Yes, it is true that some will bookmark your site and return at a later date to make a purchase. However, most of the visitors to your site will leave without making a purchase.

Are you resigned to the fact that not everyone will make a purchase? Is there something that you can do to increase your overall conversion rate of visitors?

The solution is e-mail marketing. E-mail marketing is important because it provides you with a way to contact many of those who left your site without making a purchase. How? All you have to do is entice your site visitors to provide you with their name and e-mail address. As soon as they do, you will begin to grow an e-mail list which is often considered to be the single most important asset in internet marketing.

There are advantages of using e-mail marketing as part of your business strategy. First, you gain the ability to sell future products to those people that have purchased from you in the past (i.e. your customers). This is an extremely effective way to increase your sales by selling to your "warm market". The first sale is always the most difficult; subsequent purchases are usually easier as the customer knows and is familiar with your website and products.

The second advantage of e-mail marketing works directly to improve your conversion rate. E-mail marketing enables you to contact those visitors who did not purchase from you but who did give you their name and e-mail address. Why is this important? Many statistics show that people often will not make a purchase until sometime between the 5th - 8th time that you contact them. Consistent contact and follow-up with those visitors through e-mail marketing techniques will help to convert additional site visitors to buying customers.

About The Author:

Brad Semp is the CEO and founder of iMarketing4,LLC(http://www.iMarketing4.com.com) and the CashMap Marketing System.Through Brad's research and personal usage experience,he endorses ListPing.com(http://www.ListPing.com)as an integrated,cost-effective solution for growing and managing your e-mail list.

20 Ways To Increase Your Traffic And Sales Using Free Follow-Up Autoresponder Courses

Check this out.

An autoresponder course is a group of articles or information set up to be sent out separately over a set period of time by e-mail. People just e-mail your autoresponder to receive the free course and it is sent out automatically over time. You can find free follow-up autoresponders to use by typing it into any search engine. Below are ten ways to use them to increase your traffic and sales.

1. Offer your course as a free bonus for purchasing one of your main products or services. People will buy your products quicker when you offer a bonus.

2. When you write and give away a free course you will become known as an expert. This gain people's trust and they will buy your main product quicker.

3. Allow others to add your free course to their own product packages. Their customers will see your ad when they purchase.

4. People love to get freebies. A free autoresponder course is perfect. They will visit your web site to get the free valuable information.

5. Allow people to receive your course for free, if they give you the e-mail addresses of 3 to 5 friends or associates that would be interested.

6. Allow other people to give away your free course This will increase the number of people that will see your ad in the course.

7. You could trade advertising space in your course for other forms of advertising. It could be banner ads, e-zine ads, web site ads, etc.

8. Gain new leads by having people sign up and give you their contact info before they can receive your autoresponder course.

9. Give away the autoresponder course as a free gift to your current customers as a way of letting them know you appreciate their business.

10. Give away the course to people that join your affiliate program. This will increase the number of people that sign-up.

11. Make money selling advertising space in your course. You could charge for small classified ads or sponsor ads.

12. Get free advertising by submitting your course to freebie web sites. This will increase the number of people that will see your ads in the course.

13. Make money by selling the reprint rights to those people that would like to sell the course. You could make more money by selling the master rights.

14. Hold a contest on your web site so people could win your course. You will get free advertising when you submit your contest to free contest directories.

15. You'll gain valuable referrals from people telling others about your course. Word of mouth advertising can be very effective.

16. Make money cross promoting your course with other people's products or services. This technique will double your marketing effort

17. Increase your e-zine subscribers by giving your course to people that subscribe to your e-zine. This give people an incentive to subscribe.

18. Allow your affiliates to use the free course as a promotional tool for your product. Each lesson could include their affiliate link.

19. Promote other businesses affiliate programs you join with your free autoresponder course. Include a different affiliate link on each lesson.

20. Advertise a different product or service on each lesson. If you only have one, use different emotional response ads on each lesson.

That good!!