Page 104 – Practical Ecommerce

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Technical SEO
4 SEO Requirements for International Ecommerce Sites

March 2, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Multinational ecommerce businesses with country-specific websites have distinct search engine optimization requirements. A searcher in Australia, say, must end up on the site containing Australian English, currency, and content. A searcher in Germany must land on that website. And so on.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Walmart’s Ecommerce Sales Up 23 Percent in Fourth Quarter 2017

March 1, 2018 • Marcia Kaplan

Last month the Department of Commerce announced its estimate of U.S. retail ecommerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2017. The Department issues two sets of figures. One is seasonally ...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: March 1, 2018

March 1, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late-February from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on free shipping, online and mobile payments, audience management, live stream purchases, and Amazon. Woot! offers free shipping to Amazon Prime members. Acquired by Amazon in 2010, daily deal site Woot! is now offering free shipping on purchases from its site to all Amazon Prime members.
Product Pages
Does Your Mobile Site Pass the Thumb Zone Test?

March 1, 2018 • Pamela Hazelton

Online sellers have spent a great deal of time implementing features that support cross-device shopping. This includes researching and tweaking their websites to accommodate various screen sizes, browsers, and connectivity. But there’s another key mobile design feature: the thumb zone.
Google Ads
Step-by-step PPC Testing Strategy for Any Advertiser

February 28, 2018 • Robert Brady

Ad copy is often the first interaction a consumer has with a business. For AdWords and Bing Ads, advertisers have 30 characters in Headline 1, 30 characters in Headline 2,
Business
February 2018 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

February 28, 2018 • PEC Staff

What follows are our 10 most popular articles for February 2018, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones. HTTPS ...
Design & Dev Tools
Use Status Pages to Evaluate Cloud-based Vendors

February 27, 2018 • Eric Davis

Evaluating the performance of cloud-based vendors can be tricky. You can read reviews, but it's sometimes difficult to find unbiased opinions. One little-known method of evaluating cloud platforms is to analyze their status pages. They provide a high-level overview of the platform's operational status. Many status pages also include a history of incidents, including recent problems.
Social Media
Facebook Product Feed Ads: Not Just for Remarketing

February 26, 2018 • Michael Stancil

Product feed ads for remarketing are seemingly everywhere on Facebook. And that makes sense because if a merchant can show a potential customer the exact product she viewed or added to the cart, why wouldn’t it? It’s a no-brainer, which is why it’s time to set up those ads if you haven't already. However, while product feed ads are good for remarketing, they also can be compelling prospecting tools.
Technical SEO
SEO Tips for New Ecommerce Sites (and Redesigns)

February 26, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

The battle for organic search performance can be won or lost before a site launches. Choices made in the design and implementation stages impact the ability of an ecommerce business to change critical elements for search engine optimization, handcuffing what is typically one of the largest drivers of traffic and revenue.
Platforms & Apps
15 Quality Themes for BigCommerce

February 25, 2018 • Sig Ueland

BigCommerce is a leading ecommerce platform, hosting more than 55,000 online stores, including prominent brands such as Martha Stewart and Toyota. With a large selection of high quality, premium themes,
Amazon & Marketplaces
Protect your brand on ecommerce marketplaces

February 23, 2018 • Phil Masiello

Marketplaces can help brands add incremental sales — and build awareness. The more avenues on which the consumer sees your brand, the more recognizable it becomes. As your brand gains recognition, consumers will remember it and will be more likely to purchase. But selling on marketplaces could backfire if you don't utilize the tools correctly.
SEO
What, Exactly, Is Barebones SEO?

February 22, 2018 • Kerry Murdock

Organic traffic from Google and other search engines remains critical to many merchants. It generates a steady stream of prospects. And it insulates merchants from over-relying on Amazon for sales. There is no greater authority on search engine optimization than Stephan Spencer. He's the co-author of The Art of SEO and the sole author of leading digital marketing books. I recently spoke with him on bare-minimum SEO tactics for ecommerce.
Business
Failure to Manage Sales Tax Exemptions Could Cost (Big) Money

February 22, 2018 • Shane Ratigan

As time and technology move forward, sales tax auditors’ focus has shifted. Nowadays, auditors are discovering assessable errors in sales tax exemption certificate management. Sellers who regularly make sales to other businesses or exempt organizations can find themselves open to negative audit results if their exemption documentation management is lacking.
Checkout Tactics
Abandoned Cart Recovery Is Cheaper Than Marketing to New Clients

February 21, 2018 • Curtis McHale

In "Optimizing Checkout Flow in WooCommerce," I offered tips on reducing abandoned carts by streamlining the checkout process. To be clear, however, you could spend years optimizing your checkout process and not eliminate abandoned carts. There are options to bring shoppers back to your store once they’ve moved on to other things. One of the best ways is to send emails to shoppers about the products they’ve left in their carts.
Marketing & Advertising
A Brief Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Ecommerce

February 21, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Affiliate marketing is a promotional model that connects merchants with independent marketers who are willing to invest time and money to sell a merchant's products. Put another way, affiliate marketing connects a business that has a product to sell with a marketer who can sell it. Affiliate marketing is performance based. Thus advertisers only pay when affiliates deliver a specified customer action. In the ecommerce context, this action is typically an online purchase, which makes affiliate marketing very cost effective.
Email & Text Marketing
Does ‘AMP for Email’ Impact Ecommerce?

February 20, 2018 • Carolyn Nye

Google just introduced "AMP for Email" and announced plans to include it Gmail later this year. In this post, I will explain AMP for Email and its potential impact on email marketing for merchants. "Accelerated Mobile Pages" is an open-source initiative to improve load times for mobile pages. AMP's popularity has increased considerably during the past few years.
Platforms & Apps
15 Popular Themes for Shopify

February 20, 2018 • Sig Ueland

With over 100 free and premium ecommerce themes, the Shopify Theme Store gives businesses a wide range of starting points to develop the right site and build a brand. Here is a list of popular themes for Shopify. There are themes for single products and small and large catalogs. Several themes can also be used for a crowdfunding campaign. There are free and premium themes.
Business > Merchant Voice
Comparing KPIs for 2 websites in first year of trading

February 19, 2018 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Now that My Event Décor has been live for just over 12 months, it’s time to check its metrics and compare its growth against the first year of My Wedding Décor. Both My Event Décor and My Wedding Décor took several weeks to make the first online sale — the former recorded its first online sale within 37 days of launch, the latter within 21 days.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: February 19, 2018

February 19, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for February from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on content creation, delivery, mobile messaging, and multiple updates from Amazon. Snap launches Snap Store. Snap has launched Snap Store in the Snapchat Discover section.
Cross-border Selling > Merchant Voice
4 payment aggregators to use in Russia

February 18, 2018 • Maksim Komonov

In this post, I'll list four major payments aggregators in Russia. There are many more, but these four are trusted by Russian consumers and businesses, as well as international companies. When choosing a payment aggregator, consider these key points.
Fraud Prevention
Staying Ahead of Fake Product Reviews

February 18, 2018 • Gagan Mehra

In the competitive world of online commerce, not every merchant is honest. Some post fake positive reviews for their products to entice shoppers. Others post fake negative reviews of competitors' products to dissuade potential buyers. Both are examples of product review fraud. It's dishonest to competitors and, also, to shoppers that rely heavily on the reviews. If a retailer does not stop the fraud, shoppers could lose trust in the reviews and cease purchasing from the site.
SEO Tools
Indispensable SEO Tools, from Free to Expensive

February 16, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engine optimization is rooted in data: technical data, analytical data, and contextual data. The tools you use to access that data fuel your ability to make smart SEO decisions, to keep your performance moving in the right direction. In this post, I'll recommend SEO tools in eight categories. Some of the tools are free or low cost. Others are more expensive, with many more features
Business
Manage Your Business Blog with a Kanban Board

February 15, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Content is an important part of ecommerce marketing. Often, content marketing begins with a consistent, well-written, and well-managed blog. For sole proprietorships and small businesses, it is possible to manage a ...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
3 hooks to lure shoppers away from Amazon

February 14, 2018 • Richard Stubbings

In 2017 nearly 50 percent of all U.S. ecommerce sales went through Amazon. In the run-up to Thanksgiving, the rate was even higher. It is thus difficult to ignore Amazon if you want to succeed in selling online. But that is not to say that you have to follow other Amazon sellers and chase the price to the bottom. Instead, look carefully at the behavior of your target customers and determine how best to profit from them.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Ecommerce Briefs: Alibaba Eyes Kroger; Walmart Partners with Rakuten

February 14, 2018 • Marcia Kaplan

“Ecommerce Briefs” is my occasional series of news and developments from online merchants. In this installment, I’ll address grocery wars, international expansion by Amazon and Walmart, and Pepsi’s embrace of ecommerce. In an effort to diversify and expand, Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce giant, is following in Amazon’s footsteps with its “New Retail” initiative — acquiring brick-and-mortar stores in China and looking to make similar acquisitions overseas.
On-page SEO
4 Ways to Increase Revenue from Organic Search Traffic

February 13, 2018 • Hamlet Batista

If you have been working for months trying to get higher search rankings with little to show for it, you are not alone. Chasing high rankings typically falls flat. You can easily spend six months or more — and a lot of money and effort — and have nothing to show for it at the end. In this article, I will share four ways to increase sales from organic search traffic that don’t require high rankings.
Content Marketing
Proofreading Pitfalls That Trip Up Even Watchful Wordsmiths

February 13, 2018 • Marcia Yudkin

Shoppers are taken aback when they spot a typo on a website that seems to them obviously careless or ridiculous. In some instances, it’s not habitual sloppiness or lack of effort leading to the errors. Instead, certain situations crop up where even meticulous writers or editors find it tough to catch mistakes. By keeping an eye out for these glitch generators, you can keep website visitors focused shopping. Here are the seven situations most likely to cause hard-to-catch typos.
Business
From Retail to Manufacturing, Kanban Improves Efficiency

February 12, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Kanban is a project management approach that can be applied to nearly any step-by-step process to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and help a business improve. Although Kanban was developed in the 1940s and 1950s to boost manufacturing efficiency at Toyota factories in Japan, the system has been adapted to many industries, including software development, publishing, and retail management.
Social Media
13 Social Media Plugins for WordPress

February 12, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of social media plugins for WordPress. There are sharing plugins to connect your website to a wide selection of social networks. There are also plugins with specific features, such as a social locker and a social metrics dashboard. Most of these plugins are free, though many have premium plans.
Analytics & Data
Which Promotions Perform Best for Your Ecommerce Business?

February 11, 2018 • Anna Kayfitz

Ecommerce merchants typically run promotions throughout the year. Some are seasonal, such as "Free Shipping on Valentine’s Day Flowers" and "20% Off for Cyber Monday." Others focus on product categories, such as “Free Socks with Purchase of Any Jeans." But how does a merchant know if a promotion was successful? That's the purpose of this article.