How to Improve Your eCommerce SEO Strategy

Posted by Chris Peer on May 1, 2014 12:00:00 AM

5 Smart SEO Strategies for eCommerce

eCommerce poses an especially difficult challenge when it comes to SEO. With products constantly changing and the potential for duplicate content, an eCommerce website requires constant vigilance to keep the search engines coming back to index the site. Here are five smart eCommerce SEO strategies to keep your website fresh and attractive to both consumers and search engine bots.

Handle Expired Products Promptly

Products go out of production. You may choose not to carry a slow selling product once inventory is gone. When you have an expired product, there are a few ways to handle it. You should use a 301 redirect to a similar product or a newer model of the expired product. If there is no similar product in your inventory, or for generic items, try to redirect it to a category page.

How to Improve eCommerce Sales with Magento

Posted by Chris Peer on Apr 24, 2014 12:00:00 AM

eCommerce websites enable visitors to view and buy products online. Today, starting an online store is cheap and for a couple of hundred dollars, you can have a modern, functional store thanks to eCommerce scripts like Magento.

Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform that has been implemented on many websites. The good thing with the script is that it can be customized, enabling you to have a unique store that comes in the design and with the features you need. Magento is built to make it easy to generate sales in your store. Below are some of Magento’s powerful features and extensions that can improve your eCommerce sales.

Why Your Own eCommerce Website is Better Than Selling on Etsy

Posted by Scott Sullivan on Mar 11, 2014 12:00:00 AM

4 Reasons Why Your Own eCommerce Website is Better Than Selling on Etsy

Selling on Etsy seems to be all the rage now, but is it really the right choice for your business? While a great platform for some, here are four reasons why eCommerce development is better than selling on Etsy for your business.

Design

When it comes to design, your Etsy account will be a pretemplated choice. You will look like every other vendor out there with the only distinguishing factors being the wording of your product descriptions and the quality of your photography. Creating your own eCommerce website gives you greater design control. You will be able to properly distinguish your brand and represent your company as an individual. In addition, you will possess greater control over your SEO rankings and marketing choices.

eCommerce Sales: It’s Not About Your Traffic

Posted by Chris Peer on Mar 5, 2014 12:00:00 AM

Need more traffic to your eCommerce website? Sure you do. Everyone could use more traffic, but improving your visitor-to-sale conversion rate may be the most profitable tactic an eCommerce retailer can make. Let’s say you have a brick-and-mortar storefront. Would you invest thousands of dollars on advertising to drive in-store traffic if you had no sales people to tend the register? Of course not, so why are so many eTailers obsessed with search engine optimization and pay per click when their website is broken or poorly functioning?

Posted by Scott Sullivan on Feb 20, 2014 12:00:00 AM

Once you have qualified traffic to your site, you need to start focusing on converting those shoppers into buyers. There are many reasons why a shopper leaves your website without converting. In this case, the term “converting” could mean making a purchase or filling out a contact form so they can be reached at a later date (these correlate to visitor-to-sale and visitor-to-lead conversions respectively). Below we share 5 common pitfalls that may be negatively effecting your eCommerce conversion rate strategy.

Posted by Scott Sullivan on Feb 13, 2014 12:00:00 AM

If you own a brick and mortar retail store, what items do you place in the storefront? You don’t just throw anything up there and hope that people are happy with it. You hand select the products and arrange them so that they attract and entice people to continue into a buying process with you. The same concept needs to be true for your eCommerce site. Whether you are a B2B company selling large machinery or B2C company selling hand made products, the approach is the same.

Posted by Chris Peer on Feb 11, 2014 12:00:00 AM

Maximizing Lead Generation Potential for Your Website

Most traffic to any website, whether it is a marketing site or a company information site, is generated through three primary sources:

Direct traffic: when a person types the website URL into their browser
Organic traffic: when a search term is entered into a search engine and the website is provided in the search results
Referral traffic: where the website is provided on a third-party site via a click-through link

These three methods constitute passive online lead generation, as none of them require active marketing efforts to attract visitors and prospects on the part of your website.

eCommerce Development: Tackle it In-House or Outsource?

Posted by Scott Sullivan on Feb 6, 2014 12:00:00 AM

ecommerce-development-inhouse-outsource As the Internet continues to develop and change, eCommerce is taking on a life of its own. Consumers are presented with new shopping opportunities everyday. Even in the manufacturing industry, consumers are shopping, researching and educating themselves online – and they’ve been doing it for a while now. Whether you are just getting ready to start selling your products online, or you are looking to update your old shopping cart, the same question comes up: should we manage this in-house or should we outsource?

There are obvious pros and cons that come with bringing someone in-house. For example, the 100% dedication of one employee could be beneficial, but the financial overhead of that new employee could be expensive. For now, let’s talk through the pros and cons of outsourcing eCommerce development work.

Posted by Scott Sullivan on Jan 28, 2014 12:00:00 AM

Understand why a post-launch strategy is critical to B2B eCommerce success

When I was in undergrad, my lacrosse team sponsored a military unit who was serving in Iraq. As part of our relationship we would send over some “luxury items” (car magazines, baby wipes, silly string, etc.) and they would send motivational letters that we would read before games. In one of the letters a Sargent stated that he was, “committed to aggressively pursuing the enemy.” I thought that was a fantastic way to tell people that he was focused on achieving a long-term goal. While your online sales are clearly not on the same level as protecting our country, the sentiment should be the same.

Are Your Distributors Just Overpaid Salespeople?

Posted by Chris Peer on Jan 21, 2014 12:00:00 AM

distributors-overpaid-salespeople Changes in today’s manufacturing process in the global economy is continuing to drive costs higher and higher. Many manufacturers are looking at ways to improve their profit margins by selling directly to the end consumer instead of through retail and distribution channels. This is true for manufacturers of both B2B and B2C products.

Distribution companies are also finding it harder and harder to do business as more customers have taken their business to online shopping, and the trend has only increased over the years. As a result, distributor prices have increased as these customers continue to buy online due to convenience and ease.