Category

Conversion

Fewer than 5% of visitors to an ecommerce site typically convert to customers. In this Conversion category, we offer insights to increase that percentage. Our expert contributors address ratings and reviews, social proof, site search, product page enhancements, product descriptions, checkout options, live chat, and much more — anything to help close online sales.

Analytics & Data | Checkout Tactics | Customer Retention | Customer Service | Photography & Video | Product Pages

Conversion
Gaining Insight Into Live Chat

October 1, 2006 • Kevin Gold

The irony of “live chat” is that there most likely isn't any “chat” at all. Live chat is usually a text-based communication that happens online between a customer and a merchant. It's akin to the instant messaging youmight do with a friend through Apple's iChat or AOL's InstantMessenger...
Conversion
Ten Ways to Grow Your Online Store Sales, Part 3

September 18, 2006 • PEC Staff

We covered the importance of keywords and content in our first installment and we covered customer testimonials, offering multiple payment options, diversifying sales channels and conducting pay-per-click campaigns in our last installment. In this, our final installment, we'll look at a...
Conversion
Ten Ways to Grow Your Online Store Sales, Part 2

September 11, 2006 • PEC Staff

We covered the importance of keywords and content in last week's installment. Today, let's take a look at four more important ways to grow your online sales: customer testimonials, offering multiple payment options, diversifying sales channels and conducting pay-per-click campaigns. Cu...
Customer Service
Who Runs Your Business?

September 1, 2006 • Pamela Hazelton

I love to cook. It’s something my husband knows well, and new friends learn quickly. Those visiting my home think I’m going out of my way, but to cook a savory meal, regardless of the time it takes, is how I relax. I’ve been known to make specialty pies I don’t even eat only to call the...
Conversion
A One-Second Review

September 1, 2006 • Mat Greenfield

I was recently reading a study published earlier this year by Carleton University in Ottawa. They suggest that web visitors make an instant assessment of the overall “quality” of a website in less than a second. This contradicts conventional wisdom that suggests you have 6-8 seconds to ...
Conversion
Customer Conversion: Testing Brings Science To Marketing

September 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

There are two things every ecommerce business should strive to achieve. The first is increasing conversion, turning a higher percentage of browsers into buyers. The second is optimizing marketing spend, driving higher rates of return from existing advertising dollars being spent. The m...
Conversion
Email Marketing: Open-Rates and Click-Throughs

September 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

The "FROM:" line in an email is the most important factor to getting it opened. “Email marketers should use a consistent ‘From:’ address, and it must be recognizable to their customers,” says Gail Goodman, chief executive officer of Constant Contact, a self-service email-marketing firm...
Conversion
Usability Report Card: FugitiveToys.com

September 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Josh Pigford was confident enough to put his site, Fugitivetoys.com up for the inaugural “Usability Report Card.” While a lot of attention is paid to search engine optimization and online advertising, usability is sometimes given the cold shoulder by small ecommerce businesses. However,...
Conversion
Ten Ways to Grow Your Online Store Sales, Part 1

August 28, 2006 • PEC Staff

These days, setting up an online storefront is easier, less expensive and more valuable than ever as more and more people get comfortable shopping online. Setting up an online storefront is a great way to start a business or grow sales by extending the reach of your current business. Wh...
Conversion
Growing Your Sales Using eBay Sales Data

August 20, 2006 • PEC Staff

Understanding product markets can help you determine what you should sell online and how you should sell it. The right product at the wrong time or sold the wrong way can be an eBay seller’s downfall. There are many resources for gauging what methods will work best for you. You can use ...
Conversion
With Limited Ad Dollars, What’s The Answer

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Each small ecommerce business tries to squeeze every drop of value out of his limited advertising dollars. Online advertising options have grown very congested in the last few years, saturating the marketplace and making it more difficult for a business to get noticed — unless it is dol...
Conversion
Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Evaluating Options

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Practical eCommerce recently conducted a pay-per-click advertising test with four search engines — Google, Yahoo!, Ask and MSN. On behalf of two online businesses, the magazine purchased $50 of identical ads for both of them on each search engine. In addition to measuring number of cli...
Analytics & Data
Email: Confidentiality Required

August 1, 2006 • Pamela Hazelton

I get thousands of emails each day. A good majority are spam, and I use Cloudmark (the best system I’ve found) for filtering them. Being in business, however, I still have to take the time to scan them all, making sure I’m not missing an initial request for work from someone who may hav...
Conversion
Analysis: Search Engines Are Not Created Equal

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

The pay-per-click test Practical eCommerce conducted on search engines Google, Yahoo!, Ask and MSN netted some interesting data, but perhaps the most valuable information came outside the numbers. I have never set up this type of pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, so I came to this project ...
Conversion
Q&A: Outlook for Search Advertising Prices

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Will ecommerce firms pay more or less for paid search ads in the near future? Google’s net profit in 2005 exceeded 30 percent of gross revenue. This is a huge profit margin compared to many other companies and industries. Yahoo!, MSN and Ask.com are investing heavily for a portion of t...
Conversion
Vertical Search Could Mean Better ROI

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Raise your hand if you’ve implemented or managed a Google AdWords campaign for your online business. Instantly, thousands of hands just touched the sky. According to JupiterResearch, advertising trends online have mirrored those in traditional television and print media. What many onli...
Conversion
PPC Expense: What Is A Customer Worth?

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

When determining how much to spend on a pay-per-click campaign, an etailer should first calculate what a customer is worth to his business. Getting a customer to purchase a single product isn’t the goal of most ecommerce site owners. However, most owners fail to calculate the potential...
Conversion
Email Marketing Fosters Long-Term Relationships

August 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

The use of email is changing the way businesses communicate with their customers. Rather than using email solely to offer products for sale, many businesses now use it to communicate helpful information to shoppers who request it. This helpful information creates a relationship with a s...
Conversion
Use In-store Kiosks to Promote Website

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

When was the last time you were shopping for an item you just had to have, only to discover when you got to the store you couldn’t buy it in the color or size you wanted? If you are like most retail shoppers, you have experienced an out-of-stock situation recently. This is one of the m...
Conversion
Pay-Per-Call: New Player on the Scene?

August 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Online advertising is heating up and growing quickly in popularity. However, many companies are missing out if they don’t have a website or if their services are not fit to be sold over the web. Fortunately, a new version of paid advertising has emerged recently — pay-per-call. Pay-per...
Conversion
Rethinking Conversion Rates

August 1, 2006 • Mat Greenfield

When I'm not writing for Practical eCommerce, I spend my professional life running a “boutique” web-consulting firm. As a result, I get involved in numerous sales meetings. I’ve noticed something of a trend recently with companies evaluating our services asking for third-party “research...
Conversion
Web Design: Function Trumps Form

July 11, 2006 • PEC Staff

A well-designed site is important, but it will not be the key factor in determining your sales success. It's not uncommon for a business owner to turn to a design-oriented person to help create a website for his company. That may, however, be a mistake. Conversion specialists routinely...
Conversion
Five Great Conversion Tips

July 1, 2006 • Mat Greenfield

These conversion tips can be implemented by a business owner in just a few days with the possible aid of a competent web programmer. When implemented, the tips can make a profound difference on the conversions rates of an ecommerce business. The tips are: Simplify your home page. ...
Conversion
There’s More to Conversion Than a Sale

July 1, 2006 • Lisa Wehr

Consider the long and short of e-retailing. As competition rises and tracking becomes more sophisticated, ecommerce merchants are looking for more ways to improve their sales performance. The answer may lie in how they define success. There’s more to a conversion than a sale. Here’s wha...
Conversion
Turning Visitors Into Customers

July 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

It may be the most common problem ecommerce businesses face: plenty of traffic but few sales. Converting visitors into customers is a blend of both art and science and, once it’s understood, it’s a skill that will reap rewards for a company’s bottom line. The Web Analytics Association ...
Conversion
Web Design: Multiple Roles

July 1, 2006 • Mat Greenfield

A web redesign project is not a one-man assignment. Certainly technology has made it possible for a single graphic designer or programmer to build a site, but not a high conversion site (in my humble opinion). Instead, I think there are a number of key roles that must be fulfilled in o...
Product Pages
Showcase Products Via Podcasts

July 1, 2006 • Pamela Hazelton

I’m addicted to the They Might Be Giants podcasts. I'm convinced they helped sell tickets for their latest tour by offering up free music, coupled with tour advertisements, in their weekly podcasts. I'll bet podcasting some of the tours' live performances also helped. But, can podcasti...
Conversion
Measuring Conversion Success

July 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

An ecommerce site with 6 to 9 percent of its visitors making purchases can be considered a success, according to conversion experts. With an industry standard hovering around 1 to 2 percent, most sites are failing to capture all the business they can have. Once a company makes a commit...
Conversion
Integrating Bricks and Mortar with eCommerce

July 1, 2006 • Kevin Gold

Today‘s shopper expects convenience. Merchants integrating brick-and-mortar stores, ecommerce sites and catalogs will increase repeat purchase rates and achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction. In any multi-channel retail consumer interaction, traffic and sales are being driven ...
Conversion
Attracting The Right Traffic

July 1, 2006 • Kevin Gold

Gaining just one percent more sales or leads from your visitors can significantly impact your bottom line, yet the common practice of improving website conversion often focuses exclusively on redesigning and optimizing your website. Website conversion — the process of turning website v...

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