Page 168 – Practical Ecommerce

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Business
January 2014 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

January 30, 2014 • PEC Staff

Each month we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles ...
Email & Text Marketing
5 Ways to Boost Email Open Rates

January 30, 2014 • Armando Roggio

A small increase in email open rates can significantly impact an online retailer’s sales and profit. In its 2013 Statistical Fact Book, Direct Marketing Association estimated that email marketing could have ...
Business > Merchant Voice
The formula to online success, from ‘Lessons Learned’ merchants

January 29, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Since March 2012, I’ve been writing the monthly “Lessons Learned” column, which has profiled online merchants selling products ranging from remedies for intestinal problems (“Trusting your Gut to Online Success”)
Analytics & Data
Google Analytics: Configuring 10 Key Ecommerce Metrics

January 29, 2014 • Feras Alhlou

Meaningful analytics for ecommerce sites are different from, say, news sites. Ecommerce sites should track metrics that produce or prevent actual sales, after all. Which campaign generated sales? When did ...
Social Media
Facebook Algorithm Change Favors Link-share Posts

January 29, 2014 • Paul Chaney

Facebook recently announced a change to its algorithm that adversely affects the way a certain type of Page update appears in News Feed. According to Facebook’s Chris Turitzin, product manager, News ...
Conversion
How to Personalize Shopping on an Ecommerce Site

January 28, 2014 • Gagan Mehra

Personalizing an ecommerce site refers to the process of altering its appearance or navigation to the interests of visitors. Personalization can greatly increase conversion rates and improve loyalty. Many large ...
Google Ads
Pay-per-click Ads: Importance of Bid Modifiers

January 28, 2014 • Matthew Umbro

Many online marketers have debated the pros and cons of Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns over the last year, but one feature has proven its worth: bid modifiers. Bid modifiers act ...
Business
7 (simple, free) things to boost conversions

January 27, 2014 • Jordan Lindberg

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle Make it a 2014 strategic goal of your company to increase your web store’s conversion rate. Even a small increase in ...
Platforms & Apps
Rewards, Risks of Changing Ecommerce Platforms

January 27, 2014 • Dale Traxler

There are many reasons that ecommerce companies change platforms. As their business grows and market conditions change, ecommerce firms sometimes replace components or the entire platform to remain competitive. But replatforming ...
User Experience
What Is Flat Design?

January 24, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Flat design is a web and application interface design philosophy aimed at creating simple, usable interfaces that are both aesthetically attractive and functionally easy to use, regardless of where the ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Yahoo’s New Secure Search Removes Referral Data

January 24, 2014 • Jill Kocher Brown

Yahoo has moved to secure search by default, effectively removing all referral data that indicates the source of the search and which keywords were searched for. The secure search update ...
Marketing & Advertising
3 Steps to Efficient Ecommerce Content Marketing

January 23, 2014 • Jerry Jao

Implementing an effective content marketing strategy can be a challenge. Coming up with ideas, developing content, and distributing it takes work. Many businesses feel that they don’t have the time ...
Business
Ecommerce vs. Commerce: What’s the Difference?

January 23, 2014 • Dale Traxler

I assume you are reading this because you sell products online — either in your own online store or through marketplaces. Here’s a question. When someone asks what business you ...
Customer Retention
Seek Repeat Customers to Drive Ecommerce Profits

January 22, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Growing a successful ecommerce business may depend on earning repeat business from a relatively small number of loyal shoppers, according to a new report. The top 1 percent of a typical ...
Social Media
6 Ways to Use a Facebook Page for Year-round Holidays

January 22, 2014 • Paul Chaney

Just because Christmas and New Years have passed does not mean the holidays are over. Even though they pale in comparison to the Christmas season in terms of retail sales, holidays ...
Email & Text Marketing
7 Email Tips for Ecommerce Merchants in 2014

January 21, 2014 • Carolyn Nye

Email marketing remains crucial to most ecommerce merchants. But email is changing. Consumers increasingly access email from their smartphones. Gmail’s influence on email marketing is growing. And the technology for ...
Conversion
How to Launch New Products on an Ecommerce Site

January 20, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Retailers add new products frequently. For the most part these products may be as simple as adding a new line of sweaters to the women’s section on the site or ...
Design & Development
Lessons Learned: Entrepreneurs Select Blinds

January 17, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Nate Kennedy grew up in Logan, Utah. The oldest of 10 children, Kennedy’s desire to earn money came from watching his grandparents, who owned a golf shop, go bankrupt. His business ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Please start shipping internationally

January 17, 2014 • Jamie Salvatori

Our international orders represent approximately 15 to 20 percent of our total sales. That’s huge. We achieved this level of success through a variety of simple tactics, which I’ll outline ...
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Create a 301 Redirect Map, for Site Redesigns

January 17, 2014 • Jill Kocher Brown

In a website redesign where URLs change, whether your search-engine-optimization goal is to protect existing natural search performance or boost it to a new level, an ironclad 301 redirect strategy is critical. In “For Redesigns, Protect SEO with 301 Redirect Strategy,” my previous article, I outlined why
Conversion
10 WordPress Ecommerce Conversion Optimization Tools

January 16, 2014 • Joe Robison

Ecommerce conversion optimization has become well established over the past few years. But it is not adopted by all merchants because of the perceived time and difficulty. For merchants that use ...
Conversion
For Ecommerce Testing, Clarify Conversion Goals

January 16, 2014 • Chris Goward

Before you can start any testing on your ecommerce site, you need to clarify your goals. Setting the right goals is the first step to making any improvements. There’s a saying,
Inventory > Merchant Voice
Trials and tribulations of inventory management

January 15, 2014 • David Sasson

Holding inventory can be an advantage and a disadvantage. It can be both a competitive edge and an incredible headache. Some retailers choose to only drop ship and others sell ...
Payments
$6 Billion Visa, MasterCard Settlement Final; How to Claim

January 15, 2014 • Phil Hinke

Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved a settlement in a class-action lawsuit between merchants (as plaintiffs) and Visa, MasterCard and other defendants. The case ...
Schools & Resources
7 Ecommerce Design Trends for 2014

January 14, 2014 • Armando Roggio

As more online retailers seek to provide a good mobile shopping experience, expect to see a significant number of site redesigns in 2014. These redesigned sites are likely to follow ...
Social Media
Social Marketplaces Can Benefit Ecommerce Merchants

January 14, 2014 • Paul Chaney

Online marketplaces bring buyers and sellers together to exchange goods and services. Social media encourages marketplace mentality by enabling product discovery in a social environment, where prospective customers can rely ...
Email & Text Marketing
11 Ways to Improve Email Open Rates

January 13, 2014 • Pamella Neely

"Open rate" is one of the most telling email marketing metrics. Open rates determine click rates, conversion rates, and the overall performance of an entire email-marketing program. Even deliverability can be affected by open rate.
Platforms & Apps
20 New Ecommerce Themes for WordPress

January 13, 2014 • Sig Ueland

With its wide variety of ecommerce themes, WordPress makes it easy to get a shop up and running in no time. Here is a list of new ecommerce themes for WordPress.
Technical SEO
For Redesigns, Protect SEO with 301 Redirect Strategy

January 10, 2014 • Jill Kocher Brown

In most website redesigns, search engine optimization relies on an accurate, complete, and flawlessly executed 301 redirect strategy. An ironclad 301 redirect strategy preserves as much as 85 percent of the link authority that the current site has earned over its lifetime and funnels it into the new site to
Business
Finding Business Motivation in Industry Leaders

January 10, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Starting and running a business can require a level of commitment that few people understand or experience. Entrepreneurs may find the motivation needed for all of that commitment in the ...