OFBiz Tutorials - Google Instant Effects on eCommerce

OFBiz tutorials blog reviewing the implications of Google's latest web browsing platform, Google Instant. So far this new search protocol is up and running in America, Russia and Western Europe. With this platform, Google has taken their search tips to another level. Basically, any keystrokes placed into the search bar are updated in real time, with new results popping up with each additional character entered. Clicking search or enter is no longer necessary as the results are already displayed. Another factor in this type of search is geography. Depending on where you are located, you will receive whatever Google has deemed the most relevant search results for your area under any given search.

This new protocol has been analyzed By Tom Krazit in a CNET review as follows:

“Instead of search as an outcome, Google is trying to get people to think of search as a process in which you constantly refine your query without actually ’searching,’ or hitting the button to produce a concrete result.”

Google claims that this has not altered the search ranking process and in fact states that this will increase user searches based on Google Instant's ease of use. This however brings up many questions to the SEO community and ultimately enterprise eCommerce companies that depend on targeted searches for reaching new customers.

Google instant has the potential to distract customers into clicking a link after just a few key strokes. Say for instance that your company dominates the keyword "Medical Supplies" and receives the bulk of it's business from this specific search. Now with Google Instant, a company can come in and try to dominate a keyword such as "Med", "Medic" or even just "M" to have their medical supply store pop up earlier in the search query. The more complicated the search phrase, the more potential for distraction.

Google Instant has the potential to cause severe competition for single letter searches or partial word searches. This takes web search to a dynamic level, introducing a time component into what up until now has been competition for vertical positioning.

Enterprise eCommerce companies would be wise at this juncture to closely monitor their web site's metrics, noting any trend that could indicate a degradation in site performance. New methods will need to be tested and Google's auto-complete keywords should be optimized for. Work closely with your SEO advisers to ensure that you don't fall behind at this critical juncture.

As always, high ranking isn't the only factor that comes into play when attracting new customers. Equally important is having a professional, enjoyable and user friendly website for potential customers to land on. This is where HotWax Media can help with our top of the line enterprise eCommerce sites using Apache OFBiz.

OFBiz Tutorial - Verified Agile Expanded

OFBiz Tutorial from HotWax Media further detailing our Verified Agile Process. This is a project management process that can efficiently bring any task to fruition. At HotWax, we are striving to enhance this process in order to make useful to a broader spectrum of clients.

Our Verified Agile workflows are similar to the standard workflows found in Agile implementations. However, we have improved on this standard Agile process by utilizing technology in order to bring projects to a global team. By not restricting projects to geographic proximity a team can be made up of the most qualified individuals from anywhere on the globe. Traditionally, meeting face to face is the most effective but in our day and age it is no longer feasible. With the internet, we have entered an age of globalization where people choose to live in one area and work on projects in another. This trend is only going to continue which is why management processes like Verified Agile are so necessary.

Enterprise eCommerce projects using Agile's processes will take your projects to the next level and Agile's processes are too valuable to be wasted because the project team cannot meet in the same location. Thankfully, technical innovation is giving us the ability to utilize Agile on a global scale without losing productivity. In order to ensure that projects are staying on track, we've added additional processes and tools to Agile workflows in order stay firmly on track.

In subsequent posts I will expand on details of the process methodology behind Verified Agile. This new technology will open up the door for better and more successful projects.

OFBiz Tutorial - Getting Started with OFBiz

OFBiz tutorial offering a brief overview of why OFBiz is the best option for enterprise eCommerce and ERP and how you can get started.

OFBiz is a community driven open source software project from the Apache Software Foundation. The nature of OFBiz is that it is not run or developed by a commercial entity or dependent on intellectual property. Due to this open source nature, OFBiz is able to be exactly what the users who support and contribute to the project want. OFBiz is created and modified based on user wants and needs. It conforms to the user rather than the user conforming to the software.
Users can contribute to the OFBiz project in a number of ways. Total involvement includes contributing as a developer. This means becoming involved in design, code, testing and collaboration. This helps a user to create their OFBiz experience in-house without having to depend on outside developers.

Partial involvement keeps users aware of the new developments in the OFBiz community and involved in testing but not responsible for development. This is a less involved user experience offering more time to focus on other aspects of their company.

Low involvement means that an OFBiz developer designs and implements a users system based on their needs. This creates a scenario where the user can focus all of their attention on the business end of things while professional developers handle the software infrastructure.

Enterprise eCommerce powered by Apache OFBiz is a powerful and valuable tool for any organization that wishes to do business on the web. HotWax Media is a trusted OFBiz developer that can assist companies with whatever level of involvement desired. Call us today to find out how you can get started 888-405-2667.

OFBiz Tutorials - Page Rank

OFBiz Tutorials article where we will take a moment to discuss the importance of SEO and page ranking for your enterprise eCommerce system. HotWax Media designs eCommerce platforms for a variety of businesses who sell goods and services on the internet. These systems include everything a user would ever need for a fully functional and viable enterprise eCommerce platform. This however is only part of the battle, the second is the ability for your potential customers to easily find you when shopping on the web.

Marketing strategy and site design go hand in hand. One won't work without the other. For instance, you have a highly functional enterprise eCommerce site, a quality product line with competitive pricing, great shipping options and everything else your target consumer is looking for but sales are flat. This is where SEO comes in and makes your product visible to the market place.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is the tool that companies across the web are using to ensure that their efforts are profitable. The field of SEO has many intelligent and ambitious professionals, but just like any industry, there are also those that will take your money for little or no work. Having an awareness of the various nuances of online business marketing will help a company to successfully navigate these waters.

The basics, page content, file names, title tags, meta tags, user friendly navigation and so on will get your site a good start. Now the trick is to monitor site performance without it distracting all of your efforts.

An obvious indicator of success is profits. However, SEO takes time and a campaign may need to run for several moths before project results are realized. By beginning with Google PageRank, you will be able to monitor effects of your SEO campaign and see that you are moving toward your marketing goal.

Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page describe PageRank as "a model of user behavior" in their article, "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine". They go on to state, "We assume there is a "random surfer" who is given a web page at random and keeps clicking on links, never hitting "back" but eventually gets bored and starts on another random page. The probability that the random surfer visits a page is it's PageRank... a page can (also) have a high Page Rank if there are many pages that point to it, or if there are some pages that to it and have a high PageRank. Intuitively, pages that are well cited from many places around the web are worth looking at."

So now, how does one raise the PageRank of their site? Basically by coming up with a targeted campaign of building links that compliment the content of your site. The strategies employed are varied in their execution. The main thing is when going into an SEO campaign, you have a specific goal in mind and a well structured plan to get there. If the person running your campaign cannot provide you with this then you may want to look for someone else. There are no absolutes in page visibility, but ensuring that a plan is well constructed and understood by everyone involved will help get you the best possible results. It must also be noted that any SEO work is not finite. Keeping your site placed high in the search engine takes constant attention. You can be guaranteed that the competition is working just as hard as you to corner the market.

You can measure PageRank by visiting websites such as http://www.prchecker.info/.

Enterprise eCommerce is a highly competitive marketplace. The web has a limitless potential for customers and creating growth for a company. HotWax Media creates top of the line eCommerce web sites and marketing packages. Contact us today for more information!

OFBiz Tutorial - Verified Agile Introduction

OFBiz tutorial discussing HotWax Media's upcoming innovations for project management for your enterprise eCommerce concern. Any eCommerce website and business has a lot of moving pieces and variables involved. By structuring projects in an effective and economical manner, you will be able to maximize your potential throughout the electronic marketplace.

I will be starting a series of articles that cover project management from start to completion. These posts will describe how HotWax Media structures it's projects in order to deliver efficient and successful results. This process is called Verified Agile, deriving from Agile roots and with the ability to solve two issues common to businesses who wish to use this method. First, the difficulty of proximity or needing to have all those involved in the project at the same physical location. And second, lack of confidence in such a dynamic process.

We will discuss topics covering problems we have solved for our clients and how important it is to have clients integrated into the process. We will cover what tools we have at our disposal that enables us to have the process run smoothly.

Enterprise eCommerce is becoming widely accepted as the future of buying and selling. The companies that offer the most efficient and cost effective methods are those that will lead the economy. Let the professionals at HotWax Media help you to accomplish this!

OFBiz Tutorials - CMS Pages Part 2

OFBiz Tutorials series covering the use of the OFBiz Content Management System (CMS) for front end application static pages. In this post we will cover how to set up CMS driven static pages for a website.

We will go over the following four points:

• Setup for Website Publish Point
• Setup for Decorator Content Data
• Setup for Static Content Data, and
  
• CMS request in Controller
  

In this post we are assuming that you've already set up a "cmsdemo" component following the steps in my previous post about CMS static pages.

Website Publish Point | OFBiz Tutorial

To set up your website publish point in data follow the below example using "CmsDemoData.xml" as the file name.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

Review the code at the following url to make sure you have the webSiteId entry in web.xml for your application.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

Ensure that the webSiteId entry in web.xml of your application is using the following.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

CMS Site Main Decorator | OFBiz Tutorial

The content data setup is referring to the decorator screen for a given static page.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

The main decorator will be set up as follows. Of course, more resources can be added but for the purpose of this tutorial, very little information is included.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

For setting up the cms-main-decorator screen you will use the code below. note: the following code includes the main decorator of the site given above.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

Decorated Content Freemaker Template | OFBiz Tutorials

Now we will need to create the DecoratedContent.ftl included in the cms-main-decorator at a given location by the same name with the code shown below. This code is set up by the cms event and rendered.

${decoratedContent}

Content Data For Static Page | OFBiz Tutorials

Following the code below, set up the content data line. This will use section-sub-content pattern and the decorator content that we've already created. This is an example of a privacy policy page.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

Controller Entry Creation | OFBiz Tutorial

To handle CMS page requests, we'll create request entries in controller.xml.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

Links to CMS Pages | OFBiz Tutorial

The following code will link your CMS page with a menu on your web site.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

That's it! Now load the data file you created in the CMS site data. Go to url: http//localhost:8080/cmsdemo/control/cms/root/privacypage base on the ContentAssoc record we created earlier.

(to view code for this exercise, go to: http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/apache-ofbiz-blog/category/ofbiz-tutorials/page/3/)

Now you will see a privacy policy screen resulting from the above exercise.

Using this tutorial, you can add as many pages as you want that are static and easy to update in the Content Manager without modifying code.

Enterprise eCommerce using Apache OFBiz offers businesses a leg up on the competition. With the ability to reach a broad marketplace, numerous shipping options and ease of purchasing, you can poise your company for expansion in this new and exciting business environment!

OFBiz Tutorial | Intellectual Property vs. Piracy

OFBiz Tutorial reviewing the impact of intellectual property piracy and how it affects the enterprise eCommerce industry. Over the past several years there has been rise to many file sharing and torrent sites where a user can download content for free, basically stealing intellectual property that the owner would normally charge for. The ensuing battle between those who own this media and those who steal it has led to a complicated system of laws that seem largely ineffective.

This war is leading to many advances in methods of digital content transfer. In theory there are legal safety nets that protect the media industry. On the ground though, consumers are offered simple and free ways to download content vs. paying for it. Now paying for it may be the moral alternative, but very often the bureaucracy behind payed content keeps many items from being readily available and again leads individuals back to piracy.

The bottom line is that not every person who illegally downloads content is a black hat hacker who wants to put one over on the man. They simply want their media and they want it in an efficient and available way. If these means were made available by legitimate organizations, chances are that people would pay.

Another instance is that people are unwilling to pay the prices asked for digital content because of the significant savings a digital content provider realizes in production costs. Paying off the shelf prices for digital media doesn't add up to the average consumer.

Below is a quote from Jerry Kirkpatrick, a professor of International Business and Marketing at Cal State Polytechnic.

“Message to the innovative marketer? Either drop the price of the new product or produce a cheaper version — or be the first to exploit a new technology, something the movie and recording industries chose not to do. Many, including these two industries, would rather sue than practice good marketing.”

This quote sums it up perfectly. Take for instance the increased popularity of pirating television programing. Most people simply want to view the content and the only way to get it is by pirating downloads. This could easily be solved by a la carte cable channels, easy to use on demand, etc. The bickering back and forth between networks and companies like iTunes makes programs unavailable and piracy the only alternative.

Of course this is in no way meant to justify piracy, only to illustrate that there are some very real and serious flaws with legitimate media download sites and the companies that copyright the media. From an eCommerce standpoint, pirated downloads are an indicator of media demand. Most individuals would rather buy things legitimately than steal them so there is an indicator that the industries involved are either charging to much, making the content too difficult to obtain, or both.

Enterprise eCommerce businesses, manufacturers and marketers would do well to heed these market signals. By developing new strategies and business models can open the door for a booming and legal digital media industry.