eCommerce is much more than just getting people to your site. While traffic is unarguably an important aspect to internet marketing, getting viewers to purchase from your store is equally important. Here is a list of 10 basic features* your store should encompass to encourage viewers to not only make a purchase but engage in a long-lasting relationship with your store. (*Gartner)
1) Product information should be easy to read, detailed, and promote the best features of the item.
2) Your return policy should be clearly marked, easy to find and interpret.
3) Every page of your website should load quickly. This includes not only the main pages but every page a customer engages through checkout.
4) Product reviews from other customers should be displayed with every item. Product reviews really set eCommerce stores apart from their brick and mortar cousins. Leverage this difference and include product reviews throughout your store to encourage and reassure customers while they shop.
5) Multiple product images or 3d rotators should company every product. Customers like to know what they are buying and clear multiple or 3d images of products do just that.
6) If a picture is worth a thousand words than a video must be priceless.Video of your products included in the description is marketing gold. Viewers feel more connected to video and better informed. Video also offers other marketing venues such as YouTube, video search and more.
7) Online Chat assistance is a great way to bridge the personal connection gap that plague online retailers. Nothing is more reassuring to the customer than knowing that help from a real live person is only a mouse-click away.
8 ) Related products should be displayed with every item. This not only helps you increase sales but helps fill the need for the shopper.
9) Easy and quick checkout is a must. Laborious and slow checkout systems are the culprit for many abandoned shopping carts. Minimize the risk and maximize your customer satisfaction with a one page checkout system or similar system.
10) Many shoppers don’t want to sign up to your eCommerece system. Cater to these customers by allowing them to make purchases a a guest. If you make them happy with the first purchase they might come back, sign up, and become lifelong customers.
Implementing these listed features will put you on the the right track to increase customer retention, loyalty, and overall satisfaction. If your eCommerce shopping cart is falling short of this list please contact us to learn more on how InteractOne can get you back on track.
Despite the major search engine’s (i.e. Google, Bing & Yahoo) continued evolution of more and more complex algorithms, content still remains as a major player for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). What does this mean for your business? That every page of your website; whether it is a blog, eCommerce or static website should be analyzed for keyword optimization, specifically, keywords in meta-tags, keyword density, page focus and user functionality/readability. While existing content should be analyzed and optimized, new fresh content should be created weekly, if not daily, following the same guidelines.
Despite their recent downgrade of importance with major search engine algorithms, using keyword optimization keyphrases in your meta-tags is still the best practice and should be followed. This does not mean that you should go stuff keywords in the meta-tags and wait for traffic to come in. Rather use them legitimately and follow these basic SEO rules. On-page tags such as image alt tags and title tags should also be filled. If you have a blog make sure you use the tag function because there is recent evidence that these are of growing importance.
Keyword density and page focus go hand in hand. Each page of your website should be focused around no more than two keywords or phrases. More than two and your content becomes diluted and search engines will have a hard time categorizing your website which will result in poor rankings for your desired keywords. You should be careful not to repeat the same keyphrase over and over again. A good rule is 5 times per 300 words. You should use supporting words and synonyms that go along with the the subject. H1 and h2 tags should also be used, but no more than one each per page and they should be very similar to your meta-tags.
While search engines may not be able to truly experience your website’s feel and function, they do take in account navigation and text to code ratio (more text, less code is best). These two aspects will also directly affect the human user’s experience. Less code means a faster website and a more logical user-friendly navigation. People will be able to view and peruse your site easily.
There are many factors that come into play when making your website search engine friendly through keyword optimization. Optimized content has withstood the test of time and has even grown in importance. Ensuring that your new and existing website content follows these rules will go a long way in your internet marketing efforts.
Imagine for moment that you’ve decided to open a brick and mortar retail shop. Consider the steps that you would take in order to launch the store and drive new sales. Initiating a Magento shopping cart is in many ways the same. You must develop:
A target market
Branding – logo and message
Product mix (inventory)
Pricing
Promotion
Magento is the world’s most powerful eCommerce platform. It is a highly flexible and feature-rich system, helping online retailers specifically tailor their branding, product mix, pricing and promotion to suit their target market.
A problem that many Magento site owners run into is that they don’t fully understand the true potential and complexity of Magento’s selling tools. Magento’s administration interface is versatile and powerful and it maintains a relatively steep learning curve with little in the way of formalized training resources. As a result, Magento site owners don’t take full advantage of the available tools, often to the site’s detriment.
This is why InteractOne offers easy-to-understand product support and training for Magento store owners. Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced Magento administrator, we can help you fully understand and take advantage of Magento’s powerful selling tools. Together with those tools, you can leverage your knowledge into a thriving eCommerce site.
Trust the Magento Shopping Cart Experts
As Magento’s second oldest partner, we have an in-house team of Magento certified developers and front end programmers to bring your website vision to life. We’re so good that we are one of Magento’s four worldwide development trainers. We have PMI-certified Project Professionals on staff to help ensure that your site development runs smoothly. Site support stays on-shore as well. If you need help, your call is handled by a representative in our Ohio office. Do you need marketing assistance promoting your site? We offer a full range of Internet marketing services.
Contact the experts at InteractOne for more information about a Magento shopping cart or Magento training by clicking here or calling 513.437.2983.
Contact Us today receive more information about our Magento Support and Training programs.
Where are your corporate document assets (standard operating procedures, research findings, efficiency reports ….)?
Odds are they’re hiding in word documents or PDFs buried in folders nested 10 categories deep on a internal network server that can only be accessed from within the office network and never gets backed up. I know…sounds like a worst case scenario but you’d be surprised at just how many companies find themselves in this position. While this situation often suites IT departments just fine (it’s easy to manage and secure) it can be very costly to your organization in the long term.
Information assets are the equivalent of corporate gold and should be:
secure
permission level provisioned
readily available
well categorized
easily searched
Enter TWiki® – the Open Source Enterprise Wiki and Web 2.0 Application Platform
A flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki, enterprise collaboration platform, and web application platform. It is a Structured Wiki, typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet, extranet or the Internet. Users without programming skills can create web applications. Developers can extend the functionality of TWiki with Plugins. TWiki fosters information flow within an organization, lets distributed teams work together seamlessly and productively, and eliminates the one-webmaster syndrome of outdated intranet content. – http://twiki.org/
We’ve been using and installing TWiki for 2 years now and while we’ve yet to migrate all of our corporate documents off of the office server – “dinosaur” in the closet – we can’t imagine going a day without our TWiki. The ability to search our documents online, collaborate and easily add new content based on login permission is just wonderful.
While TWiki type technology has mostly been the privy of large organizations, small to medium sized companies should also consider the great benefits of a corporate Wiki. The costs are surprisingly low (especially if you go with an open source solution) and information is easily secured and provisionalable based on login credentials.
Contact Us today to find out how you can get started with a TWiki install.
One of the most overlooked aspects of a solid internet marketing plan is content. There are many on-site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies; however, if your website is missing unique, high quality, user friendly content all your work might be in vain. Good content not only will attract and cause search engine robots to scour your site but helps retain viewers and encourages them to take action and increase conversions (ie. phone call, buy a product, fill out a form, ect.) .
So what is good content? Good content will establish you as an authoritative expert on your product or service. Good content should focus around the products or service you are trying to sell. Each industry has keywords and phrases unique to that industry and your pages should only be focused on one or two at the maximum. Your websites home page text should focus on your general services or product and should be linking out to pages of related content. Each page should be at least a couple paragraphs in text with images that complement the text. Your pages content should also include links to other related pages making site navigation easier.
eCommerce websites are notorious for lack of unique content. This is the nature of selling hundreds and thousands of items in which entering unique descriptions is nearly impossible and a would take a significant amount of time. A way to combat this is to create pages describing your best selling items or services. If your selling apples for example, publish pages showing your expertise in the apple field. Write about tasty apples, apple types, any apple related news, how to grow apples, apple recipes, history of apples, apple events, apple nutrition…..you get the idea. Make your website a expert source on the subject.
Creating unique, high quality, user friendly content for your website will go a long way with your SEO efforts. By making yourself an expert or authoritative figure when it comes to your product or service you can ensure that traffic for your website will increase and with it conversions.
Inbound links from credible websites carry considerable weight in Google’s search algorithm and are a critical element for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For businesses entering the Internet; especially small to medium-sized businesses, getting quality links can prove to be a challenge. Here are some tips to get started on your linking campaign and improve your overall internet marketing efforts.
A great place to find links is simply to reach out to your business networking contacts. These can be clients (use discretion here), distributors, neighborhood businesses, charities or events your business takes part in, and related businesses. Just remember, do not be afraid to ask. The worst thing they can say is no and the benefit of obtaining quality links is well worth it.
Another great way to garner links is to go out and be part of the online community of blogs and forums. Make sure your comments are meaningful and on topic. Avoid spamming techniques like putting keywords where your name should be and filling the comments field with meaningless keyphrase babble. If you have content on your website that is relevant to the discussion make sure you offer a link back to that page of your website.
While searching for links, consider what I call “off the web links.” These links are your business’ URL printed on traditional media such as stationary, billing, business cards, and any form of advertising. To leave your URL off any form of media your business uses is simply giving yourself an unnecessary handicap.
Obtaining links can be challenging; however, it is a must when building your credibility with the major search engines and potential customers.
When potential customers search for your business online what are the results? The best case scenario would be a link to your website at the top of the first results page with links to positive reviews and content you control on the rest of the page. Worst case scenario is your competitor’s website or negative reviews at the top of the first results page with a link to your website nowhere to be found.
No matter where you are in the above scenario there are steps you can take to ensure that the results for a search of your of your business’ name are positive and bring customers to you instead of scaring them away.
1) Create a Static Website or Blog for your Business. This is not as intimidating as it sounds. Today you can set up a simple website or blog that will provide your business with an online presence for less than $20.oo a month. Keep in mind that this type of website won’t be winning any awards in design but will provide search engines with content on your business that you control. Blogging platforms such as WordPress are edging out static websites in popularity because of its ease of of use, functionality, and the ability to update text and design with little or no coding skills.
2) Get involved in Social Media. The great thing about social media is that it is free! The three top social media sites I recommend are Twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn. Facebook and Twitter are great internet marketing tool that allow you to engage your target market. You can use these platforms to update customers on your products and services, changes in hours, industry news and any other sources of information that might appeal to them.
3) Set up Local Listing Accounts. This also a great way to put your business on the web for free. Yahoo, Bing, and Google all have local listings/maps that allow you to post a summary, images, video, contact info and hours of your business.
4) Be Pro-Active. Search the internet for blogs, websites, forums, online news outlets and any other type of website that is related to your business or industry. On many of these sites you can make a profile for your business and leave comments and respond to questions. If you see any negative reviews or postings about your business make sure you reach out immediately to resolve these issues.
Creating an online presence for your business that attracts customers instead of repels them only takes a few hours to setup and a few hours a week to manage. As more and more people log-on to the internet to find a business or to learn more about a business they plan on working with, you can bet your online reputation is going to play an ever more important role.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is defined by Wikipedia as “the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion”. Wait, what is SEO again? That type of definition; although correct, leaves a lot of questions in its wake. How does it work? Does SEO focus on the customer or the search engine? Or my all-time favorite what is the secret to getting the top listing in Google for this keyword?
The best way to answer these questions is not to think of SEO as a simple one-time fix problem. SEO is a multi-faceted spoke in your overall marketing plan. SEO is not a simple fix and forget solution. It is an endless process of proving to search engines and customers both that your business is the one to go to for a particular product or service.
Number of impressions of your website’s URLs in search results pages
The number of clicks on your website’s URLs from search results pages
The ratio of clicks to impressions for your website’s URLs
The average position of your website’s URLs in search listings
The pages users landed on when clicking on search results listing your site
Search Console data includes only Web Search property data and includes a maximum of the last 90 days of data. Analytics requires 48 hours to import data from Search Console; as consequence, the 2 most recent days’ data are not available. Once the data is imported, Analytics also includes a maximum of 90 days of data.
Filters that you apply to Analytics reporting views do not affect the data you import from Search Console.
When implementing SEO for a website you must break down every page into content, links, & structure. Google has written steps to a Google-friendly website. SEO is no joke. Site navigation must be simple and easy to use, the structure should be eye appealing and logical, links to and from the site must be relevant, and page content must be fresh, relevant, unique and cleanly structured. By doing this search engines and customers can discern what your website is about and the increase of website traffic should soon follow.
If you need help setting up your SEO Optimization strategy, contact us to learn how we can get you ranking beautifully on those search engines.
Links are very important when it comes to traffic & page rank. They can help boost your site to the top of the search engine results and a re a necessary part of SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
When it comes to links not any link is exactly alike. Each carries with it a unique set of variables that can either make it more valuable to your website or actually cause it to hurt your rankings. While web design, keyword placement, and the informational architecture is important to your site links can be the difference between ranking at the bottom of the first page of search results or at the top. And believe me, that bit of difference can cause your traffic number to go up significantly.
Finding quality links will take some time, communication skills, and research. When first looking for for websites start by looking for the the ones closest and easiest to to your business. You can start at free listings (Just make sure they are respectable) and from there you can move on to your own customers, friends, neighbors, relatives, etc. To keep the links you gather from sapping your index page rank make sure you set up a links page. It is also important to get rid of any one way links that are not reciprocal ( linking back to your site). If it is paramount to have that link you can always use the “no-follow” link attribute to discourage search engine spiders from following it. The best links are non-reciprocal and are usually the hardest to get; however with persistence and patience you will yeild results and the payoff will be worth it.
If you need assistance with creating a link campaign please do not hesitate to call InteractOne to talk with a Internet Marketing specialist who can get you started today.
Well here it is my first blog post! Because Search Engine Optimization is such a big thing right now it will be the subject of my first post. I’m just going to cover the basics here; however, I don’t mind going into a more in depth discussion & I’m sure I will as the post grows. Enjoy!
There are many things you can do to help improve your search engine listings. Here at InteractOne we call these best practices and they are included in our base SEO package. For every web page there is a set of Meta tags. These tags are sometimes seen by human viewers in the search results page for search engines (title tag, description meta); however, they are more importantly used by search engines to evaluate and classify your website. There has been allot of talk around the blogosphere about the relevance of these tags. Whatever you read remember that although the importance of these tags has diminished the last couple of years in no way are they irrelevant. Simple proof is going to major websites and viewing there source code (control U in Firefox, View then source in Explorer); sure enough there they are. The most basic layout is:
Title
Description
Keywords
When explaining this to people the next question I often get is “what do I put in these tags to maximize my SEO?” Although it may seem like an easy answer it is a bit more complicated than you think. First there are character limitations. Put to many words in and you look a spammer, too few and you’re undercutting yourself. My personal rule is under 70 characters for the title tag (including spaces), Under 150 characters for the description tag (including spaces), and only 5-10 keywords describing my business in the keyword tag.
Basis Rules for the Title Tag
-The first words carry the most “weight” so put what your business does there
-Make sure it is legible and enticing to human eyes (this tag show up in the search results)
-If you want to include your business name put it at the end
Basis Rules for Description tag
-again the beginning words carry the most weight
-This may or may not be included in search engine results so keep it nice for human eyes
-put a call to action at the end
Basic Rules for Keywords tag
-First words carry the most weight
-make sure these are the most basic words describing your business
-don’t waste too much time on these
If you follow these simple steps you are on your way to getting a good listing on any of the major search engines!
