The first step is to create 2 new web pages on your site; they can be a very simple design, but they need to have 2 specific messages – one page is a confirmation or “thank you” page for a successful transaction, and the second page is a message that states the transaction was officially cancelled.  PayPal has recommended text they prefer you to include on these pages, and they should both mention that the user can revisit PayPal.com for more information about their transaction details.  When you finish creating these 2 pages, write down the complete url of each and set them aside.

Now, login to your PayPal account at www.paypal.com, which we assume is already setup as a business account and verified.  Once you are in, click on the Merchant Services tab. The method we will be using is the Website Payments Standard.

Click on the Buy Now option or Add Buy Now Button. As you continue to fill out the form in the next step, mkae sure the Buy Now button option is selected.

Enter an Item Name that is brief but descriptive for referencing your service on emails and in the PayPal order history. The Item ID can be a shorter reference name or an actual SKU code you usually use for your product.

Specify the price of your item or service. For this tutorial we will assume there is only one flat rate for your single product.

Skip downward to Shipping and specify another flat rate there, unless there is no extra shipping charge.  Next, enter the sales tax rate if applicable.

On the next question, most merchants stick with “use  my PayPal email address”, but you may choose the newer option of using the secure merchant id.

For simplicity, we will skip Step 2 options and move onto Step 3. 

In most cases I recommend enabling the option for Do you want to let your customer change order quantities? to Yes, to make ordering multiple items very easy for your customer.  If you are selling a service that does not need any shipping or delivery like a tangible product, I recommend setting shipping address to No.

A little further down, check the box beside Take customers to this URL when they cancel their checkout…
And type or paste in the address for the web page you created with this message. The address must be the entire path including the http:// at the front.

Do the same for the next field but remember to use the “confirmation” web page, indicating a successful payment has gone through.

Finally, click Create Button. 

On the last page, highlight all the code in the Website box and paste it into the HTML code of your web page, where you want the button to appear. Save your webpage and upload it to the server.  Test out the button yourself first by visiting the page in a browser and checking to see that it does direct you to PayPal.com with the appropriate payment amount and product description.

Well, not really, but they do have equally important roles when you’re viewing a web page. In order to understand this, you need to know the difference between client and server side technologies.

Client side: Anything that occurs via the user’s computer and web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, etc).

A Popular Example: Javascript

Server side: Anything that occurs on the web server before it appears on your computer.

A Popular Example: PHP

Javascript and PHP are two of the most popular examples of client side and server side functionality. When you download a webpage to your web browser, your web browser is basically receiving a file in HTML format and using the HTML code as instructions to display the website. While it may seem like you are “constantly connected” to a website, you’re actually just viewing a premade document on your computer that takes a fraction of a second to download.

If your website is using any Javascript, the effects are being executed by your web browser, and are considered client side. This is because your web browser is simply downloading a file from the web server and the web browser is executing the Javascript. The actual web server has nothing to do with the functionality other than allowing your web browser to download the files.

If your website is using any PHP scripts, the effects are being executed by your web server, and are considered server side. This is because your web server is doing all the information processing. In the case of PHP scripts, it is executing the code on the web server and outputting HTML code for your web browser to download and display.

Do server side and client side functionalities have to be exclusive? Absolutely NOT. In fact, some of the most intuitive functionality for websites comes from tactful use of both server side and client side technologies.

Example:

Let’s say you’re a photographer and you want to have customized photo galleries for your customers. You could accomplish the customized galleries with PHP web pages that are programmed to only show pictures to a specific user that is logged in. Then, you can use Javascript effects like the popular “Lightbox” effect to give your gallery a dynamic feel that is more intuitive to navigate.

Gone are the days of the internet belonging to the geek elite. It’s a common pitfall to think of the internet as a “magic box”. The key to using the internet effectively is knowing a little about what’s under the hood. By knowing the difference between what is going on client side and server side, you can put together the perfect mix of functionality and usability that not only displays information, but actively engages your visitor. It all comes with the mastery of developing the type of flawless user-experience that WEBii has been showcasing since its inception.

It is possible to have a better balance of Flash with other web content, such as a simple top banner followed by mostly text and basic optimized graphics. However, we also have other options with new technologies that allow us to create some of these same basic effects with faster loading, lighter weight code.

Increased loading time and excessive animation lends to poor SEO, since search engines are challenged in reading these kinds of websites.

Remember to consult your web designer for advice before planning an elaborate presentation.

1) Seamless User Experience

Did you know that the average internet browser spends a whopping six seconds on a web page before they move on to another one? Every second of your visitor’s experience is a tooth ‘n’ nail fight for their attention. If your blog is hosted separately from your website on a third party service like Blogspot or Wordpress, your visitor needs to be directed away from your website when they visit your blog. This creates a functional interruption as they leave your webpage, thus taking your traffic away from your website, even if it is to your blog, because it is hosted on a third party service.

If your blog is hosted along with your website, but not custom themed to match your website design, it creates a visual interruption, and the sudden interruption in visual theme throughout the site could cause your visitors to reflexively leave your website (think about the sudden visual change that pop-up adds and on-site advertisements cause).

2) Search Engine Optimization

The content that you publish through your blog is the cornerstone of your website’s online marketing potential. Blogs are commonly used as an easy way to promote interactivity within a website and publish useful content to which other people on the internet will link. If your blog is hosted by a third party service and NOT integrated with your website, you are putting your online presence at a huge disadvantage. By integrating your blog into your website, your blog content will be living on the same server as the rest of your website files. This makes it easier for Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and other search engines to index your content and properly attribute all your hard won search engine traffic to your website.

By integrating your blog into your website, you take a simple online publishing tool and turn it into an invaluable online marketing hub through which you can grow your online presence and seamlessly promote interactivity with your business both on your website and throughout the world wide web.

The above example shows the Search Engine Result for the Google Translate page. Notice that they included a relevant description of the page in the title as well as a brief description of what the page offers.

The key with these META tags is to think of them as your billboard on the Search Engine Results Page. The META Title is the headline that grabs peoples attention and the META Description is the short summary that draws them in.

Here are a few tips for working with your own META title and META description tags:

META Title:

• Give each page a unique title
• Make sure the title is relevant to the content on the page
• For maximum compatibility with all search engine make sure your META title is no more than 65 characters
• Think of this as the heading to your “billboard” on the Search Engine Results Page. Try to make the title enticing to the searcher.

META Description:

• Give each page a unique description
• Make sure your META description is relevant to the page and is enticing to searchers
• For maximum compatibility with all search engine make sure your META title is no more than 155 characters
• Think of this as a short advertisement. Engage the searcher with action words.

Websites used to be as simple as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) code embedded in a single file per page. While this was great for simplicity, it didn’t do much in the way of functionality. The pages could only display one static set of information per page. In today’s current version of the internet, one web page can display a variety of different information depending on what the user inputs. These types of websites are known as dynamic websites because they dynamically generate the web pages each time a visitor visits a page, using a set of data that is retrieved from a database.

Here is an example of the way a static HTML page works:

1) You type “www.example.com” in the address bar of your web browser, and your web browser sends a request to the server of “www.example.com” for the contents of the web page.

2) Your web browser downloads the content of the home page at “www.example.com” in the format of an HTML document.

3) Your browser reads this document, and then displays it in your web browser as a web page.

The way a dynamically generated page works is a little different. Let’s take this blog as an example. This blog runs on a popular blogging platform called Wordpress. The Wordpress software uses a combination of PHP code and a mySQL database in order to dynamically generate web pages. PHP is a server-side scripting language, which means that all the processing is done on the web server, as opposed to a client-side script like Javascript that runs on your local machine. The short explanation of mySQL is that it stores data on a database server, which can be retrieved through a series of “queries”. If you would like to know more, you can read about it here: mySQL

Here is an example of the way a dynamically generated web page works:

1) You type “www.webii.net/blog” in the address bar of your web browser, and your web browser sends a request for the contents of the web page.

2) The page “index.php” runs its PHP code on the web server, which includes mySQL queries for information from the database. This includes a query of the “latest posts” which Wordpress stores in the mySQL database. The “index.php” file finishes running its code, and it outputs the result in HTML.

3) Your web browser reads the HTML output of the PHP file, and then displays it in your web browser.

Either way, your browser still receives and displays HTML information, but the manner in which it is retrieved is very different. The “index.php” file can put out different results depending on the user input. When you click on the “about” link in our blog’s navigation bar, you are actually calling the exact same “index.php” file, but this time the page is dynamically generated to display the “About” information that is stored in the mySQL database. Neat, huh?

Dynamic websites are not for every one. If you simply need to display a couple of pages of text and images, then sometimes bare bones HTML pages can suffice. If you need something better for your organization or business (or even just your personal website), dynamically generated web pages can be designed to give multi-tiered security access, allow you to update your web page from anywhere on the web, and many other powerful features that can turn an otherwise uninspired website into a full blown online presence, a tool to help you get things done.

ISES Austin Blog Design

Have you heard? Blogger, a popular community blogging tool, has discontinued FTP support.  What does this mean? It means that you will no longer be able to publish your Blogger blog directly to your website – you will be forced to migrate to a “blogspot” address instead.

Never fear, there are other options.  Your web developer can install a blog software like Wordpress in your website hosting space, and even design a custom theme to match the blog styles with your website or other marketing materials.

WEBii has quite a bit of experience designing customized blogs.  Feel free to ask us if you don’t know where to start.

When you hire a professional web designer / web developer, you are getting more than just a beautiful website design; you also gain the knowledge of that professional, which may include web marketing strategies, what types of layouts work best, what types of features your typical customer desires to see, how to make your website more efficient, what practices to avoid that might annoy your web audience, how to design the website with clean code that will attract search engines, and how to convert your visitors to customers.

There are a lot of neat “do-it-yourself” tools out there, but taking on an important marketing project for your company on your own – without all that expert knowledge – could actually hurt you.  What if you unknowingly use a photograph that was copyrighted?  What if you try to add some simple features and the code you used exposes your site with a major security bug?  What if you implement a feature that your mom thought was cool, but your ideal customer hated?

All of these headaches can be avoided if you spend your dollars wisely, on an established professional web design company.