Users should be able to navigate the site using hyperlinks and also search for products. Search engines are essential on an e-commerce site. They help your customers to find the products or services that they need quickly and efficiently.

Search engine results depend on the type of search engine you're using on your e-commerce site. Search engines that return inconsistent results should be avoided.

When users first open a page, they typically scan the page first to see whether the site will be useful to them. Because of this, Web pages designed like the front pages of newspapers are effective.

Random click patterns can be used to help find the strengths and weaknesses of a site. By examining the random click pattern, you see can identify pages that users visit and pages that they overlook. Doing this can help you identify problems with your site navigation and improve the usage of under-used pages. The random click pattern will show how users reach each page, how long they stay, and what paths they follow.

Controlled click patterns are when an e-commerce site forces the user into using the site a certain way. Sites commonly control click patterns during registration and during the checkout process.

Screen flow describes the way content is placed on the page. Screens that look like the classified section of a newspaper, a training manual, and a table of contents are less desirable currently than a screen that looks like the front page of a newspaper. This model provides the equivalent of headlines and small snippets that users can click on if they are interested.

Encourage potential customers to visit the site. Getting people to your site has to be the first step.

Allow customers to search for products and services. Once customers are at the site, they need to be able to find the products or services they need,

Allow customers to learn details about the products and services. Once customers have found the products and services, they need to be able to find as much information as they need.

Allow users to purchase products or services. Once they are informed, the customers can make a purchase. Having visitors make a purchase is the ultimate goal.

General guidelines for conducting usability testing are:

* Test a completed or nearly completed site. This means you will test the site when it is as close as possible to the state it will be in when it is used by real customers.

* Give the testers specific tasks to complete based on what you want real users to do. This allows you to test the real functionality of the site.

* Include a wide variety of skill levels and experience in the pool of testers. You don't want a site that only the most technically savvy experts can navigate (unless you want to sell only to technically savvy experts).

Do not help the testers or interfere with the testing. You won't be there for the real customers, so you shouldn't be there for the testers.

A site that charges an annual fee for service would not need a shopping cart, because the customers would not have to worry about paying for each item individually.

Performance monitoring is one of the primary responsibilities of the Webmaster. Responsiveness is measured according to how much time it takes your customers to get the desired results in their browsers.

A bottleneck is the result of a server receiving too many requests in too short a time. When the requests exceed the capacity of the server to queue them, a bottleneck results. The bottleneck can usually be traced back to an inadequate component or a software malfunction. You can solve bottlenecks by replacing the problem component with a better, faster one; adding more of the components to spread the load; and increasing the queue capacity.

Queue management describes how a server handles requests as they come in. The efficiency of the server's network device driver, its operating system, and its available memory would all affect the speed with which the server deals with requests in the queue.

The best way to test the performance of your Web site is to use as many different performance testing packages as you can. Different packages have different capabilities, and two packages may produce different results. This is why using jut one package may not be good enough.

While it is good to do real-world testing from home and your desk, performance testing packages can simulate high-traffic conditions that you can't do by yourself from your desk or your home computer. Also, performance testing packages offer better analysis, charts, and reports than you could get by yourself.

You can use different URLs to a page in different ads to help track how users found your Web site. You can examine the server logs to see the URL and trace those back to the originating ad. Several third-party tools are available to help you analyze server logs.

The Webmaster of an e-commerce site has three main responsibilities once it is up and running:

* Maintaining the site and its database - The Webmaster must make sure that all links are functional and that all information is accurate and up-to-date.
* Managing security for the site - The Webmaster must plan and constantly monitor security.
* Monitoring performance of the site - The Webmaster must make sure the site is responsive so customers don't leave frustrated.