Armando Roggio

Articles by: Armando Roggio

Armando Roggio

Armando Roggio is the longtime senior contributor to Practical Ecommerce. He's a global ecommerce authority and a practicing merchant, developer, and journalist.

Since 2008 he's written over 1,300 articles for Practical Ecommerce addressing all matters of ecommerce and presented dozens of webinars.

His previous positions include director of ecommerce for a regional retail chain and marketing publications manager at Micron Technology, a publicly-traded computer-chip manufacturer. He holds a B.A. in English Writing and Journalism from The University of Pittsburgh.

Contact Armando via email or LinkedIn. Follow his ecommerce tweets at @ecommerceboy.

SEO
3 Tools to Find Broken Links on Your Website

August 11, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Finding and fixing broken links should be part of your company's regular site maintenance. Here are three popular SEO tools and instructions on how to use each to locate broken links.
Business
Prioritize Ecommerce Tasks with the Eisenhower Matrix

August 7, 2019 • Armando Roggio

The Eisenhower Matrix organizes your to-do list based on each task's relative importance and urgency. The model requires you to think about how a task can impact the overall business. It can also encourage long-term planning.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for September 2019

August 4, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing requires a steady stream of material, such as guides, articles, and podcasts. Often this material is the result of dozens of ideas. For September 2019, your business might choose to write an article about procrastination. It could publish a useful guide, or it might even start a podcast.
SEO
SEO: That Blob of Text May Not Be Helping

July 30, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Adding on-site text for search engines and not users could confuse algorithms and may amount to keyword stuffing, according to a Google spokesman. The practice is understandable. Merchants seek to attract traffic from organic search. They know that search algorithms love unique content.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How to Obtain UPCs for Selling on Amazon

July 25, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Amazon requires private label brands and direct-to-consumer manufacturers that sell on its marketplace to have universal product codes or similar for virtually all products. Fortunately, for as little as $250 just about any company can register a UPC prefix and obtain the required code.
Technical SEO
SEO: How Google Reads and Renders JavaScript

July 24, 2019 • Armando Roggio

JavaScript can improve a shopper's buying experience, encourage interaction, and even bolster site performance in some cases. But where search engine optimization is concerned, JavaScript requires an extra degree of care.
Technical SEO
SEO: Optimizing Crawl Budget for Ecommerce Sites

July 17, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Optimizing an ecommerce site for crawl budget may impact how often Google's web crawler, Googlebot, visits a given page and how quickly that page appears in search results. It can also guide Googlebot to the most important content on a site, which could impact how those pages rank.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for August 2019

July 9, 2019 • Armando Roggio

In August, consider focusing your business's content marketing efforts on senior citizens, your product or brand story, technologies that were invented or patented in August, things to do during the month, and the growing interest in veganism.
SEO
New Search Console Updates Confirm Mobile-first Indexing

June 27, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Recent changes to Google’s Search Console made it easier to identify whether a site was primarily indexed based on mobile or desktop content and identified which crawler (Googlebot Smartphone or Googlebot Desktop) was primary on a given report or chart.
Product Pages
Optimize Responsive Product Images with SRCSET

June 25, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Online retailers may have an image problem. In many cases, the images they need to sell a product are so large and so slow-to-load that they are driving shoppers away. Fortunately, a simple HTML attribute could significantly improve site performance.
SEO
Tips for Diagnosing Steep Drops in Organic Search Traffic

June 19, 2019 • Armando Roggio

If you own or manage an ecommerce business and organic search traffic drops suddenly, it can feel like the sky is falling. You might not know what went wrong. Here are a few tips for diagnosing a steep drop in organic traffic to your ecommerce site.
Business
Use CAC and CLV to Monitor Ecommerce Growth, Profit

June 14, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce owners and managers have so much data available and so many key performance indicators, it can be difficult to know where to focus. But businesses aimed at long-term, stable growth may do well to focus on two: customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer acquisition cost (CAC).
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for July 2019

June 10, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing inspiration for July 2019 can come from many sources, including advice columns “Dear Abby” and “Ask Ann Landers,” sporting events, space exploration, American politics, and even Facebook. Content marketing ...
Content Marketing
Essential Social Media Metrics for Content Marketing

June 5, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Social media sites can be powerful tools for distributing content and driving engagement. But, like much of marketing, long-term social media success requires constant improvement. In this article, I'll suggest the primary social media metrics to track as part of your company's content marketing efforts.
Content Marketing
How to Generate High-traffic Article Topics

May 31, 2019 • Armando Roggio

I have to come up with lots of article ideas. I have a few methods, including reading industry-specific posts and following links in them. This morning, I was sitting in ...
Marketing & Advertising
A Disciplined Approach to Marketing an Ecommerce Business

May 28, 2019 • Armando Roggio

The means and methods of driving ecommerce site traffic and conversions are clear. Marketers at mid-sized ecommerce and omnichannel retail businesses know the tactics to employ. Thus the challenge to grow a business is often discipline — not knowledge.
Conversion
A 7-step Cart Recovery Program for Luxury Brands (That Actually Works)

May 24, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Imagine a company selling high-end products that cost thousands of dollars each. A few abandoned ecommerce shopping carts could add up to a small fortune. The recovery series described below has generated as much as $40,000 in a few hours.
Business
4 Steps to Discover an Ecommerce Product Niche

May 21, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Amazon sells everything, seemingly, as does Walmart. And they do it well. But for most ecommerce businesses, attempting to sell everything to everyone can lead to failure. A niche with fewer competitors can have a better chance at success.
Business
Use Pre-orders to Gauge Demand, Generate Cash

May 17, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Pre-orders have dual advantages for product makers and for retailers selling online or in a brick-and-mortar store. First, pre-orders can be a good indicator of demand. Second, pre-orders can generate cash ahead of a product's release.
Content Marketing
5 Ways to Recruit Content Creators for Your Business

May 13, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing is not a one-and-done tactic. It is a commitment. But you don’t have to do it alone. Recruit other people to create content for you. Here is a list of five ways to do just that.
Email & Text Marketing
Boost Profits with a Win-back Email Campaign

May 7, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Sometimes customer relationships fade. A shopper may have made several purchases, but then, over time his orders become less frequent until finally, you don't hear from him. But your business can re-engage at least a few lapsed customers and win them back with email marketing automation.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for June 2019

May 3, 2019 • Armando Roggio

In June 2019, content marketers should have no shortage of potential topics to attract, engage, and retain customers. In much of North America, the weather will be grand. That is why my first two suggestions on this month's list of content marketing ideas have to do with the outdoors.
Email & Text Marketing
Need More from Email Marketing? Learn from Competitors

April 29, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Email marketing provides a strong return on investment, requires very little money, and helps even fledgling businesses drive sales. The question, then, for most companies is not whether they should use email marketing, but how. One strategy is to monitor successful competitors.
Business
How to Respond to a Copyright Infringement Notice

April 25, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Copyright infringement is a serious issue that could cost a business as much as $150,000 per instance. If your business receives an infringement notice, take it seriously. Aim to settle if, in fact, infringement occurred.
Design & Development
Moving Data May Become Software’s Best Feature

April 22, 2019 • Armando Roggio

The commerce technology stack is changing. And the ability to move information from one system or platform to another is, perhaps, the essential feature mid-sized or enterprise businesses should look for in software providers.
Photography & Video
How to Make Images Load Faster

April 16, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Images impact the load time of a website. The faster the site, the better the user experience, leading to conversions and profits. In this piece, I'll offer suggestions for optimizing images. The goal is to create an attractive experience without bogging down performance.
Design & Development
The Case for Optimizing Image Performance

April 12, 2019 • Armando Roggio

For ecommerce, pictures can showcase products, inspire customers, and boost conversion rates. For web performance, however, pictures can hurt page load times and, thereby, the user experience. In March 2019, the ...
Platforms & Apps
7 Reasons to Consider a Headless CMS

April 9, 2019 • Armando Roggio

There are many reasons for a business to consider a headless content management system. Among them are a need to use content in multiple channels, a desire for improved customization, and relief from a cluttered, conventional platform.
Marketing & Advertising
How to Measure Customer Acquisition Cost

April 7, 2019 • Armando Roggio

How does an ecommerce company decide which marketing tactics work the best? Customer acquisition cost helps to answer this question. CAC is a key performance indicator for ecommerce marketing. It estimates how much to invest to attract one new customer.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for May 2019

April 2, 2019 • Armando Roggio

From science fiction to education to research, there are plenty of ways to connect with consumers through content marketing in May 2019. What follows are five content ideas for your business to try in May 2019.