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

    Should You Add SEO To Your Marketing Efforts?

    October 1, 2006 •

    Pay-per-click advertising is, no doubt, one of the most effective ways of getting new leads and prospects to come to your website. Within a period of 24 hours, any business—large or small—can appear at the top positions for any keyword that’s applicable to their business. However, it d...

  • Conversion

    Tradeshows The Right Way

    October 1, 2006 •

    For online retailers, tradeshows are an incredible opportunity to source goods, connect with wholesalers and manufacturers, and expand their product lines. There is a right way and a wrong way to attend tradeshows. To get the most out of your experience, you need to prepare. Your first...

  • Conversion

    Tuning Up Your Checkout Process

    October 1, 2006 •

    One of the most important factors to optimizing conversion is fine tuning the shopping cart and checkout process. Sales are won or lost within this crucial component of your site, and it is critical to examine the data that will unlock the mysteries of visitor behavior within this proce...

  • Conversion

    Usability Report Card: Headsets.com

    October 1, 2006 •

    Earlier this year, Headsets.com was calling the checkout button "save to cart." We commented on this horrid usability, and the company let us know it made a change when they redesigned the site. Headsets.com is selling mostly to small to medium businesses, so the site must appeal more t...

  • Conversion

    Email as a Mini-sale

    October 1, 2006 •

    Sales professionals have a notion of “mini-sales.” A mini-sale occurs when a prospect agrees to learn more about you or your product, but has not yet agreed to a purchase. Say, for example, that you sell cleaning supplies to restaurants. You may call a restaurant owner and ask him to p...

  • Conversion

    Forums Offer Interactivity

    October 1, 2006 •

    If you're looking for an easy way to make your business’ website more interactive, consider adding a bulletin board or a forum. They’re different names for the same thing, an application you can add to your site allowing visitors to leave messages and interact with each other. You can e...

  • Conversion

    Gaining Insight Into Live Chat

    October 1, 2006 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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...

  • Conversion

    Analysis: Search Engines Are Not Created Equal

    August 1, 2006 •

    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 •

    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...

  • Analytics & Data

    Email: Confidentiality Required

    August 1, 2006 •

    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

    Vertical Search Could Mean Better ROI

    August 1, 2006 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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 •

    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...

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