My Time At MonsterCommerce

My First Week At MonsterCommerce
Originally uploaded by ArcoJedi

I was looking through old pics and found this picture of me from what I assume to be my first week at what was then called MonsterCommerce. This was likely early in 2003. I've had one other job briefly, but for the past 6 years I'd been sitting at a very similar desk helping e-commerce clients and growing with and nurturing the technical support department.

At the time of this picture, I'm not yet 27-years-old and the company has about 20 employees that on average were younger than me --at least by a small margin. Our department of new technical support reps was a group of 4 or 5 guys in a small set of cubicles in a basement office. We had utilitarian carpeting on the walls and mismatched dividers.

So much has changed since then that I'd need at least ten pages to tell the whole story. This has been the best job I've had so far in my life. In summary, the company was acquired by Network Solutions in 2006 and became the Belleville office for the leading domain registrar. This purchase was a huge boon to everyone involved; NetSol got the e-commerce, web design and marketing teams that they needed, and MC's leadership got an influx of cash, tools and resources to greatly expand what they did so well and to hire tons more people.

As of September of 2009, I am no longer employed with Network Solutions. This is much to my regret considering the knowledge I've gained and the memorable times spent with numerous coworkers and what I hope will be lifelong friends. Though the separation and new personal direction will be to my benefit in the long run, I will miss the team. I could go into more detail about the separation and the reasons for it, but it would be impolite and unnecessary to hash it out here.

The question remains about what to do with this blog. Clearly the trademarked name of MonsterCommerce is owned by Network Solutions so the URL of monstercommerce.blogspot.com might need to be relinquished. But I see no real reason to do so. Regardless, the blog content is for the most part all mine, so perhaps my own "rebrand" is in order. I could reorganize this into my "Web Developer / E-commerce" blog. Or, incomplete as it is, I could just lock and freeze it as a testament and history of my time and leave it alone for all time.

Just in case someone at NetSol sees this and does want the URL, feel free to let me know but keep one thing in mind. According to my stats I've received an average of less than one (1) lonely visitor per day for the better part of the last year. And since none of the links to the NetSol owned pages that you see have been (or will be) modified, it's not like anyone is getting lost or confused. I'd still honestly recommend Network Solutions E-commerce to anyone who asked.

I'll probably write more about this at my personal blog at some point, but I wanted to update this blog page before the year ended. Thanks for visiting and please check back once a new direction (for me and this blog) has been chosen!

Online Marketing services from Network Solutions

This post is part four of four content articles to help you learn how to market your website. Some of the product names and details of the process are now outdated, but the outline should be good enough to give you a good impression.

Let Network Solutions help you drive traffic to your Web Site. Try one of our Online Marketing products today!

Top 10 Search Results (SEO)

Top 10 positioning in search engines is the most effective form of online marketing. Our experts will optimize your Web site and develop keywords based on the number of listings you desire.

Included with all Top 10 Search Result Packages

• Industry/Keyword Research
• Optimization of Targeted Landing Pages
• Coordinate Optimization Strategy
• Link Verification
• Optimized Content Creation
• Cross-links throughout Web Site
• Optimized Navigational Structure
• Homepage Optimization
• Site Submission
• 3 Positioning Reports/Review

Site Optimization Phases

Phase 1: Selection of Services

You are welcome to browse through our site in order to learn more about our services. Our SEO specialists would also be happy to speak with you on the phone regarding an SEO strategy for your site. Once you are ready for optimization to begin on your site, you may choose a service using our online sign-up forms. You may want to include a Link Building Package and/or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) management services when you sign up. An order confirmation email will be sent to you within two business days of your online order. It will include some special search engine friendly techniques that you can work on while the optimization is in production.

Phase 2: Keyword Analysis

We begin with your suggestions and then review your site to compile a list of keywords to begin with. Our SEO developers will then perform keyword research based on traffic and competition. At that point, you may approve, reject or suggest additional keyword research. (We will go up to 3 rounds to allow you to choose the best ones for your business.) Once a final list is approved, it will be provided to you, and the promotion will move on to the next phase.

It should be noted that you are encouraged to perform an intellectual property review or analysis of keyword phrases. MonsterCommerce and Network Solutions will conduct no review of any third party rights to recommended keyword phrases.

Phase 3: Site Analysis

At this phase in the process, your site will be fully analyzed by our SEO developers. An HTML validation will be performed on your site's home page, ensuring that all of the code is in working order for the search engines to be able to easily spider through all of your homepage text. Minor adjustments may be made at this point in order to increase "spiderability."

We will also scan through your site's links to find any broken links or images and check your site's server status for problems or errors that could create problems when the search engine spiders attempt to crawl through your site. Our back end analysis helps to ensure optimal search engine rankings as sites with improper coding and/or server errors can become obstacles to higher rankings.

Phase 4: Text Writing

During this phase, text will be created using your finalized keyword list (from Phase 2). The text will be written by one of our professional writers/editors and uploaded into optimized pages for you.

Phase 5: Submission and Report

Many important things happen during the Submission and Report phase. Your site will be submitted to major search engines and directories. A site map will be created for your site, linking to your newly optimized pages, and we will make changes to your homepage code and text. We will also run an initial ranking report on your site to determine where your site might already be indexed in the major search engines.

Phase 6: Completion

The completion phase lasts some time. Initially, when the changes to your site have been made and the submission and reporting phase is complete, we will send you a completion email that will contain your ranking report and additional tips for keeping your site search engine friendly and optimized. A second ranking report will be provided to you three months from the completion date and again at five months to help you track your site's progress to the tops of the search engines.

Summary:

• We perform keyword research to develop a list of keyword phrases that have a high amount of search traffic but won't be so competitive that your site doesn't have a chance to reach the first page of search results.
• Our research is geared toward finding targeted keyword phrases that people search for when they are ready to buy.
• We optimize your site in order to position your listings on the first page of the search results in the major search engines.
• Top-ten placement is important. This process can be much faster when combined with a link program.
• Many of our clients are currently seeing top ten rankings at just two and half months after the promotion has been complete.
• This is a long-term promotional solution for your site.

Pay Per Click (PPC) - PerformanceClicks™

Pay Per Click is an advertising model in which the advertisers only pay for each click to their Web site. The ads are served on the web, based on a defined set of keywords or themes relating to the advertiser's business.

Network Solutions® delivers the promise of Pay Per Click with PerformanceClicks™ package. Paid search advertising on search engines is a fantastic way to drive visitors to your Web site. Let Network Solutions create and manage your online advertising.

• Clicks to your Web site
• Targeted traffic from the Yahoo!® network
• No hidden costs - you pay a set fee each month
• Expert search analysts to manage and develop your customized keyword campaigns
• Regular reporting to show you the effectiveness of your campaigns
• Upgrades at any time

The setup fee includes the time the PPC Analyst spends with the initial keyword research, ad copywriting, and the actual launching of the campaign through Yahoo!®. Setup fee is billed at the time of purchase with the first month's package fee.

PerformanceClicks™ may benefit your site greatly if you have one of the following types of sites: mortgage broker or company, lawyers and doctors, real estate or rentals business, debt consolidation, business to business or e-commerce site with high-ticket items.

Search Engine Visibility (SEV)

Search engines have become the primary vehicle for finding information on the Internet. So, if you're serious about your business, it's time to get serious about search. Search Engine Visibility automates the search engine submission process, and provides insight into search engine optimization to help you achieve better rankings in the top search engines.

What You Get

In order to be noticed in search engines it's important for you to have tools and services available to assist you in optimizing your Web site. Our services include expert analysis of your site for factors that together increase the chances that your site will be indexed by the search engines. We will provide a 60 minute personalized tutorial recommending search engine optimization techniques that will help you to increase your rankings based on the analysis of your site. The tools available to you for use in optimizing your site will include:

• Link Popularity Tool
• Meta-tag Generator
• Search Results Ranking
• Keyword Suggestion Tool
• HTML Analysis
• Web site Uptime

We will also provide setup and configuration of reports run to analyze the number of visitors to your Web site. The in-depth Web site visitor and traffic analysis includes:

• Page Views
• Unique Visitors
• Referrers
• Visitor Detail
• Search Engine Referrals
• Search Engine Keywords

Lastly, your search engine visibility product will include automatic monthly submissions of your site to national and local search engines and directories.

Benefits

By committing to use the Search Engine Visibility tools and implementing our experts' personalized recommendations you will gain increased exposure online with a very minimal investment. By taking advantage of our services you will also get your most recent Website content indexed by search engines with configurable, automatic monthly re-submissions.

The optimization tools mentioned above will provide many benefits to you moving forward in your Web site optimization. The keyword tool allows you to easily identify the most valuable search terms or phrases appropriate to your site. You will be able to find out how many other sites link to your Web site by using the Link Popularity tool and also find out how your competitors are ranking for similar keywords so that strategies can be developed to improve search engine rankings.

Customized reports are also provided outlining search engine optimization problems as well as Web site statistics. The search engine optimization report will identify any problems in the Web site code or performance and the statistical report can be run to monitor the performance of the site as well as report the number and identity of the visitors that are accessing your site.

Some of the products and services listed in this article have changed slightly since they were initially published. However, if you follow the link provided in the header, an account manager will be able to discuss your options and get you the best possible solution.

Using SEO & PPC Together! Tutorial

This post is part three of four content articles to help you learn how to market your website.

Why does your business need both organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and PayPerClick (PPC)?

You are sacrificing traffic if you aren't targeting customers in both areas:

• 80% of the time searchers go to the organic results first
• 65% of search traffic goes to the top ten search results
• 60% of searchers click on paid ads sometimes while 12% say they click on them always or most of the time.

Use them together for the most effective marketing strategy:

• Organic SEO is a great long term investment which everyone who is serious about their website should invest in, but PPC can start driving traffic right away. Smart customers will use this to their benefit—Begin SEO and PPC at the same time so you are getting traffic to your site right away, while you wait for your organic rankings start to rise. Once you've obtained strong organic rankings, you can reduce your PPC spending, but you shouldn't stop it altogether.

You should never put all your marketing dollars in one basket—it's too risky. A solid marketing plan should minimize risks and maximize impressions:

• If you have high organic rankings but no paid ads, then you are letting your PPC-savvy competitors steal away some traffic from you b/c a large percentage of potential customers will click on paid ads too.
• If your organic rankings suddenly take a dive due to search engine algorithm changes and you don't have a PPC campaign then you are suddenly invisible in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages). Granted you can start PPC at any time, but if you aren't familiar with it, it can take some time (even for a professional) to figure out the most-effective PPC strategy for your site.
• If you only focus on paid listings, you are missing out on the 80% of traffic that goes to organic rankings. Also, research indicates that many customers put a higher "trust" level on organic rankings since many customers are aware that those ads are paid for. You may find that your conversion rate for organic rankings is higher than that of your PPC campaign.
• If you only focus on paid listings and suddenly a competitor enters the PPC market with a big budget that you can't compete with, then you are going to lose your placement and now you are looking at 3-5 months before you can counter that with organic rankings.

Budgeting

PPC and SEO can be combined to offer an excellent search marketing campaign. Together they can help to maximize web traffic, capture highly targeted visitors, enhance sales, and generate brand awareness. By budgeting wisely, you will be able to use PPC and SEO to their full advantage.

• For new online storefronts or websites, PPC will drive traffic to your site immediately. Based on your budget, a good strategy will be to start using PPC advertising, invest in SEO as soon as you have the funds to invest in it, and begin to taper off your PPC advertising as your organic listings begin to increase.
• From a recent study at the Penn State School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), researchers found that on more than 80% of searches, study participants went first to the results identified as "organic." Sponsored links were viewed first less than 10% of the time. A safe bet is to break down your SEO and PPC budget into roughly 70-80% organic SEO and 20-30% PPC. This will help you drive long-term, consistent traffic to your site.
• Set a goal for the amount of traffic you expect to see in a given day. Then, monitor your traffic sources using a quality web analytics program. Turn on conversion tracking code provided by PPC engines like Google and Yahoo!. Information is power. You will begin to see which form of advertising is working best for your industry and your unique situation. When you know where your traffic is coming from and which visitors are converting, you'll be able to make better marketing decisions.
• Diversify your efforts. Remember that the search engine marketing industry is not limited to these two forms of advertising. Additional options such as blogs, press releases and RSS feeds will help you take advantage of the fact that consumers are first visiting search engines when they are looking to make a purchase.

More!

I also wanted to direct your attention to a new tool available at Network Solutions called the Online Marketing Budget Calculator.

What is Pay Per Click? Tutorial

This post is part two of four content articles to help you learn how to market your website.

PPC is the process of advertising your site through the use of pay-per-click advertisements in the search engines. The search engines sell relevant ads to anyone willing to join in a friendly bidding war. By bidding on keywords, advertisers are able to control when their ads are shown. In many cases the sky is the limit on how high the price will go. However, you only pay when the ad is clicked on, making PPC a very budget-friendly advertising option. With each bid, marketers are guaranteed a certain spot on the search engine page. Ads run on a search engine usually consist of a heading, body copy and a display URL. More often then not, the search ad will contain the keyword that was bid on.

Every day more and more people turn to the Internet to find information, products, and services. As a result, businesses and web site owners are always looking for ways to be found in search results and ultimately drive more traffic to their site. Pay per click, or PPC, is a cost effective and immediate way to do just that. With proper management and a clear focus, pay per click services offer some of the most well targeted, far-reaching, and economical advertising on the Internet.

Pay per click advertising is the fastest growing segment of online advertising. According to a Forbes Magazine prediction, companies will spend $8 billion a year on PPC advertising in 2009. While many companies exist in this space, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) were the largest network operators as of 2006. MSN has their own PPC services, called MSN adCenter. Customers specify keywords that directly relate to their business and ones they think people will use when initiating an online search. When a user searches for a product, service, or category that matches what the customer has to offer, their ad appears on the results pages. This means they get clicks from people who are ready to buy. Search engines recognize users who are searching for these keywords and display the customer’s ad to them. Advertisers are charged based on the number of times a visitor clicks on that ad or web site; therefore the cost is action-driven. This means advertisers are only charged when a user who is searching for information directly relevant to their business, clicks their ad. This helps drive traffic, target leads, and convert users to customers.

How Pay Per Click Works

Pay per click involves using the right keywords and ad copy to attract visitors to your site.

• Right Keywords
• Attractive Ad Copy
• High Traffic to your Web site
• Good Landing pages
• The conversions you always wanted.

Benefits of Pay Per Click

There are several benefits to using a pay per click advertising program. Some of the benefits include:

• Quick and effective way to promote products and services
• Advertising is highly targeted and results are quantifiable
• Customer only pays when a prospective customer clicks their ad
• Results are immediate and provide instant traffic
• Different keywords, titles and descriptions can be selected for most effective results
• Effectiveness of the campaign can be measured
• Controlled spending by establishing predefined budgets

What is Search Engine Optimization? Tutorial

This post is part one of four content articles to help you learn how to market your website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of "naturally" driving traffic to your site and is generally seen as the more cost efficient way. By making a website more search engine friendly, a site will rank higher on the search engine result page. To optimize your site for the search engines is to try to get it listed in the top rankings when any particular keyword phrase related to your industry is typed into the query box. SEO is particularly important for e-commerce sites. Site improvements include changing or adding content, improving internal and external links, and formatting meta tags. The most important thing to remember is that content is king. Without enough content containing the right keywords, you have very little chance of ranking well. Used correctly, SEO can lead to a very profitable search marketing campaign.

You can perform search engine optimization on your own site if you have the time and knowledge to do so, or you can invest in professional site optimization work. Here is a run-down of the essential elements needed to optimize your site:

1. Do Keyword Research.

Think you know what people are searching for in the major search engines? Think again. The only real way to tell is to ask the search engines themselves. Google and Yahoo make up the lion's share of search engine traffic. Here are some tools to help show you what consumers are searching for on a regular basis:

• Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool
• Yahoo! Search Marketing Keyword Selector Tool

Choose only keywords related to your site. Check all synonyms and alternative phrasing such as plurals and singulars.

2. Adjust your title, meta keyword tag and meta description tags.

These are bits of code that do not appear on the page for visitors to view, but instead are placed into the code for search engines to pick up. You will want to place your chosen keywords throughout these areas of your site, but be careful not to overdo it.

3. Create keyword-rich page content.

Using the keywords that were researched, write paragraphs of information for your on-page content. You will want to describe your business and what you offer for your homepage text. Give a quick summary of brands and features in your category description, and provide detailed information in your product descriptions. These are all primary opportunities for optimized text. Make sure you take advantage of them. Here are some quick guidelines:

• Homepage: Write at least 200 words of text, including your main keyword phrases, about three times.
• Category description: Your description should be 1 to 2 sentences. The description should include the keyword phrase one time. Write a natural sounding sentence describing that product category.
• Product description: In your long description, add as much related content as possible: 200-400 words will help fill this page out. Try a <h1> tag or <h2> tag, using your keyword phrases. Include any phrases you are targeting one time only. Include variations, plurals, possessives or synonyms. Occasionally bold and italicize a few of the keyword phrases within your text.

You should also consider creating some custom pages of information about your products using your keyword phrases. Be sure to never copy information from another site or web page. Duplicate content can result in penalties from the search engines.

4. Properly link back to your homepage.

Whenever you link back to your homepage, always use your full domain name with the "http" (http://www.domainname.com/) instead of a relative link to /index.asp. This will help increase your site's link popularity.

5. Work on link popularity.

Having strong link popularity means that your site has a lot of other websites linking to it and that the sites that link to yours are also doing well in the search engines. You'll want to work on both quality and quantity when it comes to getting other sites to link to you. The more sites that are linking to you and the better those sites are doing with the search engines, the more search engine visibility your site will have.

• Submit your site to search engines and directories
• Trade links with related sites
• Read more about link popularity and how to increase it

These five basic steps will give you an idea of what it will take to start getting your site listed in the major search engines. Of course, search engine optimization is complex, and the methods for achieving top rankings change often.

Network Solutions Rebrand: Before and After

The past couple of weeks have been busy. Among many other things, both planned and unplanned, we had a major update to the storefront.

Before:

After:

Ecommerce Software Release v7.7

Additionally, we also had a software upgrade for all of our ecommerce packages --timed to coincide with the update above. Please see the Ecommerce 7.7 Release Notes on the forums for more details.

Ecommerce Security

There was also an ecommerce security alert released at the end of July that we are notifying all merchants about. Please visit the site for more information.

Webinar from Mzinga: Marketing Communications in a Social World

Although it might be clichéd to say that social media is revamping the way people and businesses communicate online, it is definitely true. Businesses today need to know about the commonly used applications that are available today. And business owners and marketers need to have a strategy for how they will approach these communities.

Mzinga has a free webinar next week that you will want to sign up for to get a basic knowledge of how to form your strategy. I've attended at least one webinar they offered previously and it was pretty well run and well attended. Read the following description.

From everyday blogs and micro-blogging sites like Twitter to social networking giants like Facebook and LinkedIn, social media has emerged as an essential component in every media-savvy company's corporate communications and marketing outreach strategies. But with so many tools, applications, and websites to choose from, it's important to fully understand your options so you can decide which applications are best-suited to your company’s unique needs and goals. Join early Internet and social media pioneers Dan Bruns and Rusty Williams as they discuss how social media applications and social networking sites are changing the way organizations across all industries approach corporate communications internally and externally.

Would you like to learn more? Sign up for this event: Marketing Communications in a Social World.

Final Feature Comparison [.pdf]

We've recently updated a chart for comparing version 4 with version 7. This form was very beneficial for the last migration process in 2008, but almost all of the version 7 features have been brought up to parity with version 4 in time for the software upgrade this year. Be sure to Download the Ecommerce Feature Comparison [pdf] to become more familiar.

You can also go inside a live Version 7 store using username: guest and password: Netsol1. Thanks and have a good weekend!

Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE 2009)

Every year, the IRCE is a big event attended and presented by dozens of the leading experts in ecommerce. It's a good review and meeting-of-the-minds for the industry. New developments are discussed and strategies recommended and reviewed. Based on this year's agenda, it's going to be pretty busy and informative.

With budgets being tight this year, it might not be as easy for the average merchant to be able to afford the trip and attendance. If you are interested in updates from the conference but will not be able to make it, be sure to subscribe to the new SMART Ecommerce Blog for constant updates. Our ecommerce team will keep you informed all week.

We Have Specified Your Canonical

There's been a good discussion lately about a potential Canonical Issue on the Network Solutions Forums and I wanted to explain a little bit about it so that everyone is up to speed. Our top notch ecommerce (v7) development team made a minor software change several months ago based on client-submitted feature requests and the recommendations of our industry-leading search engine optimization experts. We added a canonical link tag to each page. It looks something like this:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/keyword-url.aspx" />

The intent with this dynamic tag is to indicate to the major search engines which choice is the proper URL for the page that loaded. It's possible that for the example above, a search engine may find multiple links to it formatted as...

• http://example.com/keyword-url.aspx
• http://www.example.com/keyword-url.aspx
• https://example.com/keyword-url.aspx
• https://www.example.com/keyword-url.aspx
• http://example.com/keyword-url.aspx?ref=foo
• http://example.com/keyword-url.aspx?start=25
• http://example.com/keyword-url.aspx?next

Even though a user loading the pages above would see the same content, the search bots would treat them as different --unless there is a specified canonical.

Google added support to this format to allow sites with content accessible via multiple URLs to specify a preferred URL to be returned in search results. We added this feature to point them in the right direction. This feature is a valuable improvement to help eliminate duplicate content worries.

Clients may see temporary fluctuations to their SERPs rankings as Google re-indexes their site to take into account the new format support. However, given the variables involved and recent Google update, it would be nearly impossible to determine the exact cause of any changes in their SERPs.

The forum discussion revolves around the fact that the home page is specified with a /index.aspx rather than just a /. It's perceived that home page ranking may have fluctuated due to this change. It's certainly possible, but I'm also aware that Google changes all the time and it may be unrelated. The SERPs are showing the /index.aspx for the home page, but that just might be because they are now displaying the canonical choice in the rankings page and does not indicate anything that would affect a site's actual listings.

If you'd like more information about Google and how they treat canonical, please see official Google blog post as well as Matt Cutts' post. In the future, we may be adding a new feature that will allow our merchants to specify their own home page for this link tag. But even so, normal "don't panic" rules of SEO should apply.

Free Ecommerce Software Upgrade! Version 4 to Version 7!

It's time to sign up for your software upgrade! The wait is finally over. All the processes and steps are in place. Check out our Free Software Upgrade page today! The email announcing it went out today. Pay particular attention to ...

A limited number of stores will be upgraded at a time, ensuring each customer receives a superior level of service.

I've been busy this past week training some of the team that will handling the white-glove support for this and I'm excited to see it get started. It may get a bit busy around here, but we are much better prepared this time around.

Email Marketing Solutions from Constant Contact

It's time to start ramping up your relationship contacts with your current customers. If you aren't already keeping in touch with them via email marketing, you will want to have an option available for capturing subscribers. When crafting and sending your promotions, you have got to have a tool for building your newsletters, sending them to your customers and tracking the effectiveness of your media.

View more about Email Marketing Solutions from Constant Contact.

Coming Soon - The E-commerce 7.6 Release!

We are really excited about the new features and enhancements coming soon. Check out the release notes on the Network Solutions Forums.

GrowSmartBusiness Webinar - Register Now on Eventbrite

I wanted to post a quick link to the GrowSmartBusiness Webinar. I have a busy week planned, but I'm going to try and attend. Here is a summary:

On Thursday, April 30 from 2-3pm ET, Network Solutions will host the GrowSmartBusiness Webinar to help small business owners learn from the success of others. Join our all-star line-up of entrepreneurs and experts for this free, live webcast. They'll discuss tips for overcoming challenges to marketing strategy and capital access.

These days, small businesses need all the help they can get.

Local Search Visibility at Network Solutions

Everybody's budget is tight these days and it might be tempting to tighten the purse strings when it comes to marketing. Here is an interesting bit of information I learned today.

According to Harris Interactive, 80 percent of Internet traffic begins at a search engine.

This makes sense, but it is under-emphasized when considering how to succeed online. Simply put, if your site is not in the search engines, you won't be found. With Google's Universal Search, the entry point for small business owners that want to compete locally has changed a bit and our products have changed to meet this need. Our Local Search Visibility service helps our clients get listed in the local directories more quickly. Visitors that use local search to find a site are much more likely to convert into a sale. And right now, there is a coupon code I can offer that will make it even easier to sign up. Use the code BCXXX02737 and the $20 set-up fee for the Local Search Visibility Plan will be waived.

More Information: Universal Search

• Official Google Blog: Universal search
• SearchEngineLand.com: Google Universal Search

Domain Name Registration Promotion ONLY $9.99

I was just thinking earlier today that I should start a post series on DEALS that can be found on our products and services. Honestly with everything going on and all the bad news you might here about the economy, you have to cut costs. Well, I've got the inside track and I wanted to make sure to pass along anything I might find that is an exceptional deal.

It's not like it's a big secret, but the company I work for does not sell the cheapest domain names on the market. What might get misunderstood along the way is that we have never attempted to do so. It took me a while to understand this distinction, but most other web services business lose money on the domain name transaction in the hope that the client will sign up for hosting and / or e-commerce and other services. Simply put, the cheap registrars commonly lose money on each renewal and registration. Though that saves the client money in the short term, it makes the registrar's business model harder to sustain when they are identified as a registrar only. We are not just a registrar and we are not normally a source for cheap domains. We are a service-based solution for small business owners who like to know they are dealing with someone who knows what they're doing and is going to be around for awhile.

So when a company working in that direction can still offer a semi-secret promotion on domain names for only $9.99, it should cause some heads to turn. Let me say that again a different way.

Register A New Domain Name With Network Solutions for only $9.99!

And that's not at that special price only when bundled with other products and services OR when you mention a special code word OR sign up for our newsletter. We normally give a free domain when you sign up for one year of service, but this goes one step further. It seemed super special to me, especially if you want to take advantage of the new free business profiles included with each domain.

If what you want is cheap, go pay for cheap and settle for cheap. But if you want a premiere provider and to get a discounted price at signup, reconsider Network Solutions. We are not, nor have we ever been out to swindle anyone. Instead we tell you exactly what you get and what you will pay for it. Our prices are usually higher because our services are better. We are striving forward. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Keep in mind that this site is not a company mouthpiece and I am not just passing something along to help us, but I want to help you. I talk to e-commerce merchants every day and I'm concerned about their well being and their bottom lines. Frankly some of them have more bravery and guts than I do. But more than that, I like to write about the internet and specific stuff related to e-commerce, not just my job. Please know that it won't always be about Network Solutions. But when there's a deal like this one, I cannot keep it to myself. The catch? It ends right before midnight on March 19^th, so you better hurry.

E-commerce / eCommerce / E-Commerce - Can We Get Some Consensus, Please?

If you check online for the definition of e-commerce, you will usually get something like the following:

E-commerce

Commerce that is transacted electronically, as over the Internet.

But the frustrating thing is that there is no official consensus within the industry on which exact spelling of this term we are supposed to use. Can we get some consistency here with the name? It is an entire industry in and of itself. I know that it is really in it's infancy as far as industries go and there is a lot tied up in the discussion (trademarks, domain names, claims to fame). But I personally type this word dozens of times a day. Prospective clients looking for our services are typing it into search engines. Can we all (coworkers and competitors alike) pick one of the plethora of options and hang our collective hat on it? I'm sure it hurts our credibility to have so many variations out there floating around.

"E-commerce"

This is my current favorite simply from habitual use. But perhaps it should be abolished based on redundancy and for consistency. The term stands for electronic commerce. For electronic mail, we don't dare use "e-mail" as that just looks silly.

"eCommerce"

This one is nice, but what happens when you have a time where you had to use a capital letter for the first character? "ECommerce"? I don't like that.

"Ecommerce"

For simplicity, this should be the winner. But for some reason I can't quite place, it is wrong too.

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I'm open to suggestions and convincing arguments for your favorite. The industry at large will decide some day, but we can certainly discuss the likely choices and steer it to our preference.

Video: E-commerce Websites for Small Businesses

More videos!

In this video, you'll learn how an experienced web services company can help you create a store, accept payments, manage your inventory and secure your transactions.

This is a good introductory / explanatory video, whereas the previous video was a good promotional video. I think that for a product that is as involved as ours, it helps to have a visual explanation and I like the cut out, white-board style used here. It's very reminiscent of the Common Craft show, which I'm a big fan of from their RSS in Plain English video.

Video: Is an E-commerce Website Right For You?

I have spoken by phone, private message and email with this client many times, but it is nice to be able to put a face to with the name.

The founder of a successful online store Jerry Gonto of MartiniArt.com explains why you don't need a technical background to create an e-commerce website with everything you need to succeed.

Record Breaking Credit Card Breach at Heartland Payment Systems

As a consumer, this is a little disheartening.

The Washington Post has reported that Heartland Payment Systems, a payment processor that services more than 250,000 businesses, has had more than 100 million transactions compromised via malicious software that was installed on its network; it will likely turn out to be the largest data breach ever reported. The 'good' news is that the criminals were only capturing credit card numbers, the names on the cards, and expiration dates—the info encoded onto the magnetic strip on the card. Because no addresses, SSNs or PINs were stolen, the prospect of full-blown identity theft is pretty small—which must explain why Heartland isn't offering any sort of credit monitoring package as compensation. Instead, their CFO says, We recognize and feel badly about the inconvenience this is going to cause consumers.

But it's even more alarming for me as someone who works in the e-commerce industry. I believe strongly that news like this should be disclosed and full and public investigations must be carried out to prevent these issues. However, for consumers this is a big blow to confidence in e-commerce in general. And that does not bode well for the small business in the long term.

Read more about this breach at The Consumerist.

Using CSS to Format Superscript

Do you find yourself using superscript in your writing often? This would be the "rd" added as a suffix to 3 when you mean third. For example:

3^rd grade - 3^rd base - 3^rd donut

It doesn't come up very often for everyone, but when it does you will want to style it correctly. For most fonts in HTML a superscript element in the middle of a paragraph will cause a minor display issue. This is variably dependent on both the browser and the font used. To see what I'm talking about, see the following screen shot from a recent page on rd.com (Reader's Digest). Pay particular attention to the 2^nd or 3^rd line from the bottom.

It's hard to notice, but the line with the text about the 44^th president is causing a few pixels of extra space between it and the line above. This is throwing the line spacing out of a consistent flow and it distracts the eye. The following code line added to your CSS code settings will prevent this issue.

sup { font-size: .5em; }

Default styles usually make the superscript smaller than the surrounding text, but not always small enough to prevent it from hitting the ceiling in the line above and causing the incorrect line spacing. This code will make sure that it is HALF the size of the paragraph font no matter what you may change it to later.

Some but not all word processing programs will automatically format your text typed as 3rd to display as 3^rd and it's updated as you type. For your web site, you will want to be sure to use superscript, but you will also want to style it correctly for every browser.

More Information

• CSS Creator Subscript and Superscript
• style-sheets.com - SUP - Superscript

Update: I wanted to find out about other tips that are available and I found this option that may be a bit better.

sub, sup { line-height: 0px; }

The inspiration and idea came from Web Matters - CSS superscript spacing, but that page goes into more detail about how the elements are styled by default. Their actual suggestion is to increase the standard line height for the whole page to 1.4em and then set the superscript line height to zero within that element. But this is easier as far as I can tell. YMMV!