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.

Link Building
4 Sales Lessons for SEO Link-building

December 28, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Search engine optimization professionals may think of themselves as marketers but not salespeople. Nonetheless, a good salesperson can teach us at least four lessons related to the SEO process of obtaining backlinks.
Business
The Impact of California Prop 65 on Ecommerce

December 23, 2018 • Armando Roggio

California cancer and birth-defect warning requirements that took effect in August 2018 have stopped at least some online merchants from selling products to state residents.
Content Marketing
The Key Requirement of Content Marketing

December 19, 2018 • Armando Roggio

The key requirement of content marketing is to be engaging. Without engagement, content cannot fulfill its potential as a marketing tool. In this article, I'll explain why.
SEO
How to Choose Topics for an SEO Cluster Strategy

December 14, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Topic clusters are a strategy for search engine optimization and content marketing. The approach — organizing a site's content around topics and subtopics — can be effective if you choose the right clusters. What follows is a process I've used to create retail topic clusters.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for January 2019

December 5, 2018 • Armando Roggio

This list of content marketing ideas for January 2019 is built around the theme of "national days." In each case, try to come up with a creative way to connect a particular national day to the products your business sells and the keywords you target.
Content Marketing
Creating a Content Marketing Strategy for Ecommerce

November 29, 2018 • Armando Roggio

A clear content marketing strategy defines its purpose, who it serves, and its format. For small and mid-sized ecommerce businesses, a content marketing strategy may be the documented and thoughtful answers to several questions or thought exercises.
SEO
SEO: Topic Clusters Improve Rankings, Traffic

November 21, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Topic clusters are a search engine optimization strategy meant to improve site architecture, help search engines discover important pages, and improve rankings. Topic clusters work like this.
SEO Tools
3 Tools to Analyze Content for Marketing, SEO

November 14, 2018 • Armando Roggio

A successful content marketing program often begins with creating and maintaining an inventory of every page on your site. There are several ways to conduct a content inventory. In each case, you begin by getting a list of all of the pages. Here are three of the best tools to generate that list.
Marketing & Advertising
5 Ecommerce Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019

November 8, 2018 • Armando Roggio

The way you market your ecommerce business today may not work tomorrow. Here are five ecommerce marketing trends your business should consider in the coming year. None of these are new, but they should be effective.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for December 2018

November 5, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Connect with potential customers in December 2018 with humor, a history of eggnog, and holiday happenings. What follows are five content marketing ideas your business can use for December 2018.
Shipping & Fulfillment
7 Tried-and-true Free Shipping Promotions to Drive Holiday Sales

November 1, 2018 • Armando Roggio

A free shipping offer is a powerful ecommerce promotion. It can boost conversion rates and increase average order values. Like other forms of advertising and promotion, free shipping is an expense.
Shipping & Fulfillment
6 Holiday Ecommerce Shipping Mistakes to Avoid

October 24, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Customers expect delivery. For online stores that sell tangible products, order fulfillment is arguably the single most essential task. It is the culmination of marketing, web development, and customer service.
Social Media
Use Facebook Groups to Promote Your Ecommerce Business

October 22, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce businesses can use Facebook groups to help potential customers, build strong reciprocal relationships, and encourage sales. Maintaining or contributing to a Facebook group is a form of both social media ...
Staffing
Workers’ Compensation Basics for Ecommerce, Retail

October 18, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Retailers selling in a brick-and-mortar store or via ecommerce may have a statutory requirement to purchase workers' compensation insurance to ensure that employees get the care they need when accidents happen. The specifics of these compensation programs are state regulated. So the requirements for a particular company will depend on state law.
Fraud Prevention
2 Prominent Ecommerce Fraud Risks in 2018 Holiday Season

October 16, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Incidents of ecommerce payment fraud rise in proportion to holiday sales. But merchants can protect themselves. The key is to recognize popular forms of fraud and then employ steps to prevent them. Two prominent examples this holiday season are account takeovers and coupon abuse.
SEO
SEO: Include Images and Videos in Sitemaps

October 15, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Including image and video content in an XML sitemap may help Google discover more about them to include in image and video search results. XML sitemaps are a convenient way to share page information with search engines such as Google. While submitting a sitemap will not guarantee that a page will be indexed, it will not hurt rankings.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for November 2018

October 5, 2018 • Armando Roggio

In November 2018, your business can attract, engage, and retain customers with content around surviving the peak of the holiday shopping season; little-known celebrations; and Facebook groups. Content marketing is the ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Understanding Sitemaps for Ecommerce Stores

October 3, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Sitemaps inform search engines which pages on a website should be crawled, and may help search engines discover and index those pages. While sitemaps can be a simple text file listing ...
Content Marketing
9 Ways to Promote Your Marketing Content

September 27, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Content only works, only influences potential customers, when those would-be customers can find it. Thus promotion is an important aspect of any content marketing campaign. In a sense, content marketing consists ...
Keyword Research
SEO: Use ‘Niche Down’ Keyword Research for Content Ideas

September 25, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Keyword research is one of the most effective search engine optimization practices. It can open the door to compelling content marketing ideas and link building. The so-called “niche down” method of ...
Marketing & Advertising
2018 Holiday Ecommerce Marketing Checklist

September 24, 2018 • Armando Roggio

For many online stores, the Christmas shopping season can represent a significant percentage of total annual sales. Thus it’s important to get holiday ecommerce marketing right. What follows is a checklist ...
Content Marketing
Content Marketing Reaches Baby Boomers

September 19, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Shoppers aged 54 to 72 represent a significant portion of the total U.S. consumer market. And they have the financial wherewithal to be among the top customers of an ecommerce company. This group of potential customers can be reached with content marketing.
Business
4 Predictions for 2018 Holiday Shopping Season

September 13, 2018 • Armando Roggio

The Christmas shopping season will be here before you know it. Shoppers begin making holiday purchases as soon as October. Those earlier purchases could help drive online sales to a ...
Local Business
5 Ways Local Brick-and-mortar Retailers Can Earn More Profit in 2019

September 10, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Profit might be the most important performance indicator for retail businesses. What follows are five suggestions to earn more profit for a local, brick-and-mortar retailer in the coming year. 1. Sell ...
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for October 2018

September 4, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing requires a steady flow of topics. For this October 2018, consider covering Halloween, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, vegetarianism, Oktoberfest, and what's streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
Content Marketing
5 Tips for Better Content Marketing in 2019

August 28, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing has to provide real value, something that pierces all of the noise of social media and advertising. What follows are five tips that start with value. If embraced, these could make your content marketing efforts more successful in the coming year.
SEO
The Key to Effective Guest Posting (for SEO)

August 23, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Guest posting is a long-standing link-building technique used by many in the search engine optimization industry. But Google has discouraged guest posting for the sole purpose of link building and ...
Keyword Research
Mine Competitors for Top Keywords

August 21, 2018 • Armando Roggio

One of the best ways to discover keyword opportunities is to identify which phrases your company's competitors are ranking for on popular search engines. In this article, I'll address a few ways to identify the keywords that may be working well for your competitors.
Fraud Prevention
Account Takeover Fraud a Growing Problem for Ecommerce

August 17, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Account takeover fraud is a form of identity theft, wherein a criminal gains access to a registered customer’s account. The criminal then logs in, posing as a known and trusted ...
Link Building
SEO Broken Link Building as a Content Marketing Strategy

August 14, 2018 • Armando Roggio

A popular link-building tactic is also an excellent way to identify content marketing topics. When combined, broken link building and content marketing could generate traffic for your site and provide ...