When it comes to payment gateways, it’s pretty much a guarantee that they tend to be confusing to just about everyone!

Just a few quick examples of the confusion that payment gateways tend to cause to start things off:

• The small business owner knows that she needs a great website—but hasn’t given any thought on how she’ll actually conduct and process e-commerce payments online.  “What does it take to get this done,” she asks.

• The successful local sandwich/lunch place wants to add online ordering and delivery capability to their existing website—but they haven’t even considered that adding online payment capabilities really isn’t exactly web design; it’s a bit more in depth than that.

• The design guru you’ve hired to create your new mobile portrait photography service’s website (that just happens to be your cousin-in-law’s nephew) is recommending you use PayPal to collect your sitting fees online as a deposit on the session.  He doesn’t fully understand payment gateways though—PayPal is all he knows how to do and you’re not sure if this is the best way to go or not.

Simple, everyday scenarios like these happen all the time.  “I need to be able to accept online payments on the site—just do what you need to in order to make it happen.”  Sound like something you’ve heard…or perhaps were just about ready to say?

Well, if you’re not overly familiar with how online payment systems, and specifically payment gateways, actually work, please read on.  We’ll try and cover the basics as concisely—but clearly—as possible.

First Up…What Exactly Is A Payment Gateway Anyways?

Simple.  A payment gateway is the link between a website or an online storefront and the owner’s merchant account.  It’s what handles the collection of financial payment information and passes it along—securely—to be processed.  Once processed, the funds are placed within the merchant account at the bank.  Now this is a condensed version of what actually takes place in the whole process (and how long it actually takes to happen), but in a nutshell, it’s what makes online debit and credit card payments possible.  If there’s one thing to remember here, the takeaway is that if you want to accept online payments, you’ll need a gateway to connect the dots and make it happen.

What’s The Difference between PayPal & A Payment Gateway?

Many folks consider PayPal to be a payment gateway—and in a way, it can be—but when you’re just setting up the basic PayPal payment form or PayPal shopping cart on your website, this is not actually a payment gateway.  It does accomplish the task of exchanging funds from one party of the transaction to the other, but technically, PayPal is a third-party payment processor.  In other words, they receive the payment, settle it, and only then pay you (after fees are deducted)—it’s simpler for some, but it also removes a major degree of control and neutrality from the overall payment process.  The takeaway is this:  There are pros and cons of PayPal—and we’ll discuss them in detail a bit later—but the basic PayPal setup is not really a payment gateway; there are major differences.

Starting to see that payment gateways are a complex topic, and by all means, a component that we all need to understand as much as possible about in order to run a great E-commerce website?  Okay then, we’re out of time for today, but as soon as you’re ready, be sure to check out Part 2 of What You Need To Know About Payment Gateways.

Let’s be clear right from the start…building your new site to be compliant with all of the latest proven Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technologies is vital to your success drawing in targeted, free, organic traffic from the search engines.  Anything less than paying full attention to on-page and on-site SEO is negligent from a visitor-building perspective.

But There’s So Much More Than SEO Alone.

Great SEO, and an ideally optimized and architected website, will help your site prosper.  In a way, getting this right really does lay down a rock solid foundation to success.  It’s the foundation to build upon.  But this is just the beginning.

Also extremely important to attracting visitors is your content strategy.  Whether it’s your existing content—written and otherwise—or the new content that will work best with continual ongoing creation, your content is ultimately what draws visitors in.

Here’s the thing—the SEO just helps the search engines scour your content and helps the visitors find it.  Without great, relevant content, there’s really not much to optimize or for visitors to see.  And this kind of rules out “optimization” when there’s nothing on the site to optimize and organize in the first place!

So, What Makes Good Traffic-Driving Content Then?

First and foremost, quality traffic-driving content is created with a plan.  Some just write new content all the time with a scatter-shot approach—and they might even get lucky and have a few pieces of content that get picked up and highly ranked with the search engines.  But in the real world, the chances of this just “happening” are slim to none.

You’ve got to plan out your content development strategy to great depths in order to increase your chances of finding success by statistically dramatic results.  This involves doing in-depth keyword research to find hot topics to build around.  It involves planning out the categories of your website to be focused and helpful to your visitors.  And if you can stick to a niche with your topical focus…the tighter, the better.

There are countless resources available on the web regarding content planning and development.  Some systems out there cost money, some don’t.  The common thread here is that all too many “systems” promote spammy content development tactics—which in the long run will do you way more harm than good.

Once you’ve found the planning strategy that works for your website (and your style), it’s important to get on a regular schedule to keep the new content streaming to your site on a frequent basis.  One thing that search engines and human visitors alike tend to agree on is that stale, outdated content is simply not worth their time.  So, keep your website up to date and fresh.

Over deliver to your visitors and out-do your competition with your content.  The way most sites underperform these days in this department, it’s not all that hard to gain the edge.  You’ve just got to write so you become the most helpful resource there is on the web for your niche—if your visitors look at ten sites about your topic, you want to be the one out of ten that they bookmark and come back to.  It’s a lofty goal, but one that’s both very achievable and worth the effort.

How Do You Over Deliver This Way?

Well, chances are, you’re already an expert at your topic (your niche).  You’ve just got to find away to pass your knowledge along in order to attract the attention and trust of your visitors.  If you need help, you might start by searching for 10 or so of the most applicable search terms that fit your site.  Look at the sites within the first page search results (not necessarily the Wikipedia listings or Fortune 500 companies that show up—but the smaller companies, organizations, and personal resources that show up among them).  Ask yourself:

• What do they have in common?
• What kind of information are they providing for this search term?
• And most importantly, ask yourself, “How can I provide even better, more helpful information?”

If you do this, you’ll see right away that you can definitely create better content than so many of your competitors in the search engine listings.  In fact, it’s almost too easy!  And the best part is the fact that search engines and visitors alike absolutely love unique, home-grown content.  Think organically and try not to produce overly “corporate” content unless you must.

Follow these tactics, and in harmony with your website’s solid SEO foundation, your content will push you over the edge when it comes to driving organic traffic.  It really works!

There was a time and a place for Flash and websites.  And while it has had a good run, unfortunately, Flash websites and video are just no longer very relevant in today’s existing web environment.  The reasons for the change are numerous—but more on that in a few minutes…

The good news is that there is a very viable and sensible replacement for Flash that’s pretty much in the final stages of going mainstream.  This technology is called HTML5 and is loaded with great new innovative features:

• It’s open to developers (free from the costly license fees).
• It’s easy on system resources like battery life and CPU demand.
• Great deal of flexibility when it comes to embedding video.
• New APIs like document editing and drag and drop functionality.
• The ability to use a much deeper list of fonts than traditional web development allows.
• And much, much more!

Even better is the fact that HTML5 has been endorsed by the big league players in the game, which should give it the boost and nurturing it needs to become a bonafide replacement for what Flash is now so commonly used for.  YouTube and Vimeo, two of the web’s most popular video streaming sites, are beta testing HTML5 right now, as they plan to replace their existing Flash-based videos with this new technology—it just doesn’t get much bigger than this.  Hopeful and encouraging news indeed!

So now let’s look back on the reasons why Flash is simply no longer an ideal solution.  Ready?

It’s expensive to work with. Specialized developers are required to work with a costly software environment to build Flash-based applications.  Enough said here.

It’s not mobile. The debate on the exact reasoning that Flash doesn’t work with the iPhone’s Safari web browser may not have been completely settled…but regardless of whether it’s Flash’s requirement for extensive processing power and battery life or it’s all about the licensing fees, one thing holds true—it still doesn’t work with the iPhone (or with the newly released iPad either).

It’s not SEO friendly. Even though Google does a better job now of understanding Flash-based websites than ever before, the bottom line is that sites that are entirely developed with this platform are still not SEO friendly at all.  HTML based sites are much more compatible with the search engines.

It’s not usability friendly. Flash sites cause all kinds of issues when it comes to usability.  Most of the time, simple copy and pasting is eliminated—which can really annoy savvy internet users.  Countless other display and compatibility problems can also stem from this form of web development.

It’s buggy. Because it works a little bit differently depending on the exact web browser, operating system, and hardware setup it’s being used on, the potential for a buggy situation is high.  It’s really difficult to determine if what looks and works great in the initial development environment will actually come across even remotely the same when a website visitor actually sees it on their device.

So, it’s time for the next wave of web multimedia technology to become a reality.  Hopefully HTML5 will take the reign as the new development standard!

Building a house and building a website are surprisingly similar in concept.  For example:

• Both should be based on a solid foundation.
• Both need to be created from the ground up, not from the top down.
• Both take a lot of hard work and attention to detail.
• Both are created with a particular group of features in mind.
• Both are based upon a design and building budget.

The concept is indeed very much the same.  So here’s the thing—you wouldn’t start building a house without blueprints, would you?  So why try to start building a website without planning it out first?

To start building a website without a well designed plan is a surefire way to produce chaos and drive the development expenses through the roof.  The final results may or may not turn out, but getting there in the first place is practically impossible without a plan.

So, what should a website blueprint consist of then?

Well, the plans for your new website need to encompass all of the components and designs to be used throughout the site.  These will normally include:

• A specific keyword use plan;
• The navigational structure to be used;
• A wireframe layout of the “schematics” of the site;
• Detailed design drawings;
• Sub-plans for additional website components like CMS or E-Commerce;
• Specifications for SEO functionality to be built into the website;
• Provisions for the code structure and hosting platforms to be used;
• And many more details.

Architects & Engineers

Architects—or in our website case, web designers—are naturally responsible for the overall design work and making it aesthetically correct.  The architects of a website are also on the frontline when it comes down to ensuring usability and providing for a first-rate visitor experience from the time they enter the site until the time they leave the site.  Just like designing a quality home, there’s a lot of work that goes into the design phase of a quality custom website—it’s a vital part of the overall project.

And then there are the engineers.  Engineers are typically called in to get the structural components of a construction project under wraps.  Just as they’re a significant part a the technical prowess that goes into traditional construction, engineers—in this case software engineers or programmers—are the ones that make sure the designer’s plans are structurally sound.  It is these programmers that figure out how to code and implement the design of the website and turn it into a functional, usable product.

Website Plans Pay Off

Planning first, and only then building a website according to the precise blueprint, is simply the most logical way to undertake a complex, multi-faceted project.  Precise planning pays off in countless ways—most prominently when it comes to ensuring a project will be completed on time, according to schedule, and on budget.  Remember, you wouldn’t start building a house without blueprints, so why try to start building a website without planning it out first?