Internet marketing tools and services to successfully promote your business online.
Everything You Need To Take Your First Order
We make it simple for you to start selling online. We ask the right questions. We manage the entire setup process from start to end. More than just a hosted shopping cart, you get a fully functional web site that is easy to manage and ready to start taking orders.
Take Orders Online.
We start with a shopping cart specially designed for marketing your site. Built by marketers
for marketing, our search engine friendly shopping cart assists you in getting your website listed in all the major search engines & indexes.
Manage Cart.
The shopping cart allows you to easily manage categories, products, product images, product attributes, recommended products, inventory, orders, recurring orders, users, administrators, cart settings, payment methods, shipping methods, taxes, quantity discounts, global discounts, promotional codes, and sale prices. You can also export orders, view charts, and view reports.
Data Feeds.
The data feed tools help get you listed in Froogle, Shop.com and other popular websites.
Advanced Functionality.
If needed, the cart also includes support for gifting (multiple shipping addresses on a single order), the ability to assign a product id and track inventory for each product attribute variation, and recurring orders.
Cart Setup.
To load your products into the shopping cart, we will provide you with a product import spreadsheet that you can simply fill out and send to us. Each product must have a unique product ID (or SKU).
To load the product images into the shopping cart, simply name the product image files so that they correspond to the product id and send them to us. For example, if the product ID is ABC12345, then the product image file will be ABC12345.jpg or ABC12345.gif. The images provided should be at least 640x480 pixels in size. High quality images will improve the conversion rate of your site. We will provide you with a "file upload" account if you have a large number of product images to send.
When we setup the shopping cart, we configure the categories, products, company info, payment methods, shipping methods, and tax settings for you. The site will be fully functional and ready to take orders when it is delivered.
Shipping Methods.
The shopping cart can be configured to exclude or include international orders. There is a feature to allow for “Free shipping on $x.xx orders”.
Handling can be included or listed separately. Real time shipping methods include, USPS, FedEx, and UPS. Other available shipping methods include, Base + Weight, Weight, Flat (per item), Price Based, or by Zip Code (local delivery).
Product Photography.
Professional product photos are a must to maximize your sales online. For best results, final product photos should be shot and/or cropped onto a pure white background. This allows the products to blend seamlessly into the web page without creating a "boxy" look. AllMerchants recommends Upgraded Images for product photos. Upgraded Images can be found at http://www.upgradedimages.com.
Order Fulfillment.
Have your web site orders automatically shipped as they come in. You do nothing. Our shopping cart can send your web site orders to an order fulfillment provider of your choice. If you are already working with an order fulfillment provider that we have not yet integrated with, we will gladly configure our order export process to work with their system free of charge. If you have yet to select an order fulfillment provider, we will be more than happy to recommend one of our established providers. Order fulfillment services.
Merchant Account.
In order to accept credit card payments on your web site you'll need a merchant account. A merchant account is simply a "bank account" established with a payment processor for the settlement of credit card transactions. If you don't already have a merchant account, we can get you setup with one of our established merchant account providers. The partners we work with provide competitive rates, a high level of service, and specialize in setting up online merchant accounts.
Typically, the merchant bank will require that they can see a preliminary version of your site before they will approve your account. The merchant account company will require the following:
Registered business name.
Business checking account.
Ability to view preliminary web site.
Web site to show contact information with physical address and phone number listed.
Return/Refund policy clearly stated on the web site.
Privacy statement clearly stated on the web site.
SSL secured order page (usually providing a SSL certificate receipt as proof of purchase is sufficient)
Products/Services listed with price on the web site.
Delivery Method and timing are clearly stated on the web site.
Internet Payment Gateway. When a buyer submits their credit card information to your web site, that information first has to be passed to a payment gateway service before any money can be deposited into your merchant account. The payment gateway verifies the credit card information, accepts or declines the credit card, sends the order to the merchant bank, and sends the results of the transaction back to your web site. Typically, we will have the merchant account provider establish a payment gateway account with Authorize.Net. From there, we configure the payment gateway and your website to properly communicate with each other.
SSL Certificate.
In order to allow buyers to safely enter their credit card information on your web site, your web site will need an " SSL Certificate' to securely encrypt the information getting passed to and from your site. For a high level of trust, we typically recommend using Thawte (a Network Solutions owned company) as the certificate provider. We generate the initial Certificate Signing Request (CSR), assist with placing the order, and install the issued SSL Certificate onto the web server.
Ad Tracking, Conversion Tracking, Analytics Reporting
Increase sales, conversions, and profits. Maximize your advertising dollars.
Using direct marketing principles, it's been proven that a simple one word change in a headline can dramatically effect your conversion results. You must be able to track every aspect of your advertising to determine what's working and what's not. That's why we include advanced ad tracking, conversion tracking, and analytics reporting with each of our sites. You'll be able to track where each visitor came from, the search phrase they used to find your site, the path they took through your site, and any actions that resulted in a conversion, such as a sign-up, a lead, or a sale.
At the most detailed level, we track:
How many times a visitor has been to the site (sessions)
What ads, if any, were clicked on to get to the site
Conversions, such as a sign-up, a lead capture form, or a sale
The page path each visitor took through the site
How long each page was viewed and was the page scrolled down
Clicks on links that lead from your site to a different site (exits)
The referring site or search engine
The search phrase used to find your site
Whether the visit was by a known robot or crawler
The duration of each session
The visitor's IP address and host name
The location of the visitor as determined by their IP address
The timezone, browser type, operating system, and screen size
Java, flash, acrobat, and cookie support
The "Ad Performance" report shows the number of inquiries, sign-ups, or sales from each ad. It also shows the ad's conversion ratio, estimated cost per conversion, average cost per click, total cost, total revenue, and return on investment.
The "Search Keyphrases" report shows which phrases were used to successfully find your site. But more importantly, is also shows how many visitors used that phrase, what search engine they came from, and exactly what page they entered on. This kind of information is required to properly optimize your site for free search engine traffic.
The "Origins by Visits" report shows a breakdown of where your traffic is coming from. The report breaks it down by ads, search engines, referring sites, and direct visits.
The "Page Paths" report lets you select a known page and see the most visited "previous" pages and the most visited "next" pages. This kind of information is helpful when trying to optimize the path that you want visitors to take through your site.
Real-time reporting includes:
Ad Tracking
Ad Performance
Ad Conversions
Ad Clicks by Date
Ad Clicks by Ad Conversion Tracking
Conversion Log
Export Conversions
Site Traffic
Summary
Monthly History
Days of Month
Days of Week
Hours
Session Log
Robot Log
Exit Log
Visitor Info
Visit Durations
Browsers
User Agents Unknown
Bookmarks
Traffic Sources
Search Search Keyphrases Search Keywords
Origins by Visits Referring Search Engines Referring Sites
Countries Full List
Hosts Full List Last Visit Unresolved IP Address
Robot/Spiders Visitors Full List Last Visit Page Info
Page Views Full List Entry Exit
Page Paths
File Types
The Site Manager allows you to quickly and easily make changes to the content on your web site. There is no need to pay an expensive webmaster to make simple content changes!
Once you log into the Site Manager, you will then see a "command bar" at the top of each page. As you navigate your site, the command bar always provides you with a link to "Edit This Page". Simply click on the link and you will be taken to the browser-based content editor. The editor is similar to using Microsoft Word, making it easy to use.
To get the site started, we populate the content of all your pages one time, we then train you how to manage your own content, and from then on, you can easily make your own changes.
Email Campaign Manager
Mailing Lists.
If needed, we can set you up with an email campaign manager that will allow for creating, testing, and sending out newsletters to one or more subscriber lists.
The email campaign manager tools supports the ability for users to subscribe and unsubscribe. (See the hover ad example below.)
The tool also includes "email open" and "link click-through" reporting. Note: the email open tracking only works with HTML emails and cannot track email opens when the user’s email client blocks images.
We assign a dedicated IP address to each campaign manager for sending outgoing email. This helps insure that your mailing list is not RBL’d (real time black listed) due to emails sent out by someone else sending from the same IP address.
The tool supports both HTML and text emails, but we recommend sending simple text emails in order to best avoid SPAM filters. A good technique is to send out short text emails that include a link to a web page created (which you can create with the site manager). The destination web page then includes the full content of the newsletter itself.
Hover Ad Subscribe.
A hover ad is a great way to collect visitor names and email addresses. A hover ad compliments the email campaign manager functionality. A hover ad is similar to a pop up, but rather than appearing as a brand new browser window (which is stopped by most pop up blockers), a hover ad appears to float on top of the content of your page. We can configure how many times the hover ad loads, how long to wait after the page loads before it appears, and how long the hover ad should remain visible.
Example hover ad:
Autoresponder.
Also included in the email campaign manager is the ability to send a scheduled series of emails to each new subscriber. This is called an "autoresponder". Simply create a series of helpful articles, newsletters, or reports, and then let your visitors subscribe to automatically get the information over several days, weeks, or months. This is a great way to build your mailing list. And this is a great way to keep your name and products fresh in your prospects mind!
Site Design
Need a site design, logo, or page layout for your web site? No problem. You can work with one of our professional graphic designers or we can work with a graphic designer of your choice. Either way works just fine.
A typical site design process includes one initial concept. The concept will include a mock up of a home page and at least one interior page (usually a product detail page). If the initial concept is completely unworkable, then a second concept will be provided. Based on the feedback from the approved concept, one round of revisions are then made to the concept.
The cost of any additional assets, such as stock photography, are not marked up.
Once a final design has been approved, we will then create the required HTML templates and CSS files so as to apply the design throughout the site.
The elements defined by the templates include page layout, header, footer, navigation, fonts, font colors, and spacing.
Managed Hosting
Reduced Project Cost.
Your site will be hosted on an AllMerchants dedicated web server. AllMerchants only provides web site hosting services for the exclusive benefit of the clients we develop web sites for. The reason we do this is to reduce the development cost of your site.
With most web site projects, the development cost will far exceed the cost of hosting. But, because we build each site on the same hosting platform, we are able to eliminate many of the costly hurdles introduced by low cost hosting providers. This saves you money.
Managed Application Service.
Our hosting solution is much more than the typical shared hosting plan you might find elsewhere. What we offer is a full service managed hosting solution. That is, not only do we provide the hosting services for your web site, but we also fully understand, manage, and even update the applications that run on your site. If at any time there is a problem with your site, even if the problem is application related, we are able to quickly diagnose and correct the problem.
Infrastructure.
We insure that our servers are not overloaded. Our hosting plans more closely resemble a virtual private server plan rather than a shared hosting plan. Where most shared hosting plans put over 200 web sites or more on a single server, we limit our servers to approximately 20.
Our hosting infrastructure consists of dedicated servers located at powerful data centers located in Miami, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada. The data centers provide redundant power, redundant Internet connectivity, and the physical server hardware. To protect against server failure, a weekly full backup and daily incremental backups of each site and database are stored off-site. Also, all production sites are hosted on servers that include mirrored hard drives to protect against hard drive failure.
Development Site.
All of the sites we develop and host include a "production" version and a "development" version of the site. The production version of the site is the actual live site that everyone sees and goes to.
The purpose of the development site is to allow you to preview the site before it goes live and to provide a safe environment to make future coding enhancements that won't immediately effect the live site.
Domain Name.
If you have not yet registered a domain name for your site, we can assist with finding a suitable name. We recommend using DirectNic to register your domain name. When it comes time to update your domain name registration, DirectNic has a great history of extremely fast updates! DirectNic can be found at http://www.directnic.com.
Email.
If needed, we will assist with setting up email accounts for your domain name. The email accounts will be provided by Google Apps For Your Domain service. The Google Apps For Your Domain service is available as both a free or a paid service. Most of our clients only require the freely available service.
Make Site Live.
We will assist with making your new site go live. Typically, this involves updating your domain name registration and/or Domain Name Services (DNS). If you already have a live site, we can make sure the transition to the new site incurs virtually zero downtime.
Your Own Server. For an additional fee, we will gladly install your new site on a dedicated server or virtual private server of your choosing. The applications installed on your site will be licensed to you for use on your domain. Server requirements include recent versions of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP.
