Posted February 28th, 2012
by Pablo
For Internet retailers to convert visitors into customers and really pushing that sale, it’s all about promotions. Why do people go online and shop? Well you may have different reasons but most people will tell you to get a good deal, etc.
From an Internet Retailer Magazine study, there is a report that has the percentage of online consumers citing the following as effective online promotions:
UNCONDITIONAL FREE SHIPPING : 73%
FREE RETURNS : 70%
SECTION ON SALES AND SPECIALS : 62%
COUPONS/REBATES FOR CASH OR PERCENTAGE OFF : 56%
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Posted in Ecommerce Essentials & Tips
Posted February 27th, 2012
by Roger McGershen
In a new world where the average consumer seeks advice and reviews online about a specific product or service, online reputation management has become a key element and strategy of a company or individuals online marketing or online web presence.
While some may have justifiable reviews as a company or individuals can make mistakes, there is always the concern of competitors going after your brand by writing negative reviews that can affect your business in a serious way.
Sometimes you can make mistakes such as not ship something on time, fix the issue for the customer and then still have that bad review lingering that they wrote before you solved the problem. Negative search results can really impact our business and it’s very important to have an online reputation strategy in place.
Today we’ll be talking with Nick Passalacqua about online reputation management.
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Posted in Ecommerce Essentials & Tips
Posted February 20th, 2012
by Roger McGershen
What determines if the customer will purchase a product from your website? That is a question all marketers and internet retailers ask themselves when designing and building their ecommerce business. You should know your product better than anyone else. You should be the authority on the product you sell. However, we’ll see, there are several factors that will determine if a customer purchases a product from your website. If not for several factors making the choice for a customer, it comes down to certain critical factors that are more important than others that will turn the visitor into a customer.
PRODUCT PRICE: 79%
ABILITY TO PURCHASE ONLINE FOR HOME DELIVERY 63%
ABILITY TO GET PRODUCT WITHIN A DAY OR TWO 55%
ABILITY TO PURCHASE AT LOCAL STORE 45%
ABILITY TO PURCHASE ONLINE AND PICK UP AT STORE 37%
ADVICE/REVIEWS FROM PEERS ON WEBSITE 33%
REWARD/LOYALTY POINTS THAT ARE TIED TO MAKING PURCHASE 33%
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Posted in Ecommerce Essentials & Tips
Posted February 16th, 2012
by Pablo
Internet retailers want to make sure that their product pages are equipped with the right features and tools to turn visitors into customers. In order to do this, you want to make sure you have the most important features that will lead to sales.
From an InteretRetailer.com study, here are 17 of the most important features of a product page that you must have in order to have the most optimized product page possible. In the research, they were listed by preference from a group of consumers.
1. QUALITY OF IMAGE >50%
2. ABILITY TO SELECT PRODUCT IN COLOR OF CHOICE >50%
3. ALTERNATE VIEWS >50%
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Posted in Ecommerce Essentials & Tips
Posted February 10th, 2012
by Pablo
Q: We’ve launched our website about 10 months ago and started with heavy PPC advertising to drive traffic. Over the last few months our SEO has improved but not enough to let PPC go. What are some ways we can attract more customers to our website? We care more about conversions than traffic.
A: That’s a great question and one that every internet retailer that launches has. How to drive more traffic, right? That seems to be the holy grail to success and sales, of course.
You have the right focus and mentality when it comes to making sure it’s mostly about conversions and not just traffic.
Pay-per-click is a great way to generate traffic and launch an ecommerce business. After a few months, you really need to analyze the data and make sure you’re getting the best possible ROI. Analyze what keywords are converting best and what ads are getting the best click through rate. This all comes into account with how much you’ll be paying per click.
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Posted in Q&A
Posted February 9th, 2012
by Pablo
As internet retailers, it’s a constant battle to keep up with what is being said about our website (brand) on the web. As social media rolled around, that all changed. The conversation went from being on the street to literally all over the web from consumers talking about you on review websites, to tweeting about you or even adding a Facebook status update about an experience with your brand, a product they bought from your website, etc.
It’s very important to measure sentiment on the internet of your brand / company. Are people saying good things about you? Are people saying bad things about you? Are your marketing efforts paying off in a positive way? If you have an online reputation management campaign, is it working effectively? These are all questions you have to be asking yourself as your company grows and as an internet retailer, on the web, you know, image is everything.
So, how can you have a grip on what is being said about you? Here are some tools to help you figure that out and see the big picture.
SOCIAL MENTION: Social mention is an online web based tool that analyzes content from around the web including blogs, tweets, comments, images, video and much more. This gives you actual stats on sentiment around the web and also other metrics which are just cool
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Posted in Social Media For eCommerce
Posted February 7th, 2012
by Roger McGershen
As if you didn’t have enough to worry about with your own ecommerce website, guess what? Now you have to worry about making sure you have an effective Facebook page for your company/website. Yes. Facebook matters more and more each day as users connect with friends AND brands. If you’re not active on Facebook, you’re missing on potential customers and a potential conversation about your business or products you sell.
Brands and and business are in a constant struggle to figure out how to really leverage a Facebook fan page or get more fans and likes to their pages, stories, etc.
So, how can you create an awesome effective fan page for your ecommerce business? Is there a formula?
BRAND YOUR URL: If you have a facebook fan page that is www.facebook.com/fh87867fh then you’re already hurting brand wise. Make sure you set up your Facebook vanity URL to make it easiers for consumers to find you. This should be www.Facebook.com/yourbrand. Before you had to have at least 25 fans or likes to set this up, now it’s open to anyone as soon as you get a username.
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Posted in Social Media For eCommerce
Posted February 2nd, 2012
by Roger McGershen
Q: I received a call from a company called ‘Ecommerce Positioning,’ about getting better search engine placement for my website and said they work with Fortune3 and their customers. Is Fortune3 affiliated with this company? Is Fortune3 affiliated with any other SEO companies to help the SEO of their clients?
A: Fortune3 DOES NOT work with any other third party or affiliated with any SEO companies to serve its customers for search engine optimization. At Fortune3, we have our own search marketing and search engine optimization team to help our customers with their online marketing needs.
Fortune3 highly recommends that you perform searches and due diligence before engaging in business with any 3rd party, particularly with “marketing” companies that contact you, as these are known to be largely fraudulent or scams, charging excessive amounts of money for unnecessary and worthless changes, and no results produced. Performing a Google search for Ecommerce Positioning will provide you with their BBB ranking of D- for having a large number of complaints and several horror-like stories on sites like ripoffreports where customers have been ripped off to the sums of tens of thousands of dollars.
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Posted in Q&A
Posted February 1st, 2012
by Pablo
There is nothing more important for search engine optimization in ecommerce than having the basic fundamentals in place. When you launch your ecommerce website or as you grow your website and start your journey on becoming an established Internet retailer, SEO will play a huge role in your success.
Let’s list the 5 ecommerce seo fundamentals for your website which will lead to more traffic.
1. Choosing the right keywords: One of the core basic fundamentals of SEO is the use of keywords. Keywords are the holy grail to SEO and basically without using the right keywords, you’re doomed from the start. Do your keyword research for each important page and products on your website. Make sure the content is adequate and not ‘thin.’
2. Unique Meta Tags: Meta tags still play a huge role in SEO. While some may think they carry no weight (and maybe the keyword tag is dead) Google and other engines place heavy focus on Title and Description tags. These tags really help the engines for relevance. For every page, make sure your title tag and description tag are unique and carry the most important keywords of that specific page.
3. Search Engine Index: As basic as it may sound, of course, you need to make sure the search engines are able to crawl and index your website. The best way to do this is by creating an html or xml sitemap to ensure it crawls and indexes every possible page on your website. While the engines may not index every single page for one reason or another, its crucial they do index your most important pages and best sellers so make sure that is happening. Sign up to Google Webmaster tools.
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Posted in SEO for eCommerce
