help needed on shipping fees and meta tags...

[naditaliacongusto]

Hi Guys!!

we just started our e-shop 1 week ago...and I do need some advice.... :idea:

1 - I cannot set up a correct formula to calculate our shipping fees basing them on : country where the order will be delivered and on total weight of the order. We're actually putting courier charges as a forfait, but I would like to be more precise....any help would be much appreciated!!!

2 - how can I have a chance to get listed in search engines ?!?!? I put some meta tags in my pages but, there again....I'm not sure they're right...

feedback or help on these two items will be more than welcome :D :idea:

cheers ! :wink:

[Ozzy]

Hi Nadia,
1.
Work out the shipping formula on paper first, thats always the best place to start.
Break the countries into shipping zones, each with its own shipping rate, then base the shipping costs to each zone on weight (preferrably). Your courier will be able to help you with this if you have one.
Once you have the formula on paper it then becomes a lot easier to build it into your ecommerce application.

2.
Getting listed well in the search engines is down to time and effort. The META tags dont have the weight they used to, its more down to the title tag, website content and the number of people who link to you (relevant links from website with a similar content theme to yours are much better). Choose 5-6 main keywords for each page of your website and try to focus those pages on those keywords - and try to keeo the whole content for your website to one theme (subject).

[DotNetWebs]

Hi Nadia

I second what Ozzy says regarding shipping fees etc.

Regarding search engines I would say that your biggest problem is the way your sites uses frames. All of your product details are buried within frames making it difficult for search engines to find them.

If you want to get good rankings I personally would not bother with meta tags but would:

1. Restructure the site without frames.

2. Ensure each product has a unique page with a title tag and content describing the product and a URL that also contains the product e.g. italiacongusto.com/products/plates/venice-sunset-plate.html etc.

For a great example of this on this forum have a look at Claire's site:

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2445

Regards

Dotty