Posted December 8th, 2011
by Pablo
If you look at the ecommerce website on the internet, you’ll see many internet retailers structure the website in the same fashion but of course almost all websites online look different in terms of design, etc.
While many of the ecommerce websites look different, there is best practices to incorporate into a new ecommerce website. These elements are the very basics of an ecommerce website that can lead you to design a great website.
ECOMMERCE WEB DESIGN FOR BEST PRACTICES
1. LOGO: While some people may think the logo is not important, IT IS. If you’re on a budget, sure, throw up any logo on your website to just have a logo which is key. However, if you can afford a good logo design, it really does make an impression on a customer. The logo is your BRAND.
2. CATEGORIZATION: While you may not put too much effort into thinking about this first, as your ecommerce business grows, believe me, this is a very important aspect of your website and not just for design reasons. How you categorize your products will have an impact on search engine optimization at first. Make the hierarchy of products easy to find and understand. This is all about navigation.
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Posted in How To
Posted December 7th, 2011
by Pablo
I think it’s safe to say, personally, that real-time analytics from the Google Analytics platform is one of the coolest and most effective tools that Google has developed in a long time. At least it is for me. I can’t stop looking at it. As an ecommerce merchant, I can’t think of a better way for you to visualize what your store would actually look like in person and not in the digital world.
As of now, Google is still claiming it is in BETA and not opened to everyone. Fortunately for us, we’ve been granted with access to Google real-time analytics and hopefully now you are too.
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Tags: google analytics, real time google analytics Posted in How To
Posted July 21st, 2011
by Pablo
So you’re ready to launch your own ecommerce website. It’s all about the American dream and it is still alive, especially online. That’s where we are seeing the economy on its toes and the future looks as bright as ever online. While at first you may stumble a bit, having your own business, your own ecommerce business, is at the palm of your hands, you just need the right tools. Our ECOMMERCE START UP GUIDE will help you through the process of building your ecommerce website.
THE RIGHT MINDSET
If you get into something knowing what you’re doing, it makes life much easier. With eCommerce, it can be a little tricky. The misconception of ecommerce for individuals and small business owners is that ecommerce is just about throwing up a website online with a few products and you’re off to the races.
While it is true that building a basic ecommerce website has never been easier, the big picture of creating an ecommerce business, A SUCCESSFUL ECOMMERCE BUSINESS, you have to know what it takes, what you need and making sure you understand ecommerce success does not happen overnight.
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Posted in How To
Posted June 15th, 2011
by Pablo
Learn how to promote your products on Twitter and get exposure for some of the products or brands you sell on your website. Twitter can lead to increase visitors and sales if you put a Twitter strategy together.
So a lot of you are probably thinking, “Does Twitter really work? Does it really serve a purpose for my ecommerce business? Can Twitter really help me get exposure and boost sales? Should we spend time on Twitter as an ecommerce company?”
Truth is…Twitter really does work. Twitter can serve a great purpose for your ecommerce business. Twitter can really help you get exposure and boost sales and finally, YES, you (or someone in your company) dedicate some time to social media, whatever that may be.
There are millions of consumers on a daily basis Twittering about brands, products and everything under the sun. Check it out for yourself, ready? Go to Twitter and on the search box type any keyword that comes to your mind and surely you’ll see a tweet or tweets about that specific keyword.
I can’t tell you how to make your Twitter campaign successful but I can tell you how you can engage people who you are trying to target regarding certain products, brands, etc. Basically, you want to join the conversation, don’t you? Engage old, new and potential customers if you could regarding certain products.
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Tags: how to promote your products on twitter, twitter ecommerce Posted in How To, Social Media For eCommerce
Posted May 23rd, 2011
by Roger McGershen
As internet retailers, we must understand that our return policies play a huge role when it comes down to our potential customers making a final decision on their purchase. Remember, not everyone that purchases online has actually tried the product on (if they are purchasing apparel or accessories) or know if the product will fit, etc. Making sure your return policy is buyer-friendly is essential to a successful online business.
Your returns policy should not only be buyer-friendly but also very easy and simple to read. Do NOT make your returns policy a fine print nightmare and daunting task for your customer to read because they will go elsewhere. Take Zappos for example, their 365-day return policy is very prominent and simple to understand. However, by no means do they set the standard for a return policy as allowing customers to return something months after it’s purchased, maybe even weeks is not sustainable for most businesses, and consumers are smart enough to understand that.
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Posted in Ecommerce Essentials & Tips, How To
Posted May 11th, 2011
by Rafael Solorzano
Customer reviews are as important as ever. Google itself has stated that they may use customer reviews as an algorithm signal (one of hundreds if not thousands) to make sure users are being served the best possible websites when searching for products or a service.
As an ecommerce business, people are heavily relying on customer reviews and word of mouth recommendation to make sure they are buying from a trusted source. While you can do things on your website to increase credibility and user trust, customer reviews are still a KEY element in todays ecommerce. If you read negative reviews about a website, would you purchase from that site compared to a website with positive reviews? I think we’d all choose the positive reviews website because we’d have more trust in that website for shopping online.
1. Review Forms on Product Pages:Â Making things prominent has always increased the chance of an action from a user. If you provide them with a review form or button on the product they are looking at, it will increase the chances of them writing a review for you which really benefits you from the user stand point and also from a search engine stand point of having more content that was free for you added by someone else.
2. Post-Purchase Review: Once the sale is done, you may just have yourself a customer for life. Give them about 2 weeks after they receive their product and send them an email (automate this process if you could) asking them to review the product. You can use a service such as PowerReviews.com for this task.
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Posted in Ecommerce Essentials & Tips, How To
Posted May 8th, 2011
by Rafael Solorzano
Setting up a 301 redirect is important and effective for several reasons. Some of the reasons you will have to set up a 301 redirect are the following:
• to redirect an old website to a new address
• to setup several domains pointing to one website
• to enforce only one version of your website (www. or no-www)
• to harmonize a URL structure change
As we stated several times in the Fortune3 blog, a 301 redirect can be of most importance also for search engine optimization purposes as a 404 page can have some search engine value (link juice/authority with the search engine) and instead of having it dead in the 404 page, doing a permanent 301 redirect can pass the link juice to the page you are directing to.
Here are instructions to set up 301 redirects in certain elements:
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Posted in How To
Posted April 20th, 2011
by Rafael Solorzano
You can include flash animation / video anywhere on your page. This includes your template, your information pages (home page, about us, contact page, etc), and your product / category pages as well. The Fortune3 software includes a web editor that allows you to quickly insert the code necessary to display flash files and videos on your webpages.
Before the flash code is added to your webpage you must decide what type of page you will be inserting the code into.
1. To display flash on your template design (The flash file will display on every page), you will have to modify your template. Click on the “My Webpages” tab of the Fortune3 Wizard and click on My Template. Select the template you want to use and click on Modify As. You will be asked to enter a name for the new template. Click OK and the web editor will open up.
At this point a folder will have been created at the following location C:\Program Files\FORTUNE3 Wizard\Templates\nameofnewtemplate (Save the flash file into this folder)
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Posted in How To
If you look at the ecommerce website on the internet, you’ll see many internet retailers structure the website in the same fashion but of course almost all websites online look different in terms of design, etc.
