Thank goodness that the world wide web is already filled with beautiful and informative websites, so that you can build an ecommerce website devoted to sales. Effective e-commerce guru Travis Marziani shares his experience designing websites that maximize conversion rates. Follow the steps below when you design your ecommerce website to optimize online revenues.

1. Don’t Make Me Think

Don’t make the user think, by making site navigation as a simple and intuitive as possible. Research shows that once online visitors have to think about site navigation, they jumpstart the cognitive part of their brain. They start thinking about whether they really need a product, which is a tougher sell than an impulse buy.

Make sure that a non tech savvy person can find their way around your website. Travis encourages you to use the “Mom test.” Let your mother be the test by attempting to make an unassisted purchase from your website.

One common mistake is not putting the shopping cart above the fold, ie: near the top of the page. If a customer cannot effortlessly find the checkout page, they are more likely to leave your website.

2. Look at Your Competitors Websites

If you are starting out, you may not have the budget for a lot of market research. Check out big retailers and mimic their well researched websites. Successful online retailers such as Amazon and Walmart have spent fortunes testing the most effective color combinations and field locations to boost sales. You might as well profit from their experience imitating the look and feel of their websites.

3. Review Websites Your Demographic Buys From

It pays to do a little market research of your own. Teenagers, sports enthusiasts, Moms all have their own aesthetic comfort zone that may differ from your own. Take the time to analyze popular websites that your target audience typically visit, (more…)

We give you steps and secrets on how to start and develop your e-commerce business with the aim of giving you financial freedom and allowing you earn more cash through your e-commerce business.

This article shows you how you can set up merchant services, which will enable your customers make orders and pay for their orders through your online store. As we go further, we would highlight steps on how to make more money through merchant services, focusing on merchant services as one of the key ways to enhancing your e-commerce business and allowing you to stay ahead of the competition in the e-commerce business.

Have you ever thought about running an online store? E-commerce businesses are very common these days as they allow people to buy items from the comfort of their homes. So many people have dreams of putting an e-commerce business together, but do not have the necessary tips to encourage them to take on this great business.

The process of setting up a merchant service is one of the most important steps in creating a successful e-commerce business, as it makes it easy for a customer to make a purchase on your site. This service must be established before the commencement of business because of how fundamental it is. The website is more of a regular site without merchant services.

Below are some ways you can get a merchant service for your online store and begin other steps to grow your business.

What is a merchant service?

A merchant service allows you conduct transactions with your customers. Merchant services processes the credit or debit cards of clients and allows you to receive money from the orders on your e-commerce site, which is it needs to be functional before you officially launch your site. If you don’t have its setup before you begin your (more…)

We share secrets and tips on how you can start your online business and also grow your e-commerce business. We also help you to gain financial freedom by making money from an e-commerce business over a short period or making extra cash from an e-commerce business.

In this article, we will divulge tips on how you can design your e-commerce site so it can be efficient in making money for you so you can have more financial freedom. We will also discuss the nitty-gritty of design for optimal success.

Here are seven simple steps to follow in creating your e-commerce store;

1. About Us page

This page is very crucial to the success of the online store, and a lot of business owners fail to draw attention to their site because of their About Us page. It should not be a page which contains a few texts about the products that the e-commerce owner sells in a boring manner. The page should include a picture at least of the owner of the brand to give it a personal touch. People tend to prefer brands that connect with them and it make it easier for them to want to spend more time on the site. A video is more preferred on an e-commerce site about us page of about one to two minutes to engage the prospective clients so they can be more comfortable giving you their money. The video can contain any necessary information about the site and how you do your business in a friendly manner. This may help the prospective client to connect with you as customers prefer to purchase items from a humanly brand and not just any company.

2. Contact Us

This page is also crucial and should be strategically placed so that people can find it easy to communicate with you. It (more…)

How to Start An Online Store In 6 Simple Steps

 

Starting an online business can be overwhelming, in this video, I’ll show you how you can set it up in 6 simple steps.

1. Get A Domain Name

You can get a domain name from all kinds of different sites. However, the domain will represent your company so it is important to keep in mind that your domain names should be easy to spell and easy to remember. If it contains a keyword that you are trying to target, then that would be better.

2. Get A Shopping Cart

You have some options when choosing a shopping cart, you can get a hosted shopping cart or non hosted shopping cart. Some examples of a hosted shopping cart are shopify, volusion, and bigcommerce.

3. Merchant Services

These process all the credit cards, however if you choose to use Shopify as a hosted shopping cart, then you can go ahead and skip this step. You should also add Paypal as one of your payment options because a lot of people use this to buy things online. Remember, you want to make the shopping experience easy for your customers.

4. Keyword Research

You can use Google Adwords to search for keywords to help you name your products. This way, you would be able to see which keywords your target market usually search for. It is also important to go with long tail keywords to make your products appear top on searches.

5. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, what this does is it puts your website on top of google searches. ‘On Page SEO’ helps google know what your website is about. And ‘Off Page SEO’ which is link building. But for beginners, On Page SEO is what you need to focus on. The five main areas that we will talk about to (more…)

There are some exciting new trends for e-commerce marketing becoming available, and now is the absolute best time to get on the bandwagon and take advantage of what they can do for you and your small business. Two of these marketing vehicles are discussed below, and in the coming months you’ll certainly be hearing more and more about them, but now is the time to get on board if you really want to gain the benefits of this kind of marketing before it becomes more widely used.

Facebook Lead Ads

This exciting new opportunity for marketers is being made available by Facebook, and since it’s in its very early stages, it has not yet been adopted by large numbers of businesses. Being on the cutting edge of any new technology has an appeal all its own, because it puts you ahead of the e-commerce trends, or at least on their leading edge.

This particular vehicle is called Facebook Lead Ads, and there are some terrific advantages to using them. At present, Facebook Lead Ads are available as a mobile-only offering, although they will also find their way to desktop at some point in the near future.

Here’s how it all works:

• A user receives an ad on their mobile device, asking if they’d like to opt-in to something (for instance, a DIY guide or something else of value to them)

• The user clicks ‘YES’ and Facebook auto-populates their email account with an email, then a second ‘Yes’ click from the email itself is all that’s necessary to receive a free e-book or whatever you are marketing

• Without ever having left Facebook, without entering their email address, and without navigating anywhere else from their mobile device, the user has received your marketing material. If the user were required to provide you with an email address, maybe 10% would do (more…)

The majority of adults in the United States now own smartphones and an increasing number of people are using their mobile phones to shop online. As an e-commerce store owner, you want to be sure that you’re marketing to people who are shopping on smartphones, so that you don’t miss out on the chance to get new business. Experts predict that shopping on smartphones will only increase in popularity over the next decade, making it a good idea to begin marketing to mobile users now, especially because your competitors may not be.

 So yes, you should be using Adwords campaigns for mobile customers, but there is a catch–you’re likely not going to make as much from marketing to mobile users as you will to people who are shopping on tablets and computers. In my business, I’ve found that only a very small portion of my sales comes from mobile users and that the average dollar amount of the sales that I do have is significantly less than the average total for a tablet or computer users. People who are shopping on smartphones are simply more likely to tap on the one product they need and check out, while shoppers on other devices are more likely to browse and purchase more.

While there may be some exceptions, for most people who own e-commerce stores, Adwords marketing on smartphones isn’t going to be as profitable. This means that you don’t want to invest as much on your campaigns, and it is possible to minimize your cost of advertising by setting up a separate Adwords campaign specifically for mobile users. This way, you can set your bids at a lower cost and pay less when your ads are displayed.

Setting up a mobile only Adwords campaign is very easy. Just follow these steps to get the job (more…)

It doesn’t matter what your line of business is–as a small e-commerce business, you always want to keep costs to a minimum. Internet marketing costs are one of the biggest expenses for e-commerce stores, and if you’re anything like me, you’re always on the lookout for ways to slash costs without compromising the effectiveness of your efforts to promote your products.

One thing that I have found to be beneficial was to eliminate my Adwords Ads from mobile phone search results. This is sort of a controversial topic. If you read the marketing information from Google, you’ll see big claims that displaying Adwords Ads on smartphones will increase your profits, but based on my experience and what other e-commerce business owners have told me, this seems to be greatly overstated. I have found that mobile users rarely buy from sites, and when they do, the average sale amount is significantly lower than what customers shopping on computers pay. After eliminating mobile advertising from my Adwords Ad campaigns, I’m now getting a better return on my investment in marketing and haven’t noticed any decline in sales.

Before you read on, I suggest taking a look at Google Analytics to see how many site clicks you’ve actually received from Adwords Ads displaying in mobile results. If this number is low or non-existent, then I would strongly recommend that you do the following to keep your ads off of mobile device screens.  This way, you won’t be paying money for extra views that aren’t bringing you any benefit.

To remove the mobile optin from your Adwords Ads, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Google Analytics dashboard and select Campaign Management from the menu at the top of the page.

2. You’ll be taken to a list of all of your current Adwords Ad campaigns. Click on the Campaign that you (more…)

Pay per click advertising is one form of Internet marketing that can help e-commerce businesses get new traffic to their sites to increase sales. Over the years, I’ve tried a number of types of pay per click advertising methods with mixed results. I’ve found that some simply aren’t worth either the high cost that you pay per click or that they take too much time out of your day when you consider how much you actually make with them.

That doesn’t mean that all pay per click advertising isn’t worthwhile. I’ve had great success with Product Listing Ads, which are also sometimes called Google Shopping Ads. In my experience, they work incredibly well, and my site has gotten a lot of business through them. Still, you can’t expect to just put up any Product Listing Ad and end up with clicks and sales. You need to be smart about how you create your ads and structure your campaigns. Here are some tips for success that I’ve used to make Product Listing Ads profitable:

1. Increase the Amount of Your Bid.

If you’re looking for the simplest, most surefire way to get more clicks on Product Listing Ads, you can simply increase the amount of your bid. When your bid size is higher, you’re more likely to rank in first place for your chosen keywords. That means that your product will be displayed more often, and you’ll have more of an opportunity to get clicks. Of course, not even small e-commerce business can afford to pay more per click for their Product Listing Ads, so you may need to try one of the other methods that I’m about to explain.

2. Incorporate More Products.

A lot of e-commerce store owners try to start with just one or two Product Listing Ads because they want to see how (more…)

Tax season isn’t something that any small business owner looks forward to whether you’re planning to prepare your taxes yourself or have an accountant do them for you. As an e-commerce business owner, tax season can be particularly difficult. Even though you have to pay taxes like any other business, the unique characteristics of e-commerce businesses can lead to some challenges when it comes time to prepare a tax return.

I know that personally I found it hard to get my tax return ready the first couple of years that I owned my e-commerce business, but along the way, I learned some tips that have greatly simplified the process and that are sure to help make tax time a little easier for you, too.

1. Don’t Miss Money-Saving Expenses.

Why should you pay more taxes than you have to? As an e-commerce business, you’re less likely to have some of the types of expenses that other types of companies have, such as depreciation on large amounts of equipment; however, there are still many expenses that you can deduct. Many e-commerce business owners make the mistake of overlooking some of the expenses that they can use to lower their tax liability. Go back through all of your receipts and make sure that you haven’t missed any business-related meals or trips this tax season. Going forward, you can make things much easier by separating your finances. Use a credit card specifically for your business and keep a separate bank account for writing checks for expenses. This way, you can simply use the statements at tax time to crunch the numbers and guarantee that you never miss a single expense.

2. Familiarize Yourself With and Take Advantage of All Expenses.

My first year as an e-commerce small business owner, I ended up missing out on over $2000 of expenses (more…)

 

This article will highlight how you can write better articles for your content marketing and Instagram advertising for your e-commerce business.

Instagram, since it became a property of Facebook, now allows users to advertise on this platform, and it is an excellent way to push your online store to a wider audience. Instagram boasts of about 400 million users and the field of advertising on Instagram is relatively new as so many people do not use it yet.

How to advertise on Instagram

If you intend to advertise on Instagram, you will have to activate it via the Facebook advertising platform as Facebook owns Instagram. The cost per click or CPC is tagged at about one dollar and is quite reasonable and this depends on the target audience.

Tips for creating ads on Instagram

–              The creative aspect

People want to see an image that looks both beautiful and native, so this crucial in the creation of an Instagram ad. The more native the ad is, the more it will draw the attention of potential buyers. Also, if the ad looks too formal, people may scroll away immediately they realize that it is an ad, but when it look natural, it catches the right attention.

–              A mobile landing page

This is also very crucial as Instagram is a mobile application and is rarely used on personal computers, an optimized mobile landing page will make it easier for your proposed audience to access your online store from the ad. If the landing page is not optimized, it will discourage the Instagram users who wish to view your store from their mobile device. You can solve this problem by using email capture so that when users click on your ad, it will take them to a landing page and redirect them to sign in with Facebook. Users can then sign (more…)