Website Development Versus E-Commerce Site Development

There's a big difference between developing a standard website and developing an e-commerce website. Not every Web developer is an e-commerce site developer. The difference between developing a standard website such as a personal home page and a corporate information site (what's known in the trade as brochureware) is that the unique selling position (USP) of a business is designed into the e-commerce site while it's being created.

Let's explain. When creating a normal, noncommerce website, the developer works from a standard set of pages, such as a home page, an about page, a contact page, and content pages. When this same type of Web-development process is applied to an e-commerce site, the Web developer throws in the product or service pages and a shopping cart to store and process orders. How the e-commerce site will be marketed is an afterthought, examined after the e-commerce site is developed. The selling position is not built directly into the design of the site.

Free Info

Download the free informative article titled "Seven Sins Virtues of eCommerce" at www.easy-yahoo-commerceMyEcommerceSuccess.com.

In many cases, unless the Web developer has knowledge of selling, the site isn't put together from an e-commerce standpoint: The home page is just a description of the company and its products. The product or service pages are not written with an eye to closing a sale. The copy of the different Web pages themselves is not optimized for search engines to find the site. Content and community pages are not used much outside the product or service pages to promote the products or services. Little attempt is made to exploit external marketing, and no internal marketing is used.