Page 198 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Business
7 Reasons to Start an Ecommerce Business

April 4, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Owning a business can be emotionally fulfilling and financially enriching. Tens of thousands of new ventures are started each year. Ecommerce businesses frequently require less capital and less time to start than brick-and-mortar retail or service operations. So why not get going? Cer...
Social Media
5 Creative Ideas for Facebook Timeline Covers

April 3, 2012 • Paul Chaney

This article builds on "Facebook Timeline Cover Images: 6 Pointers," my article last week. Here are five ways to creatively use Facebook Timeline cover images, which Facebook calls "Covers," with 12 examples from small businesses, large retail brands and others. 1. Integrate a Pro...
Conversion
10 Ways to Improve Product Photos

April 3, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Online stores do not have the shelves filled with products for consumers to touch and examine like physical stores do. This makes the use of compelling product images important for online merchants. Here are ten ways to improve your product images. 1. Start With Good Photographs You c...
Social Media
4 Pinterest Marketing Mistakes

April 2, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Pinterest is a fun social media service that lets users post images and videos, organized into topical boards. The site has great potential for driving traffic to online stores, but it is important not to misuse this potential or alienate users and would-be customers. What follows are ...
Technical SEO
Google’s Secure Search Squeezes SEO Planning and Reporting

March 30, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google's secure SSL search protects users' search results and the keywords they searched on. Unfortunately, it also poses a growing threat to data-driven search engine optimization. Firefox recently joined Google Chrome — and Google.com, for logged-in users — in defaulting to secure sea...
Influencers & Affiliates
Affiliate Marketing Case Study: CrazyForBargains.com

March 29, 2012 • Carolyn Kmet

CrazyForBargains.com is a small, family-owned retailer of fun, quality sleepwear. It sells everything from plush bathrobes to Batman pajamas, using the Yahoo! shopping cart. Melissa Canepa Murphy launched the company ...
Google Ads
Boost Pay-per-click Profits in 5 Easy Steps

March 29, 2012 • Scott Smigler

The difference between a profitable and an unprofitable pay-per-click advertising campaign can be the post-click conversion rate. We've run hundreds of conversion rate optimization tests at my firm over the past decade. Below I’ll share five optimizations that have consistently driven c...
Content Marketing
How Authors, Entertainers Are Selling Their Content Online; 9 Examples

March 28, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Whether through online video, audio, or ebooks, entertainers and authors are finding new access to audiences. In many cases, it's at the expense of established distribution channels. Here is a list of entertainers and authors who have found success in the shift to online media. Some e...
Google Ads
3 Basic Ways to Improve PPC Advertising

March 28, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Pay-per-click advertising is a staple of ecommerce marketing that can play a key role in increasing site traffic and sales when managed well. Pay-per-click advertising can also be very expensive and labor intensive as marketers seek to find the best combination of ad copy, audience, ke...
Social Media
Facebook Timeline Cover Images: 6 Pointers

March 27, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Facebook states that on Friday, March 30, it will convert all Fan pages to the new Timeline format. The most obvious component of Timeline is the large cover image at the top of the page. Facebook has restrictions on these images. They cannot contain the following elements. Price o...
Marketing & Advertising
Tips on Targeting Other Countries with Google AdWords

March 27, 2012 • Anne Kennedy

With Google's dominant hold on market share around the world, the tools and interfaces you already know -- Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and Google Webmaster Tools -- should help you successfully implement campaigns in other countries.
Business
Lessons Learned: SEO Makes Australian Florist Bloom

March 27, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences, good and bad. For this installment, we corresponded with Andrew Thomson, co-founder and CEO of ...
Conversion
Do Digital Catalogs Drive Conversions?

March 26, 2012 • Charles Nicholls

Traditionally, catalogs are printed. They have an interruptive value as they arrive through the mailbox. They get read at the breakfast table, in front of the television, and in bed. They provide customers with a pleasurable way of browsing at their leisure, selecting products for a pot...
Payments
PayPal, Others Envision Payment Convergence

March 26, 2012 • Armando Roggio

The new PayPal Here smartphone-enabled credit card reader is the most recent indication of how electronic payments will likely change, ridding retailers of most industry compliance requirements, enabling simple payment processing solutions, and consolidating multiple or variable proces...
Business > Merchant Voice
8 free or low-cost ways to market your website

March 25, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Get the message about your business out there for next to nothing! 1. Print business cards with product descriptions Next time you print business cards, squeeze it in a catchy description and/or images of what your website sells to help jog people’s memories. Or create a tiny “brochur...
Social Media
Facebook Launches ‘Offers’ for Facebook Pages

March 22, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Facebook is shuttering its check-in deals program — which worked only for brick and mortar businesses — in favor of a new feature, Facebook Offers, which will be incorporated into Facebook Pages. Unlike check-in deals, Offers can be redeemed both in-store and online. Facebook is now b...
Technical SEO
Google Plans SEO Over-Optimization Penalty

March 22, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google’s head spam cop Matt Cutts announced the impending launch of a new over-optimization penalty to “level the playing ground.” The disclosure came earlier this month at the South By ...
Business
App List: Joe Horan of TheBuyFly

March 21, 2012 • PEC Staff

“App List” is a feature where we ask ecommerce professionals to list the apps they have installed on their phones, and tell us why they use them. For this installment,
Business
5 Tips for Working with Web Developers

March 21, 2012 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm

If you are planning on hiring someone to develop your website or particular functions for your website, there are some key items you should first consider. Many of these considerations relate to intellectual property, which is comprised of various rights created to protect the result of...
Conversion
5 Techniques for Excellent Online Customer Service

March 20, 2012 • Gagan Mehra

Customer service is especially important in today's socially connected world as consumers can harm the image of a company with a single comment. In my experience advising leading ecommerce companies, the following techniques can help all merchants — large and small — offer excellent onl...
Conversion
3 Examples of Marketing on the Fringe

March 20, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Unrestrained marketers with blockbuster budgets can come up with some pretty amazing ways to promote products and services. These ideas can inspire small and mid-sized online retailers to market on the fringe. Entertainment marketing is a sub-genre of content marketing that is aimed at...
Business > Merchant Voice
Daily deals: 6 ways they ruin your business, 3 ways they might not

March 19, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

If you’ve considered doing a daily deal with Groupon et al, first consider what do they do to your online business. 1. They massively lower profit There are so many daily deal websites out there that many consumers have signed up to three or more. But to create cut-through in their in...
Social Media
8 Innovative Brand Promotions Using Social Media

March 19, 2012 • Sig Ueland

With the growing number of social media outlets, businesses are developing innovative ways to promote their products, using new tools to engage customers. Here is a list of innovative brand promotions using a variety of social media: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotif...
Content Marketing
4 Ways to Write Compelling Blog Titles

March 19, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Blog post titles that capture a reader's attention, make strong claims, and solve problems should get lots of clicks, shares, and retweets. Blogging is an important part of any good social media marketing campaign. While writing great blog content — see "Write Better Blog Posts, Pyrami...
SEO Tools
Top 5 Reasons to Use Google Webmaster Tools

March 16, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

There’s a common misconception that registering with Google Webmaster Tools somehow enables Google more access to information about a site. In fact, just the opposite is true. Google Webmaster Tools provides site owners access to data available from no other source, data every ecommerce...
Email & Text Marketing
Using Email to Promote Holiday Sales; Pros and Cons

March 15, 2012 • Carolyn Nye

With St. Patrick’s Day near, companies are scrambling to deliver emails to promote green-themed products, or events around the holiday. With all the buzz, it brings up a interesting question: When does it make sense for ecommerce merchants to embrace a holiday or event and incorporate i...
Finance
Kabbage, A Funding Source for Ecommerce Merchants

March 15, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

When we first first wrote about Kabbage just over a year ago, it was a fledgling endeavor with only eBay merchants as customers. But Kabbage now serves merchants who use Yahoo! stores, Etsy, Amazon, and Shopify, as well as eBay. In July Kabbage will be launching in the U.K., its first ...
Business
How to Reduce Ecommerce Shipping Costs

March 14, 2012 • PEC Staff

Strategies and ideas to reduce shipping expense appeal to most every ecommerce merchant. We recently spoke with John Haber, founder and CEO of Spend Management Experts, a shipping and logistics consulting firm, about ways for merchants to reduce their shipping costs. Practical eCommer...
Email & Text Marketing
3 Tips for Better Email Subscription Forms

March 14, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Email subscription forms should be simple and direct, encouraging site visitors to become opt-in participants in email marketing campaigns. Email marketing is one of the best ways that ecommerce businesses have to engage shoppers, introduce new products, and make more sales. But these ...
Schools & Resources
15 New Ecommerce Books for March 2012

March 13, 2012 • Sig Ueland

The wide adoption of the tablet has created an explosion in ebook publishing. Here is a list of new ecommerce titles, including books on marketing, social media, and email lists. Nearly all of the books are available in digital format, while only one is available in hardcover. One-third...