If you want a website that doubles as a yellow pages advertisement, you’ve stumbled upon the wrong website. We aim to create custom, marketable, crazy awesome websites. So, if you want your new website to be your marketing version of a new BFF, read on my friend.

Websites should improve business functionality.

If you consider all the available features you can add to a website to increase functionality, you could improve so many aspects of your business efficiencies. Membership management, eCommerce, catalog, online forms, private information available only with a login (for clients or staff), location lookup, search within the website and so many more options.

However, the most useful website feature we can think of is the ‘ACCEPT PAYMENT’ option. Want to pay your Idea bill or give us some money? Go to www.ideamktg.com/pay. Easy, breezy, beautiful.

 

Rule #1: Don’t send buyers away. Keep Clients on Your Website.

There are plenty of options that you can use, but we prefer the options that keep your clients on your website. This is important for SEO and also gives the client a sense of security by staying where they are paying.

 

Rule #2: Accepting Money (minus a small percentage) Is Better Than None.

Of all the functionality of your new or upgraded website, online payment processing should be a major consideration. I mean, you want a new or improved website to increase business right? So why not make it easy for people to give you money and pay their bills.

 

Rule #3: Your Payment Gateway Should Integrate with the Other Ways You Accept Money.

If you have to create a new separate process for your online processing than your in-store credit card processing and then again separate from your invoicing , check and cash processing, then this is not an efficient process.

As for those fees, well, chances are your web designer is probably not a bank. So, someone has to process those payments for you. We want to help you make the best decision in choosing a payment gateway.

Some things to keep in consideration:

  • How much are you planning to process online monthly?

  • How many of your clients pay by credit card or would prefer to pay by credit card if given the option?

Three Options That We Like:

As I mentioned above, there are tons of options out there, but these are the ones that we like best.

Authorize.net

Authorize.net is a major player in the gateway field and with its options to be a one-stop-shop and manage your retail store, online store, mail and telephone orders as well mobile payments, Authorize.net covers all your bases.

Pricing: $99 setup fee, $20 monthly fee and $.0.10 per transaction. Source: Authorize.net fee structure

PayPal Pro

Paypal now offers different levels of service. In the past, your client had to have a Paypal account to process payments, but that is not the case now. Paypal processes more online transactions than any other payment gateway out there. They also now offer options to manage the other collections pieces of your business. Paypal also offers discounts on volume.

Pricing: No setup or monthly fees for Paypal Payments Standard, however with PayPal Payments Advanced ($5/month), you can keep them on your site and with PayPal Payments Pro ($10/month), you can customize and host the checkout page. 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Source: Paypal Merchant Fees

Stripe

Stripe is a fairly new competitor to PayPal, but seems to be stacking up for some businesses. Stripe, like PayPal takes security very seriously. Their per-transaction fees are similar but their monthly fees don’t exist and they offer your web developer some clean secure options to help customize your buying process. Processing occurs automatically every 7 days.

Pricing: No setup or monthly fees for Stripe. 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction. Source: Stripe Pricing.

Whatever you choose, make sure you choose strong calls to action, as well as easy to navigate and user-friendly flow to make taking money a snap.

And if you need help with your website development goals, we offer customizable website maintenance and support services — get in touch today!