Why Open Source is the Best Shopping Carts System

The advantages of open source are numerous. In fact all the top shopping carts system on the internet are opensource, wothout exception. Due to the many number of contributing developers, opensource shopping carts are more stable and come with more features than all the alternatives.

Paid advertising has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

Guaranteed position in the search results. You determine your position in the search results by bidding against your competitors for a top position. Thus you can mainatin your position on page one and receive constant traffic.

Instant traffic for your website. By bidding high enough that you are placed on the first page for your selected search terms, you are guaranteed instant traffic to your site. Page one results get the highest exsposure.

Disadvantages:

The high cost of online advertsing is a big stumbling block. Advertising space on the first page of the search results is limited and the number of online stores is increasing daily and this is increasing the competition for limited space and as a result driving up prices.

Low conversion rates. Each time a person clicks on your add, it costs you money. The amount of paid clicks that it takes to generate each sale is usually very high and this drives up the overall cost per unit and often leaves the store owner with very little profit.

Using search engine optimization techniques, you attempt to acheive a first page listing in the search engines natural results as opposed to the paid results. There is no charge for natural results and you can still get your online store onto the first page of the search results of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc...

Advantages:

Low cost. The natural results are free. Search engines do not charge a fee to get listed in the natural results. However you will need to spend a small amount of money on the process involved in getting into the natural results on the first page. Compared to paid advertsing methods, the cost of seo is very very small.

Results that endure. Rest assured that the many hours you put into acheiving a first page result will not be wasted. Use strong SEO techniques and you will maintain your position for years. Once the hard work is completed and you have acheived a top results, you are only required to tweak your site ocassionally to maintain your good positioning.

Disadvantages:

There are no instant results with seo. Unlike paid for advertising, where you are guaranteed instant traffic, seo takes time and effort.

No guarantee. There is no guarantee that your SEO efforts will acheive a first page result, however it has been proved that SEO is a very effective technique that can acheive first page results and has assisted hundreds of thousands of sites in gaining the edge over their competitors.

Your cart has many features that will assist you in your SEO campaign. These features are all availabe in your admin panel and are mostly automated.

1. Add custom meta title and description tags to your products and product categories. Search engines read your title and description tags to determine the main theme of your site. By setting these tags, you ensure that your pages are displayed for the correct keyword searches. You may enter a custom title and description for each product or use the automation feature to fill all product page meta tags with a single click.

2. Article and information page manager. Writing fresh and pertinant information and articles for your site is one of the best ways to acheive a high level of on page optimization. Search engines rely on your sites text to determine your keywords. Write articles about your products, services and industry and attract users that are seeking information on your products. Use your keywords in your articles to enhance your results and you will have a better chance of standing out from your competition.

3. Each product page url is optimized so it can be easily read by the search engines. additionally, the product description is added to the url.

4. All important information such as product and categroy titles are placed in html header tags.

5. One click sitemap generation. Each time you add a new product to your store, a new product page is created that can be crawled by the search engine spider. A sitemap effectively enures that all your pages are found and indexed by the search engines.

The above techniques alone will not ensure a first page result, however they are definatley indespensible as part of your SEOtoolbox.