Building Web Sites All-in-One For Dummies® (95 page)

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Don't create content that disappoints the visitors.
If your client insists on a section that promises response, such as a section that accepts customer comments, make sure your client is aware that he must live up to the promise and provide feedback.

Chapter 2: Building an E-Commerce Site

In This Chapter

Coping with technology

Dealing with the law and privacy

Using Web hosting and payment system tools

Getting the word out

Protecting your site

All the good intentions in the world won't get the job done, especially when you're creating an e-commerce Web site. For an e-commerce site to be successful, it has to be usable. If potential customers can't navigate the site without a manual thick enough to be a doorstop, they'll never come back. In addition to being usable, the site needs technology in order to perform tasks such as capturing the e-mail addresses of customers for a mailing list, taking orders online, and so on. And of course, any time you're doing business, you have legal considerations. Doing business online has its own grab-bag of legal issues — and you thought you were just designing another pretty site on the 'Net. In this chapter, we show you the technological and legal considerations involved with an e-commerce site as well as how to build some of the elements for your e-commerce site.

Technological Considerations

Technology is everywhere in some shape or form. When it comes to creating an e-commerce site, consider several technological issues. We cover some of the technological issues concerning e-commerce — such as secure servers and credit card authorization — in Chapter 1 of this minibook. However, additional technological issues are involved with building the site.

The technology you use depends on the needs of your client. Perhaps your client requires a form that collects information from customers. You could use a CGI (common gateway interface) mail-forwarding script to transmit the data from customer to e-commerce client via e-mail. However, a technologically advanced method for doing this is to create PHP code that transmits the information to a database.

If you're like many Web designers, the thought of creating code causes you to break out in a cold sweat. If this is the case, you need to form an alliance with a Web developer who is as happy as a clam in saltwater when writing complex code. Like most human beings, Web developers come in varying forms of initiative, skill, and honesty. Make sure you're working with a developer who will stay the course and not turn tail at the first sign of a bug in his code. You'll also have to pad your price to the client to include the Web developer's fee and whatever profit you can reasonably add to his fee.

After you take care of the technological issues on the design side, you might think it safe to jump off the deep end and begin designing the site. Nay, nay, Nanette. Did you ever hear of
server side?
The technology you use to create your Web site must be present on the server side. You must address these considerations when you choose a hosting service for the e-commerce site. Most standard Web hosting packages include the latest version of PHP and the ability to create one or more MySQL databases. These are generally handled with a Linux-based server. However, if your site requires ColdFusion, ASP, MS SQL databases, or MS Access databases, you need to opt for a Windows NT server, which is generally more expensive.

Usability: Thinking Like a Customer

The customer is always the customer. But then again, without the customer, the snazzy e-commerce site you're designing for your client would be absolutely worthless. The trick here is to get yourself and your client into a customer frame of mind. How many Web sites have you and your client gone to and clicked out of almost immediately? Probably quite a few. When you and your client are brainstorming, bring up the topic of Web sites you absolutely refuse to visit again. Then jot down the reasons why you'd never return to them. Now that you know what you don't like, consider the following usability issues:

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Can I easily find my way around the site?

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How many clicks does it take to go from the home page to checkout?

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Can I easily get back to where I've been?

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Is the navigation menu consistent on all pages?

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Do all pages on the site have a consistent look and feel?

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When I get to the bottom of the page, can I easily navigate to another page?
If the answer to this question is no, create text links at the bottom of the page that contain all the links in your navigation menu. The text links also help your rating with search engines.

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Does each page have a descriptive title?
You wouldn't open a book in a bookstore if it didn't have a descriptive title on the cover, would you? Titles are also used by search engines to rank Web sites.

You can easily add a title to a Web page by changing the page properties in an application such as Dreamweaver.

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Does each page have a link to the site's home page?
Many designers add a hyperlink to an image such as the company's logo and place it in the upper-left corner of the page. This is considered good practice, but Web neophytes might not be hip to this trick. Always include a navigation menu link that clearly indicates that clicking it returns the customer to the site's home page.

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Does the site have alternative navigation?
If you're designing a large site with hundreds of pages, create a text-based site map. Include a link to the site map on each page. As an added bonus, with a site map, search engine robots have easy access to all of the site's pages.

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Does the site have a search field?
Adding a search field makes it easy for customers to find the information they're after. You can find inexpensive — or perhaps even, free — search utilities by typing
Web site search utility
in your favorite search engine. Weed through the results to find the best solution for the site you're designing.

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Is the most important content of each page clearly visible?
Think like a newspaper editor and put the most important content of each page at the top of that page. You can further draw attention to pertinent content through the use of a header style, which functions just like a newspaper's headline.

You can customize heading styles with a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). See Book III, Chapter 3 for more about CSS.

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Can a page be summed up in a glance?
Customers should be able to quickly scan each page and get an idea of the content contained within. You can use header styles, bold text (which can be created as a style, using CSS), bullet1 lists, or graphics to emphasize the important content on each page.

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Is text included in an image?
Text in an image won't be visible if customers disable images in their browsers, or if visually challenged customers access the site with a screen reader. If text is needed to describe the contents of an image, create the text as a caption when designing the page in your HTML editor.

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Does each

tag specify alt text?
When you add
alt text
to an

tag, the tags show up as tooltips in many browsers. An added benefit is increased visibility to search engines. Alt text is generally used to describe the image for visually impaired viewers accessing the site with a screen reader. However, you can describe the image using keywords that relate to the site.

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Does the site enable visitors to provide feedback?
If not, consider adding feedback forms in applicable sections of your site — pages such as Contact Us or Feedback. You might also consider creating a Feedback Forum where customers can post feedback and read feedback from other customers. The type of feedback you're looking for includes whether visitors enjoyed the site, would visit a similar site, understood the site content, were easily able to navigate the site, and so on.

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Can your client's target audience easily understand the site content?
If your client provides content for the site and uses technical jargon and hard-to-understand terms, become the voice of reason and tell your client to “dummy it down.” Pun intended.

Legal Considerations: Call a Lawyer

When you create an e-commerce site for a client, the client is liable for the content of the site. Of course, your name is also linked to the site. Therefore, you have two concerns in that regard: your reputation and your client's reputation. One of the most important things to consider is copyright law. Don't use anything on an e-commerce site — or for that matter, any Web site — for which you or your client don't own the copyright or for which you or your client have not purchased a license. This includes photos, videos, and music. In the long run, the only way to be positively sure is to run everything past your client's legal counsel.

Other legal concerns involve the privacy of Web site customers. Every commercial Web site that collects information from customers should have a privacy statement. Then there's the issue of cookies — the software kind, not the ones that cause love handles. Speaking of edible (well, almost edible) objects that have become part of Internet lingo, there's spam. Cookies and spam, which won't be found on any menus other than at the Internet Café, are covered in upcoming sections.

Cookies that don't crumble

Cookies
are small text files that are automatically downloaded to Web site visitors' computers. Cookies are used to track Web site visitors' habits, such as what sites they visit, how they found the site that issued the cookie, what pages they navigate to, and so on. They're a useful tool that shows e-commerce marketing gurus which sections of their sites are the most popular, which need updating, where Web site traffic is coming from, and so on. Cookies are also used to save passwords, site preferences, and so on. Any Web site that uses cookies must notify visitors in some shape or form that this software is being downloaded to the user's computer. Failure to do so is an invasion of the visitor's privacy.

Spam, spam, spam, spam!

Marketing a Web site is a whole different kettle of fish. One tried-and-true method of marketing used by most e-commerce sites is a mailing list. With a mailing list, e-commerce marketers can inform customers about new products and special offers. You can send this information in the form of a classy HTML newsletter, such as the one shown in Figure 2-1. However, commercial e-mail messages can be sent only to people who
opt-in.
(In other words, the customer requests the information.) Previously, marketers could send the messages to anyone as long as the recipients had a means of
opting-out
(making the messages stop coming). If an unsolicited e-mail message is sent and that message presents a commercial advertisement, an offer to purchase a product or service, or a link to an offer to purchase a product or service, it is considered
spam
, and
it is not wonderful
.

The CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003 is an attempt to control spam. Many e-commerce marketers mistakenly think that because they purchase a list with hundreds or thousands of e-mail addresses of likely prospects, they can barrage their inboxes with all manner of advertisements and such, which contain deceiving subject lines or false headers. Sending messages of this type to multiple recipients (100 e-mails in a 24-hour period; 1,000 e-mails in a 30-day period; or 10,000 e-mails in a one-year period) is a felony. The CAN-SPAM act also regulates what merchants need to do when sending messages to recipients who have elected to receive commercial e-mails from the merchant. The message header must clearly indicate that the message is a solicitation. There must be a valid e-mail address in the message header, and there must be a means by which the recipient can unsubscribe from the list. In February 2004, the first violator of the act was arrested.

Creating HTML newsletters and advertisements can be a lucrative business for Web designers. If you decide to do this type of work for your client, you need to create an unsubscribe link in the messages. It's also a good idea to include a link to the merchant's privacy notice, plus a link to the merchant's legal notice if he has one.