Each month we profile a client that is operating a successful e-commerce site in our newsletter and blog.  This month’s company is Russell Rhodes,  located online at RussellRhodes.com.   Russell Rhodes is a seller of customized and personalized Christmas ornaments, many of which are original designs.

Russell Rhodes is happy to extend a special offer to receive 25% off all personalized ornaments using the following coupon during checkout:

Coupon code: 25WN0810
Offer: 25% off all personalized ornaments
Expiration: Aug 31, 2010

The following is an interview with Denys Slater, President of RussellRhodes.com:

When did your site launch?  Give us a brief history of your business.
We launched in 1997.  We sell over 2,000 unique and custom personalized Christmas ornaments, many of which are original designs by Russell Rhodes.

How long have you been using Miva Merchant?  WebNet Hosting?
I used Miva Merchant once around seven years ago and I didn’t like it.  I tried it again last year, thought it was much improved and I now use it on over eight websites.    I have been with WebNet for about six or seven years.

If applicable, were you using Miva before you switched to WebNet?  If not, what made you switch?  If so, what made you signup with WebNet?
I was looking for a robust shopping cart software that could handle a lot of custom data fields, as everything I sell is personalized.  Nothing involves just a “add to basket” button.  I switched primarily to leave a suppressive, horrible, unfriendly company called Dydacomp and their shopping cart called Sitelink.

What do you like most about Miva Merchant?
It has the power to handle a lot of customer data input very well via attribute fields.

What do you like most about WebNet Hosting?
The service and help desk have been absolutely amazing.  I have NEVER had an experience even half as good as WebNet Hosting.  WebNet is the fifth hosting company I have used in nine years and I have every reason to believe I’ll never need to go anywhere else.  Seriously, I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to get a technical question answered at 1AM right when I need the answer.  The longest wait time I’ve ever had in the peak of the day has been 40 seconds.  Every need has been met and it’s really the people at WebNet that make it what it is.  PJ and Vincent have been invaluable to me.

What do you like least about Miva?  What are some common problems?
It’s still very “1990″ in terms of uploading data.  You can’t upload categories, headers, footers …  the list is long.  Even when you take into account all the modules out there, nobody makes a module to upload all info (for example: categories).  I have two different modules that upload various parts of categories, but nobody makes a module to import the category images.  So, I have to go hand code the image paths x 180 categories.  Very antiquated in terms of data upload.

What do you like least about WebNet?  What would you change?  What features would you add?
Seriously, the only thing you could add would be a personal masseuse while I am speaking with tech support.  I’m joking, of course, because I don’t have the slightest complaint about anything.  I can’t find one.

How many items do you offer for sale on your site?
I have nine Miva websites with WebNet Hosting.  I’m adding two more over the next two months.  All together, I offer over 5,000 products.

What Miva features do you use most?
All my %^&(* modules.  Without them, I couldn’t use Miva at all.

Which are your favorite modules and why?

I couldn’t live without toolkit and the prod and cat templates.  However, without the other import utilities, I still wouldn’t use Miva.  I simply can’t enter 25,000 pieces of data by hand.

Have you had any third-party development done on your site?
Yes.  I’ve taught myself html and a little php, but I couldn’t find a book on “Miva script” so it was a better use of my time to hire someone.  But even that was difficult.  There were not a lot of “Miva coders” clamoring for my business.  I felt lucky to find two very good ones.

What do you use for credit card payments and what have your experiences been?
MasterCard and VISA.  I won’t pay Amex fees.  I added Paypal and, as expected, sales went up 20%.

How many employees do you have?
Eight of my nine websites are seasonal for the Christmas season.  So from January through August, there’s one employee — me.  From October through December, there are usually about fifteen people working in various capacities.

What are your strategies for SEO?
You’d have to hire me as a consultant.  My main site is PR6 and ranked in the top 2 spots for over 100 keywords.  All other sites are the #1 page for their dozen or so keywords.

What were some of your biggest mistakes? (so that others can possibly learn from them)
The biggest mistake I made was paying an SEO firm $500/month for 10 months until I fired them.

What have been your biggest successes?
Deciding to do my own SEO.  Studying Google’s algorithm for 700 days.  I did a lot of live site testing, with the final result a close approximation of their mathematical model for ranking sites.  And then continuously testing and following SERPs over time because Google’s algorithm is dynamic.  And so are their penalty models.  In the end, it’s a big math formula, and I’m amazed in hindsight how much “opinion” there is about a math formula.  In the end, it is only and utterly math.  Brilliant math, but still math.  This means it can be understood by anyone.  There’s no need to have a “professional opinion” about what Google will like.  In addition, listening to what Matt Cutts says on video or writes in his blog doesn’t hurt either.

Take the time to peruse the inventory at RussellRhodes.com today!

One thing that we can all be sure of is that viral marketing works and it works very well.  In this age of high-speed communications – when a message or video can travel around the world multiple times in a matter of minutes or even seconds – advertisers have to learn to use that to their advantage.  Viral marketing is not just for the big fish either.  A viral marketing campaign does not have to be expensive or expansive and can be utilized by businesses of any size.  The campaign need only be creative, catch the attention of its audience and spread around the Internet like wildfire thanks to people referring others to the campaign.

This referral process has become even easier nowadays with services like RSS Feeds, social bookmarking, AddThis or ShareThis, Twitter’s “retweet” function and Facebook’s “like” and “share” buttons.  You no longer even have to forward an email or send a message, a user of a social network like Facebook or Twitter can simply click on a “Share” link and send the viral marketing material to all of their friends, fans or followers.

The first component of the viral marketing process is the actual creative material itself.  Will you use a picture, article, video or text?  Something as simple as the headline of a news article can be viral on the Internet.  If you can think of a creative way to promote your products or services that will strike a chord with people and make them laugh, cry, feel inspired or any other emotion then they will want to share what they have seen, read or heard with their friends, family, co-workers, neighbors or any others in their social circle.  Then the web of content sharing has begun and it’s “gone viral.”  It is truly amazing how fast something can go viral online and spread throughout the world in a matter of minutes.

After you create the viral campaign then you must “seed” it by planting it at strategic places on the Internet.  There must be a distribution network to get your campaign to the masses so you need to figure out what online mediums will work best for spreading your marketing to the masses.  Perhaps you start with making a video, uploading it to YouTube and sharing it with your Facebook friends, your newsletter mailing list and any other contacts you might have.  Then you can use social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. for a further reach.

If you strategically and intelligently use viral marketing techniques in your e-commerce business then you should find them an effective promotional tool.  Viral marketing is a tremendous way to build a ton of links in a little amount of time.  This is great SEO practice for your business and can help you climb up the SERP (search engine results page) in no time!

The definitive goal of SEO is to move your site to the top of the SERP, thus increasing traffic, page rank, visibility and conversions – otherwise known as web presence. As research has proven, increased sales are the direct result of a strong web presence and what company wouldn’t want to boost their sales? SEO is primarily accomplished by building quality organic backlinks through various methods such as article marketing, directory listings, press release distribution, e-newsletters and signature linking on blogs and forums.

The meta tags (title, description and keywords) of a web page are also key elements that search engines use in order to categorize and rank web pages. Most times, these tags remain invisible to the visitors of a site because they are in the head section of the HTML document. Meta tags provide information regarding page content and consist of keywords describing the page’s subject matter. In-depth keyword research is at the heart of a successful online business. Utilize Google’s Keyword Tools to figure out the best keywords for your site.

For the owners and operators of businesses operating on the Internet, especially those carrying a vast array of products and/or services, creating exclusive meta tags for each and every item/page can be a daunting, lengthy and drawn out process. The Miva Merchant Shopping Cart simplifies this procedure and consequently, gives the online entrepreneur more time to focus on the actual operation of their business.  In face, Miva Merchant is regarded as the most customizable shopping cart software on the market.

With Miva Merchant 5.5, you can attribute unique descriptions, keywords and titles to the bulk of your pages by simply editing three page templates. These templates are known as Storefront, Category Display and Product Display. By utilizing these templates, you can save time, headaches and ultimately money.

The Storefront template allows you to create and easily apply the most effective meta tags and title for your home page. On the other hand, with the category and product display templates, you can quickly and painlessly create and apply tags and descriptions to all individual product and category pages.

It is imperative to use the most searched for words so that page rank can improve and traffic to the site can grow. This will, in turn, lead to higher sales. Always remember that finding and using dynamic keywords is a crucial component of the SEO process.

Each month we profile a client that is operating a successful e-commerce site in our newsletter and blog.  This month’s company is Youngevity,  located online at Youngevity.net.  Youngevity is an authorized distributor of a line of healthy mineral supplements created by Dr. Joel Wallach.  The following is an interview with Christopher Scruby of Youngevity.net:

When did your site launch?  Give us a brief history of your business.
Originally we started on the web in 1995 writing natural health articles and marketing products for Dr. Joel Wallach (of “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie” fame).

We did not even have a shopping cart then. At that time it was phone in only and needless to say it was a slow process. We built our first websites with Notepad. There were few service providers that were stable at all and would crash constantly with nonexistent tech support. It was hard to keep a business up and running.

How long have you been using the Miva Merchant Hosting services from WebNet Hosting?
We found Miva in 2004. But we did not use it right away, mainly because our old host was having trouble making it function.

We moved our first site to WebNet in September of 2009, and then in December we moved our entire web presence to them.

So you were using Miva before you switched to WebNet?  If not, what made you switch?  If so, what made you sign-up with WebNet?
The hosting company we were with was not really able to support Miva well and minor problems became disasters. The site was not able to stand without constant intervention, sometimes offline for 24 hours or more. It was not a good way to do business online; totally self-defeating. We spent weeks working on the site to finally see orders coming in then it would stop, only to discover that the site was down and my last host was clueless as to how to fix it. Finally, we were out of business during Christmas and our old host was moving the server (during Christmas)? This was too much and it was then we found WebNet to be the best solution.

My hat is off to PJ and Vince of WebNet, who took a disaster (my Miva storefront), moved it, fixed it and had it running in 24 hours.  Actually, they moved two Miva storefronts. One was damaged and we had a hard time getting the files to make the move. We would have lost a year of work, not to mention Christmas sales revenue, if the WebNet team had not jumped in to fix it so quickly.

I cannot say enough about the WebNet crew! They are PRO and they respond quickly when I need them and seem to have the right answers. I have never seen this type of instant service in 15 years on the net.

What do you like most about Miva Merchant’s shopping cart software?
I like the Miva interface mainly because it is predictable in form and function. Once you get the learning curve behind you it becomes second nature to make modifications.

Making mods is well supported in the forums and if you do make mistakes, it is easy to revert to a copy that was working before.

Making product changes is not a big hassle as the fields are well defined and you do not have to be a tech guru to update product data on the fly. For us, this is crucial since we offer about a thousand items and they change all the time. Miva makes this so easy to manage that even our non-tech staff can update product data with little hassle.

What do you like most about WebNet Hosting?
This all comes back to the point, we were doing ok before WebNet, we stayed in the game but there were always problems on our site that would make it tough for us to grow. Plus, we had no real solid tech support to point us in the right direction. We are finally able to show a consistent growth of sales and revenue starting from the time we came to WebNet until now. We are having one highest ever monthly profit after another.

It is the same site, what is the difference? There has been minimal disruption of service for one thing. These servers are very stable and I always get immediate response from support. WebNet’s servers are fast; this translates into customers not leaving because of slow response.  A hidden benefit of fast servers is that search engine spiders will get deep into your site where you want them, as the time a spider stays on one site is short and limited by design. I can compare this activity to my older logs and see that there was nowhere near this much activity by the spiders before moving to WebNet.

This is key to being in business on the web. Speed of service, stability, durability of service.

How many items do you offer for sale on your site?
We currently have about 800 different products from 14 different product lines with more to add.

Do you use any modules?
Just the show basket and the mini basket. We try to keep the site as simple as possible because it seems as though our customers are more interested in getting right to the point which is getting their product ordered securely, rather than shopping on a flashy site.

Have you had any third-party development done on your site?
No, we have been hands on since the start in 1995. It makes more sense to me to be able to keep hands on rather than count on a “would be” developer to keep it updated for you. I have seen that go far astray of what is considered optimal in managing a site.

What do you use for credit card payments and what have your experiences been?
We have always handled credit card payments in house and never had problems.  Then again, we are still old school in that area. We have always taken security very seriously in this office and work behind layers of firewalls and limited access to our processing system.

How many employees do you have?
We have a small crew here of less than ten team members so everyone has overlapping functions.

What are your strategies for SEO?
First and foremost, I don’t spam the head tag with unrelated tags and keywords. Also, I spend time daily studying my logs to see keyword trends. Don’t make the mistake of guessing what people are searching to find you. Always remember that trends change and if you are not paying attention you will be yesterday’s news. Also, write real content (articles with some real meat on them) and never ever copy another person’s articles — having duplicate content is a sure path to page 1000 on the results. Furthermore, follow the Miva Forum for SEO tutorials because one can always glean new insight from the Pros.

What were some of your biggest mistakes? (so that others can possibly learn from them)
Read the SEO section above. Those lessons were learned through painful experience. Also, as you can see, the wrong hosting provider can do more damage to your online marketing efforts than you could ever possibly imagine. It hides out there as a hidden “WHY” things are not happening for you. If you are not on top of it you will be out of the game before it starts. Make sure the host is not limiting your bandwidth or dumping you on an overloaded shared server with a spammer that keeps getting your whole IP block banned for Viagra ads. You laugh — but it happens frequently! Don’t cheap out on domain services. We had a few heart stoppers in the early days with domain registration services. Go ahead and register your site for at least five years just for piece of mind. We had a (not to be mentioned here) cheapo registrar that actually gave my prime domain to my competition over the phone. So save the heartache. Spend the bucks with a reputable service.

What have been your biggest successes?
I guess the biggest success has been that I am still here doing this business online after starting from scratch with a 33mhz computer, 4megs of ram, two 20 meg hard drives, Windows 3.1 and a 1400 bps modem that was so slow, I could put coffee on and get the kids ready for school in the time it took to load a web page and download the email, providing it did not crash … 15 years ago!

Finding WebNet was a stroke of luck and for the first time I have been able to get back to building new sites and upgrading my existing sites, instead of constantly having to deal with crisis management. The professional hosting environment frees up a lot of energy one could waste on substandard providers, which by their nature are a risk due to incompetence.

Thanks for everything, WebNet! I feel we have finally arrived!

Take the time to visit Youngevity.net to learn more about their healthy mineral supplements and Dr. Wallach’s ideas!

Online business operators have a tendency to forget that the company hosting their store is the foundation of their business and a successful business needs a strong and reliable foundation. When looking for a web host, remember that finding the company with the cheapest price is not the goal. Paying a higher fee for better service and more dependability is ultimately the smartest decision. Conversely, the most expensive company is by no means going to be the best either.

When launching a new e-commerce business, finding the best shopping cart hosting for your needs can be a tremendously daunting task. There are simply so many web hosts out there and it is a tiresome and grueling process to separate the good guys from the bad. Many folks looking to start a website begin by checking out web hosting review sites and directories. On these sites, you can read what clients have to say about their current and former web hosts.

When searching for a host, do not be suckered into buying into gimmicks. Things like “unlimited” plans may sound appealing but there is really no such thing as “unlimited.” When a company says unlimited, that means that your site will be generally placed on an overcrowded server where you will be forgotten about. It’s important to research the history of the company and find a reliable host that is not trying to use sneaky marketing tactics to gain customers.

Your Host Dramatically Impacts the Performance of Your Store

There are a variety of major ways that your web host impacts the performance of your online store including:

1. Uptime and Downtime
2. Technical Support
3. Site Speed and Page Load Times
4. Management of your account including data, email, backups
5. Virus Protection
6. Defense from Hackers and Malware
7. The ability of your hosting to grow with your business (you should be able to increase hard drive space with one quick, simple call)
8. Your host should aid with the technical aspects of accepting credit card orders, including setting up a payment processing system.
9. Hosts should help you find developers or Miva Modules to make your site function properly.

No Such Thing As Good Downtime

Choosing a reliable web host and the correct plan for the amount of traffic your site will generate is of the utmost importance to the success of your online business. Site uptime and downtime are perhaps the most important components of how web hosting affects an online store’s performance. Downtime can really break an online business quickly.

Simply speaking, when your site is down and inaccessible then customers cannot make purchases and you cannot make money. Furthermore, potential customers cannot peruse your site. Let’s face it – people shop online to save time and money. If your site is continuously down then you will not be able to make it in the competitive marketplace of the Internet.

The industry standard for web hosts regarding downtime is a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Never sign up for a hosting package that does not guarantee at least 99.9% uptime because this will surely negatively impact the performance of your store. To put it in more practical terms, with 99.9% uptime, your site should never encounter more than around 45 minutes of total downtime per month.

Sometimes there might be a situation where your server has a critical error and your site may not be online for 99.9% of the month. In any such case, it is your host’s responsibility to credit your account with the pro-rated amount you owe for that month’s charges.

Quality Support is a Must

Reliability and good technical support go hand in hand. When choosing a new host, make sure that they have an excellent support staff. When you first call them, go with your gut instinct. Do they sound knowledgeable and easy to understand? Are they polite? Ask detailed questions and make sure you get well-informed responses. You want to have the comfort of knowing that in any instances of malfunction your issues will be resolved quickly and correctly. A solid web host will have email and phone support available 24/7/365.

Looking, feeling and operating professionally are critical components to running an e-commerce business. Having a sub par web host will toss professionalism out the window rather quickly. It is imperative to establish trust between you and your customers in order to successfully sell online. Customers will not feel safe spending their money with a site that seems unprofessional in any manner.

A Speedy Site is Essential

Another manner in which your web host can impact your store’s performance is your page load times. This can even affect your ranking within Google and the other search engines as they begin using site speed as a factor to determine page rank on the results pages. Having fast load times is imperative not only for the sake of ranking well with search engines but to make your customer’s happy. No customers like a slow site and chances are that if your site is not performing well, they might just click on over to your competition.

A Solid Web Host + A Good Business Model = Happy Customers + Success

Unsatisfactory web hosting can directly impact the customers of your store. Therefore, it is imperative that you choose a quality web host that will not play a part in your store functioning inadequately. Studies have shown that approximately fifty percent of consumers will leave a preferred site if they are experiencing technical problems. All it takes is one unhappy customer to begin the process of bringing down your business. If a customer is not happy the following results could occur:

1. They may never return to your store as a shopper again (this is especially traumatic to your business if they are repeat customers)
2. Word of mouth is a big deal. Unhappy customers have big mouths and they will most likely vent their frustrations with others.
3. A dissatisfied customer may leave a negative review regarding your business on a forum, message board or review site. One bad review can stick with you and your business forever so you must go to all lengths to avoid them. If it does happen, be proactive about it and try to squash it as soon as possible. Try to explain your side and apologize to the customer (remember, the customer is always right). Offer the person a discount or their money back to appease them. With today’s social networks, news travels fast. One tweet could go viral and your brand and image can be quickly tarnished.

WebNet Hosting provides fully PCI Compliant Miva Merchant Hosting and have been a Premier Partner Miva Host since 2004.

If done properly, there are a few basic practices you can follow to make your site more friendly to the search engines and thus rank higher for certain keyword phrases when users search for them. Being at the top of the search engines for your target keywords is a make or break factor for the success of your business.

There are millions of websites in existence and there could be thousands competing for the keywords you want to rank highly for. The Internet is a very competitive marketplace so it is vital to stay on top of the current SEO trends. Not being recognized by the top search engines can be very frustrating, especially after putting a lot of work and money into creating and designing your website.

Each search engine uses a different algorithm to conduct their searches. These algorithms are kept secret by the companies and are always changing but there are numerous people in the search industry whose jobs consist of attempting to deconstruct these algorithms to figure out how the engines rank pages.

The first thing you will need to do is figure out what keywords you will be targeting as your site’s search terms.  There are several tools to aid in discovering keywords such as the Google Keyword Tool.

In order to increase your web page’s rank in the search engine results:

Keywords:

• Remember that content will always be king. Fill your web pages with relevant information that will help visitors – search engines love this.
• Fill your content with your target keywords but don’t overdo it! Do not stuff your content with your keywords. This is known as keyword density. Make sure that you have no more than one keyword hyperlink per 100 words of content. If the pages of your site contain relevant keywords to a searcher’s search phrase then your site has a higher likelihood of appearing on the results page.
• Be specific with your keywords. If you are selling “Men’s Nike Air Jordans” target that phrase not “Michael Jordan shoes.
• When choosing keywords, put yourself in the shoes of the searcher. What would you search (WWYS)?

Meta Tags (Title, Description & Keywords)

• The title tag is what appears on the top of your web browser. For SEO purposes, you need to use your first targeted keyword at the beginning of your title and try to describe what your website is all about In 10-15 words.
• The keyword tag consists of the list of keywords you have put together in your market research. Search your competitors websites and see what keywords they are using than rank them in order of relevancy from first to last.
• The description tag is a short explanation about the content of your website and its topic. Keep this under 20-25 words and try to use at least three to four target keywords. This is what users will see on the search engine results pages under the link to your site.
• For the best SEO results, edit the meta tags for each page of your website to match the contents of that specific page.

Submit Your Site to the Search Engines:

• It is a quick and painless process to submit to the top search engines. Simply visit the links below and fill out the appropriate forms:

Google
MSN
Yahoo

• You should probably also submit your website to the DMOZ.org directory. It can take a few months to get listed but it is a great SEO technique and most sites listed in the directory get higher priority in the search results over sites that are not listed.

• Patience is a virtue when it comes to submission. It can take days or weeks for the search engine spiders to actually crawl your website.

Build Links by Submitting Your Site to Directories and Niche Websites:

• The more meaningful links from high ranked websites linking to your site, the higher your search rating. However, this does not mean you should practice “link farming” or paying for links.
• The best way to be featured in directories is to make a profile with a link to your page.
• Article marketing is another very valuable SEO tactic. Write articles with keyword hyperlinks pointing to your page. Other sites are happy to have quality content and you obtain linkage so both sides win. You will also see direct traffic from these links which will help your site gain popularity.
• Link building is a time-consuming process that takes time to see the results so again – be patient!

By following these simple SEO tactics, you can raise your ranking in the search engines!

The Miva Merchant 5.5 SEO features will help any e-commerce merchant rise to the top of the ratings.  WebNet Hosting offers fully PCI Compliant Miva Hosting.

Featured WebNet Hosting Site for June 2010

AGardenPlace.com

Each month we profile one of our clients that are operating a successful e-commerce site in our newsletter and blog.  This month’s company is A Garden Place located online at AGardenPlace.com.  AGardenPlace is a small  garden boutique in Southern California that specializes in selling all the products you could possibly need for a garden.  The following is an interview with Diana Hall of AGardenPlace.com:

When did your site launch?  Can you give us a brief history of your business?
We have been in business since 2002. It sprung from the belief that your garden should make you smile. One of my creative outlets is gardening and I have always loved interesting gardens. Not boring patches of fence lined grass, but fun gardens that make you stop and take it all in.

Our test garden is a fun stroll through tree-lined paths dotted with colorful kid size hobbit houses, fountains, kinetic garden art and visiting wildlife.  Visitors always loved hanging out there and slowly over time, a business was born…

How long have you been using Miva Merchant?  WebNet Hosting?
I have been using Miva Merchant since 2005. I switched to WebNet Hosting in 2009 after countless problems with my former web host almost destroyed the business.

So you were utilizing Miva Web Hosting before you switched to WebNet?  What made you switch and why did you choose WebNet Hosting?
Yes, Miva had come bundled with the previous web hosting company’s plan. It was the only shopping cart I had used. I really wasn’t looking to start from scratch with a new shopping cart so when it was time to move my business, I needed a web hosting company that was very familiar with Miva. WebNet Hosting came highly recommended within the Miva community forum.

What do you like most about Miva Merchant?
Miva and its developers seem passionate about their product and constantly work to make improvements. I like that a link to the Miva forum is built into the Admin panel. The forum is very active and a great way to find answers as well as stay current on bugs, fixes, patches, etc.

What do you like most about WebNet Hosting?
WebNet Hosting has been great. The move was easy. The few glitches were handled promptly. I have experienced 100% uptime, super fast page loads and excellent in-house support.

What do you like least about Miva?  What are some common problems?
Miva Merchant 5.5 out of the box is ok, but many features require buying additional add-on modules, which drives up the cost. Miva has it’s own coding language which can be daunting to learn. In the past, SEO was a challenge. Admin did not have a way to handle phone orders. I am looking forward to the soon to the new Wombat version which addresses many of these lacking features.

What do you like least about WebNet?  What would you change?  What features would you add? VPS hosting is great. I would like to see more allotted disk space and bandwidth transfer. We approached max bandwidth transfer last month.

How many items do you offer for sale on your site?
We  offer 300+ garden décor items such as gazing balls, toadstools and handcrafted gnome doors. Spring gets people into garden cleanup. Our current top seller is called Ever Edge, which is a heavy duty steel lawn edging that can be mowed over. We also provide information on where to buy 1000’s of other garden products.

What Miva features do you use most?
I use the shortcut buttons in admin to view orders, delete shopping carts, manage inventory.

Do you use any modules?  Which ones?  Which are your favorite and why?
We use modules that make shopping easier for our customers. Breadcrumb navigation, mini basket display, coupons and product ratings are a few. Most are from Emporium Plus. William Weiland provides outstanding support and prices his modules fairly.

Have you had any third-party development done on your site?
No, everything has been done in house with improvements based on customer comments.

What do you use for credit card payments and what have your experiences been?
We use Authorize.net.  Our experience has been great. Pay Pal and Google Checkout are also available.

How many employees do you have?
Just a handful (if you cut off a couple fingers ). Actually, I designed a small business I can enjoy, rather than just manage employees.

What are your strategies for SEO?
We use natural search and good quality link referrals. We focus on optimized pages with short, descriptive links, external CSS, fast loading pages, frequent page updates and Google sitemaps.

What were some of your biggest mistakes? (so that others can possibly learn from them)
Mistakes have been a big part of the learning curve. Most of the early mistakes involved poor web design and shared web hosting. Some other mistakes involved bad code, use of flash, failure to account for browser differences, useless link exchange pages – that kind of thing.

What have been your biggest successes?
Growth and survival in a tough economy. Happy customers and great working relationships with top notch vendors.
Make sure you visit AGardenPlace.com to peruse all of the items they offer for sale!

If you are the operator of an online business and not yet taking advantage of Miva Web Hosting then now is the perfect time to transfer.  With the new “Wombat,” Miva Merchant is now officially a PCI PA-DSS (Payment Card Industry, Payment Application – Data Security Standard) certified shopping cart application.  The deadline for PCI Compliance is very rapidly approaching and all e-commerce sites must comply with the DSS guidelines by July 1^st, 2010.  If an e-commerce website processes and stores credit card transactions and/or other private information then they must utilize PCI Compliant Miva Hosting and all payment applications must adhere to the PA-DSS.

Non-compliance with the rules established by the PCI causes websites to risk increased merchant fees and penalties, termination of merchant accounts, costly fines and even being completely shutdown.  Many shopping carts and e-commerce hosting applications are not compliant with the new DSS, especially carts that are considered “open-source” and lack the funds to go through the certification process.  This is bad news for those operating e-commerce websites that use shopping carts that are not certified.  The risks of non-compliance, highlighted above, are a very really threat to the livelihood of online storeowners.  If your site is not compliant with the new DSS because you are using a shopping cart that is not certified, then now is the perfect time to transfer.  July 1^st is very rapidly approaching and your business could be severely and detrimentally impacted due to non-compliance.

Other features of the new Miva Merchant “Wombat” include:

• Advanced order processing tools
• Innovative inventory management
• Updated, user-friendly CSS interface
• Dynamic pricing
• Ability to take phone orders from the admin panel
• Improved SEO capabilities

The new CSS UI is beneficial for the e-commerce operator in many ways.  It increases functionality of websites by truly separating a site’s content, code and physical appearance.  This new feature allows users to change the visual elements of their website without modifying the way in which it functions, which decreases the chance of a site breaking and not performing to its best ability.  With the new UI, a better site and administrative layout is created providing users with a modern looking and functioning site without any costly or time consuming development.

The cutting-edge, new Miva Merchant Wombat truly takes the online store to the next level.  With this release, Miva Merchant solidifies itself as the leader in customizable online shopping cart software.

How did you get started in the Miva Merchant community?
I was Vice President of Operations and Marketing at a national health products company. We decided to add online shopping to our static website, and our host happened to offer Miva Merchant as their e-commerce solution. As a new user, I signed up for the Miva Merchant user list (now a forum). I started out asking questions, then, as I learned more, answering questions from other users. Finally, people started asking if they could hire me, and I started a part-time consulting business. A few years later, in 2003, I went full-time.

What made you get involved in the creation of tutorials?
As a Miva Merchant consultant, I kept getting the same questions from clients over and over. Recognizing a pattern, I bought screen capture software and started creating tutorial videos to answer the most common questions. It saved me a lot of support time and allowed my clients to be less dependent on me for many tasks.

Word got around about my Miva Merchant tutorials to users who were not my clients. People asked me if they could watch the videos, so I came up with a subscription plan that allowed me to expand the topics and create more professional tutorials.

What role do you think social media plays in the e-commerce industry?  How do you think that those running online businesses can use social media to their advantage?
I am a social media addict. I use Facebook and Twitter constantly. However, I have my doubts that many e-commerce sites would benefit from the time it takes to manage social media accounts. It takes real commitment, engaging your connections, not just blasting out promotional posts.

For those willing to put in the time and effort, there are three ways I can see benefiting from social media:

1. Being accessible. While the big companies are completely out of touch, with almost no desire to engage their customers, a small e-commerce business can build true customer loyalty and word of mouth marketing through honest engagement. Additionally, you can get fantastic ideas for new products, product improvements, and marketing techniques. Step out of your ivory tower and you’ll be amazed at how much your customers want to help you.
2. Tech support and complaints. If I can send a quick question via Twitter about a product I purchased, and get an answer within a few hours, I will be impressed. If I complain, and I get a sincere response, I’m even more impressed.
3. Promotions. People are not too fond of obvious promotional posts in social media. However, every now and then giving an exclusive discount (coupon code twittertuesday, for example), builds interest in your updates and gets you onto special follow lists.

What role(s) does blogging play in the current web 2.0 landscape and how can blogging as well as applications like Twitter and Facebook bring a personal touch to businesses?
One major benefit of blogging is having constantly updated content on your site, leading to SEO benefits. Another is providing information that builds loyalty and trust. If you reveal yourself via blogging and social media, as long as you’re not a jerk, you will generate loyal ambassadors for your brand. If you are a jerk, stay far away from social media!

I’ll take this opportunity to give some e-commerce advice. Unless you have a proprietary product with high demand and no competition, you must differentiate yourself from the bigger online stores. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to tell your story. Most people would prefer to do business with a person instead of a corporation. Personal photos, in depth stories, family references – all of these things can be done with a blog to build a reason to shop on your site versus Amazon.com.

Could you tell us a little more about your role with the popular Practical eCommerce magazine?
I founded Practical eCommerce Magazine. I used Kerry Murdock as my publisher. Even before the first issue was published, Kerry offered to buy the magazine from me. I sold it and helped with the first few issues. I wrote most of the first issue, half of the second issue, and some of the third issue. Eventually Kerry decided to discontinue the printed magazine and focus on 100% online content. It’s quite popular and I’m proud of my part in its creation.

What are your roles at the Miva Merchant conference?
I don’t have any predefined roles. At several conferences I taught a breakout session or two. At the recent 2010 conference I was asked to be the MC. I also moderated a guest panel and demonstrated the new Wombat version of Miva Merchant. I hope to have continued involvement in future conferences.

How do you see Miva evolving over the next few years?  How has it changed since you began working with it?
In the beginning, Miva was a barely-funded startup. Support was minimal as staffing was always below what would be required to properly support the product. But it was a good enough product to be worth the trouble.

Miva was then bought by a company named FindWhat, which turned out, even with the additional funding, to be a terrible fit. The product lost a lot of users and community support.

In 2007, the current owners bought Miva Merchant. Support increased dramatically, the product was greatly improved and the community became much more motivated. Miva Merchant 5.5 is light years ahead of the previous versions due to considerable investment in a complete platform redesign.

As far as the future, I believe Miva Merchant will follow a path similar to eBay, Skype and Salesforce.com, from a small company serving a tight-knit community of users, to a mainstream corporate software leader. With the software getting easier to use and the company providing services historically offered only by third party partners, the need for a user community to support each other is decreasing. The result will be either Miva Merchant becoming a large full service company like Volusion, or the company being acquired similar to Monster Commerce’s acquisition by Network Solutions.

What advice would you give someone who wants to start their own Miva store?
That’s a simple one. Be prepared to spend some money to get started. People wrongly believe they can start an entire e-commerce business for 500 bucks, mainly because of misleading ads from GoDaddy and Yahoo. The reality is, if this will be more than a hobby, if you’re serious, it’s going to require a minimum investment in the thousands of dollars. Get an experienced consultant to help, and do it right. Or, if you don’t have a big enough budget, spend what you have on some nice new clothes or a short trip, because doing e-commerce halfway is worse than not doing it at all.

Why choose Miva over other shopping carts (either hosted or open-source)?
I wrote a blog post, 10 Reasons Why I Prefer the Miva Merchant Shopping Cart: http://www.chucklasker.com/10-reasons-i-prefer-the-miva-merchant-shopping-cart/575/

How has your blog helped you generate business?
Anyone who has been involved in the Miva Merchant community for a long time can probably remember my entrance to the community. Instead of a forum, there was an email user list. When someone emailed to the user list address, everyone on the user list got a copy of the email. When someone responded, everyone got that one, too. This led to a lot of emails each day, as well as some lively discussions.

With this user list, I made waves by criticizing Miva (the company), loudly stating my opinions, and fighting off the old-school leaders of the community. I made people angry, but everyone knew me as a person who says what he thinks. I learned that notoriety and honesty can make an impact. My initial clients all said it was because of my willingness to criticize that they were interested in working with me. They trusted me. And by working to earn continued trust, I built a business.

I said all that to say, for me, a blog is a place to build a reputation. Combined with other social media, people can truly get to know you.

What challenges do you see facing the world of e-commerce now and in the future?
In the beginning, long long ago in the late 90’s, a small company was able to compete with the big companies cheaply and effectively online. This is no longer the case. As with anything else, the big companies have found a way to push costs up to exclude smaller entrants from making a dent in their businesses. And that just means us smaller guys need to be more creative, faster to react to market changes, and more engaged with our customers to succeed. This, I believe, is the challenge of the moment, and will remain so for a few more years.

If I tried to give an opinion about what is going to happen with the Internet beyond 2 or 3 years, I’d be showing myself to be a fool.

Can you tell us some of the reasons behind your success?
Even though I’m not rich, I do consider myself successful because I’ve been able to do what I love for over seven years with no boss. I can pick and choose who I work with, and I have never had to seek out new business. I credit this to doing something at all times, keeping myself out there and working continually. If business is slow, I look for opportunities to help others. I believe this creates a karmic response that leads to good fortune from sources I could not predict.

How has the recent economic downturn affected your business?
When the economy is slow, businesses must choose where to get the most return for their investment dollar. For example, they can spend four grand on a Yellow Pages ad, or they can invest less than that to hire a developer to create or rework their online stores for increased sales. More website work equals more developers needing help equals more subscribers to MerchantTutorials.com! In other words, the downturn has been good to me.

What can we expect from Chuck Lasker in the next five years?
I have no idea. I have learned to write my goals in sand, knowing that, working hard in one direction usually leads to unexpected opportunities from other directions. I could not have told you in 2005 that I’d be anywhere near where I am today, professionally. Hopefully, by 2015, I will be able to say that I am just as surprised and delighted by where I’ll be as I am now. If that includes a lot of beach time, all the better.

If you order before April 30th then you will receive an additional $50 off your purchase!!

For the first time ever, the conference will be available for purchase on a six set DVD series.  This is perfect for those that attended and would like a refresher course or for those that simply could not make it out to San Diego.

The DVD set consists of all six of the keynote speeches, all break-out sessions and every PowerPoint presented over the long weekend.

Highlights from the conference included in the DVDs are: