Are you selling on Facebook, but losing sales because your posts are slipping down Facebook pages as other posts are added?

If you have your own Facebook page, have you considered what might happen when Facebook changes its rules or the way their site works? This has happened before and it will happen again.

If you have a range of 2 or 3 items to sell and you are selling on Facebook, that may work for you. But if you have more than a few, then you need an online shop to manage and sell your products whilst using Facebook to drive traffic to your store.

A dedicated website presents a professional image and is far more powerful than a Facebook page. You should not use Facebook alone. Facebook should be supplemental to your website. Why? Here are just a few of many reasons:

• You have no control over Facebook. It’s a ‘free’ service that they provide for you to use at their pleasure. And they will do whatever they want, whenever they want, with your presence on their site. Facebook is a constantly evolving, social website and the service that they provide could be changed, taken away, or be the subject of a number of other undesirable events at any time. Without notice! You do not own your Facebook page – but you do own your online store/website.
• You should not place your online business presence into the care of an entity over which you have NO control whatsoever.
• You grant Facebook the right to do absolutely anything they wish with absolutely everything you put on Facebook – even to the point that you waive your rights over any intellectual property that you own (read their Terms!). Scary eh?
• Understand that your website brands you, but your Facebook page brands Facebook. Your colours, your style, your logo – you can customize absolutely everything on your website to suit your brand. Facebook does allow some customisation of pages and images, but overall the site still looks like Facebook. It does not properly represent you.
• People searching the web for your store or your products will NOT easily find what they’re looking for on Facebook. And if visitors have to search, they’ll very often just go somewhere easier.

Now, we are not anti-Facebook. Facebook is a fantastic tool to help grow your brand and your business, but its real power lies in the way that it can complement your standalone web presence.

Click here to take a look at the Spring Fever deal being offered jointly by Pukka Websites and The Pukka Stash. You could have your own online store like that shown at The Pukka Stash up and running within 72 hours for a low, low price. It’s a no-brainer really!

Employ a professional or do it yourself?

Unless you are a capable web developer, skilled in HTML and PHP, this really is a no-brainer.

Quite simply, eCommerce is a beast! Sure, if you are competent in WordPress or some other CMS platform you can set up a website, install an appropriate theme and/or plugin and believe that is ‘job done’. But it never is. I have created scores of such sites and, apart from the expected customisation issues, never once have I not had to resort to HTML to hard-code certain tweaks and adjustments to make the site work as I, or my client desired.

Creating and setting up an interactive, multi-function, eCommerce store is a world apart from creating a basic, non-interactive site. Everything about eCommerce is bigger and more complex. Such sites take much longer to set up, there is much more to go wrong and thus much more to test and retest. As a result, they cost more money. Contrary to the belief of many, they are not sites that offer an extra feature or two – such as a calendar, a weather summary or a Contact form. They are on an entirely different level and are not something you can adequately learn by having a go at your own site.

So, do it yourself and there is every likelihood that at some point you will need (expensive) professional support and end up spending more to get your site up and running than if you had employed the professional from the outset. For a professional to take over and sort out your problems, it is more than 90% likely that he is going to have to check everything that you have done – and this will take longer than if he had done it himself, using his own proven methodology. More time = more cost = more money from your pocket!

Site security is a major concern. People care about security anyway, but when their money is at stake, they become doubly serious about security. And of course, the security of your site is a very important and serious matter. Amongst other things, you will be asking people to provide credit card information as part of the purchase process. Even though you may not see the actual details yourself, technically you will be receiving their financial data into your custody and care. So it is of paramount importance that you get your security right.

This is just one area where eCommerce can be very complicated. Your new site will be interfacing with banks and/or payment processors and other related intermediaries as part of the process of transferring money. So your site is not a simple, straightforward site. There are more players, more processes, more steps and much more code. These complications increase exponentially.

Setting up an online store is a big deal and will be a lengthy struggle for many people. If you’re not used to tackling such complex projects, you should ask whether you are up for it, and up to it! Can you cope with the complex processes or will you end up longing for the simpler days that you previously enjoyed?

If you have been contemplating having your own online store now or in the near future, our strong recommendation is that you take a look at an amazing deal that currently is being offered by Pukka Websites and the Pukka Stash! This deal will not be around for ever – so click here and grab it while you can.

Effective from 21st April 2015, Google will be placing considerably more emphasis on mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. The change will affect all mobile searches globally, irrespective of the language used, and undoubtedly it will have a significant impact on search results. It will be much easier thereafter for cell phone, tablet etc. users to receive high quality search results that are optimized for their device.

The change should eliminate situations where users looking at search results on their mobile ‘phone are presented with pages where the text is too small, links are tiny and/or too close together (making it difficult to select a particular link) or you have to keep scrolling sideways to see all of the content of a page. These situations are all too common when a website is not mobile-friendly.

Google plan to roll out the change globally over the coming days. Website pages will be considered mobile-friendly by Google if they meet the following criteria:

1.They avoid the use of software such as Flash which is not commonly used for mobile devices.

2.The text on the pages can be read without having to zoom.

3.The content of pages is sized to fit the mobile screen without the need for horizontal scrolling or zooming.

4.There is sufficient distance between links to allow the desired link to be easily tapped without accidentally hitting a different link.

You can check if your site is mobile-friendly by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Websites that do not meet the requirements are likely to be drastically downgraded in Google’s rankings and suffer as a result.

(Courtesy of Pukka Websites – https://pukkawebsites.com)