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E-Commerce Conversion Rate – 10 Cheap & Easy Ways to Improve

E-Commerce Conversion Rate – 10 Cheap & Easy Ways to Improve

10 Cheap and Easy Ways to Improve Your Website’s E-Commerce Conversion Rate

Odds are, if you are reading this, you don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in e-commerce conversion rate optimization for your website. Heat maps, eye tracking, focus groups, A/B testing, and a dedicated team of marketing analysts and UI/UX designers may be a bit out of your league. That’s OK, there are some simple things you can do which can make a big difference in your bottom line.

  1. Make your landing pages look good: Trust is a big part of conversion. In order for your online customers to feel confident purchasing from you online, you need to have a trustworthy landing page. Get rid of anything out of date or unprofessional. You all know what we mean: that big red/bold/Arial text you typed on your home page, those flashing animated yellow gifs, the low quality photograph of your dog. Follow the example of the top e-commerce retailers, and make your landing pages look like a business your customer can have confidence in. Build your brand trust!
  2. Use calls to action: Make it easy for your buyers to know where to click to get to where they need to go. Think of the banners on your website as greeters in your store. Make your graphics say, “welcome to our store, let me help you, follow me” without actually saying it. “Shop Now”, “Learn More”, and “Click Here” buttons do actually work, use them but don’t overuse them. Once again, if your web page is full of flashing yellow “click here” animated gifs….refer to number 1.
  3. Streamline your navigation: Think of your website like your brick and mortar store. You wouldn’t let your customers walk through your back room, right? Make sure you have organized “aisles” and “departments” on your website that customers can easily surf through.
  4. Add unique expert content: Great unique content is not only good for SEO and getting people to your site, once they are there it helps build trust. Brand trust has a great effect on conversion. People will buy from your company because they like your company. A great way for people to get to know your business is to tell them stories about your passions, products, and experiences. When your prospective customer sees you as an expert, they will be more confident clicking the buy now button.
  5. Cut down your product list: Believe it or not, sometimes more products on your website can actually deter conversions. If you give the customer too many options, they may not be able to make up their minds. Think about turning off your low margin/low volume products.
  6. Remove barriers from checkout: Get the bare minimum amount of information you need to complete the sale from the customer, and nothing more. You can always seek additional information and follow after the sale is complete. Customers don’t want to jump through hoops to get the sales process moving, so if your fraud protection settings are too high or you have too many check boxes for newsletters or add on items in your checkout process, you could be losing out on sales.
  7. Use product reviews: Product reviews are a huge part of getting the customer to click the add to cart button. If your products have no reviews, your customer may not buy. It is OK to write your own product reviews, as long as you are up front about it. Encourage your customers to write reviews for you by giving them an incentive to do so. Have you thought about creating your own video reviews?
  8. Make returns easy: We all know returns are a hassle, and no one likes them. Not you, not the customer. New customers always have the question of “what if my order isn’t right?” Don’t give your customers a reason to not buy from you. Outline a clear return policy that makes things easy for your customer if things go wrong. They will feel more confident that if the worst case scenario happens with their order, you will back it up.
  9. Give simple shipping options: Most retailers are afraid to loose money on shipping costs. Often to combat this they show every shipping option under the sun. Customers want simple, so give them just a few options at checkout. Usually you will win some and lose some when using flat rate shipping. Remember, you can always adjust your shipping rates as you go after you gain a true knowledge of what your actual shipping costs are.
  10. Answer your phone: This is the #1 way to increase the e-commerce conversion rate of your website, and something most do not factor in calculating their online conversion rates. Many times first time visitors to your website will pick up the phone to call you. This is where you can beat out the big box stores. Make sure to provide a phone number on your website. Talk to your customers on the phone, maybe even take their order over the phone the first time, then you can turn them into an online buyer after they trust you!

Need more help optimizing your e-commerce website for conversion, contact us at https://www.xlecommerce.com

 

Ten Benefits of Search Engine Optimization in our Modern, Connected World

In this age of social media, you probably have heard that “pushing for content” is the greatest way to attract customers to your business. Everyone is focused on getting the most number of shares, the highest number of engagement, the “top post” that will spike to going viral.

Yet computers and patterns of techniques still drive the backbone of the internet. Facebook uses specific methods of identifying good content that might be relevant on someone’s news feed. Google uses someone’s personal search history to identify both geographic and tailored results, but even these depend on semantics. In fact, as more content, more stores, and more websites pop up, the greater need our world will have on sorting this vast information in a form that computers can understand.

The death of Search Engine Optimization is greatly exaggerated. While the old method of “just backlinks” and pure keyword-based optimization is long gone, search engine optimizers have survived a seismic shift in the complex way that the internet sorts itself. Here are ten ways in which optimizing your website can still benefit you today, which also illustrates just how complex and encompassing this field has become.

  1. Audience. In a social world, trends are increasingly defined by the masses, and often, knowing just who to target is extremely difficult. Through keyword research, social trends, shopping statistics, we can help you find the right products and content your business should be selling. Words go in and out of style, but research will always hold its value.
  2. Ideas. Brainstorming can be a chore, especially when you are jump-starting a new business or trying to add to an already existing portfolio. Yet with an SEO advisor, analysis reports and tools can give you insights into what has worked well so far in the world. This can even tap into your competition, allowing you to see how others have fared and provide you with a branch of generating new ideas.
  3. Organization. Spammy pages are scattered, cluttered, and not well organized. They use improper page layouts, untagged images, and promote chaos in an already chaotic online world. Optimizers ensure that your pages and products are organized, with the proper mark-up that both humans and computers can understand. How do your pages connect to other related pages? Do they convey a natural flow of information? We consider this and many other minor factors when ranking.
  4. Go local. With local targeting through keywords, directories, trends, it’s easy to know what your geographic target is looking for. The rise of smartphones means that more than ever, people are searching in their area for products.
  5. Strength. The internet has given rise to many forms of content and forms of sales. Contests, types of promotions, webinars, animated videos and guides, monthly product magazines, different forms of catalogs… It can be overwhelming to choose. Keywords alone don’t cut it for good SEO, we must have insights into more detailed specifics that engage your brand in a strong way. The stronger your engagement, the greater importance you’ll be on the internet.
  6. Authority. Generating backlinks is no longer as easy as asking someone to place a link to your business on their site. Authority is gained by the right shared content, well-written reviews from customers, and curated information.
  7. Universality. SEO ensures that your website is usable not just on tablets or desktop computers, but also on any other smart appliance. Like it or not, the internet of things trend has taken off, and over time there will be opportunities to showcase your business on other forms of technology. It’s also important that people with diverse backgrounds can access your website.
  8. Speed. Believe it or not, Google factors in page load times when it ranks your site. Where and how can we improve your page efficiency?
  9. Submissions. While Google is still the #1 search engine, people are also using other websites for searching. Each engine has their own unique way they crawl the web, and knowing how to work with the big guys will place you in good territory with the internet.
  10. Efficiency. As a business owner, your job is to focus on the business and sales. Through search engine optimization, your efficiency can grow without much overhead from your company. Optimizers work with and for you, not against you to create the best e-commerce experience you can have in today’s age.
A Seal’s Seven Rules

A Seal’s Seven Rules

A few weeks ago I was on a plane and struck up a conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me. He was a retired US Navy veteran who had traveled the world. After thanking him for his service we spoke about many different topics, but the one I remember the most was about an article he was reading in The American Legion Magazine. The article was originally written by a former Navy Seal, Brent Gleeson and published in Inc. Magazine. Here is the text from the article, titled which is mean to help anyone “live to be your most effective.” I am sure the following are hugely important on the battlefield, but I personally enjoyed how they are applicable to business and life in general. I wanted to share them with our team members and clients. Here they are:

Be Loyal. “Loyalty is about leading by example, providing your team unconditional support and never throwing a team member under the bus.”

Put others before yourself. “Ask yourself waht you will do to add value to your team, such as simply offering your assistance with a project. The challenge is overcoming the fear that your team member might say, ‘Yes, I really need your help with this project … tonight.'”

Be reflective. “Reflective people often spend too much time analyzing their actions. But imagine if you could harness this talent into something highly valuable.”

Be obsessively organized. “Some of us innately have this ability, often to a fault, and some have to work at it a bit more.”

Assume you don’t know enough. “Any effective team member understands that training is never complete. It’s true in the SEAL teams, and it’s true in any elite team. Those who assume they know everything should be eliminated. Those who spend time inside and outside the workplace developing their knowledge and skills will provide the momentum for their team’s forward progress.”

Be detail-oriented. “Don’t ask yourself what you are going to do today to be successful; ask how you are going to do it.”

Never get comfortable. “Always push yourself outside your comfort zone. If you do this with every task you take on, that boundary will continue to widen. This process will ensure that you are continually maximizing your potential, which will positively impact your team.”

Is Your Site Mobile Friendly?

Have you been dragging your feet on a mobile version of your site or upgrading to a responsive template design?  If you have, you are not mobile friendly and it could affect your traffic and sales in the future.  Beginning April 21, 2015 Google will begin incorporating your sites mobile-friendliness into its ranking algorithm.

If your answer to the question in this articles title, Is Your Site Mobile Friendly?, is no, then you need to take some immediate steps to move in that direction.  Here at OBN we have approached mobile in a few different ways over the years.  We have always known that mobile would be the preferred interface of customers in the future, and since 2008 have taken steps to optimize our solution for mobile users.  Aligned with the likes of Amazon and Ebay and other major retailers, the OBN approach to mobile has been to develop mobile specific website versions and designs.

17% of firearms retailer website traffic comes from a mobile device.

Our Basic and Gold level solutions have the option for a mobile version of the website.  This slick little add on not only changes the way the site is viewed on mobile sized devices automatically, it also allows for a complete mobile specific website and interface customization.

Our legacy (V5 and below) Ultimate level platform has always had an included mobile version.  Some users may not have turned it on yet, but if you haven’t, you should. The new OBN CloudCommerce V6 Ultimate level platform has two native mobile options.  It can utilize the embedded mobile site, or choose from a selection of responsive e-commerce templates.

The time has come to make sure you have a mobile plan, not only for your users ease of navigation, but also for SEO.  As this is now a ranking factor, your site will be left behind if you do not make the appropriate accommodations.  If you aren’t sure of your websites status, Google provides a tool to check your website here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

If you need  help implementing a mobile solution contact us today and we will get you moving in the right direction.

How to Not Get a Computer Virus

How not to get a computer virus:

1. Look before you click. Always hover over a link before you click it so you can see where it is going. It the URL does not match where you think you should be going, or looks weird, suspicious, or kinda funky, don’t click on it. Only click links you know are safe and go to reputable websites.

2. Don’t open email attachments until you have verified they are safe. Never open any email attachment that is *.exe, *.zip, *.pdf, *.doc or any other *.* that you were not expecting. If you are unsure if someone is sending you a file, email or call them to confirm that you need to take a look at that file.   You don’t have a relative in Nigeria that left you money!

3. Watch for spoof emails. Do not be fooled by look-a-like emails. Always make sure you know where the email came from and who sent it before you do anything more than preview it.  Be especially wary of emails that say they are from the IRS, banks, or other large agencies.  Most times these agencies will send you snail mail if there are any pressing issues.

4. Look out for phishermen! Phishing scams are one of the most popular portals to viruses and hacking. Always look at the URL bar to make sure you are on the actual companies website. If you aren’t sure, google the company and navigate to their corporate website through google. Remember, watch the URLs carefully.

5. Your password is yours. Keep your password to yourself. Memorize it. Don’t give it to others, make it a series of random letters and numbers, no dictionary words. Make it hard so a hacker cant guess it. DON’T USE 12345!  DON’T TAPE IT TO YOUR COMPUTER!

6. Don’t surf and go to non-work related websites.

If you follow the above, you will likely not get a virus. Viruses halt your work and waste a huge amount of company time and money to clean up. Pass this on to your friends and employees as well.

Thank you for stopping by our booth @SHOTShow

Thank you for stopping by the Outdoor Business Network SHOT Show booth and requesting more information from our company. The show was a huge success for us, and we are looking forward to another great year serving the shooting sports industry. Hopefully you had a chance to speak with one of our representatives or partners to get a taste of what Outdoor Business Network can do for you and your company.

We will be following up with each and every person we met at the show, however please understand this will take some time. We have a low pressure sales approach, so we won’t be bugging you with lots of follow up phone calls. If you are ready to go and want to get started on your e-commerce website or marketing right away, don’t hesitate to drop us an email or phone call.

We look forward to serving you in the future. Please stay tuned as we will be updating you with more information regarding our products and services shortly.

Outdoor Business Network Adds New Supplier

We here at OBN are proud to welcome our newest supplier to our system.  We have completed the integration with their ERP and warehouse management system, so retailers using our eCommerce platform now have the ability to get updated product information, inventory status, order status, as well as utilize our One-Click-to-Ship feature.

Moteng is familiar with online fulfillment and drop shipping.  They even have a program dedicated to it.  If you are a current Moteng customer, or an outdoor retailer looking to expand its offerings, it is worth a look.   Moteng’s product section includes knives & tools, public safety equipment, lights, apparel, outdoor equipment, kitchen cutlery, and more.  To find out more about our new integration, give us a call at 1-800-699-0820 ext. 1, one of our team members would be glad to answer your questions.

More about Moteng:

Moteng was founded in 1980 in Los Angeles as a supplier of knives and imported African artifacts. Fine wall hangings hand woven by the Moteng Mountain tribesman in the Kingdom of Lesotho gave the company its name.

Moteng has continually enhanced both its products and services. Our website has been rated as having the most information and easiest to use by our customers.

In 1987 the company relocated to San Diego, California. In 2011 the company moved it’s warehouse into it’s present location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2011, Black Orchid Equity, LLC, a private equity firm, purchased Moteng NA, LLC and gave the company capital to operate and grow in the space for another 30 years.

Thanks to the incredible support of our very loyal customers and vendors, Moteng has grown to become one of the leading wholesale distributors and drop-shippers in our industry. Moteng now offers over 100,000 items from over 250 best selling brands.
Look through our product range or contact us for a catalog. We look forward to doing business with you soon

Keeping Your Inbox Tidy

Email can be a great business tool but it can also be a real headache sometimes. Staying on top of email is definitely high on the e-commerce housekeeping list, but it is not without its fair share frustration.  Not only is it tough to keep organized, but also keeping out the junk or “spam” can be maddening. Here are some tips to keep your mailbox organized, keep spam to a minimum, and manage storage space.

Spam:

Just to be clear, spam is any kind of email that you don’t want and did not sign up to receive. Most spam is harmless but sometimes it can be part of an identity theft scam or other types of fraud. Although spam is most commonly found in email, it can also come to text messages and even on social networking sites.

You can receive hundreds of spam messages for every legitimate message that arrives. With tools like box trapper as well as email filtering you can help reduce the amounts of spam in your inbox.  Even with good filters, some of the spam makes it through. Also filters can sometimes hide messages that you really do want to receive, so watch out and be mindful when you are creating your rules. We offer a tool called “Spam Assassin” that we can setup for retailers with high spam, just give us a call and ask for it.

To set up filters, log in to your email account from the front end of your website. Here is a tutorial on how to login and set rules in your email:

1.Type your domain name into your URL (ex. “www.yourdomain.com”)

2.Add “/webmail” or “:2096” and hit “enter” on your keyboard (ex.”www.yourdomain.com/webmail”)

3.You may see a yellow warning screen, just choose the “Proceed Anyway” button

4.Type in your complete email address and correct password (case sensitive) and choose the orange “log in” button.

5. You will see the three different free viewing programs: Horde, Roundcube, and Squirrel-Mail.

6.Under the email server icons, go to “Email Filtering” in the bottom right corner.

7.Under “Create Filter” click the button “Create a New Filter”.

8.Set your rules by creating a unique name for this set of rules, then set the rules using the drop down menus, selecting types of messages you do not want to receive. You can add as many as you like using the “+”

NOTE: Use specific email addresses, keywords, and phrases that are specific to the spam you have been receiving.

9. Once you have made your selections, set your action for your rule with the drop down menu

10. Hit the “create” button to save your rule.

11. You can go back any time to edit your rules or set new ones.

Storage:

Make sure you either save or delete old emails. Many people are email hoarders and keep old emails so long that eventually they use up their storage space and are unable to send or receive mail. Staying within your quota is a lot easier said than done, but here are some pointers.

One thing you may not know is that it may not be the number of emails in your inbox but what is actually in your emails. Emails with big documents, pictures, and other data monsters will take up space in your email. We suggest that you either archive old emails or save pictures and documents onto your computer or even something like Dropbox instead of letting them sit in your email inbox.

Organizing your Inbox:

Some people like to create folders to keep their inbox organized, and you can find many ways on how to do it. We suggest finding categories that make sense for you and sticking to it.

Your Password:

As we have said before, having a strong and secure password is also essential to keep your inbox safe and secure. Keep hackers from getting into your account by making sure your password is “bulletproof”. Here are some suggestions that will help you create a strong password from microsoft.com.

If you have trouble remembering your passwords, you can use a secure password keeper like passpack.com.

Get Personal and Standout: Tell Your E-Commerce Story

With so much emphasis on the internet today we often lose that personal touch of “small business”. More and more people are looking to online stores to get what they need and many retailers don’t think about ways that they can give their customers a personal touch to set them apart from the billions of other retailers out there. Here are a few ideas that bring back that special something that people seem to be missing from brick and mortar stores.

 

1. Tell Your Business Story

Consumers want to know who they are buying from so why not share your unique business story? Let people know who you are and what you stand for so they can see that your business is actually real people doing real work. Make sure your information pages have an “About Us” that is well written and includes pictures so people can connect with your store on a personal level, something they can’t get from a big box store.

Learn how here:

2. Send a Personal Thank You

This is a little extra effort that goes a long way. Sending a short and simple “thank you” to customers after an order will not only make them feel important but it will reinforce the idea that they are buying their product from real people dedicated to their business. If you are sending an item from your store you can drop a thank you letter in the box before you ship, or if you are drop shipping you can send a digital thank you with your order confirmation using the comments box on your order page.

Learn how here:

3. Reach Out to Your Customers

Much like you would greet your customer walking into your store, you can use newsletters and special coupon codes to reach out and say hello to your best customers. Keeping your store fresh in your customers minds will keep them coming back for business and maybe even get you referrals. Use tools like Who’s Online, Customers, Coupons, and Newsletter to reach out to your existing customers.

Learn how here:

Who’s Online

Customers

Coupons

Newsletter

Email Marketing Part 3: Analytic’s & Overview

Welcome back to final part of this Email Marketing topic where we will be going over what do look for after you’ve already sent out your customized newsletter.  Going over and looking to see your email lists reaction is crucial to consistently improving and having a successful newsletter.

First thing we are going to look at is your unique opens, these are the amount of opens your newsletter received. The reason this is important to look at is for future topics and seeing what exactly your list basis prefers to look at. At the beginning, don’t be afraid to try new topics, content, links, see what works best for you.

The second item we are going to look at is the “clicked” rate, this is the amount of times your list interacts with that newsletter. Looking at this can help you see what layout works best, where to put that picture, where to put that text, or where to incorporate that link.

The third thing we want to look at is our bounced rate. Unfortunately it will happen, but there is a difference between a hard and soft bounce. A hard bounce is a bounce that indicates a permanent reason an email cannot be delivered, either the mail doesn’t exist, or the email server blocked the email. A soft bounce however is an indication of a temporary delivery issue to an address, these emails will be attempted to be sent out 2-3 times over 90 days before getting put into the hard bounce category.

The fourth thing we want to look at is our 24 hour performance. Pay close attention to this, figuring out and comparing results to previous newsletters will help your company narrow down the time that is most efficient for your company.

Lastly, we look at the top links clicked section, this section is an indication of what your subscribers have clicked on the most. Paying attention to this will help you find what material your audience prefers to see and read about.