Ecommerce, Magento And Your Online Store

With the growing increase in online sales taking your store or business online is the most sensible and logical decision. Businesses which do not offer products or services online stand a risk of losing their online market share to their competitors.

Once you decide to take your store online the most logical question is : which is the best platform for developing the ecommerce site with user friendly built in features for a shopping cart, e-payments, CMS and site administration.

There are quite a few options available but we recommend Magento for an online store as Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce platform built on open-source technology that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their eCommerce store.

Magento’s intuitive administration interface features powerful marketing, search engine optimization and catalog-management tools to give merchants the power to create sites that are tailored to their unique business needs. Designed to be completely scalable and backed by Varien's support network, Magento offers companies the ultimate eCommerce solution.

You can read the FAQs related to Magento on http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/faq 

Once you have an online business its not the end but the beginning for establishing that business. As the online competition , marketing  and management are also issues which have to be given attention to.

  • Advertising the URL is crucial initially till you gain a substantial WOM (Word Of Mouth). Locally you may be a brand and quite famous but when you go online you need to establish that brand as you in real time when you first started your business.
  • Most of the people will find your store via the search engines – Hence, optimizing your site for the search engines is something which cannot be taken lightly. Next is to generate a good online reputation so that it generates a favorable WOM is important.
  • Social media presence helps you to have a voice on the web. You can start engaging with your existing clients via social media which in turn will help you to get additional genuine fans and followers and help you have a wider reach. 
  • Encourage existing regular customers to buy online so that they can share their user experience (UX) with their friends and followers via reviews, emails and by posting on their social media profiles. Make all these options available on the site itself so that they can send the message easily online.
  • Create a blog which gives you the platform for sharing your ideas, promos, advice, etc. thereby helping you to establish an online brand image and persona.
  • The online market scene is no different than the real time market but the online markets help you to have a faster and wider reach.
Think Local And Act Global is the latest mantra of the online world which substantiates that Marketing is active storytelling , PR is reactive storytelling - Internet marketing is real time, active and reactive and has a local And global reach. 
SEO - 01/02/2011

Why SEO Is More Relevant And Important Today

I don’t think anyone needs any introduction to what SEO stands for. Everyone who is serious about online business is very much aware about the importance of Search Engine Optimization. Every year as the year comes to an end there are blog posts on – SEO IS DEAD – Butas always again the importance and the need for SEO bounces back on the online scenario with more added life energies.

As we offer SEO services and myself am an  advocate for  organic search , when I read posts predicting the end of SEO I get more motivated to write about why it is more important than ever before.

Yes, SEO in 2011 is for sure much more than just rankings. The juvenile definition of SEO which mentioned only about getting high rankings is no longer applicable. The SEO fraternity who have been promoting websites online since the time when the term SEO itself was not coined surely know what I am talking about.

We have come a long way since 2000 where individual submissions in the search engines was the main task for SEOs. SEO in 2011 is not only about getting high rankings but about building a brand for the business that you are promoting. It is about helping the client establish his goodwill online and have a true online persona for himself and his business.

This is possible by helping the business create relevant and right footprints on the web and also by helping the client to rectify any faux pas which might have created unwanted footprints.

As the search options go on increasing and the social fabric gets woven more and more into search the guidance and training of how to use the social media effectively is also one of the SEO deliverables today.

As many people think that if they are tweeting about what they are eating or where they are going they are engaging in social media and this should help them with their search engines presence also. But, if you are not engaging with the people on twitter about your focus area of work or the discussions are not topical then I think you are just wasting your time. As non-focused discussions will not help you create the social link graph needed to help your SERPs soar.

Of course, as it is social media so a proper balance and blend of work discussions and casual chats (which help you to project your true personality) should surely help your professional and personal profile be projected in the right way so that people know who you are and what work you are involved in.

Today, SEOs guide their clients about creating blogs and focus on subject matter about what they want to associate themselves with on the web. This also is a way of projecting your personality and sharing your views and opinions about the concerned topics , products and services. If blogging is done with a focus and a purpose in mind and if your blog offers knowledge and information thereby attracting regular traffic then again the blog content helps you to establish the online persona which has become a part of the SEO deliverables today.

The blogosphere is showing an increase in the no. of personal blogs as people want to blend their social and professional personalities and create an individual presence along with the online industry they are associated with.

Hence. SEO is more relevant, has a wider meaning and involves much more understanding about the web world  than just on page tweaking of the website for meta tags and content.

SEO - 01/01/2011

Why Setting Up Of Targets Is Important For Business Performance

Every journey starts with a destination and time frame in mind. If there is no destination then that is called wandering. Business is also a journey which you embark because you want to achieve something – money, fame, knowledge, satisfaction for something done with the best of abilities, etc. When you set up targets at the beginning of the year you get a direction for the future and you get a chance to analyze and look back at the plus points and the minus points of the past year.
Once you set realistic and smart targets it is possible to chalk out a plan for achieving them. Hence , they give you a direction and you start thinking of how to make them real. Some of the things which get included in the plan are:
  • What resources you need to achieve the target?
  • What strategies you need to set to achieve the target?
  • What is the financial implication for achieving  the target?
  • What improvements are needed in the existing structure of the organization?
  • What would be the KPPs – The Key Performance Parameters?
  • What attitudinal changes are required in the organization -  as the first step taken in order to hit the target is to set a positive frame of mind that it is achievable and possible?
  • The whole team has to have that positive spirit?
The answers to these very questions give you the direction and you start seeing the path ahead. But, the targets should be smart , realistic , achievable and time bound as only then responsibilities can be assigned and valuable resources like time and money can be allocated. I believe that brain storming to set the targets on the basis of past performance and the future trends is a must at the outset of every year . The periodic review of the targets set surely give a clear idea about where the business is heading to and if inspite of a lot of effort and planning the targets become difficult to achieve then those situations tell you a lot about the market conditions and hence again you can gear the direction accordingly.
Education / Others / Social Media - 12/30/2010

Ecommerce & Mobile Web 2011 – Time To Take Your Store Online If you Want To Future Proof Your Business

The latest buzz on the gizmo gadget scene is that Smartphone usage is set to increase dramatically with the sales volume forecasted to rise from 174 million in 2009 to 500 million in 2014 with a CAGR of 16.28%.

News is also dominated by headlines like : 

  • Smartphone sales jumped by 34 per cent in third quarter of 2010: IDC India 
  • "Overall, Indian smartphone sales are expected to touch 5.96 million units by end of 2010," says Naveen Mishra, lead analyst, Mobile Handsets Research, IDC India. 
  • "The propensity to adopt feature phones and smartphones is greatest amongst the youth and business executive segments, whose purchase decisions are often driven by peer group influence and workplace usage patterns, as well as larger disposable incomes and willingness to experiment with new technology platforms," Anirban Banerjee, associate vice-president, research, IDC India mentions in an official communiqué. 

The phones are being used more like laptops . The desktops were discarded for laptops and now smartphones are being seen replacing the laptops in increasing numbers.

With more and more Apps. Being available for smartphones the ease with which you email, communicate, connect to social media sites, play games or even surf websites on these phones is making people use the phone more than their laptops.

According to John Shen, the Lab Director at Nokia Research Center, the smartphone of 2015 will go even further: You will be able to link phones together to form a cluster where a group of phones provides PC-like processing capability.

In short the web is becoming more and more mobile . This is backed by the statements made by the people in the online industry during this season on online sales:

  • Daily online sales exceeded $1 billion on six days this season, which was twice as many days as a year ago, said Michael McNamara, a vice president at SpendingPulse. The growth meant online sales grabbed a larger share of the season’s total sales, he said. 
  • “Today eCommerce accounts for a much larger share of overall retail sales compared to a few years ago. And during this holiday season, it registered double digit growth for 6 out of 7 weeks,” Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, said in a news release.

The main point to be noted is that the chidren of today get their first phone by the age of thirteen and are also used to the mode of cashless payments.

Hence it is very important to note that the teens and twentys of tomorrow will be more accustomed to online buying, if your store is online and has a wide presence on the web then your business has a future else there is a full possibility that you lose the online market share to your competitor who might have gone online and mobile before you.

The web removes the geographic boundaries and offers you the option to target the local and the global markets depending on your online strategies.

As the smart phones become smarter we also have to become smarter to adopt the revolutionary and evolutionary changes and learn how to balance our virtual and real lives at the same time benefitting from the benefits of the online world .

Mobile - 12/30/2010

The Power Lies In The Hands Of The People (The User) In Co relation To Search And The WWW

Abraham Lincoln defined Democracy as the government by the people, of the people and for the people and that has been universally accepted and we have seen time and again that the people when in unison accept anything then every kind of authority has to bow down before that and accept it whole heartedly.

Well, this article is not about government and politics as I am not interested in either of them but the above definition of democracy is applicable to every field not only in politics.

Let us co relate this with the WWW with a focus on the search industry. As we have seen that the search engines when they started they had very simple algorithms and the main task for them was to index the web and the users had to understand the mechanism of the search engines and try to learn how to search i.e what keywords and phrases to query so as to find what they wanted as the index was limited and did not get updated  so fast.

As this problem of indexing  has been solved by the search engines and now with Google Caffeine and the advanced indexing techniques by Bing the user has an advantage and search is a child’s play now , with right from a 10 year old student to a 70 year old grandma searching and finding what information they want with great ease on the web. Especially now with so many search options.

As we can see the trend  web 2.0 focused totally on the user, the users wanted a dynamic  and a rich user oriented experience so all the developers started working on developing such websites and the search engines also started working on their algorithms to index such content.

When the social media sites got swarmed by the people the search engines were not far behind and now they have incorporated the social link graph in their algorithms and the SERPs get affected by the social signals. Even on the local search it is the reviews by the people which affect the rankings.

Hence,  the search engines gear and navigate their development efforts according to the peoples demand, likes and dislikes and changing search behavior .  So, as the searchers become more net savvy and as search experience becomes more and more just a click away in fact  , now it has become instant before you can type the whole query Google is trying to think for you and offer options at the speed of your thoughts.

In short , we get what we ask for. Making the search experience more rich is not only the job of the search engines but all the people involved in the whole process.But, it is the end user who has the maximum importance here. Hence the quality , algorithms and the display of the search engine results are also directed  - directly or indirectly by the people, for the people and of the people’s choices.

First it was the user’s ease of navigation and user experience which was focused upon and given importance to (i.e Content For The User)  by the WWW and now it is their opinions and views (user generated Content – Content by the user) which is important .

Next evolution on the web  is curation of  content  which should reflect  a merger of the content  and will truly reflect the 3 principles of democracy (content of the user, by the user and for the user )  in every topical online industry and sites like http://www.serpd.com are testimony to it.

No wonder they say that "Content Is king" but  "The User Is The Emperor".

SEO - 12/27/2010

The Power Lies In The Hands Of The People (The User) In Co relation With Search And The WWW

Abraham Lincoln defined Democracy as the government by the people, of the people and for the people and that has been universally accepted and we have seen time and again that the people when in unison accept anything then every kind of authority has to bow down before that and accept it whole heartedly.

Well, this article is not about government and politics as I am not interested in either of them but the above definition of democracy is applicable to every field not only in politics.

Let us co relate this with the WWW with a focus on the search industry. As we have seen that the search engines when they started they had very simple algorithms and the main task for them was to index the web and the users had to understand the mechanism of the search engines and try to learn how to search i.e what keywords and phrases to query so as to find what they wanted as the index was limited and did not get updated  so fast.

As this problem of indexing  has been solved by the search engines and now with Google Caffeine and the advanced indexing techniques by Bing the user has an advantage and search is a child’s play now , with right from a 10 year old student to a 70 year old grandma searching and finding what information they want with great ease on the web. Especially now with so many search options.

As we can see the trend  web 2.0 focused totally on the user, the users wanted a dynamic  and a rich user oriented experience so all the developers started working on developing such websites and the search engines also started working on their algorithms to index such content.

When the social media sites got swarmed by the people the search engines were not far behind and now they have incorporated the social link graph in their algorithms and the SERPs get affected by the social signals. Even on the local search it is the reviews by the people which affect the rankings.

Hence,the search engines gear and navigate their development efforts according to the peoples demand, likes and dislikes and changing search behavior .  So, as the searchers become more net savvy and as search experience becomes more and more just a click away in fact  , now it has become instant before you can type the whole query Google is trying to think for you and offer options  at the speed of your thoughts.

In short , we get what we ask for. Making the search experience more rich is not only the job of the search engines but all the people involved in the whole process.  But, it is the end user who has the maximum importance here. Hence the quality , algorithms and the display of the search engine results are also directed  - directly or indirectly by the people, for the people and of the people’s choices.

First it was the user’s  ease of navigation and user experience which was focused upon and given importance to (i.e Content For The User)  by the WWW and now it is their opinions and views (user generated Content – Content by the user) which is important.

Next evolution on the web  is curation of  content  which should reflect  a merger of the content  and will truly reflect the 3 principles of democracy (content of the user, by the user and of the user )  in every topical online industry.

No wonder they say that "Content Is king" but  "The User Is The Emperor".
SEO - 12/27/2010

Selected Blog Posts About Twitter And Social Media For 2010 Posted By WebPro Technologies

   June 2010 Onwards:

Social Media - 12/25/2010

A Talk By Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg On : Why we have too few women leaders?

Sheryl Sandberg gave an encouraging talk at the TED Women Conference recently. She pointed out the main reasons why women lag behind despite qualifications, talent and capabilities and lose out on the much deserved positions as they go up the ladder.

According to Sandberg “Women systematically underestimate their own abilities,” Sandberg stated before citing data that explained why. For example, men tend to cite themselves as the primary reason for success, while women tend to cite external factors. 57% of men are negotiating their first salary out of college, while only 7% of women do the same.

As an aspiring career professional many years back in the 1980s I always had the notion that women in the developed countries have more opportunities and succeed more than the women in the developing countries. But, today when I hear this talk I get the message that the scene was not very different there either. The problems and dilemmas faced by women are same globally and the choices that a woman has to make also have the same basis – Family + Career.

According to a survey by NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies- NASSCOM is the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPO industries in India.) a few years back India had the most no. of highly educated unemployed women not because the jobs were not available but because Indian women valued education but did not mind giving up their careers to give full attention to the children and families and that it is done willingly with an element of duty and pride.

But, now with the power of the internet working from home is an opportunity that opens up the doors to doing justice to home and career with some amount of planning, hard work and focus. We have to stop blaming the society and men and start focusing on what we can do to realize our dreams and forge our way ahead.

I think that times are changing and gradually the society will have the much needed balance at the work places but only education can make the difference not only the academic education alone but the lessons we learn from our parents by observing them on a day to day basis and thereby form our perceptions to life. That onus lies on both the partners. As I think that every human being whether a man or a woman has a duty towards themselves, towards their families and towards the society as a whole.

I hope the fathers who have daughters listen to this and try to instill the much needed confidence in their daughters and as mothers we try to inculcate the right values in our sons to make them understand the importance of home and work equally so that later on they can do justice to the girls they get married to.

Education / Social Media - 12/22/2010

The Right Approach To Social Media With A Focus On Twitter

Social media is a conversational  and a communication platform and everyone wants to know how it should be managed or how it should be used effectively as a communication tool so that the conversations generate a favourable link graph.

Since the search engines have announced the importance and influence of social media and the social link graph on SERPs everyone wants to work out a social media presence and strategy and blend the social media presence to positively enhance their SEO efforts and their  search engine presence.

Firstly, since it is a communication platform all the rules of effective communication apply to social media conversations also. Since I am more of a Twitter person rather than a Facebook person, I would like to share with you about social media focusing on Twitter. According to me Twitter is one of the best and widely used microblogging platforms.

The points to keep in mind while using Twitter in order to improve your social link graph :

  • Follow authority people and peers  of your industry.
  • No. of followers are important but what is more important is their interaction and their being interested in what you tweet.
  • Twitter is a conversational platform at a very wide scale. One tweet tweeted has the maximum possibility of getting  Retweeted by each of your followers and then by each of their followers – A chain reaction so to say.
  • So, Twitter has a possibility of a very wide reach making your message reach to people in exponential numbers.
  • Participate in Twitter chats on topics related to your industry. This helps you to establish your identity and put your point forward gaining you important followers in return.
  • Use #Tags while chatting and posting topic related tweets to be in that timeline and be found in the Twitter search for that term.
  • the no. of retweets are increasing that means the people want to share what you are writing and your  reach is widening.
  • The no. of mentions also means people are conversing with you and replying to you – That again is a positive influence.
  • On Twitter many start as an explorer trying to explore the Twitter social media potential , then  they start sharing what they read by posting the related links i.e they  tend to become curators . Both the stages have their own benefits.
  • If you balance on both that is share content from other sites and tweet links from your blogs and sites and post valuable info. based tweets then you make your social link graph more favourable.
  • Only blowing your own bugle amounts to being egoistic, if you retweet, share and post links of other  quality content your followers shall always have that curiosity element and would surely want to read the tweets in your timeline and add you in their Twitter lists or subscribe to your tweets.
  • Getting listed in more and more no. of lists related to your industry and along with authority Twitter accounts adds the necessary goodwill to your twitter account.
  • If you observe the Twitter page all these parameters  are available in your account and you can keep a daily track of all these parameters yourself easily.
  • Use Twitter influence measuring tool like www.klout.com to know where you are heading to.
  • Last but not the least be a natural when it comes to conversations as twitter interactions are like any other normal business conversations you might have over the phone, email or via any other communication tool to discuss something. The only difference is that you are reaching to a wider audience and everyone will have their opinion which maybe positive or negative.
  • Be prepared for the bouquets along with the brick bats. As people may praise you or they may even criticize and out rightly reject what you say, And, its cool as you cannot please all the people all the time and you should not even try. But, try to put you point forward if criticized.
  • Humble explanations are necessary but getting  into dirty fights online give a very negative impression and may cost you some followers and more criticizm.
  • Please do not automate your tweets as that amounts to the height of insensitivity and it is better to have few focused and valuable conversations rather than just posting automated  tweets indiscriminately . The human element is very much required in the interactions.
SEO / Social Media - 12/19/2010

SEO And Online Presence In 2011

It is that time of the year again when each one of us ponders over the decisions and follies made in the past year and plan and make resolutions for the coming year. This is applicable to our personal as well as professional lives. I have given some thought to the online scenario with a focus on SEO for 2011 which I would like to share. Firstly, at the very outset I would like to dispel any doubts and fears if any SEOs have regarding the demand for SEO services in the coming year. According to me the  SEO Services will be   the most sought after services and the demand curve for the same will surely show and increasing trend. Though SEO is going to have a much wider connotation in the coming year and the SEO services deliverables will include much more than just on-page tweaking of titles and meta tags. What is going to be of importance is the off-page optimization.  Off-page optimization will  also be much more than just trying to get links from here and there randomly. The off-page efforts shall have to be more organized and the whole process shall have to be focused on creating a brand and goodwill online. Just having a site linking to you may not pass on the much needed link juice for pushing the SERPs. With search engines confirming the use of the social media signals for rankings the social link graph and the social media parameters are fast becoming  the basis of off-page optimization passing on the necessary nectar or the link juice for boosting or maintaining the SERPs. Currently the Facebook and Twitter social link graph and data are of utmost important. Social media sites is a conversational type of medium which involve a dialogue, sharing of links  and  now is also truly social in nature and is making the birds of a feather flock  together  and like minded people are seen sharing news , ideas and views. Though at present there may be a lot of noise on the social media but soon it will evolve into a platform where discussions and opinions  and links shared by the authority accounts related to the concerned industry will gain a lot of weight. Hence how your social media interaction is managed will be the key to the success or failure of the online campaign. Apart from the social media - the blog posts, the presence on the community forums, the links in the email signatures, guest blogging, User generated content on your blogs and any other external  link from the WWW which adds value to your website is going to establish your identity, brand, goodwill, reputation thereby increasing visibility and also will add the necessary life needed to push the SERPs. Hence you can say an overall online presence on the WWW which gives you a chance to rank on all the search options will be the key to have a successful SEO campaign. The local markets have a lot to offer and ignoring the local scene and aiming for the global scene will surely be a very big folly for any business especially for the SMEs. Think global and act local will be the needed approach that any business would be expected to have. Tuning your website and yourself for the mobile web is one more thing that needs to be focused on . With the kind of the increasing trend shown in the sale of the smart phones especially in the last quarter of the year says that the web is going mobile. In short, we can summarize as follows:
  • Have great content on your site
  • Have a social media presence
  • Engage and interact on social media establishing an individual and business persona
  • Have a blog  with a focus on your main line of business which you keep on updating regularly
  • Participate in conversations of your topical communities
  • Take guest blogging seriously
  •  Do not ignore the Local Search
  • Go mobile
The overall aura generated from all these efforts put together will create your online brand and identity which in turn will reflect on your current and potential  online business. The search engine bots will measure all these signals according to the algorithms which the programmers have worked on, the online visitors will make judgments on the basis of what they read on the various platforms about your business and your ROI  and social media mentions and comments will give you the answer to where you are heading to on the web world . All put together SEO is going to emerge as Web Presence Optimzation rather than Search Engine Optimization maybe we need to have a new term for SEO  as in order to reach the search  engines and SERPs,  first you need to have an over all presence on the web. Hope all of you have a great time analyzing the past year and get great innovative  ideas for the future.  
SEO / Social Media - 12/15/2010
SEO Ahmedabad

What we offer

Contact Info

802, Astron Tech Park, Satellite Road, Opp. Gulmohar Park Mall, Ahmedabad 380015, India

+91 9825025904
info@webpro.in

Daily: 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sunday: Closed

Copyright 2023 WebPro Technologies LLP ©  All Rights Reserved