Q. I'm interested in making PayPal available on my site. Can you tell me how this works? Thanks!

A. It's fairly easy to add PayPal to your website—there are only two things that you need. First, obtain a business or premier PayPal account from PayPal.com. Your account is used as validation when you add a shopping cart to your site. Second, you will need some knowledge of HTML forms in order to add them to your site. PayPal does a good job of giving you step-by-step instructions for adding a shopping cart or payment feature. PayPal offers a vast number of optional fields, such as a quantity field, that could prove useful. For example, you can easily copy a chunk of code that is a standard template for a PayPal button. Once you add it to your HTML code on your site and edit the values of the "business," "item name," and "amount" fields to fit the needs of your site, a button will appear that will say "Make payments with PayPal—it's fast, free, and secure!" If you are interested in learning about the optional fields that you can add to your form, visit PayPal's reference on Buy Now links [https://www.paypal.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_std-variable-ref-buy-now.html].


Q. Now that FrontPage is being discontinued, what progam do you suggest using to design our site?

A. Microsoft FrontPage was originally created as a tool to create websites; it was ideal for people who did not know HTML. The award-winning Web authoring tool was popular for nine years, but is, indeed, being discontinued; however, there are many easy-to-use products on the market today. In fact, Microsoft has several new tools, such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, which allows you to build efficient applications within the SharePoint platform. Another Microsoft product, which may replace FrontPage, is Microsoft Expression Web, which enables you to design, develop, and maintain exceptional standards-based Web sites.
Another option these days is the Web-based design tool that allows you to create and update your website with tools online—there's no need to purchase and load software or use specific platforms. Nowadays there are many methods and products for building your website; we feel the online strategy is the most flexible and collaborative.
Our own Web-based design tood, www.SiteBrandBuilder.com, allows you to log in, choose a template, and build your website. It's easy to add forms, and RSS feeds, a shopping cart, an email marketing tool, and more, simply by clicking on a feature or module. Best of all, more than one person within an organization can make chnges to your site, and you can make changes anywhere you have Internet access.


Q. I wonder about selling online. We’re a small shop, and many large stores already sell similar products online. Is it worth the time and energy involved in setting up online sales?

A. Absolutely. Selling on the Web is a natural extension of what you already offer, and online expenses will be minimal. While there are many online businesses, the market is also bigger—worldwide, in fact. In order to carve your niche, focus on what you can offer that the larger stores can’t, such as personal attention and customer service. You also can give away something for free, and it won’t cost you a dime. A century ago, a prize in every box put Cracker Jack on the map. Today, the most prized item is information. Offer free personalized articles or tips that would be of interest to your customers, and send one to them whenever they place an order.

A. Blogs (online journals) are indeed very popular, and for good reason: Writing a blog is a good way to get your name out on the Internet. Search engines will pick up your blog, so your store name pops up at the top of a list when someone does a search for a store in your area or for a product you sell. Blogs can be fun to write and fun to read, as long as you follow some general rules. First, make sure you write about an interesting topic—a personal experience or an anecdote that has a message or a point. You’ll need to get creative to get people to keep coming back to your blog (and to recommend it to others). Also, add a question at the end of a blog entry to encourage readers to submit comments. If you don’t have time to keep up a blog, or if you’re afraid it will end up being a chore, find some friends or coworkers who could write the blog with you—sharing the writing duties for each entry, or taking turns writing entries. Last, be patient. It takes at least several weeks before the search engines pick up your blog. (We’ve recently started a blog, www.coffeewithus.com, where we share our business advice. Check it out!)

A. Besides having the signup box in a prominent place, is there anything on your website that describes the newsletter? What’s in it? What would entice a visitor to your site to want to receive it? Add a simple sentence or two describing what you cover in your newsletter in order to pique customers’ interest. In addition, post testimonials from customers saying how great your newsletter is and what they have gotten from it. If they give you permission, add their names and towns (not street addresses) and business titles, if applicable, to the quotes to add credibility. Also, be sure to address security concerns: Stress that when people sign up for the newsletter, their e-mail addresses will not be shared with anyone else.

A. It’s all about grabbing attention. Make sure you have an interesting first topic, with a catchy subject line, headline, and opening sentence, as well as a photo, if you like. Give the recipient several options for reading the newsletter: Put part or all of the newsletter right in the e-mail, and also attach a Word and PDF version—PDF for the attractive version (add a header and a border), and the Word version as a backup in case they can’t open the PDF. You also can offer a link to your newsletter on your website.

A. Offer several choices to cover everyone’s preferences: Put the headlines of the stories, or the headline of your lead story with a couple of opening lines, in the body of the e-mail with directions on how to read more, then include a PDF attachment and also give the link to read it on your website.

A. Ask those who know best—your customers! Find out their preferences—whether they’d like to receive event schedules each week, or up-to-the-minute e-mails to be the first to find out when a new product arrives or when you’re having a special. If your time is limited, you can count the votes and go with a majority rule (if most everyone votes for a weekly e-mail, make it weekly) or, if you have the time and the manpower to keep up several e-mail lists, send your customers whatever they want (those who vote for weekly would receive a weekly e-mail, those who vote for up-to-the-minute updates would receive e-mails more often).

   Many stores send a quarterly e-newsletter with a monthly update, or a monthly e-newsletter with a weekly update. If you have a lot of events in your store, you might want to consider a weekly reminder update—good for customers who would love to attend an event but forget to write it in their calendar. It’s also a good last-minute way to fill classes or appointments with readers.

A. Driving traffic to your website is an ongoing process. You should take advantage of several different methods. First of all, one of the best things you can do for your site is to offer exceptional content that is updated frequently, and at the same time be sure to include significant keywords—words and phrases that a potential customer would type into a search engine to find a particular product or service—so your site will come up quickly and at the top of a list of search results. To generate traffic quickly, make use of paid advertising such as “pay per click” advertising. Target a marketing campaign, like a grand opening, with paid advertising to get exposure and instant traffic.

A. You have one of the best tools for getting your site listed high on search results already: content. One of the most overlooked and least utilized parts of a website, well-composed content is written not just for the end user to read, but also for the Web crawlers as well. Content should contain important keywords and phrases (naming the products you sell or the services you offer) that the search engines will latch onto and thereby include your site in search results. Each page of your site that you want to rank should contain at least two to three good-sized paragraphs with products and services mentioned in the text.

   There are other tricks you can use, like adding keywords to your title tag, which is the wording you see on the very top of the browser window; usually it’s the name of your site. Instead of just the name, such as New Age Retailer, change it to “Gifts, Music, Books, Spirituality, Wellness at New Age Retailer magazine.”

You also can include keyword descriptions of your site in meta tags. These are only visible in the code view of your Web pages, so you will need knowledge of HTML to add them, or have your Web designer do this for you.

   Monitor the traffic to your Web pages over time and see what pages are successfully being ranked and which ones are not. You may want to tweak the content on the lower-ranking pages and update them periodically.

A. You could use a third-party provider, such as PayPal or Google Checkout, which also ensures a secure transaction. When a customer makes a purchase, they will be sent to a secure online form that is located on another server. The money is deposited directly into your account for a small fee. Most third-party providers also offer fraud protection against unauthorized purchases.

A. Constant Contact is one of the more popular e-mail marketing products, and we often recommend it to our clients, because it’s affordable, and you don’t need to know HTML code to create and send a professional-looking HTML e-mail. The program allows you to create a personalized design and drop in your content, add your list of subscribers, click “send,” and you’re done. We love the reporting tools as well: They show how many e-mails were sent, how many were successfully delivered, and what percentage of your contacts actually opened the e-mail.

   A Google search for “e-mail marketing tools” returns millions of links to a wide variety of services. When you’re researching which e-mail option is right for you, look for a tool that allows you to manage your own database of users, ensures you have an opt-out feature, and gives you the flexibility to send out a message when you choose—be sure you can send out an e-mail without having to rely on a third party.

Wendy Brabon has an engineering and sales background and has been a Web technologist for the last 10 years. Ray Justice is an entrepreneur, business coach, and poet with more than 40 years experience in owning and operating small businesses. Together Brabon and Justice are partners in Brabon Justice International and owners of www.sitebrandbuilder.com, a full service Web design, development, and branding company. The dynamic team will support your website questions and situations. Email your questions to Braborn and Justice at: websense@newageretailer.com.