Page 142 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Design & Development
Apple.com Redesign Pushes Ecommerce Site Trends

August 14, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Apple’s August 2015 website redesign emphasizes visual communication and advances several site design trends. Large photographs, meaningful graphics, and useful video abound. When Apple.com relaunched on August 6, 2015, many ...
Social Media
How to Use Twitter for Remarketing

August 13, 2015 • Michael Stancil

Remarketing is an advertising technique that lets you show ads to people who have visited your website. If you have never used remarketing, perhaps it’s time to start. There are numerous ...
Email & Text Marketing
6 After-order Emails to Boost Ecommerce Sales

August 12, 2015 • Armando Roggio

When online retailers use email to market to loyal customers, those stores are applying one of their most effective marketing tools to some of their richest sales prospects. Repeat customers are ...
Business
Trademark Infringement from Search Subject of Amazon Lawsuit

August 10, 2015 • Elizabeth Lewis

Several lawsuits have made headlines over the past few years regarding the use of trademarked phrases in search ads against those that sell the ads (see Rosetta Stone Ltd. v.
Social Media
Local Businesses Still Need a Google Plus Page, for Now

August 10, 2015 • Paul Chaney

Google is in the process of slowly dismantling Google Plus, its ill-fated social network. The first signs occurred when Vic Gundotra, then head of the Google Plus project, left the company in 2014, and Google moved many of the project's staffers to other areas.
Social Media
23 Tools for Social Media Monitoring

August 9, 2015 • Sig Ueland

Social media can be a good resource for promoting a business. But if you’re just plugging your brand, you’re missing the point. Listening to others is an effective way to ...
Technical SEO
Panda 4.2 Complicates SEO for Ecommerce Sites

August 7, 2015 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google released Panda 4.2, the latest Panda algorithm update, in mid-July. If you didn’t feel an impact on your site’s performance on July 18, you’re not alone. Panda 4.2 is Google’s latest algorithm update
Marketing & Advertising
5 Storytelling Mistakes That Content Marketers Must Avoid

August 6, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing has the potential to engage shoppers and develop loyal, repeat customers. But when marketers tell misleading stories or waste someone’s time there may be a negative impact on business too. Some marketers believe
Finance
Ecommerce Attracts Investors, Becomes More International

August 6, 2015 • Marcia Kaplan

Ecommerce continues to be a favored investment for venture capitalists — with a strong showing in the second quarter of 2015. While in the past American ecommerce firms were the ...
Platforms & Apps
How to Keep Your WordPress Site Safe from Hackers

August 6, 2015 • Daniel Kedinger

Once open-source software becomes the most widely used content management system on the Internet, it will undoubtedly also become a target for hackers.
Product Pages
How to Use Bullet Points to Sell Products

August 5, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

In our fast-paced world, everyone wants to get as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time. This rings especially true with product descriptions. While bullet points about products ...
Marketing & Advertising
13 Infographics to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

August 4, 2015 • Kathleen Fealy

Two of the main reasons social media marketing appeals to small businesses are the low cost of entry and the ability to interact with customers and prospects directly. Yet time and personnel resources are required to do it properly.
Conversion
A Great Number of Products Requires Great Search

August 4, 2015 • Armando Roggio

As an online store’s product catalog grows it becomes increasingly important to provide site visitors with a robust and feature-rich search solution to help them find just the right product ...
Local Business
8 Mobile App-building Platforms for Local Business Use

August 3, 2015 • Paul Chaney

The rapid rise of mobile device use has forced local businesses to rethink their marketing strategy to include mobile-optimized websites, mobile advertising, and mobile-enabled customer loyalty programs.
Business
A Random (8-year) Walk in Ecommerce

August 3, 2015 • Michael Manzione

For eight years I’ve held executive positions with third-party ecommerce fulfillment companies — functioning as intermediaries between merchants and customers. It’s a unique perspective, as I’m able to see what ...
Business > Merchant Voice
How I implement new ecommerce ideas

July 31, 2015 • David Sasson

I often take time during the workweek to think about new ideas and to look for new trends that can affect our company — positively or negatively. Sometimes the new ...
On-page SEO
SEO Review: Hi-Health’s Local Search Mostly Good

July 31, 2015 • Jill Kocher Brown

Hi-Health is a retailer of nutritional products in Phoenix, Ariz. It operates roughly 40 brick-and-mortar stores and a robust ecommerce site. Hi-Health volunteered for SEO reviews of both: local search and ecommerce.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for August 2015

July 30, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Your August content marketing could be a blend of real-life seriousness, product promotion, food, listicles, and drones. Content marketing is durable stuff. The useful or entertaining articles, images, and videos
Business > Merchant Voice
Selling on multiple channels creates headaches

July 30, 2015 • Richard Stubbings

Many ecommerce retailers are finding it difficult to compete by selling solely on their own sites. Many have started listing their inventory on other sites, such as Amazon and Ebay ...
Business > Merchant Voice
How 10 Shopify apps have impacted my sales

July 30, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

I have installed 15 apps from the Shopify store since launching My Wedding Decor in late April. Here I examine the impact of 10 of those apps on my sales. Quantity ...
Schools & Resources
11 Website Design Galleries for Inspiration

July 30, 2015 • Sig Ueland

Website design galleries are useful for inspiration — with your own site or if you’re just a fan of great design. They can also be good resources for finding a ...
Conversion
The Marketing Funnel Is Dead; New Consumer Path to Purchase

July 29, 2015 • Phil Frost

For more than a century, the conventional wisdom in marketing was that customer buying decisions followed a linear, top-down progression known as the funnel.
Design & Development
Monitor Competitor Prices with Python and Scrapy

July 29, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Monitoring competitors’ prices and product lineups can help online retailers win pricing battles; optimize sales and special offers; and track product trends over time. For many small ecommerce businesses, however, keeping tabs on the competition is a painful, manual process.
Social Media
Little-known Social Media Features that Boost Engagement

July 28, 2015 • Samantha Collier

Once you come to grips with social media, the main functions of each network — posting, sharing, liking, commenting — become second nature. But there’s a hidden world of advanced ...
Social Media
How to Deal with Negative Comments on Facebook

July 28, 2015 • Rodney Hess

Every small business that participates in social media must be prepared to handle customer service issues from time-to-time. Customers may leave negative comments or reviews about your company, products, or services on occasion, which can be a good thing. It gives you the opportunity to show your followers that you take customer service — and their complaints — seriously.
Google Ads
Bing Offers Native Ads in Its PPC Platform

July 27, 2015 • Robert Brady

Bing just announced native ads as a new beta offering in its Bing Ads platform. This brings native ads to the mainstream pay-per-click advertiser. In this post, I’ll address native ads, how they compare to ...
Social Media
How to Use Digital Loyalty Programs to Retain Customers

July 27, 2015 • Paul Chaney

Customer loyalty programs operate based on the well-founded notion that it is less expensive to keep a current customer than to find a new one. Providing rewards in the form of points, cash back, and discounts on merchandise can help achieve that goal.
Social Media
20 Twitter Feeds for Online Merchants

July 27, 2015 • Sig Ueland

With its many experts and evangelists, Twitter is a good place for an online merchant to get help growing a business. The challenge is figuring out whom to follow. Here is a ...
Influencers & Affiliates
Affiliate Marketing: Many Ways to Attribute Sales

July 26, 2015 • Carolyn Kmet

A "conversion funnel" describes a consumer's path to purchase, when awareness develops into interest, interest develops into desire, and then the transaction occurs. When it comes to ecommerce, this path may take
On-page SEO
SEO Review: Hi-Health.com Good; Could Be Better

July 24, 2015 • Jill Kocher Brown

Every so often an ecommerce business is brave enough to raise its hand for a public review of its search engine optimization performance. Hi-Health, a retailer of nutritional products, is today’s brave business. Hi-Health is doubly interesting