An abrupt stop in your online sales can be very alarming. Hopefully you haven’t experienced this scenario. But if you have, you know that feeling when your orders stops arriving in your inbox. What to do? Have a test with your website and see to it that you’ll run around through these areas that you need to check.

Check your site code. Even a small error in your coding could make your site useless. If your drop in order volume is your concern, run a test order on your site. Go through the entire checkout process, including entering valid credit card information, to be sure you haven’t missed an important detail. Test your site on a regular basis. Roll out site changes with care or utilize a test site for major changes to your site.

Check related services, it may have expired or changed. It is possible that you have failed to renew an integrated service that is part of your site and shoppers are unable to proceed with their purchases. Some of the leading culprits are your site security certificate, your credit card gateway, or perhaps a JavaScript-based service like a gift registry. If any of these services go down, your shopping system could fail along with them. Once you find the problem, immediately renew or reactivate the broken service.

Check for viruses. Often sites that have been compromised by the installation of malicious scripts have been reported. When Google detects a virus intrusion, it will post a message by your organic search listings, informing the world that the use of your site could harm a visitor’s computer. Sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account and follow the suggestions that Google has provided for removing the infection and making your site secure. Once you have followed the corrective steps and notified Google, it will review your site and determine whether to place it back among the search-engine listings.

Check your website’s traffic, it may have dramatically slowed down. If nothing has changed with your on-site factors, you want to watch your search traffic closely. In order to function as an ecommerce business owner, you need to utilize a web analytics package such as Google Analytics. If you have a serious traffic dip, determine the leakage and work with the source to get your site back on track.

Have you redesign your site? It may have affected you site’s traffic and conversion. Your site’s design may look cool, sexy and awesome, but it can have negative effects on your site traffic. If you cannot immediately identify the issue with your new site design, enlist the help of an expert to assess it and offer suggestions. As with several of the other issues, Google Webmaster Tools is your friend. The diagnostic tools will tell you if you have blatant issues with your site and page structure, as Google sees it.

If find your ecommerce business in trouble, site testing and statistics review should give you the insights you need to rebuild sales.

Shoppers are now careful these days. They are more conscious that there are fraud sellers lurking online. They seem to have an internal checklist when it comes to trust. If something isn’t included in their list, it sets their alarm bells ringing. It is very important to build trust with your online customers. If a visitor ends up making the decision to buy from your business website, it will always involve establishing your credibility to inspire the prospect’s trust. But how could you maintain and establish your credibility online?

For visitors to have confidence in you, an array of strategies can be applied to your site. The more they trust your credibility, the more likely they are to make a purchase. It is best to make them feel assured that they are safe and aren’t going to be cheated on, disappointed or robbed.

To establish credibility, make sure that your sales copy is truthful. Be persuasive, but don’t exaggerate because that could possibly result to mislead possible buyers. Remember that when what you say is true, it rings true. Next, include details that make your descriptions realistic. Make certain that there’s human presence on the site. Contact information, personal photograph, and so on. Become a real person to them, give them verifiable evidence of your expertise and legitimacy. For example, if you have written and published articles on topics related to the product or service, or if you have related credentials, include a reference to them. Or post link to you Facebook or twitter accounts.

In online sales copy, testimonials should come early. If you haven’t been collecting testimonials, then start now. Begin by asking for feedback from people who are already your customers

You will boost your credibility and will improve customer’s trust by following these strategies. It will increase your sales because no matter how tempting your offer is or how wonderful the benefits of your product, if the prospect doesn’t believe you, nothing else matters.

It may not be the fanciest page of your website, but it’s an essential one. Sitemap is considered to be the directory of your online store. A text-based site map provides both users and search engines with a structured list of all of the sub-pages contained within the main domain of your site, along with links to each page. When incorporated correctly, sitemap can provide online businesses with a range of revenue-boosting advantages:

• Increases the visibility of all pages of your website (for users and search engines)
• Provides a straightforward navigation structures and helps customers find the product, service, or information they’re looking for.
• Allows you the opportunity to embed targeted search keywords and phrases within each page link, helping to boost your site’s organic search rankings for those terms
• Makes it easier for search engines to follow all of your site’s links, ensuring that all inner pages of your website are spidered.
• Helps in the monitoring and correcting of broken links

Be consistent in designing your sitemap with the other pages of the site. This electronic search spider is actually a bot which collects data and copies content to be stored in the search engine’s database when keywords are fed into the search dialogue box. It is not merely a random listing of links, but organized in such a way that it gives the web user an idea of how all the information that can be found in the site fits into an outline or framework.

What purpose does a sitemap serve? What are the benefits of having a sitemap for my website? This is to make sure that the spider starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. You would probably think that there must be something wrong with the search engine that it generated irrelevant results. Use a recurring design and the same HTML template for all pages to establish identity and build character to your website.

Based on the results of a 1999 SURL study on sitemap designs, the full categorical format is most preferred by users since it is easier to search for topics within the site and it allows easier comparison between and among categories. In this way, no page would be left unvisited by the spider.

More often than not, ecommerce websites’ success depends on how good it looks rather than how good it is. Consumers often judge how professional and how trustworthy an online store is through its aesthetics. There are many online retailers that are expert in their field but not necessarily expert in web development or graphic design. They know all about the products they sell, but they may not know much about, things like white space, alpha transparency, or PHP. Thus, hiring a web developer or web designer is needed.

Consider these 5 simple tips on how to choose a good designer/developer.

1. If you were opening a new department store and you were hiring a contractor to build it from the ground up, you would ask for references. No one would trust a commercial construction project to someone they hadn’t checked out. The same goes for the contractor that will be building your online store. Ask for at least three references. You would want the know the quality of their work, how they manage and maintain schedules and how easy they were to work with.
2. In any online business, an ecommerce shopping cart is a must. It serves as a backbone of your business. It is the content management, reporting tool, order processing that you’ll be left with after your designer is off to other projects. Compare carts based on their features and based on your clients needs. Once you have finalized the field of shopping carts, look for designers that specialize in the cart you want. Avoid any cart that promises you that it can have your store up and running in an hour or less. It will be very satisfactory in the long run.
3. Hire a professional that can transform your business objectives into a successful design, not the one that simply does what you say. The web designer or developer you hire should be an expert that can translate your goals and objectives into a feature-rich, customer-pleasing online shopping experience. If a designer or developer has nothing to add or does not ask a lot of probing questions about your business values, differentiators, and goals, they are either not really interested or they are not really informed. He/she should have an opinion to contribute and should add value.
4. Get a statement of work before you start with your project. A statement of work should detail the designer’s understanding of your project, spell out an estimated time table, enumerate the exact services the professional will be providing, and provide a specific price estimate as well as an estimate of how extensions or expansions to the project will be handled. If a developer or designer cannot describe the project in a statement of work, don’t hire them. It would be like trekking through the wilderness without a map or a GPS.
5. Web design and development is often a trade of the self-taught. So while a designer with a master’s degree in art should certainly know his stuff, don’t overlook a self-taught professional. If you judged him only by his academic credentials, you’d be missing out on a great professional. Experience and talent is more important than a degree.

Your website is crucial to the success of your business. By doing extensive interviewing of potential website designers and with the help of the tips mentioned above, you’re more likely to pick one that can do the work you want.

Chargebacks are frustrating and it’s what online merchants despise the most. It is not only the loss of your product or service, but also the risk of expensive fines, account closures, and even blacklisting. Definitely this is a major threat to your online business. Chargebacks are an unfortunate part of ecommerce but practical and smart merchants can learn from some their chargebacks experiences.

When a consumer asks his or her credit card company for a refund, a merchant can suffer a chargeback. The credit card company will reach into a merchant’s bank account and take the total amount of the transaction that’s being charged back. Then, any one of three or more different types of organizations could charge the merchant a fee for its trouble. Throughout this process, no one bothers to inform or ask the merchant. Avoiding chargeback is all about communicating and setting expectations.

Set Product Expectations. Make sure that the customer could correctly understand what he is ordering. He may decide to return the purchase or, worse, call his card-issuing bank and initiate a chargeback if conflicts happen. To set this right, use clear product description. Include product dimensions, weight and all applicable measurements. And don’t to forget to describe materials and special handling.

Set Shipping Expectations. Clearly mention when their product is likely to be shipped, how many business days? Consider adding an “About Shipping” section to your site, describing how you pack orders and why it can take several days for a package to arrive

Set Policy Expectations. If good fences make good neighbors, then good policies make good online retail transactions. To set these expectations explain step by step how a customer can return or exchange an item. Require customers to accept store policies as they check out and if refunds are required, pay promptly.

Set Customer Service Expectations. When a customer has a problem, he or she expects you to be there. Acknowledge customer service emails automatically, setting the customer’s expectations about when they’ll get a response .

It’s important to understand that the way the chargeback system works is in favor of the customer and the process is sometimes abused. You need to do everything you can to ensure that if you do have to issue a challenge or your account comes under scrutiny, you’ve taken all the appropriate steps.