Setting up PHP DBUnit with a YAML Dataset

This proved quite an interesting job, and took a bit of time to get this down  to a tee.  I do have a working version of some database tests which I will post at a later day with a complete working PHPUnit example of using a YAML dataset for tests.

keep watching.

Ecommerce Search Marketing Evolves

A few years ago, small ecommerce business owners invested a good part of their marketing budgets on search engine optimization. Their goal was typically to obtain the highest possible search rankings, to capture as much organic traffic as possible. Many businesses used that as their core tactic for search engines. Organic traffic was considered free.

If they did a good job, they had a shot at the first page of Google's search results, where the majority of clicks occur. They could even break into the coveted top five positions, above the fold. A strategy might have been to drive 70 percent of search traffic from organic listings.

Organic Traffic Risky

But seasoned merchants know they can quickly be dumped off the first page of Google with an algorithm change. If you’ve ever changed platforms or the navigational structure of your store, it’s likely your rankings suffered. Things like personalized search results, local results, and suggested keywords have also altered the search landscape. Many merchants, therefore, invested more money in pay-per-click advertising to maintain their search traffic.

In the last 12 months, it’s become obvious to me that Google is mainly an advertising platform. You may as well just pay for Product Listing Ads or PPC ads if you want to be seen. If you are a local business, you may have potential leverage with the local listings, but that will require some other types of investment with Google social and local platforms.

'Running Shoes' Example

Google is focusing its user experience on companies that pay for ads for popular search terms, or are local. Consider, for example, the broad search term “running shoes.”

The screen shot above goes below the fold. We can see three PPC text ads that include premium features like phone numbers, store rankings on Google+, and sitelinks. We see eight Product Listing Ads. These are generally the highest converting links on a page for shoppers. We also see a map for five local running shoe stores along with links and reviews. We see only three organic search results, and one is a local business with a Google score of 27 out of 30.

Clearly, companies that have invested in ads or in Google local listings and Google+ have benefited. What about all other companies with great SEO? They are buried at the bottom of the page. Google has stacked the odds that you will click on the results at the top of the page and above the fold. That increases Google's revenue.

'Trout Flies' Example

Next, consider “trout flies,” a more niche search.

If your store sells fishing flies, you may be rewarded more for your SEO efforts. There are Product Listing Ads — PLAs — at the top right, but not as many as for "running shoes." There are PPC ads, but they are on the right side. We see five or six organic results above the fold. We also see image results, which could a good place to optimize. In short, if you were selling trout flies, you might consider a premium text ad targeting "trout flies."

'Cheap Polarized Sunglasses for Men' Example

Finally, consider the term “cheap polarized sunglasses for men."

As with the "trout flies" search, we see a few organic results below the PLAs. Notice the depth and quality of the single ad that is shown on the page. It is optimized for "polarized sunglasses for men," includes a 5 star ranking with 800+ reviews, and site links to the most popular related navigation paths. Most clicks for "cheap polarized sunglasses for men" likely go to that ad. The searchers likely do not read the organic results below the PLAs.

What Does It Mean?

If I were running an ecommerce business — I sold my online jewelry business last year, after owning it for ten years — I would invest in PLAs and PPC campaigns. I would closely watch my results and return on investment, especially on broad terms.

Segment and target your campaigns as much as possible to present results that are highly personalized to the search terms you have chosen. Target longtail keywords with rich ads that will dominate the page, as in the sunglasses example above. Invest in landing pages that are optimized for the search terms. Conduct A/B testing on different ads and landing pages.

Consumers are more comfortable clicking on ads now than in the past. Part of the reason is the ads are high quality and generally take shoppers to relevant products. Organic results are frequently not as concise and don’t necessarily take consumers to the optimal locations for shopping. The means more clicks on text and PLA ads. It may also mean more money for merchants, as the conversion rates are typically higher from those ads than organic clicks.

Don't Ignore SEO

Ecommerce merchants should not ignore SEO. But they should not count on organic search to deliver 70 percent of their traffic with a 3 or 4 percent conversion rate. Merchants should still provide good content for their products and site category pages because that‘s what shoppers want to see when they come to a site. It will increase the chances of closing the sale.

If you have solid organic search rankings for your products and see a high conversation rate from that traffic, stay the course. But plan for PPC ads. If Google makes changes that reduce your revenue, you can quickly step in with paid campaigns to offset the lost traffic.

You’ll still want backlinks from affiliates, blogs, and social media. But, don’t do it just for SEO. Leverage those links as referrals from multiple channels. Realize that the content you post on Facebook may influence a future purchase. Don’t just view it as a targeted link.

Conclusion

Diversify your store's traffic as much as possible. Invest in advertising, but measure the ROI. Make sure you think beyond the cost of a single acquisition and consider the lifetime value of a customer. If you sell cheap sunglasses, for example, ask if a sale is a one-time purchase or a potential repeat buyer. If it's one time, consider passing on the ads for that search term. But if you sell products like polarized sunglasses for men, the advertising investment to get to the top of the page may be worth it.

Source: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/4012-Ecommerce-Search-Marketing-Evolves

Slow and steady wins the race

Are you looking to refactor your existing codebase and don't have a clue where to start?

Start with a block of code, a big function, a class, anything that you just look at and think WTF, where do I start!.

Make it simpler, better, more modular. Apply today's best practices to the code, even if you don't think it will make much of a difference.

Rename variables to be more meaningful, extract some of the methods or if statements into separate functions.

And do the same thing the next day. And the day after that.

Pretty soon, you'll begin to realize major rewards from minor efforts. And, you'll also reach a point where major structural changes will both be possible and reasonable - and, if you've done your job right, not all that hard.

Slow and steady wins the software race.

Just Enough Production Functionality

The premise of TDD is to write tests that satisfy that a piece of functionality is working as expected.
Be this a unit of code (unit test) or a higher level feature (acceptance test).

A test should be written to fail. (Red)
Simply enough code should be written to make this test pass (Green)
Code should then be tidied up and optimised (Refactor).

This is inline with the Kent Beck model of Red, Green, Refactor for Test Driven Development.

ATDD is also called Behavior Driven Development

ATDD or Acceptance Test Driven Development is often referred to as BDD or Behaviour Driven Development.

This is the practice of writing high level acceptance tests, understandable by business and customer level, in satisfying that a piece of work does what it is supposed too. Focusing on the behaviour of the system from the customer or users perspective, allows the project to progress from a functionality and behaviour perspective, so that once the system does what it's meant to do its complete.

Acceptance tests will usually be ran at the project level, where it is possible to get an overview of the state of a project by running these, and see what percentage pass, determines what percentage of the project is complete.  Inline with these, developers may use separate Unit Tests inline with each acceptance test focusing on the units of code that make up an acceptance milestone.

Developer TDD is often Simply..

Do you often wonder where to start with TDD?  Is it more hassle than its worth?  Well yes and no, and I guess its down to how passionate you are about your code.

Check out http://www.phpunit.de  the industry standard for writing Unit Tests on your PHP code.

7 Ways Mobile Commerce will change retail

As the online and offline worlds converge, mobile commerce has the potential to eclipse desktop-based ecommerce and, perhaps, even replace a significant portion of traditional retail shopping.

Mobile-driven online sales in the U.S. are expected to reach $2.12 billion in 2013 and explode to about $62.2 billion in the next three years, according to an eMarketer report. With such phenomenal growth, some change is bound to come.

There are at least seven ways that mobile commerce is likely to change retail shopping and marketing. Online and multi-channel retailers should start preparing for these changes now.

1. Website Design Adapts

Online sellers are already working to build responsive sites that change size and layout in response to the user’s device or device orientation. By next year, responsive design will become imperative. Merchants that have not optimized for smartphones and tablets could see an impact to the bottom line.

2. Marketplaces Become More Important

Regardless of what mobile providers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon would have you believe, mobile Internet connections can be disappointing. One possible side effect of relatively slow mobile connectivity is that mobile shoppers could be reluctant to open multiple browser windows as they search for products online.

As a result, mobile customers may be more likely to visit marketplaces like Amazon, Rakuten, or Newegg, where they can see products offered by several merchants and compare prices. What’s more, many of these services offer great apps that also makes shopper easier.

3. Shopping Becomes Ubiquitous

When a shopper is carrying a store in his pocket, he might just shop anywhere.

Mobile commerce will make shopping ubiquitous. A fellow riding the train home from work could be ordering jewelry for his wife or girlfriend. A 17-year-old girl at the beach might snap a photo of a friend’s swimsuit and use an app to find and order one just like it online. A sports fan sitting in a stadium might send a text to instantly order a new team jersey.

4. New Payment Services Will Emerge

Mobile commerce will accelerate the growth of new or improved payment solutions.

Manually typing a credit card number and a shipping address into a shopping cart form is, perhaps, the most painful part of shopping from a mobile device. This too will change.

Payment solutions like PayPal, Amazon Payments, or similar — and digital wallets like Google Wallet — will continue to grow and improve, offering mobile shoppers the option to pay with a single tap. Other new payment systems, including some from mobile service providers, will also emerge.

Once users become comfortable with these payment procedures, they will use them both online and at actual physical stores.

5. Mass Market Products Become Commodities

Mobile commerce makes pricing transparent. A shopper standing in Macy’s can compare the price of a blouse on any one of a dozen competitors’ websites, effectively transforming nearly every mass-marketed, mass-manufactured product into a commodity.

Brands will still do their best to enforce manufacturer-approved prices, but not many sellers will be getting a premium, which some boutique shops enjoyed before mobile’s advent.

6. Price Comparison Will Become Automated

Shoppers want to know that they are getting the best possible price before they make a purchase. Already there are dozens of mobile apps that help shoppers make price comparisons. Look for future applications to use information about a person’s tastes or buying habits to automate price comparison.

Shoppers will know which stores offer the best combination of price and shipping costs just by building a wishlist or snapping a photo of a product or barcode.

7. Product Reviews Will Become Centralized

After price comparisons, mobile shoppers are likely to look for user reviews before making a buying decision regardless of whether they are planning to order online or pick up an item from a brick-and-mortar store.

Look for review consolidators to emerge, offering shoppers the option to see product or vendor reviews from a number of sources through a single interface, probably an app.

Source: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3965-7-Ways-Mobile-Commerce-Will-Change-Retail