E-Commerce SEO/SEM: Using Shopping PPC Sites
Forum user bubbasplitshot has been thinking about using PPC (pay-per-click) advertising shopping sites like Pricegrabber, Shop.com and others. In a recent forum post, bubbasplitshot says, "I've been hesitant to throw money at all of these. Can anyone help me understand the value of these sites for my online niche clothing and gift store?"

In response to bubbasplitshot several forum members offered excellent advice, not only providing tips on things to keep in mind when considering PPC advertising, but also sharing their own experiences with some of the more well-known sites and programs:

Forum member toniaxp says: "If you are going to start using PPC advertising you should choose PPC providers that are in a close niche to your own, as this will result in the most targeted clicks and best possible conversion rate."

FineWoodenToys, who has experience with PPC options, says, "I've tried a variety of PPC options including both Shopping.com and Shopzilla. I got a lot of clicks from them, but didn't get as many sales as I would have liked. If you think about it, visitors to those sites browse through the products as though they are in a store. They must click each product just to get a closer look at it (which costs you every time). Most of those sites have ROI code that can be used to track your conversions, which can help you decide for yourself if it's beneficial. You've got to be able to put the code on your order confirmation page for it to work. Personally, I liked Google Adwords better — by making your keywords very specific to your business, you're more likely to get some customers in who'd like to browse your store (instead of just glancing at an item)."

Forum member dvdtvshows offered the following advice: "BizRate/Shopzilla and Pricegrabber are easy to budget for, and easy to work with. You can provide FTP feeds to them both (slightly different content and formats). Shopping.com was not easy to budget. We dropped them when they continually flooded us with traffic for one day after we pre-paid for what we hoped would be a month's traffic. If the traffic had resulted in sales, I would be only mildly annoyed. But the traffic seemed to contain a lot of click-fraud or casual lookers, very few sales.  The best thing about all these sites is the customer ratings feature. It is truly independent, you have no control over it. But if you are doing a good job of customer service, it's a great way for the public to find out about it. It does take a while for a small retailer to accumulate enough reviews to be meaningful."

• Read the full discussion and add your comments here in the PPC shopping discussion thread.

E-Commerce Issues: Custom Website — With Shopping Cart Question
Shopping carts and how they work with e-commerce Web sites is a popular topic in the "E-Commerce Issues" section. Member mikey0531 joins the forum with a question about having a custom Web site designed that includes a custom shopping cart solution. What mikey0531 wants to know from our forum members is if a bill of $27,000 without all the extra features even added in yet, is common for an e-commerce Web site, if it is hand-coded?

Forum user seomagician says, "I've seen sites cost this much but you have to ask: Can this be done on a current e-commerce platform that can be custom coded? If yes, then the cost is steep."

roban also says the price seems steep but also points out we don't know much yet. He asks, "How many products, product options and what type of shipping variables come into play. What are your annual sales and can your sales justify that kind of expense? What are the design company's responsibilities as far as support is Concerned? Do they offer a period of support that makes you feel comfortable in knowing that the $27,000 is not going to escalate if changes are made (because they will be made). Who is going to Web Master the site and is that included?"

Forum user TipPro asks if that price includes a control panel interface for store editing and questions if order processing and order fulfillment software has been considered in this pricing.

Buglady adds, "I started out in architecture school, and they used to tell us, 'don't re-invent the nail.'" The idea is that it's cheaper and more reliable to use off-the-shelf unless you have a strong reason. Five to seven years ago or more I could see doing a custom Web site and shopping cart. At this point, there's so much good, flexible software out there I would never consider it."

opensourceforce, however, definitely believes that $27,000 is way too much to pay and relays the following experience: "I have seen many members waste $12,000 or $16,000 or even $20,000 on a "custom" custom built cart from services they thought were great. I kid you not. Three out of the last four of these I have seen got an out of the box X-Cart site with a custom template and their logo in the back-end admin menu and not the X-cart logo or colors. These were each from different "service providers" ...scary. So the person should have paid them a few hundred for the platform and for taking the time to set their admin settings and such, plus the custom template."

• Read the full discussion on custom Web site & cart design costs here in our forum.

Rate My Site: Some Feedback If You Please
One popular forum section is "Rate My Site" where users post links to their Web site and other forum members can weigh in on the good and bad points of the site's language, consumer friendliness, design, shopping cart and other site elements. Sometimes an extra pair eyes can point out flaws and errors you didn't even know existed.

Forum member Jane Davis has been managing an e-tail Web site for almost three years, and asks forum members to visit LiceIce.com and offer some much-needed feedback. Unfortunately, the site is getting a 1 percent conversion, with more than 90 percent of its visitors leaving after visiting the home page. Our forum members had plenty to say.

Forum member roban says, "I don't know why people are abandoning your site without doing some investigation. There are a couple of things I would do however:

1. Move your "Add to Cart" button to the top of the page
2. Get rid of the overnight shipping line on the main page. It's a huge number and may be off-putting.
3. Your "About Us" page tells me about the manufacturer, but I want to know who I am sending my $$$ to.
4. Why have two Authorize.Net emblems on the home page?
5. Why bother to have a "Products" page? You only have one product."

MzTaz also checks out the Web site and offers some of the following tips:

"You should keep the separate "Products" link as some people look specifically for that link when arriving at a home page or from other pages in a site. You should make it as easy to order as possible (the fewer times your customer has to click to order your products the better). To achieve this, you could add a drop-down box and "Add to Cart" button at the bottom of your menu where the options in the drop-down default to your main product, but allows them to select the 3-pack or 5-pack. This way they can easily add the product to their cart from any page. I would recommend you add a "Next" "Previous" and "Main" button to the six areas on your product page or have some easier method of navigation from each of those pages to each of the others. You might want to consider, if you haven't already, trying a free shipping promotion and see if that helps with your conversion rate."

Several forum members point out broken images in the left-hand navigation — obviously a big problem. I also had a look at the site and offered suggestions about fixing the "About Us" page and mentioned some Google search results for this product. " Even when searching for natural head lice treatments your site was no where to be seen in the first page of search results. I think you need to work on boosting your rankings for Google searches for "organic" and "natural" head lice treatment. Even if I type the exact product name in, I get very few worthy results (obviously your site is there, but no external user or magazine reviews). Consumers are search savvy now. Even if they do find your site online, they won't be able to find many good third-party resources and comments about the product itself to further build buyer confidence."

• Read the full discussion and critique of this member's Web site here in our forum.

The Small Business and E-Commerce discussion forums offer advice on online marketing issues, security tips, Web site design suggestions and general discussion related to current trends and practices.

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Vangie Beal is a regular contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com.