ozEworks has been trialling its new support desk which uses qdPM in the last few months. We’ve now upgraded to the qdPM Extended version and will be implementing it for all support.

Blogging may make you a writer. It does not make you a journalist. Read how a New Jersey court rules that blogger is not coverted in the same way a journalist is …

ozEcommerce was selected as the Cart of the Week by PracticalEcommerce. In their article you can read about ozEcommerce from ozEworks perspective as well as from one of our major customers SouthernImperial.com.

Have you checked your reputation mywot.com? If not then have a look at this FireFox plugin that could be driving customers away.

A new email scam is going around telling people their Authorize.net account has expired and you need to log in to renew. Don’t.

WordPress has released 2.9 and announced 3.0. Is what was a simple CMS being a Microsoft-like behemoth? Could be.

Project Honey Pot reports its billionth spam email and gives us insights into spamming in 2009.

Add Google Commerce Search to your site to improve your product search and filtering tools. You only have to pay them based on the number of products you have and the number of searches your customers do …

Google will soon be adding tweets to search results. So should you Tweet?

Due to a security issue, all WordPress sites are urged to upgrade to V2.8.5. Unfortunately not all plugins are yet compatible …

osCommerce Twitter

If you are a Twitter user or even just blog, shortening your URLs is a must. TinyURL.com is a leader in the field but who else is out there and should you use them?

Before you rush to draw new customers through greater SEO efforts, how about looking at the potential customer who is about to walk out the door?  If it was a real store you’d be out there saying “Can we help you?”. 
Just because you are an online business does not mean you can’t or shouldn’t.  While pop ups inviting people to chat can annoy customers, saying nothing at all can be worse.
So before you decide you need to do even more SEO how about improving your customer service tools?  Apart from a prominent, ideally free, phone number and detailed contact us page, what about tools like Online Chat, Remote Cart Management, Simple Q&A Forums?  
If we told you they can increase sales by 10% or more would you do it?

Seth Godin talks of Fitting in vs. standing out.  As a kid, if you move to a new school, survival usually means fitting in.  On the Internet, survival means standing out.  And, as he says “Standing out is trickier”. Why?  Because you cannot control who your neighbors are.  So how can you stand out from them?  Simple.  Before you do anything online, develop an SEO Strategy.  Before you even register a domain name.  Before you even bother to think about functionality.  Before you even dare think of design.  Before you even install osCommerce. Think “how is anyone going to find me?”.  Think “how will I stand out in the search engine results?”. Once you know that, then worry about the rest.  Because it’s all  driven by your SEO Strategy.  If you don’t have one, get one.

As an off-shoot to the newly released findings by the Neilson Company about Video Viewing, we discover just how long people spend surfing the web each day …

Internet Explorer 8 was released on 18 March 2009. Have you checked your site looks right and works probably under this new version?

We all have plans to invest in our online businesses.  The thing is, they’re on hold, right?   Who can afford to spend money in this economy?  When sales improve and budgets loosen up, then you’ll implement those plans.  I hear you.  Trouble is while your plans stalled, others shifted gears.
Let me tell you a secret only website developers know.  Your competition are busy updating their websites … now!  They are investing in SEO to increase traffic and site redesigns to increase engagement and conversion to turn that new traffic – your customers – into  their customers.   While you’re blocking the box, they’re changing lanes.