Understanding the Terms

 by Mark Nenadic

 Due to the articulate nature of the Internet, the language associated with ecommerce website design continues to grow at a fast pace. Many visitors whether they possess Internet savvy or not, may find themselves confused the first time they talk to a professional web design company or ecommerce web designer. The following are terms, acronyms and Internet slang that are used in relation to ecommerce website design.

Applet - Applet refers to short programs, usually written in the Java language, especially for Internet. Ecommerce website design may use Java applets for multiple functions including the look and feel, but also for feedback forms or questionnaires.

B2B - This refers to business-to-business ecommerce website design. B2B specifically focuses on site design that is appealing on a corporate level.

B2C - Business to consumer ecommerce website design. The obvious distinctions from B2B can be made here.

Bandwidth - This refers to the amount of data a network connection can handle. For complicated, heavy 'bandwidth' sites - a high speed connection is necessary for the ecommerce website design to be fully appreciated and utilized.

Click-Through - Refers to the visitor's clicking of an advertiser's link on the ecommerce website design. Click-throughs are a source of revenue for some websites.

CGI - Common Gateway Interface is a program that takes information gathered from users in a web page form and then funnels it to databases for processing. Ecommerce website design may use this feature for building customer databases on ecommerce sites.

Demographics - Visitor information gathered for the sole purpose of optimizing a website. This information may include gender, age group, profession, income levels, computer systems and connection speed. This information should only be gathered for optimizing purposes and should never be made available to anyone else.

Doorway - Web pages that are search engine optimized, but provide links or redirection to other pages that contain the actual content. Doorways were a popular SEO technique for ecommerce website design and others.

E-Commerce - Business conducted on the Internet. The commerce transactions take place over the Internet with products, if any, being shipped to the buyer's home.

Image Map - An image that contains multiple links. By moving the mouse pointer to different parts of the image and clicking, information may be obtained.

Opt-In Mailing List - A mailing list that allows subscribers to sign up by just entering their email address into a form.  A confirmation email is usually sent and must be responded to before user is added to the list.

Professional Web Design - An individual or company that specializes in building web pages and web sites for optimum performance. From the mechanics to content providers, a professional web design takes into account a variety of factors and features to deliver a professional, easy to use and visually pleasing website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site.

Shopping Cart - Program that allows visitors to keep track of items for purchase. The program allows users to both add and remove items prior to 'checking out.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic



Mark Nenadic
Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com , where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Understanding-the-Terms/15896

What Are Different Components Of An Online Business Directory?

 by Vaiv Jais

 Online Business Directory follow the concept of the traditional yellow pages, but the former have many more components that make them far better than the printed directories. An online business directory makes the right use of the concept that businesses in different categories can be placed and searched at one comprehensive source.

The two main type of online business directories are B2C business directory and B2B business directory. Each of these types serves different sets of audiences, but both have a number of components in common. Learn about the components of these directories that make them the popular business tools.

Trade Leads

The most attractive component of an online business directory is the space for posting trade leads. Not only the business providers, but the business buyers can also post trade leads at b2b directories. Buy leads are posted by the buyers who wish to purchase specific products and services. And those selling business post sell leads at these directories. So, it becomes easier for both the groups to get their business intentions fulfilled.

Product catalogs

Product catalogs are other useful components of an online business directory. These catalogs serve as the sales copy for the business sellers who use these catalogs to provide detailed information about the products and services. The online business directories have unlimited space for every business seller to post their product catalogs. Moreover, the information in these catalogs can be updated by the business seller as and when required.

Search Tools

The search components of an online business directory help the business buyers and sellers to save time and find one another with ease. You can imagine how difficult and frustrating it can be to search for specific businesses in the printed business directories. On the other hand, the online product directories allow one to easily search for desired businesses.

Call to Action

The traditional yellow pages and business directories were used only for advertisement purposes. The call to action components at the online product directories can help a business owner to enjoy sales conversions. If a customer or a business buyer finds a specific business that fulfills his requirements, he can use 'send enquiry' or 'place an order' buttons to show his interest.  

Great Support

An online business directory lends support to both the buyers and the purchasers through a number of components. For example, these directories reserve exclusive space to highlight the featured products and categories that help the businesses in these categories to gain more exposure. Product and business reviews are other components present at these directories that help the business selection easier for the buyer. To expect high level support from an online directory, you must choose a reliable and popular directory to post your trade leads.

A buyers and suppliers business directory on the internet bridges the gap between traders from different cities and countries. And a b2c directory makes the online shopping experience convenient for the customers. All these components and aspects make online business directories much more powerful business tools than the traditional classifieds and yellow pages.



Vaiv Jais has wide knowledge of B2B Marketplace and Business industries. Get latest updates on Business Directory which are of great demand in B2B space.You can find more free information about Online Business Directory at our dir.indiaMART.com

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/What-Are-Different-Components-Of-An-Online-Business-Directory-/241611

How To Build A Simple Online Business

by Kris Beus

 There are many different ways you can make money online and one of the best is creating an online business.  This is much simpler than you may think it consists of creating a presence, marketing the presence, and earning money from the traffic that arrives.

The first thing you should do is begin creating presences.  This is difficult in the beginning, but after a while of creating new content and publishing it online you will find it easier and easier.  Creating the presence is only the first step of an online business next comes internet marketing and is far more difficult and time consuming. This is what will separate you from the rest of the websites within your niche.

A quality internet marketing campaign should be set up for the long term and only consist of whitehat methods.  Do not fall for easy black hat techniques which focus on tricking the search engines. These techniques will usually end up getting your website banned.  The final step of online business is monetizing the traffic that comes to your presence.

Creating content should be the focus of your online business.  This will be the greatest source of visitor satisfaction, incoming links, and traffic generation.  There are many free places you can go to publish content the first being your own presences.  Use free resources such as blogger.com, squidoo.com, and wordpress.com to publish content on a frequent basis.  Once you have the content published use external resources such as article directories to market the article further and link back to the websites which have monetization links.  This will help them begin ranking higher in the major search engines which will generate more traffic and a higher income for your online business.  Create content that is within a general niche.  This will lead to you becoming known as an expert within your niche and webmasters as well as your audience taking your presence and content more seriously.

Driving traffic to a presence will take much work.  This is the hardest part about being a webmaster, but if you are one of the lucky few who are able to master search engine optimization and rank first in Google for competitive keyterms making money will not be nearly as difficult.  Search out Google for basic free SEO tutorials to get started.  Once you get the basics down use article directories, blogs, and forums to fine tune your skills.  The more time you spend learning about search engine optimization the more success you will have when implementing it into your online business.  If you are not sure where to begin link building I recommend using linkmarket.net for link exchanges, article directories which you can find by searching for "list of article directories", and submitting to the free directories at directorycritic.com.  These resources will give you access to thousands and thousands of free one way keyword optimized links.

Monetization will also be an important part of creating an income for your online business.  There are many resources online which include affiliate marketing, ppc publishing, and selling your own products.



My name is Kris Beus webmaster of Internet Marketing Ebook and Get Paid To Take Surveys.

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/How-To-Build-A-Simple-Online-Business/267995