StartLogic Tech Talk Newsletter

NOTE: Please accept our sincerest apologies if this newsletter was sent to you in error. Information for updating or unsubscribing your email address can be found at the bottom
of this newsletter.

Anyone with a website knows how important it is to be listed in the top three search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN.

We have over 4 years of successful experience in competitive keyword categories.

• StartLogic Search Engine Optimization experts will design an effective SEO strategy for your site.

• Most of our clients see results within the first month!

• 67% of U.S. adults who research online before making a purchase decision use search engines as a research tool.

Don't miss out on a FREE Search Engine Optimization Service quote for your website! It is easy to request one:

- Call us at 800-725-8064, Extension 5005
- Or email us at seo@startlogic.com

By Mitch Bettis, Practical eCommerce

Drop shipping remains a hot topic among etailers but, even though it has many benefits, it isn‘t the best option for every business.

A drop shipper is a product supplier who is willing to ship individual orders. Usually when products are purchased for resale, you have to buy them in bulk quantities, have them shipped to you and then ship them out to your customer. Drop shippers are the exception because they don‘t have minimum purchase requirements and will ship the item directly to your customer when you place an order.

"Using a drop-shipping model is an excellent idea if you don‘t have a lot of capital to start with," writes Jeremy Hanks, Nichole Haims and Brandon Williams in Drop Shipping for Dummies. "Because you don‘t need to carry any inventory and never make an actual order purchase until you‘ve already been paid, drop shipping is a great way to break into the retail business."

Read more...

This article is used with permission from Practical eCommerce magazine, copyright 2006. Practical eCommerce is a printed an online resource for ecommerce businesses. For tips, tools and advice to improve your ecommerce business, click here.

Help! I'm receiving a ton of spam from my contact form!

View the access logs in the vdeck control panel under reports -> logs -> Access. If this is your first time looking at the access logs they may be overwhelming.

This is an example line from the access logs:

209.250.16.194 - - [13/Apr/2007:16:05:49 -0700] "GET /checkvdeckdns?azoutdoors.org HTTP/1.1" 302 330 "http://st87.startlogic.com:8080/panel/index?7" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2"

The format lists: IP address, timestamp, Action, referrer url, status code, bytes sent, page requested, browser. To locate a user sending spam through your contact form, use the find feature built into the browser (generally CTRL+F) to search for the POST action. Once a line with POST is found, check that the form address is listed to ensure this POST is from the contact form. Compare the time stamp of the POST log entry with the time listed in the spam email.

If the time matches, then the IP address of the spammer is included on the left. Once the IP address is known, you can block that user from accessing your website in the vDeck control panel under settings -> ban IP addresses. Ban IP addresses works just like it sounds, type in the IP address to ban and click submit. You should be aware of your own IP address during this entire process so you do not inadvertently ban yourself. www.whatismyip.com will show your IP address.

www.luv2lounge.com

Barbara Galindo spent many years in outside sales - pounding the pavement in her business attire. So, she knows how nice it is to come home to more comfortable clothes and other fun items that make life more enjoyable. That is why she started Luv 2 Lounge, which designs and manufacture pajamas, loungewear and accessories for wholesale and retail businesses.

Galindo built her web site from scratch using StartLogic‘s vDeck control panel. Galindo chose a design template and then built away. "As a beginner to small business and website editing, I was able to learn how to build my website," says Galindo. "Yet, if I needed assistance, StartLogic‘s customer service was always there for me!"

Galindo also appreciates the ease in which she can make changes to her web site within vDeck. "New products become available constantly and old products are moved out constantly," she says. "The ability to manipulate the wording on inventory availability in the shopping cart is vital! Also, making changes to the retail locations page is important so people are able to find our products in the stores that are carrying them."

Of course, in the end, it‘s all about sales. However, when Galindo first started the site she didn‘t see many of those coming in. So, she decided to take action.

She improved her traffic results through search engine optimization. She says that a lot of her customers have found her through searches, which she credits to the addition of meta tags to the headers of each page.

The other challenge was getting people to buy her products once they were actually there. "Initially the site was set up for people to be able to send an email to place an order -- it produced zero results," she says. "Once the shopping cart was added with the ease of being able to make purchases through PayPal, the orders just started coming."

Galindo says that the addition of both of the features combined helped boost her sales 30-50 percent in the past six months, when compared to the six months prior.

Do you want your site to be considered for our next Site of the Month? If so, please email us at newsletter@startlogic.com.