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5 CGI Scripts You Must Use to Turn Your Site Into a Powerhouse
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By Marc Goldman
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HTML is great. But what really makes your site super powerful?The Backend or the processes running in the background that makeeverything on your website really click. And what powers thebackend? CGI Scripts. Some of you may know what CGI scripts areand others may not. CGI scripts are the key to creatinginteractive websites that automate your online business. Insteadof getting too technical about scripts, lets talk about 5powerful CGI scripts that every website should have if they haveany desire to conduct E-commerce. Number 1: First off, you musthave forms on your website. You should be utilizing forms foreverything including retrieving demographic information fromyour visitors to processing credit card orders. You can also useforms to send contact information so that your visitors do nothave to use email to contact you. The beauty of forms is thatnot only can you retrieve the information you request, you canalso include hidden fields to be submitted with each form sothat you know certain information like what website the visitorcame from, their IP address (useful for fraud protection) andmuch more. Some form scripts even let you send autoresponses tothe submitter. So, for example if someone fills in a form tosign up for a newsletter, you can send them an automated replythanking them for their submission and including basicallyanything you want without having to lift a finger. Number 2: Thenext script every site should be using is a "recommend it"script. This is a script that allows your site visitors torecommend your site to their friends and contacts. Do notunderestimate the power of this little tool. The recommend itscript on our site at http://www.goldbar.net/recomm.html bringsin tons of traffic and prospects that we may never have gottenon our own. The power of referrals should never, ever beunderestimated. It is far more effective to have someonerecommend your site to their contacts then it is to advertise. Iuse the Master Recommend script from William Bontrager,available for free at: http://www.willmaster.com Number 3:Affiliate Software. Without a doubt, one of the best investmentsyou can ever make if you have your own product or service is inaffiliate software. While usually not cheap it is by far one ofthe best methods of growing traffic to your site and explodingyour sales. Many people advocate using a 3rd party affiliatecompany such as Commission Junction to manage their affilateprograms. This is fine if you are a big company with a hugebudget to WASTE on administrative fees and obscure technicalcharges. But, if you are a small to midsized company and youwant to utilize the awesome power of a strictly commissionedsalesforce sending you traffic and sales, you would be crazy tonot consider purchasing affiliate software and installing it onyour own site (or having it installed for you). Some affiliatescripts are so advanced that you can click one button on theadministrative interface and send all the months commissions toa check writing program and have the checks printed out and allyou will have to do is sign them. Number 4: Follow UpAutoresponders: Without a doubt, everyone should be usingautomated follow up mechanisms to: A. Capture the emailaddresses of targeted prospects interested in yourproducts/services. B. Send a series of sequential, timedmessages that trigger return visits to your website and turnpotential onetime website visitors into return prospects. c.Remind customers about additional products and services thatthey may wish to order in the future or add to their currentorder. These are easy to maintain once they are installed onyour site. All you have to do is write the email responses youwant your prospects to receive and then upload them to yourserver. Then tell the script how long a time interval to waitbefore sending the next message in the sequence. An importantpoint when using follow up autoresponders: make sure they offeran unsubscribe feature so that the recipients can opt out ifthey choose to. There are many great scripts out there that youcan install on your own site. This will save you the monthlyfees of using a hosted service but if you choose to use a thirdparty tool, probably the best one is available from getresponse:http://www.getresponse.com/?13323 Number 5: An error catcher.This may sound like a crazy tool to include in this list butbear with me. How many of you have tried to click on a link andfound yourself on a 404 error page. Most web surfers whoencounter this error immediately leave your site never to returnagain.This is probably the worst thing that could happen to aninternet business. What if you could create a page that said,OOPS you reached this page in error but why not visit the restof the site? This is certainly more enticing and if createdproperly can help keep a surfer on your site as opposed to offit. On our site, we use a script that catches errors anddelivers a webpage apologizing for the mistake and offeringother links to pages on our site. We have saved many visitorsthis way and we have also created many subscribers and customersthrough this method. If you want to see how it works, try thislink http://www.goldbar.net/mistake.html The script we used tocreate these pages is freely available and can be set to emailyou when someone reaches a 404 page and also help you determineif anyone is trying to hack into your site or if a CGI script isnot working. It is called errorbot.cgi and can be found athttp://www.perlarchive.com These 5 scripts can make or break aninternet business so why dont more people use them? I believethey don't have a clue how to install them. If anyone wishes tohave CGI scripts on their site but needs help installing them,you can usually get help from the programmer or visit a sitelike http://www.cgiguru.com who will usually install scripts fora nominal fee. CGI scripts have been around since the advent ofcommerce on the internet and continue to power the best sites.Even with new technologies such as ASP, Cold Fusion and PHP onthe rise, CGI is the oldest and still the best. Why not getthese 5 scripts running on your website and start powering yourway to new profits.
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