<![CDATA[The Interspire Blog]]> http://www.interspire.com/content en-us N/A false Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:32:27 CDT 20 false false false clean Interspirehttp://feedburner.google.com <![CDATA[Introducing the Interspire Secure Payment Gateway]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/470/Introducing-the-Interspire-Secure-Payment-Gateway.html In case you missed the press release that went out earlier today, we've partnered with PayLeap to offer our own branded payment gateway to US-based customers, called Interspire Secure Payment Gateway. Available today as part of Interspire Shopping Cart version 5.0.4, our payment gateway helps those new to selling online get started - and has the lowest credit card rate available anywhere at just 2.10% plus $17 per month.

So what does this mean to you? Put simply, we can now help you with everything you need to sell online - software, design services and accepting credit cards. Integrating Interspire Secure Payment Gateway into your store is a simple process. After applying and being approved, it takes just seconds to begin accepting credit cards online.

As per the setup instructions page, it's simply a matter of going to the Settings -> Checkout Settings page in your store's control panel and filling in the new form with your merchant account details:



That's all you need to do to accept credit cards from your Interspire-powered online store. I've also published the press release below:


PayLeap Announces Partnership with E-Commerce Software Leader, Interspire

PayLeap is an innovative online payment processing solution. The company proudly announces its partnership with Interspire, a leading on-premise and SaaS provider of e-commerce software to over 35,000 customers worldwide.

(PRWEB) June 22, 2009 -- PayLeap is proud to announce its partnership with Interspire, a leading provider of ecommerce software with North American headquarters in Austin, Texas and offices in Sydney, Australia and London, England. Interspire has achieved a Preferred Reseller Status with PayLeap, offering the PayLeap solution to clients across the U.S. and world.

PayLeap has now provided Interspire with a branded payment portal, found on a personalized URL. Interspire's merchant clients are directed to a payment platform "powered by PayLeap" to process online payments, but the portal is branded to match Interspire's online presence, enhancing the user's confidence and comfort. Users get the robust security of the PayLeap solution, without a distracting departure from the Interspire experience.

"By offering our ecommerce software bundled with the excellent payment processing system offered by PayLeap, our customers can now enjoy a whole product solution without having to deal with 3 or 4 separate vendors - it's a big time saver for them" said Mitchell Harper, Interspire co-founder and Chief Product Officer.

PayLeap provides a vital service for software developers like Interspire. The company bundles merchant account and payment processing services for software developers to integrate or resell to their merchant clients. By combining both services into one secure payment platform, PayLeap lowers overhead costs and simplifies billing for developers. Meanwhile, the solution's customizable formatting and easy integration give developers an ease of use that is beneficial for their merchant and ecommerce clients. PayLeap manages all customer service and support, making their solution a one stop shop for developers and merchants alike.

About PayLeap

Priding itself on service, the PayLeap mission is to be an outstanding corporate citizen in the electronic payments industry. Transparency, simplicity and service are the core values of the innovative payment processor. Visit http://www.payleap.com/ to learn more about the PayLeap bundled payment solution.

About Interspire

Interspire is a global leader in web-based e-commerce, content management and email marketing software for over 35,000 businesses, web hosting providers and ISP's. Interspire's offices are located in Austin, Texas, Sydney, Australia and London, England. For more information please call 1800 939 5570 or visit: http://www.interspire.com.
]]> no@spam.com (Michelle Greer) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/470/Introducing-the-Interspire-Secure-Payment-Gateway.html <![CDATA[Interspire Featured in the Austin American Statesman's Tech Monday]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/461/Interspire-Featured-in-the-Austin-American-Statesmans-Tech-Monday.html Our founders Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper thought long and hard before choosing Austin as the headquarters for their new North American office.  When they set up a 4300 square foot office in North Austin, the city took notice.

Interspire was featured in Austin's only newspaper, the Austin American Statesman on Monday. In the article Eddie discusses why they chose Austin over San Francisco, as well as how Austin is different from Sydney, where Interspire's headquarters are located.

Take a look at the article and help spread the word! 
]]> no@spam.com (Michelle Greer) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/461/Interspire-Featured-in-the-Austin-American-Statesmans-Tech-Monday.html <![CDATA[How Interspire Shopping Cart Helped HoodiePeople.com Rank Top 10 on Google]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/464/How-Interspire-Shopping-Cart-Helped-HoodiePeoplecom-Rank-Top-10-on-Google.html

The Internet is the perfect platform for businesses which sell one thing and sell it really well.  Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson calls this concept the longtail.  Instead of going after everyone, pick a specific niche as your market and focus on giving that niche everything you've got - a great product, great customer service and great support.

One such business using the longtail concept and Interspire Shopping Cart to sell into what some would consider a crowded niche is HoodiePeople.com. By focusing on youthful hoodies from brands such as Zoo York, Marc Ecko, Atticus, and Harajuku Lovers, Hoodie People built both an audience and decent search engine rankings to boot. 

I caught up with Hoodie People owner Hasan Luongo to discuss what it takes to be a successful online store owner in a niche market.  Here's what he had to say...

Hoodies are such a specific niche.  What gave you the idea that you could build an entire site around them?

As a small bootstrapped started we knew we needed to hit a niche.  Tee shirts are the #1 selling apparel category online and hoodies are very similar with higher price points and gross margins.  Hoodies are very popular and are represented across almost every lifestyle fashion category such as surf/skate, urban, casual, athletic, even couture. We also really like hoodies which is important.

Your website has a very unique feel but is still quite simple in layout.  How did you choose your design, and what was involved in implementing it using Interspire's software?

We reviewed a lot of top retail sites and included some key design elements from them.  Overall we wanted the homepage design to grab the customers attention then give them very clear and easy navigation. We started with a simple Interspire theme and tweaked it to our liking. We are also in process of a implementing a bunch of U/I changes that will hopefully make it easier to navigate - the site is a constant work in progress.

I've noticed that you have used a fair amount of your keywords in anchor tags throughout your site for SEO purposes.  How much of of that is consciously for SEO purposes and how much is just because it is useful to people?

It's all SEO - we use a lot of images and wanted to make sure everything was getting indexed.  Anchor tags get indexed well in search and are easy to do.  We were excited to discover that we broke through page one of Google search results for "hoodies" last week.

You currently have 262 members in your Flickr group, 605 Twitter followers, 306 Facebook fans, and 658 MySpace friends.  How do you engage these fans, and what effect do they have in terms of traffic and repeat business?

In terms of engagement we spend a fair amount of time identifying people with related interests on social networks and inviting them. We also participate a lot and push out a lot of content across these social sites.  In terms of traffic, Facebook in the 4th top referrer of traffic, and Twitter is 6th.

The web is social and we really wanted our customers to see a human face in our business.  Conversions are not huge from these sites but awareness is key for a startup and we will continue to work hard to produce interesting content and engage with people across key social sites.

What are your plans for your site now that it is warming up in the Northern Hemisphere?

Right now we are really in fall prep mode but next year we will likely add limited edition t-shirts to the product mix so we don't face the seasonal crunch.  We also think hoodies are a key item for summer adventures (beach, travel, bbq's etc.) and sales have held fairly steady going into summer.

Finally, why did you choose Interspire's Shopping Cart?

One of the main reasons we selected Interspire was that it gives us source code access so we can continue to customize design and layout as the business evolves.  What we have been most surprised with is the built in SEO functions, which have allowed us to quickly and consistently rank highly in our key search terms.

Hasan, thanks for taking the time to speak with me and congratulations on breaking the first page of Google!

Learn more about HoodiePeople.com and Interspire Shopping Cart

Visit HoodiePeople.com to see Hasan's web site or learn more about Interspire's online e-commerce solution, Interspire Shopping Cart, including video tour, online demo and features overview.
]]> no@spam.com (Michelle Greer) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/464/How-Interspire-Shopping-Cart-Helped-HoodiePeoplecom-Rank-Top-10-on-Google.html <![CDATA[3 Tips for Creating Ads People Actually Want to See]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/460/3-Tips-for-Creating-Ads-People-Actually-Want-to-See.html At one point in time when I was freelancing, I hated my job.  I was underappreciated, underpaid, and totally miserable. My friend suggested that I go to tech happy hours to network and let people know I was an online marketer for hire.  There, I could meet CEOs, coders, designers, and other people who could help me find a better job.

As a somewhat shy female in a male dominated field, I needed something catchy so people would actually remember me instead of toss my card in the trash. Ironically that's how I landed the gig of community/social media manager for Interspire, but I digress...

I bought a Canon 5D digital SLR camera and decided I would take pictures of people.  After all, it's hard to come up to someone just to pass them a card. It's easy to introduce yourself when you have a camera and you can take a nice photo of someone.  I would then post the photos to Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

People could use them as avatars, tag their photos so that other people would know who they were, and get to know people around town. I'd post the Flickr link in my blog along with a summary, so people started to get to know my blog as well.

Sure enough, people started to know who I was and what I did.  Eventually, I established enough of a name that I could throw my own events and hire a professional photographer instead.

I could have set up a Google AdWords campaign or designed fancy business cards that people would remember.  I could have spent thousands of dollars on a meticulously built website or gone to every headhunter in town.  Instead, I actually gave people something they would want and could use, and it cost me a little time and money for something I wanted to buy anyway.  I made them feel important, because they are. You probably aren't appealing to a tech crowd, but people aren't all that different.

Your customers are important.  Theoretically, your product helps them achieve a goal.  Instead of pummeling them with messages of how great you are, how can you best express how great you think they are?  After all, selling isn't about telling people how great you are -- it's about giving them a product or service can help them be great and even your advertising can do that.  That's why they come to you in the first place.

Here are some basic tips for "advertising people actually want to see":
  1. Figure out who your target audience is.  Perhaps a better term?  Who is my "community", as you are not only selling but can buy from your customers too.

  2. Get to know people and be a participant first.  Whether your offering is a useful blog, a skate ramp for teenage boys, free samples or whatever, if you build it, that doesn't necessarily mean they will come. People want to get to know that they can trust you and that you aren't just trying to scam them.   Tap into existing communities rather than always trying to build them from scratch.

  3. Always provide value, no matter what form it takes.  When you provide value, people provide money.  It's never the other way around.
Is an ad useful to an audience? Sometimes, it really is. Just remember that it can be interactive and can take many many forms. If your budget is strapped, get creative and be useful. Be an accessible person rather than some faceless company. You'll be surprised at what can happen.
]]> no@spam.com (Michelle Greer) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/460/3-Tips-for-Creating-Ads-People-Actually-Want-to-See.html <![CDATA[3 Ways to Keep Track of What is Said About You in Real Time]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/459/3-Ways-to-Keep-Track-of-What-is-Said-About-You-in-Real-Time.html Keeping track of what is said about your product or industry can be quite hard.  Google rewards sites that have been up for a long time, so just doing an ego search on your company on Google isn't telling of what's going on right now.

There are conversations occurring online right now about your company and in your industry.  What are the best tools for keeping track of what is said about your company or a certain trend either within a day or so or even right now?

1.) Google Alerts has been around a while.  Setting up a Google Alert with your company's name, your competitors' names, and potential useful keywords can keep you up to date.  This is a key tool for reputation management as well as tipping you off to key trends in your industry.

2.) Backtype allows you to monitor comments made on a keyword.  If a commenter in a blog post or in Reddit mentions you, you can get it picked up.  Like Google Alerts, you can subscribe to BackType comments via email.

3.) Twitter Search (and other services which use real time data from Twitter)  Unlike Google, Twitter offers real-time search.  You can find out what trends are hot immediately and actually participate in the conversation. 

Subscribe to searches on search.twitter.com, or get even more involved by using a Twitter client like Tweetdeck or a search tool like sideline.yahoo.com to set up real-time searches on certain key terms.

These three tools allow you to monitor exact terms online rather than having to poke around blogs waiting for them to happen.  Join the conversation about terms in your industry, or use them to anticipate trends while they are still hot.
]]> no@spam.com (Michelle Greer) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/459/3-Ways-to-Keep-Track-of-What-is-Said-About-You-in-Real-Time.html <![CDATA[Want to Increase Your Google Rankings? Start by Ignoring Google]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/458/Want-to-Increase-Your-Google-Rankings-Start-by-Ignoring-Google.html Search Engine Optimization can seem daunting.  After all, studies show that if you are not on the first page of Google for a certain keyword, most people will simply change their keyword search rather than go to the next page. 

Some SEOs will tell you to pull up Google's Keyword Tool and scour through the most unused keywords and scatter them through your site.  While including useful keywords is key, Google is simply a tool to connect you to the person who is looking for your website.  It is key to write for the person on the other end of your message rather than writing for a search engine itself.  Customer friendly copy is SEO friendly copy already.

Think I'm naive?  Follow the logic...

1.) Stock descriptions aren't useful to people, so Google punishes them.  Say, for example, that you are selling ski jackets.  You may think that clean code is good enough for your site to get indexed, and that a stock description is okay.  However, there is a big chance that another site is selling the same product and has the same stock description.  So if a customer has a question about this jacket, they will go from site to site looking for their answer.  This person will either not buy or will require your salespeople's time, and therefore your money, to make a decision.  So not only have you used duplicate content, you're risking not closing a sale when you can as well.

Although Google does not always catch duplicate content, it's a no-no for this reason.

2.) Answer questions with your site to pick up keywords.  Don't just use keywords from a tool.  Think of your website as a salesperson that never sleeps.  When your website answers any question a person would have about a product or service, the chance of closing the sale is higher.  That person knows the who, the what, the where, the when, etc.  Guess what?  When you answer all of these questions with your product descriptions or website copy, you will have the keywords that someone is typing in to get to your site.

Keyword tools are great, but only lazy copywriters depend on them.

3.) People-friendly text gets linked to.  Bot-friendly text does not.  Off-page SEO is incredibly underrated, particularly because it has become more important in recent years.  If you are pulling stock descriptions or merely plugging in keywords from a tool into a paragraph, you aren't thinking of the person on the receiving end.  Blogs and other websites are always looking for useful information for their readers.  They won't link to you if your website uses stock descriptions or bland copy. 

Google's PageRank system doesn't acknowledge sites that aren't linked to, so just kiss your search engine results goodbye.

4.) Improve your copy now.  The sooner you get rid of stock descriptions or bland copy that tells people nothing, the more useful your website is to people.  Google rewards content that it can index over and over again.  It means your website isn't just something fly-by-night.

So in essence, design and write for people instead of Google, and Google will connect the dots on its own.  That's it's whole purpose.  If it didn't do it well, people would start using something else and Google would lose ad revenue from AdWords.

A good rule of thumb is to listen to what people ask on the phone or in person about your business, and then include that information on your website.  So not only will you have useful keywords on your site, you'll cut your phone time in half. You can then spend that time building your business, spending time with your friends, or doing nothing.
]]> no@spam.com (Michelle Greer) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/458/Want-to-Increase-Your-Google-Rankings-Start-by-Ignoring-Google.html <![CDATA[Top Five Reasons Why We Love Small Businesses]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/457/Top-Five-Reasons-Why-We-Love-Small-Businesses.html Greetings! My name is Michelle Greer and I'll be blogging/tweeting/writing for Interspire - basically I'll be looking to reach out and connect with you using social media to help grow your business.

My background is in ecommerce and internet marketing and it is something I am very passionate about.  If you'd like to see my credentials, please check out my ClaimID profile. You can also follow me on Twitter, @michellegreer

I was excited to work for Interspire because they create products that make it easy for small businesses to succeed.  As a consumer, I like doing business with small businesses and try to do so as much as possible.  Why are small businesses the wave of the future? Here's what I think:

1.) Less bureacracy.  Have you ever been transfered from phone rep to phone rep in a big company, only to have your problem go unsolved?  Small businesses answer to the customer, not to a group of shareholders.

2.) More accountability.  It's easy to pass the buck when you are the low man on the totem poll at a big company.  After all, you legitimately can't do anything to fix some of the catch-all policies meant to protect the company.  People at small companies can be empowered to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, which would be too hard at a large company.

3.) More specialization.  Are you passionate about mid-century modern art?  Sunglasses?  Wind turbines?  Large companies cannot support themselves picking such a niche.  Small companies can, so they can get better and better at what they do in their knowledge and processes.

4.) More pride.  Are you a cog in a wheel at a large company?  At a small company, every member of the team matters.  This translates to better performance and results.

5.) More diversity.  People aren't all the same.  Why should the goods and services they consume also be the same?  By not needing to accomodate everyone in order to stay profitable, the consumer wins.

What are your thoughts on dealing with small businesses versus large, multi-national corporations? Feel free to leave a comment or send me a tweet.  I'll be blogging here quite freuently, so if there are topics you would like to see covered in the blog, please let me know.
]]> no@spam.com (Michelle Greer) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/457/Top-Five-Reasons-Why-We-Love-Small-Businesses.html <![CDATA[Interspire Email Marketer 5.6 is Here!]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/456/Interspire-Email-Marketer-56-is-Here.html

We've just released version 5.6 of Interspire Email Marketer, our email marketing software. Version 5.6 is a free update for existing customers with valid maintenance and can be downloaded from the client area.

Although this is a minor update, it includes quite a few new and exciting features:
  • An image manager which is separate from the WYSIWYG editor. The image manager makes it easy to manage all of your images in the one place. You can batch upload multiple images at once, edit, rename and delete, etc. The slick upload interface can easily hand hundreds of images at once

  • 32 new email templates, which match those found in Interspire Shopping Cart - now your email marketing promotions can match the look and feel of your online store!

  • The bounce processing wizard has been redesigned to be a LOT easier to use. It's now a clear, step-by-step wizard and mail server settings can be auto detected

  • The WYSIWYG editor has been replaced with TinyMCE, which is much more stable. Functions such as unlimited undo/redo and copy/paste are now a lot more reliable

  • There's a new dashboard with useful metrics (such as overall list activity and per-campaign reports), campaigns filtered by status, etc

  • Your subscribers can confirm their unsubscribe request when they click an unsubscribe link in an email instead of being removed straight away

  • For partners/agencies, you can now force a spam check on an email before send and not send if it fails (this is a per-user setting)

  • For partners/agencies, you can now force double opt-in subscription verification when creating a website form (this is a per-user setting)

  • For partners/agencies, autoresponder credits now count towards the monthly credit limit and you can automatically send "low credit" reminder emails to users when they hit certain thresholds (as defined by you from the Settings -> Email Credit Settings page)

  • For partners/agencies, see created, last logged in and pending (delete/inactive) date on the view users page and sort by them

  • For partners/agencies, there's now a link on the view users page to automatically login as that user

  • For upgrading, the new Tools -> Check Database wizard will run tests to make sure database indexes exist, tables are not corrupt, etc
As I'm sure you'll agree, it's quite a significant update! If you're an existing Interspire Email Marketer customer with a valid maintenance period, you can download version 5.6 right now from the client area. Our upgrade instructions will step you through the process.

New customers can learn more about Interspire Email Marketer and also purchase online.
]]> no@spam.com (Mitchell Harper) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/456/Interspire-Email-Marketer-56-is-Here.html <![CDATA[Interspire Shopping Cart Powering the Official Store of Wayne Gretzky]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/455/Interspire-Shopping-Cart-Powering-the-Official-Store-of-Wayne-Gretzky.html

After working with our design team for a few weeks, the official store of Wayne Gretzky (the world's most popular Hockey player - or the Michael Jordan of Hockey, as we like to call him) is now live, and is of course powered by Interspire Shopping Cart!

Wayne's store features canvas prints and memorabilia items such as caps, signed photos and jerseys. You'll also find information about the Wayne Gretzky Foundation, which benefits from a portion of profits made through the online store.

You can take a look at the store and purchase some memorabilia at http://www.gretzky.com/shop/
]]> no@spam.com (Mitchell Harper) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/455/Interspire-Shopping-Cart-Powering-the-Official-Store-of-Wayne-Gretzky.html <![CDATA[Interspire Shopping Cart 5.0 is Here!]]> http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/454/Interspire-Shopping-Cart-50-is-Here.html
Click here to watch a video overview of new features in Interspire Shopping Cart 5.0

The biggest upgrade ever released for Interspire Shopping Cart is finally here. Interspire Shopping Cart 5.0 took 6 months to develop and includes a whopping list of new features, including discount rules, custom form fields, terms and conditions during checkout, re-ordering, add multiple items to the cart and delivery/event dates!

Learn About the New Features

Visit the What's New? page to learn about new features, view screenshots and more. Each feature is explained in detail and the video tour shows the new features in action.

Existing Customers: How to Upgrade

Existing customers running Interspire Shopping Cart 4.0.x or below can upgrade to Interspire Shopping Cart 5.0 at a special discounted price here. Upgrade instructions are listed on the developer network. Please note that the beta release of version 5.0 cannot be upgraded.

All existing customers will also receive an upgrade email shortly detailing their options. Please note that you are still entitled to maintenance releases of version 4.x if you decide not to upgrade to version 5.0.

New Customers: Try the Demo and Buy

Before you purchase Interspire Shopping Cart you might like to take the online demo for a test drive. Pricing is available online and you can buy directly from our website for immediate download.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us using the phone numbers at the top of the page. You can also email us or submit your questions from our contact page.
]]> no@spam.com (Mitchell Harper) http://www.interspire.com/content/blogs/454/Interspire-Shopping-Cart-50-is-Here.html