E-commerce is a technical term used for buying and selling products and services over electronic systems such as internet and other computer networks. With the rapid development of technology, the amount of trade conducted electronically has grown by leaps and bounds. The e-commerce services have given plethora of options for business growth and expansion. Initially, e-commerce was used to facilitate commercial transactions. In the 21^st century, with advanced technology and improved functionalities, shopping can be fun and convenient.

The basic building blocks for e-commerce are:

Website: The face of the website can have serious impact on the traffic flow. Considering website to be the only tool for creating your web presence, the whole designing process should enhance the look and feel of the website.

Shopping cart softwares: These enable merchants to easily launch online business. Shopping cart softwares is an ordering system for customers to choose a product, place an order and finally to make the payment.

Payment gateway: Choose a payment gateway that matches your e-commerce needs and helps to process the online payments. It is a software application that takes care of the credit card information and its transmission across net.

Secure Socket Layer: This is important for any website that is collecting sensitive information online.

E-commerce being conducted between businesses is referred to as business-to-business or B2B whereas the business being conducted between businesses and consumers is generally referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. According to business owners, some of the vital aspects that the e-commerce site owners need to keep in mind are as given below:

1. Website design can have a direct impact on conversion and search engine rankings. Improved product images can improves sales. So, website should be designed accordingly.
2. Choose a well rounded platform and an expert for web-designing. Inorder to design your website, hire someone who is expert at it. Instead of wasting time in building the website on your own, you can spend time in developing products.
3. Choose proven shopping cart software and a proven host.
4. Search engine optimization and affiliates are effective tools for marketing your products. E-commerce enables you to reach the target audience at a faster rate.
5. Select a host that has flexibility with 24X7 support. Else you mind end up rebuilding your site.
6. Website optimization is extremely important. Create keyword rich webpages that can improve your search engine rankings.

Electronic commerce has been used for enterprise content management, instant messaging, online shopping and order tracking, online banking, online office suites, domestic and international payment systems, shopping cart software, teleconferencing, and electronic tickets and for e-mails.

E-commerce has been used for many services such as:

1. Electronic funds transfer
2. Supply chain management
3. Internet marketing
4. Online transaction processing
5. Electronic data interchange
6. Inventory management systems
7. Automated data collection systems

Inorder to reach the target audience, different electronic mediums have been used such as:

1. Information across web, store and call centers
2. Online videos and web TV
3. Cell phone and other wireless devices are being used for online shopping and payment purposes
4. Social networking sites are effective platforms to product promotion
5. New web site applications such as a site search features to enable shoppers to search for products based on customer’s taste and preference.

Some of the advantages of e-commerce over offline business are as given below:

1. Saves time and cost for setting up a physical store
2. Provides convenience to shop from all across the globe at any time.
3. Business transaction detail is well- maintained.
4. Many customers can be attended simultaneously.
5. Linking to other affiliate sites can help customers in finding products of their interest.
6. Fraudulent transaction attempts are checked

The success of the e-commerce depends on the design of the webpage and optimization of the website. The e-commerce ensures smooth functioning and growth of your business.

Gone are the days when marketing was all about promoting your products, services as well as anything that you were interested in selling or creating awareness about. Today’s world has been bifurcated into two different entities. One is the real world wherein we see, meet and interact with people while seeing then in flesh and blood. And the other entity is virtual or physically non-existent. Both of these worlds have a different importance as well as meaning in our everyday life. It does not matter whether you are a businessman, or a school teacher. The virtual world has carved for itself a niche that is unbelievingly strong and aggressive in its expansion. This virtual world is the world of internet.

If you are a businessman who wants to promote his products, or a service based organization that wants to promote the services you offer or an individual who really needs to express his thoughts as well as opinions on the world or anything that holds some importance and meaning then the medium of internet is one medium that would provide you with a larger audience and a better platform. But the effort or the knowledge just does not stop here. This virtual world has a language of its own. It has a tradition and a culture of its own. It has a religion of its own and all these are to be respected or even revered. The most rudimentary tool that can help you in understanding and going on a voyage or simply touring this world is the powerful raft called the search engine. And to get noticed in this virtual world or to create a space for yourself in this world you need assistance and that is where the techniques of SEO steps in. SEO or when expanded the Search Engine Optimization comprises of different techniques and efforts to make sure that you or your website remains at the vantage position in all the search engine rankings.

Some of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, or MSN all have specific algorithms that test the quality and competency of the websites or any written material. In accordance with that they rank the websites for the specific keywords. Any SEO company would endeavor to make sure that right from the designing, development and subsequent promotion of the website, the website is ranked high on the search engine.

Basically the techniques that the SEO companies adopt in order to promote the client’s websites can be divided into three categories-

1)      The Black Hat techniques

2)      The White Hat techniques

3)      The Grey Hat techniques

# The Black Hat Techniques: These techniques are used by the SEO companies in order to get the results quickly by using unethical means and methods. They might appear to be producing results but those are all short lived. In the longer run they would prove harmful for the company as well as the client. In many cases it might even lead to the banning of the site from the search engines.

# The White Hat Techniques:  Those techniques that are in compliance with the guidelines of the search engines are the ones that are called white hat techniques. It might not be as swift in producing results but once they do they can assure a better output.

# The Grey Hat Techniques: These techniques are those that do not fall into any of the above categories. On many occasions they might not be compliant with the search engine guidelines but nevertheless they are not as bad and harmful as the black hat techniques.