Page 172 – Practical Ecommerce

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Marketing & Advertising
3 Thanksgiving Week Ecommerce Promotions

November 5, 2013 • Dale Traxler

The week of Thanksgiving is the biggest retail shopping time of the year. Are you ready? Inventory in stock? New products created in your store? Staffing plan in place? Boxes and shipping supplies ordered? Promotions designed ...
SEO
Quick SEO Tips to Boost Holiday Sales

November 4, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

The holiday selling season is in full swing. If your natural search visits and sales are falling short of your goals, try these quick search-engine-optimization tips to give them a ...
Business
October 2013 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

November 1, 2013 • 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 ...
Content Marketing
How to Create Compelling Ecommerce Content

November 1, 2013 • Dale Traxler

In “Content Marketing for Ecommerce Merchants,” I suggested that merchants create relevant content for their shoppers throughout the buying cycle. There are two ways to approach creating content that will support ...
Photography & Video
Sharing of Photos and Videos Fuels Marketing Opportunities

October 31, 2013 • Armando Roggio

As more consumers share photos and video online, marketers may find new or better ways to engage potential customers or simply be more helpful. This year, 54 percent of adults in ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Preparing for the holidays

October 31, 2013 • David Sasson

Consumers always seem to stress about the holiday season. They think about all they have to do in order to have a “good showing.” They need to buy all their ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Are you using social media all wrong?

October 30, 2013 • Jamie Salvatori

Social media is probably the worst advertising vehicle for small ecommerce merchants I’ve found. Well, perhaps advertising on a park bench would be worse, but social media is pretty darned ...
Business > Merchant Voice
8 ways to help customers with Christmas gift deliveries

October 30, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

When customers start placing holiday orders — and especially as deadlines loom — you need all the help you can get in ensuring their purchases arrive safely. There’s a few ways ...
Business
Lessons Learned: VacuumSpot Founder Comes Clean, Inspires

October 30, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Alec Nelson grew up in the wealthy semi-rural Sydney suburb of Dural in a home that his builder father built in the 1960s. At age 11, he moved to Wagga ...
Influencers & Affiliates
Affiliate Marketing: Evaluating Paid Placement Options

October 30, 2013 • Carolyn Kmet

As we enter the heart of the fourth quarter, competition for premium placement on affiliate websites increases. Home page banners, inclusion in holiday promotions, and dedicated emails all offer different ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
5 Things to Put in the Shipping Box

October 29, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Online retailers have a powerful tool for marketing to existing customers, potentially increasing sales, average order size, and profit. That tool is the shipping box merchants send to customers with ...
Social Media
Facebook Updates Page Insights; Adds New Feature

October 28, 2013 • Paul Chaney

In response to user feedback, Facebook has redesigned Page Insights to make it more actionable, simpler to use, and easier to understand. The new version helps Page administrators create better ...
Social Media
8 Facebook Post Types for Boosting Engagement

October 28, 2013 • Kunle Campbell

Certain types of Facebook posts tend to see higher engagement than others. Here are eight post types with examples to help you get higher engagement on Facebook.
Marketing & Advertising
Content Marketing for Ecommerce Merchants

October 28, 2013 • Dale Traxler

Many people use poor grammar when they post content to various social platforms. However, when not browsing posts on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, most of us still prefer to read ...
Technical SEO
SEO: 5 Ways to Avoid Indexation

October 25, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

It sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes the goal of search engine optimization is avoiding indexation. Consider the following scenarios. Faceted navigation spews out thousands of pages of duplicate or low value content. Email landing ...
Business
7 Questions Before You Buy Software or Services

October 25, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce entrepreneurs and managers have many options for software, marketing toolkits, and any number of retail- and marketing-related services, each of which promises to improve business operations and sales. While ...
Google Ads
5 Tips for Google’s Enhanced Campaigns

October 24, 2013 • Matthew Umbro

Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns have been mandatory for all advertisers since July 23. But they have been in use since the end of February. During this time, my team and ...
Photography & Video
I Made a Movie and So Can You! Tools and Resources

October 23, 2013 • Sig Ueland

On Oct 24, 2013 at 7 p.m., Coffee, Kill Boss, a movie I wrote and co-produced, will premiere in the beautiful Paramount Theater at the Austin Film Festival. Here is a ...
Social Media
5 Popular Web Clipping Software Platforms

October 23, 2013 • Paul Chaney

Web clipping platforms are a convenient way to save content for sharing social updates or when conducting research for blog posts. They are designed to store information such as text,
Analytics & Data
How to Measure Lift from Promotion and Advertising

October 22, 2013 • Armando Roggio

In marketing, “lift” represents an increase in sales in response to some form of advertising or promotion. Monitoring, measuring, and optimizing lift may help a business grow more quickly. It is ...
Conversion
Mobile Commerce: More than Closing Transactions

October 22, 2013 • Dale Traxler

Here’s a quick summary of mobile devices and their impact on commerce. Mobile devices are ubiquitous. More than 50 percent of Americans have a smartphone and that percentage is increasing. Tablets are replacing ...
Schools & Resources
12 New Ecommerce Books for the Holidays

October 21, 2013 • Sig Ueland

With the holidays around the corner, it’s time to browse the new ecommerce books. I compiled this list using Amazon’s “Books” category. I selected “Browse Subjects” and chose the “Business &
SEO
SEO Review: Glamor and Glitz But Few Organic Clicks

October 18, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

Fashion-oriented stationer Pergamino has an organic search traffic problem – there’s not enough of it. Founder and Chief Creative Officer Monica Luburich reached out for an SEO review to find ...
Email & Text Marketing
4 Things Not to Do in Email Marketing

October 18, 2013 • Carolyn Nye

Email is holding strong as the marketing vehicle that often produces the highest return for ecommerce merchants. Email can help to not only increase sales, but also make everyday administration ...
Conversion
Google Analytics: Using the New ‘Acquisition’ Tab

October 17, 2013 • Kevin Webster

Google Analytics recently updated its layout. One of the new Standard Report sections is "Acquisition" — which contains data on how a site acquires customers, whether through ecommerce, lead generation, or fund raising efforts. While the definition of acquisition may vary among organizations, the premise is that a site has engaged a visitor, and caused him or her to take an important action.
Conversion
3 Ways to Improve Ecommerce Conversions this Month

October 17, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Banner ad retargeting, live chat, and a well-planned series of checkout abandonment emails could boost an online retailer’s conversion rates and sales immediately with a relatively small investment in development ...
Business
Understanding Ecommerce Shoppers: Who, Why, Where, When, How

October 17, 2013 • Dale Traxler

Most ecommerce merchants can describe their customers in a general way. They likely know basic demographics — age range, gender, income level. But, do they understand the “why,” “where,” “when,”
Platforms & Apps
4 Popular WordPress Ecommerce Platforms

October 16, 2013 • Joe Robison

Most products for sale online are straightforward, with variations mainly in colors and sizes. WordPress ecommerce plugins can be an easy, inexpensive way to sell these items. If you already ...
Business
The End of Third-party Cookies Should Not Hurt Retailers

October 16, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Changes to some of the world’s most popular web browsers may impact how advertising networks and cross-site analytics tools monitor consumer behavior online. Although the changes could affect some marketing ...
Payments
Credit Card Processing: October 2013 Rate Changes, EMV Terminals

October 15, 2013 • Phil Hinke

Now is a good time for merchants to start noting how their provider is handling card company fee changes as well as any future rate and fee changes, especially if ...