Use Google's Section Targeting for better ads

If you are making money online, it is very likely that at least one of your web pages or websites is using Google Adsense.

Google Adsense is a great program however the way it finds keywords to determine ad presentation can be helped along by use of special codes, so that unrelated words are ignored and advertisements are better targeted to the reader.

Just add the following code to your web pages:
<!-- google_ad_section_start -->Your targeted content goes here between the HTML comments<!-- google_ad_section_end -->
If you are using static HTML pages just insert the two halves of the code between the body tags.
If you are using dynamic PHP pages like in a template, edit your index.php, home.php, page.php etc. and add the comments around where your main page content would go. One good strategy is to exclude the 'sidebar' code from the ad section target. Often unrelated content such as menus and advertising are placed in sidebars (side columns).

If you haven't yet signed up for Google Adsense,
if you are interested in advertising online,

Consider adding content description meta tags to each of your webpages for better search traffic (SEO)

Would you like more traffic to your website?

Whether it is a blog or a shopping site you need traffic for your website to be a success. One way to do so is to work on your SEO, otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization. Typically people optimize for Google, but it is also good to consider traffic from Yahoo and ask.com as secondary targets.

Content First, SEO Second

Once you have good original content on your website, it is time to consider SEO. There are many different tasks involved in SEO, and I admit that I still need to do many tasks on my websites as well, so I've added the webmaster and SEO category and a SEO series for these articles that any website can use to improve its results.

The main problem is that it is a lot of work! SEO is not yet automated. If you use a CMS like Wordpress or Joomla, you might find special plugins and modules to help you, but you still have to type in the information that the system needs.

The focus in this post is in adding a Meta content description tag to each page of your website. Meta tags are nothing new. Meta tags are informative HTML tags placed in the header of a web page's code. There are many meta tags used for many different reasons.

Adding meta page descriptions to static HTML is simple

Add the following to each of your page headers describing that page:

<meta name="description" content="Brief description of the contents of your page.">

Add a description of that specific page instead of the 'informative description here'. If you use static HTML pages on your website then simply go into your code with your favorite editor and add the code in between the head tags. You should be concise and descriptive. You should not repeat the title since that is going to be seen in the search result above the description.

Dynamic pages often require coding or SEO plugins

If you use a dynamic header through a CMS or website template using PHP then it is trickier, since one header is used for all of your pages. In this case you could perhaps make your own PHP modification if you are a programmer, or you could search for a plugin or module to add that information for you. Even with a plugin, you will still have to add that data in your CMS software. In a wordpress blog, you'll probably see it as an extra field in your writing admin. page after the plug in is activated. Once you activate a plugin with this functionality you'll have to go and add meta data to each page, post, and article you have.

Meta page descriptions improve search click through rates

You won't see results until Google's webcrawler rechecks your site. It doesn't matter if your pages are static or dynamic. This could take between hours and weeks. After Google's search engine updates your information and a page on your site appears as a search result, your description will appear after your page's title. By giving a more detailed description of your page, your page will be more interesting to the person searching and you should get more clicks. It should also lower your bounce rate, since people know what your page really contains.

What meta descriptions won't do for you

Adding meta descriptions will not improve your page ranking. Your web pages will appear at the same rank. This optimization is for increasing clicks on your pages when seen in the listing. You will need to do other optimizations to improve page ranking.

Google Adsense program requirements (make money online)

Requirements for Google Adsense a program for monetizing a website.

Google Adsense is a great way to make money with an information or content based website. You get paid when others click on advertisements from Google that you place on your website or websites. You get paid one month after your account reaches $100 US and its reporting is pretty accurate.

If you haven't signed up for Google Adsense there is no time like the present. Here is a list of requirements for participating in Google Adsense.

• A website with content
  
  
  
  • A valid URL (address)
  
  
  • A live website (not just in-the-works)
  
  
  • With unique content (not pretend website kits with search results)
  
  
  • The primary language should be on the supported language list: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
  
  
  
  


• A valid Payee name (so that you can get paid)


• A valid address (for confirming your account and for receiving checks)

Google Adsense cannot accept a website that pays people to do different tasks such as clicking on ads or links or to visit sponsors, or any similar activity. The idea is that people will click on the advertisements because they are interested in doing so not because of reimbursement or reward. Remember that you are not allowed to click on your own ads nor should anyone else who uses your computer or shares the same IP address in a local network.

Sign up now, it is free!

If you are interested in placing ads contextually to display on the same service, check out Google Adwords.

WordPress 2.3 is available

Wordpress blogging platform version 2.3 was released

Just in case you haven't been keeping up with the news in your WordPress dashboard, WordPress 2.3 has been available since Monday evening.

Wordpress 2.3 has many benefits for blog owners to make upgrading worthwhile, but you should wait a few more days before upgrading to give plugin makers a chance to test and fix their plugins to work with this new version. Only the Plugins that use  Tags and Categories should be affected.

Changes in WordPress 2.3

• Wordpress 2.3 now supports tagging. Tags are like keywords that can be used in a tag cloud. Wordpress 2.3 can import tag information from: Ultimate Tag Warrior, Jerome's Keywords, Simple Tags, and Bunny's Technorati Tag


• Wordpress 2.3 now has better canonical URL support.  It can fix www vs no www issues and keep links working after a 'page slug' changes.  A page slug is the URL info for the post or page its self. When you type a post, WordPress automatically makes a page slug with the same title and hyphens between words. If you change the title, no problem. Change the slug and links break.


• Wordpress 2.3's Pending review feature makes guest blogging easier by sending the admin an authors posts separately instead of mixing the post in with drafts like before.


• Improved TinyMCE visual editor support


• Wordpress 2.3 now includes update notification.  As long as a plug in is listed in the official Wordpress plugin directory, Wordpress admin will let you know when a plugin is out of date. It will also let you know when a new version of Wordpress is available


• Multiple Category widgets - This must be foreward thinking since there are currently no options to display categories differently. Perhaps a plugin writer could use this function.


• Simple tag cloud - Using the tagging feature. There are very few options. Look for plugins to improve this feature.

I've been checking the plugins directory and I've been seeing that MANY plugins have been updated for 2.3 and some have been posted and reposted to fix new bugs, so don't be surprised!

In-house affiliate marketing often brings better commissions and more control to merchants

Affiliate marketing is often a good solution to help monetize your website. It is also a good way to sell your products online, since you only pay a commission when a sale is made. It is cheaper than paying a full time sales person when you have a small company since you don't have to worry about benefits, recruiting, etc. A company can set up in-house affiliate marketing programs or join an affiliate marketing network.

From a website or blog owner in-house affiliate marketing programs can be good since they will often pay higher commissions. From a merchant's perspective in-house affiliate marketing programs can be good since it means they don't have to pay fees to a network.

The negative view for a website owner is that he or she will be paid one check or deposit (if available) per marketing program, so he or she will have to spend some time making sure they were paid instead of one check or deposit per network which is easier to keep track of.

The negative view for a merchant is that someone at the company has to manage the in-house program and somone has to keep track of payments to each associate and someone has to actually make the payments. Marketing networks allow them to pay for every commission with one payment made to the network. The network later distributes the payment to each associate.

It is difficult to say which is a better choice. Both affiliate marketing networks and In-house affiliate marketing programs have their pros and cons.

If you are a website owner and you are interested in advertising a specific merchant's products via an affiliate program, check their website and check the affiliate networks to compare their offers. If the in-house program offer is the same then the network is likely a better choice.

A merchant deciding between offering in-house affiliate marketing programs and joining an affiliate network, should determine which will have a lower cost and higher returns. They should compare fees against costs of managing a program.

Affiliate Marketing Networks

Affiliate marketing via Affiliate Marketing networks

While many companies offer affiliate programs directly from their websites, It is also important to consider the time it takes for you to manage programs' advertising and promotions and that you consider the reporting and payment options.

Here are the largest Affiliate marketing networks that I have signed up for. I will later post about my experiences using them.

• ShareASale


• Linkshare


• Commission Junction


• Performics


• Clickbank

Why should you sign up with an affiliate marketing network?

Well, there are many companies which don't offer in-house affiliate marketing programs, so you'll have to sign up with their associated network to be able to promote their products. If you like to promote products from many companies, you might prefer getting one or two paychecks instead of many. If you live outside of the US like me, you'll appreciate having to worry about fewer checks. If an affiliate program allows payment via PayPal or direct deposit to a Mexican account it is even better.

Why shouldn't you join an affiliate marketing network?

With the exception of ShareASale. I haven't yet done any tests, but I have seen examples of affiliate clicks being stolen. Typically this click piracy comes via web browser plugins which 'offer' discounts or promotions to typical internet users. They call these 'loyalty' programs, but behind the scenes they change the tracking cookie from that of the person who is promoting the product to that of the web browser plugin. They make the commission even though they did absolutely nothing at all while the person who worked hard or even paid to promote a product gets nothing. Although their websites say they go against piracy, I have seen examples of piracy that steal clicks. The only way the commission can be stolen is by replacing the tracking code in the cookie with ANOTHER TRACKING CODE. Therefore all they would have to do is cancel the affiliate account(s) being used with loyaltyware/Parasiteware. Parasite software is bad even if a customer arrives directly to a website without a referral. The parasite web browser plugin inserts its own cookie and makes a commission, again without providing any benefit. The company pays a commission that it wouldn't have had to pay. It is possible for an in-house affiliate marketing program could also be affected by parasites, but it is much less likely.

Google launches Google Gadget Ads

Google launches Google Gadget Ads

Google gadget ads are a new way to advertise as well as monetize your website and company. The difference between Google Gadget ads and the other ad formats currently available is that the Google Gadget Ads are supposed to be interactive and function as mini-websites. They'll commonly have integrated games or other interactive content. Perhaps a contact form or info sign up.

Policy

Google Gadget Ads must conform to current Google ad design policy so no 'punch the monkey' ads (as mentioned on Adsense Blog) will be allowed.

Ad formats for Google Gadget Ads

Google Gadget Ads will be available in formats that are currently used for image ads. The most popular Google Gadget Ad formats are the rectangle, leaderboard, and skyscraper formats.

Here is a summary from the Google Gadget Ads page:

What are Google Gadget Ads?

Gadget ads enable advertisers and agencies to engage audiences on the

Internet's largest ad network with a rich and interactive new ad format.

* Beyond Rich Media Advertising with "Websites within Websites"
Think of gadget ads as mini versions of your website in any AdSense

ad size.

* Dynamic and Creative Advertising
Truly useful applications incorporating data feeds, maps, images,

audio, video, Flash, HTML or JavaScript in a single creative.

* Largest Global Advertising Network
Reach over 75% of unique Internet users in more than 20 languages

and over 100 countries with no serving or hosting costs.

* Community of Engaged Users Around Your Brand
Users can post and share your gadget ads anywhere.

* Full Interaction Reporting
Receive site-by-site interaction reports tracking dozens of actions.

Joomla 1.5 RC2 and Kontera ads

Kontera ads and Joomla 1.5 RC2

Some of you have been searching for Joomla 1.5 and Kontera.  Kontera runs hover-pop-up advertising which links to keywords. They offer a wordpress plugin, but they don't have a plug in for Joomla 1.5.

I recently tested the old Kontera plugin for Joomla 1.1x on my Joomla 1.5 RC2 installation using legacy mode.  I had no trouble at all setting it up.  The old Kontera plugin for Joomla 1.1x works on Joomla 1.5 when legacy mode is enabled.

You can get the old kontera plugin from http://extensions.joomla.org/

http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,1675/Itemid,35/

Let's hope that there will be a native 1.5 version soon, but if the lack of a Kontera plugin is keeping you from an upgrade, don't worry Just enable legacy mode.

Google Adsense now offers direct deposit for Mexico

Google Adsense direct deposit for Mexico

If you live in Mexico, you probably have been wondering if your check would actually arrive. Mexico's postal service isn't exactly safe and a letter sent from the US could take a week or more to get shuffled through the system and that is assuming that the person or company sending you the letter wrote your address completely. Then of course we have to consider the time and expense of depositing a check from a foreign bank. It can bring tears to your eyes. American companies are good at removing important information from your address since it doesn't conform to the standard US format.

So I was thrilled to see on the Google Adsense blog that they now offer bank deposit to your Mexican account. It is easy to set up using your 'Clabe'. Look at your bank statement and find the 18 digit clave bancaria called 'clabe'. That is your account number for receiving deposits. If your bank statement does not show your clabe, contact your bank to find out how to get it.

To set up direct deposit do the following steps:

1. Sign in to Google Adsense


2. Click on the My Account tab


3. Click on Edit next to Payment details


4. Select Add a new bank account


5. Click on Continue


6. Type an account nick name


7. Select your bank from the menu


8. Type your 18 digit clabe given by your bank


9. Click Continue

Wait a few days and check your bank statement or check your account online then go back to Edit your payment details and verify the account by giving the amount of the test deposit. If your bank account is verified before the 15th you will be able to get paid by deposit worry free!


Check out Google Adsense to earn money on your websites:

Check out Google Adwords to promote your website:

Thank you Google!

Google Adsense 'Allowed Sites' list added

Google Adsense Allowed Sites

Google Adsense which allows website publishers to make a few cents per click on advertising placed on their websites now has an Allowed Sites feature. This feature, when turned on, will only allow Google Adsense ads with your Adsense account number to show on websites in the list.

While many of us will wonder why this would even matter since clicks made using one's account number on any site should credit your account means you should make more money, Google has commented that they and received complaints.

Allowed Sites set up

You don't have to do anything regarding this feature since it is by default disabled. If you are interested in enabling this feature do the following steps:

1. Log in to your Google Adsense account


2. Click on the Adsense Setup tab


3. Click on the Allowed Sites option


4. Select the Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account button


5. Type your website URLs one per line in the box that appears


6. Click on the Save Changes button below the text box.

If you are interested in monetizing your website or blog or advertising your website or blog, Check out Google Adsense and Adwords. Adsense sign up is free and Adwords allows you to cancel at any time.

Amazon.com released website widgets!

Amazon.com announced yesterday that they are releasing widgets for websites and blogs to make it easier to promote their products on websites.

Amazon.com has had the option to include web advertising on websites however it has not been as good as it could. The banner ads were garish and the product linking options felt a little limiting.

With Astore advertisements working, we see that they can be make to match the colors of your website, but only astore products. Now they have finally announced 7 new widgets for Amazon.com products.

Make Money as an affiliate

While you won't be able to quit your day job, but it is great to have a few dollars to save, or get paid with gift certificates so you won't spend as much of your own money on Christmas gifts. We all know how that adds up. Although you don't have to have an Amazon affiliate account to use most (6) of their widgets, there is no reason why you shouldn't. There is no membership fee.

Display Amazon products more easily

The following widgets are currently available:

• Slideshow


• My Favorites


• Wish List


• Product Cloud


• Amazon Unbox Video Previewer


• Quick Linker


• Search

Slideshow

Slideshow takes product pictures and turns them into a slideshow. You can ad captions to each picture. You can do a search by keyword in each Amazon product group. You can't use a category. This would require periodic maintenance since products would eventually be dropped or discontinued. I think this would be great for a micro-website.



Amazon does not yet have its own plugin for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

My Favorites

My Favorites lets you select your favorite products and have them show up in an 'I recommend' box along with details. You can change the title, colors and width starting at 160px which is a typical sidebar size. If you have your website color's hexcode you can use that for a color so everything matches perfectly. You can make it 'taller' by increasing the number of rows, so more products fit. You have to select individual products not a category, so this will require some maintenance as well.



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Wish List

Wish List takes your Amazon favorites and includes them in a widget for your family as well as blog visitors with similiar tastes. To use this widget, you'll have to use an e-mail address that currently has an Amazon Wishlist set up. It could be your own, or belong to someone else. The system will check for you. Wish lists could be for you or help you plan an event for someone else like their wedding gifts. Don't forget to make the list public or it won't be available.

Even though I had set up my wish list, Amazon could not find my list.

Product Cloud

Product Cloud takes keywords and makes them show up as keywords in a jumble called a tag cloud. When someone 'mouses-over' a keyword, a small pop up appears with information about a product with the same keyword. This could be effective on a website that focuses on a specific issue. When a visitor clicks on that pop up, they end up at the amazon product page. I'm very excited about this widget. This widget lets you change all the colors, width (160px+), height, and it does let you select a category so you'll be able to set it up and forget it.



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Amazon Unbox Video Previewer

Amazon Unbox Video Previewer shows movie studio and TV network previews for a range of new release and classic movies or television shows available from the Amazon Unbox video download service. You can select which attributes to use in selecting new video previews. This lets you adjust the size with a minimum of 510x425. You can also select by genre and studio. Do you want only movies or TV and movies, no problem!



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Quick Linker

Quick Linker lets you quickly add Amazon search results to your site via HTML code and a keyword.

Search

This new search widget is much more attractive than the old one. I am very excited about it. I did not ever add the old search box to my website because I thought it looked too ugly. I did not want to redesign my website to match it! It is even better because the search results show up in the widget on your website instead of taking the visitor directly to Amazon.



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Learn more

You can find more information at http://widgets.amazon.com/

Zilo is another e-store hosted on their servers

Zilo an affiliate shopping site

Zilo is similiar to Amazon.com's Astore. Both of them are hosted on the merchants' servers and both let you make minor changes to the appearance, and both give you a commission on sales.

Adding products

Zilo is different too. Instead of letting you select a category, you have to search for and add products to your store. This obviously makes store creation much more difficult since every product must be individually selected. You can link your Zilo shop to your website and there seem to be a a plugins out there to test.

Once you set up your account and store layout, you can add products. If you don't want to search by a product's name, you can search by category. Once you get a level or two down in a category, you'll see a list of items. You can click on 'express add' to add it to your site.

When you click on 'express add', you get a pop-up that allows you the following options:

• Describe the product


• Tag the product


• Review the product


• Category


• Featured product (check box)


• Favorite Product (check box)


• I have it (check box)


• Add it to my wish list (check box)

There are 'save changes' and 'cancel' buttons to the lower right. If the category is not on the list, you can add it.

Google Adsense

Although Zilo is a store, they offer a very simple implementation of Google Adsense. You don't get to keep all of the Adsense earnings for your store. They keep 40% of the Adsense earnings. Considering how they don't charge you and you don't every have to paste the code, it is a fair deal. It should cover their server costs anyway. Implementing Google adsense on your website is completely optional.

Setup your own customized online store in less than 5 minutes.

Choose products from hundreds of the Internet's top retailers to include in your store and sell at the same rate as the Internet merchant.

Generate commissions through product sales and clicks. Additional income can be made by selecting to place Google ads in your store, and by referring others to join the program.

Amazon.com's Astore is easy to set up

 Amazon.com Astore

Amazon.com has a simple shopping cart option for anyone who wants to start a store selling Amazon products.

Amazon's Astore can be set up by anyone who registers as an Amazon affiliate.  It is easy to do on their website.  You can follow their steps with no extra explanation.

Adding Products

Astore lets you add products by category or individually after doing a key word search.  If you want to have a well defined niche store then having hand selected products will make sure that your customers see what is for your niche.  If you have a site that is about a general theme, it is very likely that you will find an Amazon.com category for the same issue.  Amazon Astore categories have many subcategories, so it would be easy to make a catalog of categories in categories just for your area.  You don't have to follow their category sequence. You can rearrange the order of categories and subcategories according to your needs.

Themes

Amazon's Astore lets you modify several colors and even modify the .css file.  There are only two actual themes to install on the site. You can also change the font size.

Product listings

Products that are added as categories are normally pretty good however I noticed on one catalog how some items were linked correctly.  For example: I saw some women's clothing items show up in the men's clothing category when I viewed a store that I had set up.

Reporting

Amazon's Astore reports one day late. I can see yesterday's report today.  The report is not updated at midnight. It is updated by morning. The reporting options are decent.  You can see reports on sales, type of link, and store code/tracking ID among others. You can set up multiple tracking IDs in the affiliate control panel. Each Astore has to have its own tracking ID.  The tracking IDs can also be used for other kinds of links. It makes sense to give each website that you own and its astore a different ID. When you make a sale, you will know which site sent it.

 How it works

When you are an Amazon affiliate, you earn a commission on any sale is made through your Astore or your Amazon links within 24 hours of a click. This is handled by cookies.  This period is very short and I hope they change it.  I am sure many commissions are lost because the customer decides to wait a day or two to confirm his or her order.  They offer a sliding scale on commissions starting at 4%, but it doesn't apply to all products.  You can read all about the commission rate on their affiliate website when you register.

How to get it on your site

You can have your Astore as:

• A stand alone site (you can link to it from other sites)


• Embed it as a frame (you do remember when people used frames, don't you?)


• Embed it as an iframe (include it inside your site's content for example inside a DIV)

Amazon does not currently offer integration in any CMS or other software.  The easiest way to add it to your CMS is to add it as a link in a menu or sidebar.

Feedback

What have your experiences been using Amazon's Astore?

Auction Ads test update

Auction Ads experiment report: one month later

About on month ago, on the 16th, I decided to test AuctionAds on my websites due to decreasing income from Google Adwords compared to site visitors.

Although I had heard wonderful things about AuctionAds, it has not worked out very well for me. I had set it up on all of my websites using the different campaigns I had set up in their control panel. I also made sure to place their ads right above content on my busiest pages (my irregular & regular verb lists). I also had placed the ad on my website sidebars although on some pages they are 'below the fold' which means that you'd have to scroll down to see them. I did not put them in the same position as Google Adsense because I know Adsense works. Auction Ads is not pay-per-click. It is pay-per-action.

During this time my Auction Ads have only been clicked on 7 times and there was no income. I believe the main problem is that Auction Ads relies on placing keywords. Unfortunately since many people who use e-bay keyword stuff their products, many products that appear in Ebay and therefore AuctionAds, also appear. I need to go through my sites and make better keywords. If I am too specific in keywords, it is possible that no ads will appear at all.

Another possiblilty is that Auction Ads requires to be specialized for each page. Perhaps it doesn't work well for websites that cover a broad topic. If that is true, it should do better on niche websites. On the AuctionAds website, there is a case study which mentions a site about diabetes that supposedly makes a huge amount of money via their AuctionAds.

I will let the ads run one more month for testing. If I don't get any results, I will try another kind of advertisement in their place.

What do you think? Do you have any tips for using AuctionAds? What has your experience been like?

Adding a Shopping cart to your business website: Introduction

Start selling online by setting up a shopping cart on your website or externally.

Depending on the business model you choose, you might want to consider adding a shopping cart to your website. The process of adding a shopping cart to your website can be very easy or very hard depending on the level of integration that you require and what kinds of products you are going to sell.

First you must determine:

1. Will you host the store externally on a third party website, or internally on your own server or hosted server.

There are several companies that let you create a store on their websites that you can link to. When someone buys a product you earn a commission.

Other stores and shopping carts online will let you store your downloads on their site for a fee. If you don't have your own domain then this could be a good short term option for getting started. It would also be good for people who are not interested in maintaining a server and shopping cart installations.

You could also have your own website and install commercial shopping cart and store software. This would give you the advantage of having technical support in most cases, but costs could get quite high once you include web hosting.

The other option which would be best for the long term with your own products, would be to have your own website and install free shopping cart and store software. This would be best because A. you'd be able to customize the look of the site B. Your only monthly fees would be hosting costs. As you sell more products, your cost/product will be cheaper.

2. Will you be selling your own products, affiliate products, or both?

Some shopping and store systems will be designed as a full store and others have the option of being used in 'catalog' mode. Typically affiliate product sales are completed on the manufacturer's site, so there is no need to actually go beyond having a 'clickable catalog' which sends the customer to the merchant site to complete the purchase. If you are selling your own products, you'll need to have a complete system for shipping, taxes, etc.

3. Will you be selling digital downloads, tangible goods, or a combination of the two?

Not all shopping cart and store software is designed to allow digital products. Most seem to have been designed for tangible, physical goods. Digital stores don't need to have 'items in stock' or shipping information. Recently there has been more interest in digital product stores however they seem to be only beta versions and have very limited cataloging functions. Most online stores that include a digital download option limit you to only one download per product listing or have multiple downloads with all of them available to the purchaser. I hope that we will see more flexible programs in the future.

4. Are you willing to pay for this service or software, or does your lack of budget require a free version?

You can pay between hundreds of dollars and a few dollars to set up your e-store. If you already have web hosting set up then you could use free shopping cart and store software then set it up yourself. If you do it yourself, expect to spend many hours. Try to avoid editing the basic code since you'll lose your changes when you upgrade to the next version. If possible, choose premade templates with your own logo then change the template colors to match or go well with your logo. Experiment with the system for at least a few days to make sure everything works properly before linking it to your main site. Make sample purchases and try different options.

5. Do you require 100% integration into a CMS, Content Management System, or are links or IFRAME pages adequate?

There are modules for integrating certain shopping cart and store programs into a website so that it will share the look and feel and registered users. This makes the whole process simpler. Even if you cannot integrate your shopping cart, you can at least try to use the same page layout and colors across your website.

6. Will you require technical support, or are you willing to do a little coding and forum/tutorial research?

If you need hand-holding support then go with commercial software. You have to spend much more, but in the end you'll have your store set up and ready instead of wasting days or weeks trying to figure out how to install and configure it all.

An alternative is to find someone who is already familiar with setting up stores and shopping cart software and negotiating payment for him or her to do the installation and configuration of a free program for you.

7. Do you require more than one download per product listing (for digital products)?

I have so far tried Wp-ecommerce (for Wordpress), VirtueMart 1.1beta (for Joomla), and Zen Cart. The only one that has allowed me to set downloads linked to attributes was Zen Cart. Wp-ecommerce only allows one download per product listing. I even offered to pay for the modification, but the owner is not interested. VirtueMart 1.1 allows multiple downloads however you can't let the visitor select a file. Instead the buyer has access to all of the downloads listed for that product, so if you were hoping to sell digital photographs at different resolutions and prices, these two applications won't work unless you want each size for each product show up as separate products which looks very bad and will cause you extra work because if you decide to add another version you have to add more products! I bet you could waste many hours doing that.

After several hours of looking reading and guessing I finally tried Zen Cart. Zen Cart is related to OsCommerce so it is possible that OsCommerce also has this feature. Zen Cart is an independent free shopping cart store that you can install on your own server, but it doesn't have Wordpress or Joomla integration. I was able to set up a shopping cart with one product and multiple download options. It worked. I, as a shopper, was able to specify the product download I wanted and the correct price appeared and the download link worked. It also sent my business e-mail address a message to let me know of the 'sale'.

8. Do you require special payment option modules, or is PayPal good enough?

You'll have to check each program to see which methods of payments may be processed.

In this category of CrucialBusiness, Shopping cart and stores, I/we will be adding information from our and my own experience, books and e-books that you can read to learn more, and information about opensource as well as paid shopping cart and store products and services to get started. You could also read the more general category, sales, which most shopping cart and stores articles will be cross-posted. If you have experience with Shopping cart and store creation for online business, please contact us via the contact form on this site and you can be a guest writer/blogger (including an about the author with a link to your own site).

As you read more about this topic, keep in mind your answers to the questions in this post and good luck!

Kontera is good for technology and shopping/product review sites

Kontera ads is another way to monetize your website, but it isn't for everyone.

I applied for Kontera for my main website http://portallanguageservices.com which is an educational website for language learning, several weeks ago. I was finally authorized about 9 days ago and I added the code to my HTML pages and my blog.

Here is my experience in the first 8 days of using Kontera. Take this with a grain of salt because the Kontera site says that you should wait two weeks before the ads become good and let you actually make money.

1. The click reporting is NOT real time.

The click reports are not available until around 9 a.m. the following day. When you log in to your account, the report only shows for two days ago and before. You can select yesterday's date to see yesterday once the report has been run. If you want to see a breakdown of clicks and pay/click, click on the name of your website and you'll see the last few days' results by day.

2. The advertisements are almost all for shopping sites

It might seem obvious that most of the links are for shopping. The problem seems to be that the ads are not as specific as the keywords that they are attached to.

The keyword 'Oprah' gives me an ad that says 'shop for Oprah'. I really doubt the Oprah would want me to shop for her. I doubt that she is short of funds and I'm sure that her friends, SO, and show sponsors give her plenty of gifts.

(Note to Oprah Winfrey: If you come to Mexico city please send me an e-mail first :-) )

3. Kontera is not for every site

Kontera seems like a great idea and I really hope that they optimize their keyword links so that the links will add value for visitors instead of just being annoying. I do plan on asking for permission to add Kontera to any shopping sites that I may make in the future once they get at least 200 visitors/day.

In one forum that I have been participating in, another forum member mentioned that his educational site is also getting very few clicks, but his technology based site gets several dollars a day in clicks. It makes sense. What is normally sold online? Computers, PDAs, electronics, software, etc. are commonly sold online, so if your content is related to computers, the shop for... well maybe not oprah... say shop for software will make sense for a visitor and they'll click on the link.

What I am not saying

I am not saying to avoid Kontera. I'm saying that you should consider the topic of your site when applying, so you can submit the sites that will do the best with Kontera.

When monetizing your website(s), experiment with different programs and different combinations of advertising services until you find a mix that works great. The mix of advertising services will vary according to the topic, strategy, and page layout of each one. There is no magic formula.

Joomla 1.5 RC2 Wrapper issue fixed in nightly builds

Joomla 1.5 RC2 Wrapper breadcrumbs now working after installing nightly build

I had posted earlier about having messed up links above 'wrapper' IFRAME page content after installing Joomla 1.5 RC2 over Joomla 1.5 RC1.

I had posted on the Joomla forum but no one knew of a fix, and another person said that he had the same issue.

I finally decided to see if it was fixed. I downloaded the latest nightly build from Joomla and copied it into my Joomla install. The fix took. Wrapper pages are showing up correctly.

If you notice that your breadcrumbs are broken in Wrapper after installing Joomla 1.5 RC2, just install (copy & upload) the nightly build over it and that should resolve the issue for you.

Joomla 1.5 RC2 bug: Wrapper breadcrumbs path to file above content is broken in Wrapper

Joomla 1.5 RC2 bug: Wrapper breadcrumbs path to file above content is broken in Wrapper

On my main site, I had installed Joomla! 1.5 RC1 which I later upgraded to the new RC2.

Above the content of IFRAMEd content using the Joomla 'wrapper' to include external pages, I used to see the path from 'home' to my file. Now I see funny code. including the html <span>.

This error only seems to appear in external pages included using Joomla's wrapper.

I have posted in the forum and I'll update this site with the fix. Until then I suggest not upgrading if you use IFRAMES in Joomla 1.5.

Joomla 1.5 RC2 from Joomla 1.5 RC1 Upgrade

How to upgrade from 1.5 RC1 to 1.5 RC2

1. Download RC2 from the link .

I downloaded the zip version.

2. Copy the contents to your Joomla folder overwriting earlier versions.

The extracted files took 10.3 megabytes of space on my hard drive.

3. Upload the joomla folder to the server via FTP.

I use Dreamweaver's FTP function to manage my sites, but any program that can upload a folder or directory is fine.

Since this takes a long time. It is good to prepare supper or watch a movie or something so you don't stare at the clock.

4. Log in to your Joomla 1.5 RC2 site and click on the administration menu item then system info under the help menu to verify the version.

It will say

'Joomla! Version: Joomla! 1.5.0 Production/Stable [ Endeleo ] 1-September-2007 15:00 GMT' (Obviously with a different date and time)

Joomla 1.5 RC2 is available

Joomla 1.5 RC2 (Beta/Release Candidate 2) is available for download from Joomla!

The new version of Joomla 1.5, called RC2 has been available for download since Saturday the first of September.

Here is the information posted on the Joomla.org site. Please note that if you are using RC1 you should upgrade due to security risks.

Joomla! 1.5 RC2 [codename: Endeleo] is now available for download. What better way to celebrate our 2nd Birthday! We chose Endeleo as the codename for this release candidate as it is Swahili for 'development, growth, progress ... improvement'. Highly appropriate we feel.

It is roughly five weeks after the RC1 release and we have made major improvements in certain areas of the 1.5 codebase. Time to share another RC with the community. Some improvements and areas of changes are listed below:

* Router refactoring solving a range of bugs
* Media Manager refactoring, moving this to MVC standards
* Updated scripts (version); mootools, tinyMCE, Xstandard
* Core template improvements
* Template language installer support
* ... and of course a lot more
Note: due to the Router refactoring there will be known issues with SEF url's.

Important, you need to upgrade! In the current RC1 we found three security issues, one SQL injection, one XSS, and a few full path disclosure vulnerabilities. Those security issues are solved in the new release.

Where we go from here: as you might have read on a recent blog, we will have at least one more Release Candidate (RC3) and hope to move to a Stable release from there on.

Packages

For the 1.5 RC2 Release only full packages are available for download. As usual, the packages are provided in three compression formats (zip, tar, bzip2). The download link for this release:
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=2812

Upgrade instructions

Upgrading from any version of Joomla! 1.5 to 1.5.RC2 simply involves overwriting your current sites files, with the files in the proper Patch Package that applies to your site. Note; during Beta and
RC development, some files could be removed from the Core Code. Using the above method for upgrading might leave some deprecated files in place. This could be solved by performing a fresh
install once the Stable release is available and exporting/importing your database. Between Beta and the RC2 some small database changes have been made. Check the /installation/sql/mysql folder for the diff.sql file. Run that with any database tool such as phpMyAdmin to get your database updated.

This can be done by either uncompressing the Patch Package and then using an FTP client to transfer these files to your server and overwriting existing file. If you find errors after the process,
ensure that all files were properly transferred. There have been verified reports of some FTP clients not properly transferring files across to a server - without notifying the user of such a problem. One
possible cause is that under certain circumstances the webserver locks the files it is using, and the ftp-server can't update those files. One possibility is to take the site shortly offline during the FTP
transfer.

If your Web Provider gives you access to your site via some sort of Web Admin panel like CPanel or Plesk, you can use the syetems file manager to upload the Patch Package file to your server and
then extracting the package file and overwriting all the files on your server.

More information can be found on the Forums and if at any stage you are unsure, then search the forums for posts on the subject. Most will be found in the Upgrading forum .

Conversion / Migration

With the new 1.5 version it is not that easy anymore to convert for example a Mambo site to Joomla!, especially to 1.5. You will need to perform a migration which is described here:
http://www.joomla.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,105/p,401/

Backing up

Before undertaking an Upgrade or Conversion, it is extremely important that you backup your site's Database and if possible, also you site's files. While we try to ensure that an Upgrade or Conversion process is relatively straightforward, we cannot garuantee that this will always be the case for every user. So it is imperative that users take protective measures in case they face problems after the Upgrade or Conversion.

We hope you enjoy Endeleo and as always, we look forward to your feedback.

Amazon.com Astore ads are now working

 Amazon.com's Astore banner ads now display Astore products

Amazon.com Astore ads seem to work now.  I had mentioned in  a previous post that a defect of Amazon.com's Astore was that the astore ads didn't work.  I tested the ads yesterday on several of my websites and they appear to be working. I don't understand the criteria used for selecting which products show. I do get the impression that it might just be taking products from the first category in the Astore related to the website.

One thing that is nice,now that it is working, is that the colors used match the Astore, so if you make your Astore colors match your website, the Astore ads will also match.

Adding Amazon Astore ads to your website is the same as using google ads (without a plugin).  You select your ad size, colors, etc on the Amazon website then you copy and paste the javascript code into your site code.

If you are using WordPress for your website, paste the code into your template files. Javascript doesn't work in pages or posts made via the editor nor does it work with text widgets. Just don't forget to copy the ad code when you change themes.   If you know of a WordPress plugin for Astore ads, please let us know via the comments.