Do you remember the images from storybooks you were read to as a child and the impact they had on you? Some of these memories are long lasting ones that you’ll be able to recall for many years. The reason behind this is because as we look at pictures, two areas at the back of the brain are at work. These lobes, called the occipital lobes, process images from the eyes and connect that information with images stored in memory. Now fast-forward to today and the images that we constantly process, our occipital lobes are still at work. If something attracts your attention it still makes as big of an impression as it did when you were a child. That is why infographics are such a great way to connect with your audience. They reach most people on a far deeper level compared to simply reading words off a page. People want to be mentally stimulated, not only with intriguing facts, but images that go along with them.
If you are unfamiliar with infographics head over to http://www.coolinfographics.com/ and checkout a few examples.
Important factors to keep in mind when creating a new infographic
- Make sure the information is accurate: Do your research – You’re educating people with your message, so make sure you’re not being careless and you know the facts are correct.
- Make sure it’s attractive: Well obviously you want to create something that grabs immediate attention. This could be with the colors you choose or the design layout. Make sure you use a designer that truly understands your overall concept.
- Make sure your message is understood: Your message and facts should be easy to follow. Make sure that the core message is coming across and isn’t lost.
Infographics work for your business
- Infographics can drive traffic: Yes, this is very true! The link sharing value here is priceless! If your infographic goes viral, well then you’ve just hit the jackpot. Because of its interactive and graphic nature, people will love to share it with others.
- Infographics explain a situation more easily: People want to learn with pictures most of the time because it makes it easier for them to understand what you are saying and it makes the topic more interesting.
- Saves time: And time is money, right? Since infographics are visual, they explain a whole lot of information in just a few words and if done right, they will keep your customers engaged.
Infographics can work as a very powerful tool by communicating their message both internally and externally, so take advantage of the benefits it could bring your business.
Over the past 10 years more Americans have found that shopping online is not only convenient but most times less expensive than buying products in an actual retail store. Another incentive of shopping online at sites like Amazon was that items were tax free. So not only were you getting a great deal, but you were saving even more cash by not having to pay tax.
Well if you live in California you can kiss those days good bye! Because earlier this month California’s State Assembly approved a new bill that would require Web retailers such as Amazon.com Inc to collect sales tax on purchases made online by Californians.
Assembly Bill 155, which now moves on to committees in the state Senate, expands the definition of “retailers engaged in business in the state” in a way that would require Amazon and others to collect sales tax.
The California Board of Equalization estimates this new tax could bring $83 million to the state. This is in effort to bring more revenue to California which is already an estimated 10 billion dollars in debt.
California’s Assembly approved the bill on a vote of 52 to 20, showing that the majority agree to find new ways of generating more income into the financially slumped state.
California is one of the first states to introduce this new bill, but soon enough we may be finding other states following in its footsteps.
RIP Tax Free Amazon.com and internet retailers.
The weather is finally starting to feel like summer! Last week I decided I would start researching wooden playground sets for the backyard. I shopped online for an hour or so, and compared the same wooden playground set on a handful of online stores. My process went something like this, I would go through the ordering process of each site to determine my actual cost, and bookmark the sites that I thought had the lowest pricing.
The next day, around 10am I received a phone call from a customer service agent at one of the websites I had visited. The agent asked if I had any questions about the wooden playground set I had looked at on their website. I paused for a minute, feeling very vulnerable to the fact they knew exactly which product I had put in my online shopping cart, I told the agent that I did not have any questions and request they not call me again. During the checkout process, I had put in my actual phone number, not thinking anything of it. Mainly because my phone number came up to auto fill in the telephone field and I did not think it would be a big deal.
Four days later I received an email from the same company offering a discount on the exact product that I had added to my shopping cart. The email does not bother me, partially because they offered me a discount, and partially because it does not feel as intrusive as a person calling me. Throughout the last few days I have noticed an uptick in the number of wooden playground ads when I log into my email account, and I understand this as another retargeting effort. Like the email, I do not feel bothered by the increase in ads targeted at me based on my searches.
Do you feel calling customers directly has taken retargeting too far?
Big name retailers and small niche online stores are now starting to offer their products for sale direclty on Facebook. How do you get starting selling your products on Facebook?
Determine the most appropriate setup for your type of ecommerce site. There are two layout options available.
1) Selling products directly on Facebook. Example; Land’s End.
Land’s End uses a “social shopping experience” called 8th Bridge to integrate their store on Facebook. 8th Bridge allows the customer to complete an entire purchase while never leaving the Facebook website. A ton of major retailers, such as Hallmark, Delta Airlines, HauteLook & 1-800-Flowers.com are all using 8th Bridge on Facebook.
There are a few other companies offering this same type of product, but with a little less glitz, and a smaller price tag,
2) Provide a “Shop Now” button that links back to your storefront.
This is a great option for smaller budgets, and involves little setup time. Example; Toms Shoes
Toms Shoes has a one page layout with their new Spring Collection, and provides a “Shop Now” button that links directly back to the the Toms website and allows the customer to purchase from that point.
An alternative layout for linking directly to specific products and not general categories is also a good option. Etsy offers their sellers a product page that links back to their Etsy store front to complete the purchase. Example; Typos
Once you have determined which type of setup works the best for your business, start selling! Look for more and more of your favorite stores to start using either one of these methods to start selling their products on Facebook. This is an exciting new way to allow Facebook Fans to shop for their favorite products without having to leave Facebook to search for products.
If you are like a lot of businesses on the internet; you most likely run multiple e-commerce websites perhaps even on multiple platforms; this can become very tedious, even quite frustrating to maintain on a routine basis. So here’s a quick list to keep in mind.
Sitemaps
Sitemaps are a key component in helping assist search engine robots in their automatic crawls of your website; giving you the ability to simply list out all of your pages and even set priorities and how often these pages are updated.
It is very important to monitor all of your sitemaps; including automatically generated sitemaps for potential issues; such as pages that have moved, no longer exist and for typographical errors too. This will also keep accidental non-production pages from getting indexed.
If you utilize Google Webmasters; it provides very detailed information including 404 errors, sitemap problems, and other errors it may have encountered with in your websites.
Google Products Submission
Hopefully if you sell products on your sites, you are submitting your product feeds to Google Products (Google Merchants), as this increases your potential audience for sale conversions.
As with sitemaps, it is also extremely important that everything is accurate, including but not limited to: Product Name, Brand, SKU, Pricing, Free Shipping Indication and the Product’s Picture.
Having this information be accurate and perhaps even automatically routinely submitted (updated in Google Products); is an excellent way to maintain both your products accuracy in the system and lower your sites bounce rate.
Server Error Logs
This is the most common overlooked item; your website may appear to be functioning properly without any issues; however, it is a very good practice to keep an eye on your systems multiple error logs.
These can include:
- Web Server (Web Hosting)
- Programming Language (PHP, ASP, etc)
- Server (Operating System)
- Pages not found (Do 404’s Hurt My Site?)
Try to make it part of your monthly, perhaps weekly routine to check these files, as they can be big indicators if something, big or small, is potentially causing an issue, you can also keep an eye on security by monitoring these files too.
Security Practices
When running multiple e-commerce sites, it can be a big hassle to truly stay on top of best practices for keeping your customers information safe guarded; one of the biggest items is not changing your important passwords often.
As noted in A Major Security Risk – Your Password, your password is more often than not, the only thing keeping potential security breaches from taking place, the more often your important account passwords are changed; and the stronger your passwords are, the better.
It is highly recommended to use a service such as LastPass to keep these strong, not usually memorable passwords stored in a secure location that you can access; however keep in mind, to make your LastPass account password something you can memorize; but still be strong too.
Backups
In conclusion, another absolute must have is routine backups of your websites files, including any databases and email accounts. You can never have too many backups and in multiple locations; at the very least you should be making weekly backups of everything.
The reason behind having backups in multiple locations, even on local media; such as unplugged hard drives or even DVDs, is that even big corporations such as Amazon can suffer data loss when unexpected things go wrong; never trust a single backup solution!
It is also important to test your backup system, if something happened to your hosting provider, or a server of yours; would you be ready? Would your backup system work properly? Test a restore! While testing restoring a partial or full backup; be sure to note important items.
These items should include: That every file was successfully restored, databases restored properly, emails exist, also note how long the restore took; as this is potentially how long your website would be down at the very minimum during such a situation.
Online shoppers tend to be a bit indecisive. Just about anything can have them abandon their shopping carts, anything from expensive shipping and handling fees, a second thought about spending money, thinking they can find a product cheaper somewhere else or simply taking another day to think before they make the final “confirm” click.
Whatever the situation may be, there is no longer a reason to lose customers, or even worse, having them surf off to a competitors site. There may be a way to track them down and close the sale through behavior retargeting, also referred to as behavioral remarketing or simply retargeting.
Let’s say a potential customer visits your site, adds a few items into the shopping cart and walks out the virtual door before completing the transaction, you may be able to get them back. Sites that use Google AdWords or a retargeting vendor record a snippet of computer code to identify each visitor. The next time that person visits a participating site where you advertise; your banner ad will show up. Possibly enticing them to come back to your site and complete the original sale they once intended to purchase.
The idea behind retargeting is that once you have attracted visitors to your site, they have already shown an interest in your products and are likely to be more open to coming back. Chances are good that you have invested resources to attract visitors to your site. Retargeting gives you additional opportunities to convert those lost sales in a relatively cost-effective manner.
Though retargeting isn’t a guaranteed solution to getting customers back into pushing their cyber shopping cart, the technique is definitely worth exploring.
1) Shopping Cart Email
This is a fairly new feature that many of the top sites have started implementing. If you add a product to your shopping cart and enter an email address and do not purchase the items in your shopping cart, an email reminder will be sent out. The reminder will let you know that you still have items in your shopping cart and will include an incentive for returning to the store to purchase the item(s). Usually a discount code or special offer will be part of the email.
2) Turn Up the Volume
Increase the frequency of email campaigns to your customer email list. Let them know what promotions and new products are available at your store.
3) Coupon Code Distribution
Post coupon codes on sites like Retail Me Not, Current Codes, Coupon Cabin and Ultimate Coupons. These sites are a great way to distribute your store’s coupon codes to the masses. When customers search for your store’s name and the words ‘coupon code’ these sites will likely be the first listed.
4) Holiday Countdown
Show customers how many days are left before the upcoming holiday. Display the number of days left before the last shipping day available for your products. This will help decrease the number of phone calls and emails inquiring about the fast shipping methods and availability.
5) Facepile
Take the Facebook “like” button to the next level with a “Facepile”. Display a Facebook “Facepile” on your site’s homepage showing all the profile pictures of the people who have “liked” your site.
6) Shipping Communication
Increase communication with customers about the status of their order. Stay on top of any backorders, delays and tracking numbers. This will help decrease WISMO (Where is my order?) questions, which will in turn help free up time to help potential customers with orders.
7) Mystery Shoppers
Make sure your site is in tip top shape before the holiday season begins. Test the site with mystery shoppers, or use UserTesting.com to find any potential problems with the ordering process, or navigation on your site.
8) Holiday Spirit
Spread the holiday spirit with graphics and related promotional names on your site. Let customers feel the spirit of the holiday on your site. Simple graphics are easy to update and will make your site feel fresh.
9) The Last Minute Gift
The Christmas Eve is typically the biggest holiday shopping day of the year for physical stores. So, what can online stores do to take advantage of this big day? Giftcards. Allow instant gifts with emailed giftcards to your store.
10) Extended Opportunities
Allow customers to reach your store outside of business hours. Extended hours for phone operators, live chat availability and order processing will help to reach customers shopping online after work and on the weekends.
11) Be Prepared
Know the days of the holiday season that will be the busiest. Historically, the Monday after Black Friday, known as Cyber Monday, and 11 to 12 days before Christmas are the largest online shopping days of the entire year. Be prepared to handle a large volume of calls, emails and orders.
12) Suggested Gifts
Guide customers to the best deals and most popular products. Use an “Editor’s Pick” or Review Ratings to help customers navigate their way to the perfect gift. Feature these products with banners, promotions and placement on the site.
We are just two weeks away from the biggest shopping day of the year and I am feeling the excitement! My inbox is increasingly filling up with email promotions and stores are starting to run their best ‘deals’ of the year. Every year at this time I think – How can we separate ourselves from the competition?
We can’t always offer the best pricing, or quickest shipping. Our biggest strengths revolve around the customer’s experience and the large number of products that we offer on our sites. We thought the best way to capitalize on our strength is to build our customer reviews. For a couple years I went down the traditional path of a simple email to the customer post-purchase asking them to complete a review on the product. We received a few reviews, but they were lacking in style and content. We would get reviews like this;
“Good product. I like it.”
I wanted to scream. How are these larger online stores receiving beautifully crafted, informative reviews on their sites? I started to do some research and realized that most of them are outsourcing their review collection and forms. I found a couple companies that offer a customer review service that entails the following;
- Follow Up Emails – An email template is provided that can be customized and sent out to customers. Email address and product model numbers can be uploaded via .csv file and the follow up email can be scheduled.
- Review Forms – Forms that are created based on products categories. If you have multiple categories on your site, you can select a different form for each category. Having these forms help to guide a customer through their review. Instead of a simple sentence, this form prompts questions to the customer about the product. The last section of the review allows customers to post an image of the product if they wish.
- Verified Buyer & Verified Staffer Badge – Each review submitted is required to have an email address assigned to it. That email address is then searched to determine if the reviewer has actually purchased this product from your store, or if that person is a staff member. If the reviewer’s email matches up as a customer or staffer, a badge is assigned to the review. This lets readers know that this person has actually purchased this product. This also allows staffers to review products and give their insight.
- Moderation – The service companies will review the reviews and edit them as they see necessary. Profanity, formatting and readability are all looked at. Once they are moderated by the service company, they are sent along to the store to review before posting.
- Escalation of Problems – Customer reviews that are completed and the customer is expressing a problem with a product or service can be handled by escalating the review to a manager. The manager can then reply to the review and resolve the issue.
- Data – After the email blast has been sent out to customers and reviews have been submitted, a summary of the email is given. This summer will let you know how many follow up emails were sent, the number of emails opened, how many reviews were completed, bounced email address and the number of customer that unsubscribed. This will allow you to resend the email to customers who did not open it the first time around.
Two of the best services are Power Reviews and Rate Voice. Power Reviews has a few more high profile customers, and seems to be rapidly evolving their available services. Rate Voice is slightly less expensive, but doesn’t have the exposure of Power Reviews. Either service would be a good investment. We have seen a dramatic increase in the quality, and return rate of reviews since adopting a review service. The service has also saved us a ton of time!
These services are not the most inexpensive method, but we found they produce a higher percent of return and better quality. The cost of this service ranges from $20 to $40 per month, per site. Each of the sites we looked at has a 30 day trial period and has plenty of references, or should I say customer reviews. Let us know if you have found another customer review service, or innovative way to increase the return rate and quality of customer reviews.
#1 Know Your REAL Keywords
If you only look at one report in Google Adwords I would suggest the Search Query Performance report. Recently Google has made it easier to see this data without the hassle of running a report.
Simply navigate to a Campaign or Ad Group and select the Keywords tab. Once selected click “See search terms” and select ALL.
This will show you the actual keywords your Ad is being shown for, their CTR (click through rate) and even conversion rates. For example, if you are bidding on the keyword phrase “Gas Grills” Google will show your CTR and conversions, but unless you actually run this report you won’t see all the variations that keyword is actually showing for.
I see this problem all the time as an SEO. Someone will tell me that they make money on the keyword “Blue Widget” on Adwords and they want to rank for it organically. I then have them run this report to be sure and they find that “Blue Widget” was set to broad match and their actual conversions were coming from more specific variants of their main keyword.
You typically have to wait 1 day for data to show up but run this report on the last 30 days and you should have plenty of data to review per Ad Group.
#2 Turn a Negative into a Positive
After you run your report, scan the keyword list it gives you for phrases that don’t match your product or business. Add those keywords as a negative search term for that Ad Group or Campaign. Take the time to run your Search Query Performance report at least once a week and sift through it for keywords you can eliminate.
A large list of negative keywords is essential to running a successful Adwords campaign. Keywords set to Broad Match on Google are notorious for showing horribly unrelated searches. By eliminating these you can raise your CTR which will lower your overall cost and stop you from wasting money on customers who will never buy.
Google will not allow some long search phrases to be added as a negative. When this happens try to make some of the most important core words of the search phrase negative and leave the rest out.
While most negative keywords should be inserted at the Ad Group level you can add them at the Campaign level if it makes sense. For example, if you sell high end products Cheap or Free may be a good global negative for you. If you do not want to target customers in the research phrase of the buying cycle you might eliminate review and reviews etc.
#3 Use Tightly Themed Ad Groups
When you start a new Ad Group Do Not Overload it with Keywords! This is a major mistake that many people make. You need to keep your Ad Groups very targeted.
- Charcoal Grills
- Gas Grills
- Electric Grills
Those should be 3 unique Ad Groups. Resist the urge to pile them into one Ad Group because they are all grills.
#4 Divide Important Keywords by Match Type
Let’s say you want to sell Gas Grills. Start an Ad Group with only two keywords, “Gas Grills” & “Gas Grill” both set to phrase match. Go ahead and input at least 10 or 20 negative keywords then let it run for a day or two.
While you are adding negative keywords add [Gas Grills] & [Gas Grill] as negative terms as well. This may seem counter intuitive at first but by doing this your ads will only display for actual phrase searches that use Gas Grills in them versus showing for the exact match keyword.
You can then setup an exact match keyword Ad Group for [Gas Grills] & [Gas Grill]. Once this is done you will be able to truly see how your exact match keywords are performing and how your phrase match keywords are performing. You can use this same type of technique for broad match as well.
#5 Use Broad and Phrase Match to Mine Keyword Gold
Now that your Ad Groups are setup to truly show phrase or exact match terms you can use the phrase and broad matches to find great keywords.
In our case you might find something like this in your “Gas Grills” keyword report.
- Natural Gas Grills
- Weber Gas Grills
- Best Gas Grills
- Cheap Gas Grills
- Built in Gas Grills
- Consumer Reports Gas Grills
The idea here is to ditch the bad stuff and move the good stuff into individual Ad Groups. For instance, you probably don’t sell built in gas grills so why waste the traffic, make it a negative. However, if you do sell Weber grills make Weber gas grills a negative keyword for this Ad group and go create a new Ad group just for Weber grills.
Your phrase match will no longer show for weber gas grills but your new highly targeted ad group will. The keyword phrase “Consumer Reports Gas Grills” could inspire you to research the grills that consumer reports are currently recommending as best buys. Make the keyword a negative and place it in its own Ad Group with a landing page touting the grills you sell that are all so recommended by consumer reports.
You do not have to do this for every keyword, but try it and it’s a great way to eliminate bad keywords and create highly targeted Ad Groups that you can dominate for profitable keywords.
#6 Quality Score Can Destroy Your Campaign
If you do not have Quality Score enabled, click on the Keywords tab and select Columns. Make sure the Quality Score is checked. Try to get 7/10 and above for all your keywords. Try to improve any score lower than a 7 and anything lower than a 5 is a serious issue.
Usually Quality Scores can be improved simply by doing a better job of grouping your keywords and writing ads with the specific keyword appearing in the ad at least twice.
If you are doing that and still getting a low score it could be that your CTR is too low or your landing page needs to be more relevant for that keyword. As a last resort simply delete the problem keyword. This is much easier to do if it is a low traffic keyword to begin with.
Sometimes Google will give you a low Quality Score for seemingly no reason at all. You may think you are doing just about everything right and still get a lower Quality Score. In these cases you may want to use a high Quality Score broad match or phrase match keyword combined with a HUGE list of negative terms to get Google to mainly only show your ad for the keyword you’re having issues with. Hopefully you will not have to go to that extreme.
#7 Split Testing May Be Hurting You
Don’t get me wrong, you need to be split testing ads against one another. Every Ad Group you have should be running at least two variations of an ad at all times in an effort to find a better performing ad.
However, after you have been split testing ads for a while you will find it harder and harder to beat your best ad. This is where split testing can actually hurt you because 50% of your clicks will be going to an underperforming ad.
The solution is to duplicate your best ad 3 times (or more) and run it against 1 copy of your new ad. This will keep your CTR steady while you test. You can play with the mix to get a percentage you are comfortable with.
Remember to go into your campaign settings and set your ads to rotate more evenly so you can get an accurate split test.
#8 A Simple Way to Write Effective Ad Copy
Headline – Use your main keyword
Line 1 – Use line one to promote a benefit
Line 2 – Use line two to show your USP (unique selling point)
Display URL – Use Capitalization in your domain & add your keyword after the /. You can also remove the www from the Display URL if you need the extra room.
An ad like this should do well because it uses the target keyword “Gas Grills” in the headline and multiple times throughout the ad. It also touts the benefit of free shipping and 50% off combined with the unique selling point on line two of a large selection and fast shipping.
There really is no silver bullet when it comes to writing ad copy. The best thing to do is continuously test. However, if you follow this simplistic formula you will already be ahead of most of your competition.
#9 Optimize Your Campaign Settings.
Make sure you are set to the right countries or states that you wish to market in. If you don’t ship to Canada make sure you’re not advertising there.
However, the settings with the biggest impact are in the Networks and Devices section.
In general I would advise you turn off the search partners, display network and iphones/smart phones. I start almost every campaign with these three options disabled. Once I get the campaign running smoothly I will create a new campaign that just targets the display network.
The display network is a whole different animal and you need to know your market before even trying it. Also, it is much easier to view your data with Search and Display in their own unique campaigns.
Unless you are selling pizza or ringtones I would stay away from advertising on smart phones unless you have a very specific plan of attack.
By eliminating these networks until you are ready to expand into them you can save a ton of wasted money early on.
#10 Google Instant Will Change Search Behaviors
As more people get used to Google instant search it will start to change their search habits. Make sure you are prepared. Go to Google and type in your main money making keywords. See what Google starts suggesting. Make sure you have compelling ads for each of the relevant phrases that Google suggest.
If you do this now you can position yourself with high CTR and Quality Score in anticipation of your customers search behavior.
Closing Thought
Adwords can be a major source of frustration for beginners and even pros. However, if you take the time to set your campaign up the right way and monitor it closely you will limit the headaches and most importantly stop wasting money.
Please feel free to post your favorite Adwords tip in the comments!
According to some estimates, about 75% of all online shopping carts are ditched before the sale is closed. Is shopping cart abandonment costing your business money? Do you wish you could stop hemorrhaging customers?
The first step to reducing shopping cart abandonment is understanding why your customers aren’t completing their purchases. Here are the 6 most common reasons for shopping cart abandonment.
- Forced registration—Online customers don’t like being asked to register for an account before making their purchase. It’s time-consuming, and to put it plainly, it’s pretty annoying. So, if you make customers register on your website, you can bet you’re losing out on a lot of sales. The solution? Let them buy without registering. It’s really not that complicated.
- Shipping prices are too high—High shipping prices are actually cited as the most common reason for shopping cart abandonment. Customers factor in shipping rates in the overall cost, so if your shipping rates are too high, they may take their business elsewhere or just buy the product locally. One thing you can do is to offer multiple shipping options so shoppers can find the rate that best fits their budget.
- No guarantee—I hate to break it to you, but customers just don’t trust you. When people shop online, they’re always on alert to make sure they aren’t being ripped off. For you, this means you need to find ways to eliminate risk for customers. Offering a money-back guarantee puts shoppers at ease because they know if the product doesn’t meet their expectations, they’ll get their money back.
- Really long checkout process—Your customers are in a hurry. They don’t want to spend 15 minutes trying to buy your product. Try to minimize the number of steps required to complete the transaction. You should also put a progress bar at the top of the page to let customers know how close they are to finishing checkout.
- It’s out of stock—Is there anything more frustrating than getting to the end of checkout only to find out the product is out of stock? Ugh! Either let the customer know up front that it’s out of stock or hide the product until you replenish your inventory.
- What’s next?—Pretend your customers are all aliens who aren’t familiar with the internet. Never just assume they know how to checkout. You need to make it very clear what steps they need to take to complete their purchase. Put a big “Next” button at the bottom of each page to guide them along.
What are some other reasons customers ditch shopping carts? Share your experiences by leaving a comment!
Eric Brantner offers freelance copywriting services that have helped hundreds of clients achieve online success. Beyond writing for the web, he also provides brochure copywriting and other print copywriting services.
