Find Out How to Optimize Your E-Commerce Website for the Search Engines

E-Commerce blogger

If your intention is to use SEO on your e-commerce site, then you should plan to make things work properly. This article will explain to you how it is not that hard to apply SEO to your website.

Be certain that there is a list that talks about your products. Every last one of your products must have its very own unique description. Include the respective primary keywords for the products in this description. Search engines will supply a webpage ranking based upon the information the website provides.

So, by creating a open description, you are helping them to rank your webpages based upon the correct keywords. For every keyword that is optimized on your website, it will be one of the reasons for why your website is receiving targeted traffic from the search engines. It can be compared to owning numerous little streams of traffic that is sent via the search engines and getting it all in one location. Avoid using session IDs when you apply for your e-commerce site URLs. This is because this type of URL is not easy for the search engine spiders to crawl and get indexed. They are not made for the customer’s convenience either because they cannot be bookmarked or save, which means they will eventually run out. So, if you really want to get the most benefit from your website, then you should use URLs that are both search engine friendly and have your particular keywords imbedded in them. This will make it more convenient for the search engine spiders to see it.

Focus on using the product feeds for your e-commerce site to your advantage. If you must absolutely have an example, then use Google Base. Applying this application means you can upload an XML product feed, which will let you show your products via Google Base. This will not only help you to contact your targeted audience, but it will also give your website more visibility. Using the search engines the right way is all about understanding utilizing such fundamental factors and making them work in your favor to get traffic.

Even e-commerce websites can apply SEO the right way and get a high ranking the same way that the huge content sites ca.

Ways that Website Analytics Can Save Your Online Business

E-Commerce blogger

Website analytics is probably the last thing an online business owner wants to worry about. With 15 things to do every day before 10 am and another 50 to do before you can call it a day, sitting down in front of a bunch of web traffic stats seems like a waste of time. While I agree with the sentiment, it’s completely wrong. In fact, website analytics should be the first and last thing you review every day and I’ll give you three reasons why:

1. Web Analytics Help You Detect Fraud and Incompetence

Have you hired an SEO expert? PPC marketer? Social media guru? If you have people on staff or retain contractors to help you with your site, website analytics are your best friend.

Forget about the reports these experts create because all stats and data can be manipulated or ommitted. What you need is raw, reliable data to calculate the ROI of the services you are paying for.

Specifically, programs like Google Analytics can help you quickly isolate specific traffic streams and provide a host of useful data to calculate ROI, including:

Conversion Rate of Specific Traffic Channels
Conversion Rate for Specific Targeted Keywords
Average Time on Site for Specific Traffic Streams
Bounce Rate for Specific Traffic Streams

Of course, the conversion rate data for specific traffic streams (or Internet marketing experts) will help you calculate the ROI. But the average time on site will also help provide a rough gauge of overall traffic strength. If a specific traffic channel can’t keep visitors on site for more than 2 minutes, the traffic is either weak or you have significant issues on your landing pages.

2. Web Analytics Help Assess Site Health

To put that another way, web analytics essentially help show you where you need to invest your money most to boost online profits. Specifically, website traffic analytics will help you assess:

A. Traffic Strength
B. Sales Funnel Effectiveness
C. Shopping Cart Function and Conversion Rate
D. Website Conversion Rate and Rates for Specific Services/Products

For instance, high bounce rates and low average time on site typically indicate weak traffic or exceptionally poor landing pages. You can confirm which by looking at the data for specific traffic streams to see if there are significant variations in performance. If there are, then the issue is likely a weak traffic stream but if all channels are doing poorly, it’s more likely to be landing page.

The point is, the data tell you what’s wrong with your site so you can best channel your investment dollars to the most critical areas.

3. Web Analytics Eliminates Needless Split Testing

In most cases, optimization of landing pages and product descriptions is completed via split testing. That is, decide what sales tool you want to test (like a headline or CTA) and then create a new one to split test against. If your new sales tool performs better, conversions will increase and your hard work rewarded. However, this is rarely how it works.

You see, the thing people always forget about split testing is it’s sheer expense. To statistically verify even a lead gen site with a non-monetized CTA, you need at least 1,000 visitors or more to each version.

So if you think a landing page or product description might have problems with the headline, value proposition, and credibility tools, that’s at least 3 tests you need to run at 2,000 visitors per test. At even $1 a click, you can see how that would get very expensive, very quickly.

And the worst part: You have no idea if the headline, value prop, or credibility tools are even suppressing conversions. You are just split testing one sales tool versus a new one and hoping for the best, seriously.

But with web analytics, you can pinpoint the issues and eliminate the guesswork saving loads in unnecessary testing costs and content creation.

In conclusion, web analytics really are vital to your online success because they provide you with an accurate assessment of site health and your investments in traffic generating services. If you don’t know the true health of your site, then how can you possibly know what it needs to grow and be more profitable?

Importance of Chat Support to Small Businesses

E-Commerce blogger

Thinking that you can achieve online business success with a plain website that simply displays your product is a big mistake you should remedy as early as now. With technology continuously evolving, consumers are expecting more and more from online shops.

They want the convenience of shopping from home yet an experience close to that when shopping at a local store. One of the things they look for is the assistance they get from staff.

They usually have questions and they want answers. One way to meet this need is to get a live chat for website.

THE CONVENIENCE OF LIVE CHAT

Live chat is convenient for consumers. Even when shopping online, many consumers want to get help (when they need it) from a real person. What is surprising is that most of them would choose live chat support over assistance via phone or email.

Live chat is just more convenient than dialing a toll free number or composing a long email that contains all their concerns. Moreover, live chat for website usually involves a shorter wait time than call centers.

Emails are usually answered within 24 to 48 hours. Consumers want prompt answers.

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF CONSUMERS LOVE FOR LIVE CHAT

Take advantage of live chat support. With a live chat box on your website and a high number of consumers using it, you can double your sales and build or improve your customer base. It is best to have a team that can answer live chat queries 24/7.

While you can be offline, wont it be great for you and your potential customers if there is a communication channel available round the clock?

SAVE ON LIVE CHAT SOFTWARE

Live chat for website has become cheaper than ever with several companies that offer similar programs. You can find an affordable live chat software and get all the necessary features. Just do your part conduct research before making a purchase.

Compared with phone support, live chat offers big savings to business owners. For instance, when the line is breaking up, callers tend to hang up and businesses would have to make a callback, which costs a few bucks, to salvage the sale.

With live chat for website, costs are reduced because the average interaction cost is also reduced.Save on Payroll with livechat

Moreover, you can reduce payroll expenses. Skilled live chat support representatives can handle several chat sessions simultaneously. Some live chat programs offer canned responses, making answering frequently asked questions fast.

Whether you have just started your online business or have been online for quite a while and want to boost your conversion rate, getting live chat for website is definitely a wise thing to do.

Provide consumers a convenient way to reach you. While phone and email work, adding a live chat box to your website can help a lot, especially in establishing your involvement.

Take advantage of consumers love for live chat support by meeting their expectations in terms of the quality and speed of customer service. Save on customer service expenses and see your conversion rates and sales soar.

Ecommerce Threats & Solutions

E-Commerce blogger

eCommerce has forever revolutionized the way business is done. Retail has now a long way from the days of physical transactions that were time consuming and prone to errors.

However, eCommerce has unavoidably invited its share of trouble makers. As much as eCommerce simplifies transactions, it is occasionally plagued by serious concerns that jeopardize its security as a medium of exchanging money and information.

Major threats to present day eCommerce include

Breach of Security :

Money Thefts

eCommerce services are about transactions, and transactions are very largely driven by money. This attracts hackers, crackers and everyone with the knowledge of exploiting loopholes in a system. Once a kink in the armor is discovered, they feed the system(and users) with numerous bits of dubious information to extract confidential data(phishing). This is particularly dangerous as the data extracted may be that of credit card numbers, security passwords, transaction details etc.

Also, Payment gateways are vulnerable to interception by unethical users. Cleverly crafted strategies can sift a part or the entire amount being transferred from the user to the online vendor.

Identity thefts

Hackers often gain access to sensitive information like user accounts, user details, addresses, confidential personal information etc. It is a significant threat in view of the privileges one can avail with a false identity.

For instance, one can effortlessly login to an online shopping mart under a stolen identity and make purchases worth thousands of dollars. He/she can then have the order delivered to an address other than the one listed on the records. One can easily see how those orders could be received by the impostor without arousing suspicion. While the fraudsters gains, the original account holder continues to pay the price until the offender is nabbed.

Threats to the system

Viruses, worms, Trojans are very deceptive methods of stealing information. Unless a sound virus-protection strategy is used by the eCommere Solutions firm, these malicious agents can compromise the credibility of all eCommerce web solution services. Often planted by individuals for reasons known best to them alone, viruses breed within the systems and multiply at astonishing speeds. Unchecked, they can potentially cripple the entire system.

Solutions

There is but one solution to all issues that at times dent the security of eCommerce services. Strict vigil on malicious intruders.

Easier said than done? So is every preventive measure. However, with online transactions, progress in security has been overwhelming.

Authentication

Most notable are the advances in identification and elimination of non-genuine users. Ecommerce service designers now use multi-level identification protocols like security questions, encrypted passwords(Encryption), biometrics and others to confirm the identity of their customers. These steps have found wide favor all around due to their effectiveness in weeding out unwelcome access.

Dont Fall Into the Website Split Testing Black Hole

E-Commerce blogger

If you believe the hype, then website split testing is the long lost “holy grail” of Internet Marketing and the key to transforming your online dreams into reality. Unfortunately, the hype is wrong because split testing is just a tool and like any tool: Its only as powerful as the person wielding it. In fact, one of the first things people tend to split test is their headlines. Well this is a complete waste of time because headlines dont drive conversions, they merely pull visitors farther into your copy where your other sales tools, like the offer, actually convert prospects.

So in other words: You could use website split testing to try 50 different headlines but if all the other components were held the same, then the net difference in conversion rate between versions would average less than 5%. Headlines dont drive conversions, period. So testing different headlines is a complete waste of time if thats your objective.

Now before you think Im against website split testing, make no mistake: I am not and in fact I believe it to be vital to any successful conversion rate optimisation project. However, a much wiser investment of your time would be to concentrate on setting up split tests on the following sales tools: Your pricing; Your offer details; Post Script or Call-to-Action

Pricing remains one of the biggest drivers of conversions so using website split testing to try out different price points is vital to dialing in the right balance between Price Point and Conversion Rate. After all, you might be able to sell Product X for $50 at a 1% conversion rate but get 1.5% at $39. Your job is to crunch the numbers and figure out the best balance for highest profits and thats where split tests become vital.

Now although pricing is certainly one component of your offer, here are the other components that you should consider website split testing to improve conversion rate: Your features and/or product description; Any bonus products or services; Your Buy Now button.

All of these components of your offer will significantly affect conversion rate so youll want to run separate split tests for each of them. I would not advise multivariate testing unless you have significant experience and have successfully done so in the past. Otherwise, stick to separate split tests for each offer component.

Lastly and believe it or not: Post-scripts or a final CTA really work to the tune of generating upwards of 20% more clicks to the shopping cart when done properly. Now on most Ecommerce sites, this final CTA will typically take the form of “People who liked this product also liked:” and then a row of pictures of related products that link to formal product descriptions.

On other sites, the final CTA may be a prompt to sign up for a free consult, lead gen product, or simply a traditional post-script linking to the shopping cart. Whatever format youre using, be sure to conduct website split-testing on your post-script or closing call-to-action because it can literally boost click-thru-rate to your shopping cart or database by 20% or more.

Make no mistake, split tests are a vital tool for any successful website optimisation project and can help you dial-in your price point, maximise offer effectiveness, and boost click-thru rates to your shopping cart. Just be sure to avoid split-testing “non-converting” sales tools and use them effectively to significantly boost online conversions.