Paul Bradish's Internet Business Blog

We’ve all heard that Content is King. This is nothing new and has been stated many times over the years on SEO blogs, forums, and during keynote speeches.

That being said, more and more studies are showing how important site speed is in relation to growth, sales, and overall satisfaction. If this is the case, and Content is indeed King, that makes Speed it’s Queen.

“Behind every King there is a Queen.”

Without Speed, Content is basically useless.

Like any brick & mortar, your online customers ought to be able to checkout as a guest. In my opinion as the industry matures this is something shoppers have come to expect. Just imagine for a moment being required to sign up for one of those Red Cards at Target just to move through the checkout line. That wouldn’t go over too well would it? I bet they would lose a lot of business (mine for starters). So why should it be any different online?

By this point in time most of us have far too many user names and passwords to keep proper track of them all. I probably have hundreds of them, most of which I’ve only used once or twice and then forgotten. Though it’s true many customers who visit your retail website will (hopefully) come back again and place future orders, forcing these first time shoppers to register during the checkout process can make an alarming number of them abandon their carts before they ever complete their order.

Why is this?

In my experience they will abandon for 3 main reasons:

1. They don’t feel that they have time to sit through all this right now.
2. They don’t have any immediate need or desire to return.
3. *sigh* It’s just one more log in and password to keep track of.

The reasons above are why I highly recommend enabling guest checkouts. If for some reason your shopping carts software doesn’t allow for this method then either have it programmed or move to a new cart. I also suggest giving your customers a bulleted list of the benefits of registering assuming there are benefits on your website for doing so (managing addresses, tracking packages, submitting returns, etc). But keep in mind it’s important to ultimately leave the choice up to them. If you don’t, you’ll be losing out on a lot of sales and those customers you lost will be placing their first and subsequent orders elsewhere.

Reaching out to bloggers and webmasters isn’t that difficult. Generally they are happy to hear from manufacturers and retailers, and if you ask correctly, they will grant your favor. There is however a wrong way to reach out. Here’s one such example sent from a large marketing agency which apparently handles Search Engine Optimization for Macys.com:

Title: URGENT REQUEST – Incorrect link to Macys.com

Body: I’m contacting you on behalf of Macy’s, Inc. We completed a recent analysis that indicates your blog is linking to Macys.com, which we greatly appreciate. Per Macy’s guidelines, we are requesting you make updates to the hyperlink text when you link to Macy’s. Providing clearer anchor text will give your visitors a better user experience.
Please respond at your earliest convenience, so we can discuss the changes.

Thank you,

xxxxxx

Now maybe I’m overreacting, but as both an experienced Webmaster and fellow SEO Strategist I can’t help but be bothered by this email. I’m glad that they appreciate the link, and reaching out is always worth a try, but the request simply doesn’t feel genuine and use of the phrase “Per Macy’s guidelines” is something I don’t like to hear. I don’t work for Macy’s.

Merriam-Webster definition of guideline:

an indication or outline of policy or conduct

Certainly there’s a better way to word their email.

• First - Don’t come at me, a niche blogger with absolutely zero agenda within my post, pushing corporate policies.
• Second - If you want more specific anchor text for SEO purposes just come out and say it. Don’t claim that my visitors will have a “better experience” because of it. In this case they honestly wouldn’t.
• Third - Don’t be so damn robotic about the whole thing.

What was the anchor text in question? It was in a blog post from 2007 mentioning a new clothing brand. Macy’s was the anchor text (it could be much, much worse). Macy’s… consider your link removed.

/rant off

For most if not all internet retailers, Black Friday is absolutely huge. But make no mistake, getting to Black Friday can be a long, stressful road full of competitive intelligence, haggling with manufacturers, search engine optimization and pay per click. – but when done right can be extremely rewarding in several key areas:

• Increased Sales
• Customer Loyalty / Retention
• New Customers

My advice? Get caffeinated and ride the wave. Black Friday & Cyber Monday are two of the best performing retail days of the year. But don’t forget to take a time out and enjoy being with your family and buying something nice for yourself (it is Black Friday after all).

QR Codes work. Use them. Best of all they are free to generate.

The use of iPhones and Androids are on the rise. Not only that, but tech-savy mobile users are everywhere. Whether you are a new or established internet business you can absolutely benefit from the use of QR Codes in your marketing.

• Do you hand out flyers? Use a QR Code.
• Do you ship an invoice or catalog? Use a QR Code.
• Do you have a business card? Use a QR Code.

Get my drift? They’re actually really handy, and as mobile web browsing and commerce grows, they’ll become more and more important. Why not adopt the strategy now and be ahead of your competitors?

Subscribing to your competitors’ (yes, all of them) email lists and newsletters can be extremely useful for several key reasons.

1. Stay on top of any sales, coupons, or specials they might be running. This is probably the most obvious reason. By knowing exactly when competitors are running sales, you can effectively counter them with your own.
2. Learn about new brands and products that you may have missed. If you’re like me, you receive a lot of email and unfortunately new brands and products are sometimes missed. Or perhaps you were on the fence about picking up a new brand and wanted to see how it would play out in your niche market first.
3.  Keep up to date about competitors’ new website features. It can be time consuming to surf your competitor’s sites to compare features and flow. Marketer’s love to brag so by subscribing to their lists many times you’ll also be able to stay up to date on new features and design changes.

If you had absolutely no connection to it, would you make a purchase from your online store?

If you answered No, why not?

This question sounds like an easy one on the surface, but it often isn’t. It’s tough to reflect on all of your hard work and give yourself the honest truth. But if you’re 100% truthful, you may be surprised to discover that you already know what you need to do to take your Ecommerce website to the next level.

So I’m encouraging you for this exercise to take the blinders off. If you answered No, sit down and make a list of reasons why. Work to resolve those issues until you’d be confident to buy from your online store. You’ll find that sales will improve, customer feedback will be more positive, and it will be easier and more enjoyable to market your site since you believe in 100%.

Looking for a couple of quick and easy ways to increase your online store’s conversion rate? Here’s 3 Ecommerce techniques that I use and have been proven to help drive sales:

1. Add video to you product pages

Supplementing a product page with video can most definitely help to increase your online store’s conversion rate. In fact, interesting product commercials, step by step product demonstrations, and product reviews in video form can often be the deciding factor that converts a visitor into a customer. Just make sure that the video is embedded and doesn’t lead the viewer away from your product page.

2. Make your add to cart button pop

As I explained in my earlier post, how to find the perfect add to cart button, making sure that your add to cart button pops from the rest of your product page is of the utmost importance and will almost always instantly increase your conversion rate. This is something that you should be testing continuously, I suggest making use of Google’s free Website Optimizer.

Website Optimizer, Google’s free website testing and optimization tool, allows you to increase the value of your existing websites and traffic without spending a cent. Using Website Optimizer to test and optimize site content and design, you can quickly and easily increase revenue and ROI whether you’re new to marketing or an expert.

3. Offer live chat to your customers

If you have the customer service manpower, offering a live chat option can easily boost conversion rates by putting a customer’s mind to ease – even if they never need to use it. By simply offering live help via free or paid software such as oLark, you can build brand reputation, help to answer any questions that a customer might have, or even help the less technical savvy through their checkout process. Most shopping cart software worth their salt will have a built-in live chat feature or the ability to hook in an external solution.

And there you have it, 3 easy (yet often overlooked) ways to increase your Ecommerce Website’s conversion rate. Good luck!

Bloomingdale’s throws this little card in the box with every order. Sure, it might be a bit cheesy… but thanking your customers in an honest way can speak volumes about you as a brand and convert them for a lifetime.

So the question is, when’s the last time you thanked your customers?

Knowing what I know now, I almost feel stupid writing this post. For years I would scour the forums in my dimly lit office searching for the secret to crafting a perfect Add To Cart button, and for years I was ultimately disappointed with my lack of findings on the net.

Let me take you back. In the early days, my first two or three online stores to be more specific, I would do what common sense told me was the right thing. I would create an add to cart button that would stand out on product pages. What’s wrong with that you ask? Nothing really… In fact that is the correct thing to do. But I shouldn’t have stopped there. I should have tested, and then tested again. The bottom line, I should have been making use of Multivariate & A/B Testing.

In internet marketing, multivariate testing is a process by which more than one component of a website may be tested in a live environment. It can be thought of in simple terms as numerous A/B tests performed on one page at the same time. A/B tests are usually performed to determine the better of two content variations, multivariate testing can theoretically test the effectiveness of limitless combinations.

I could blame feature lacking shopping cart platforms for not being compatible with services such as Google Website Optimizer, but the truth is the fault lies with me. I became comfortable with my Add To Cart buttons, and that could have been a critical error in increasing conversion rates. We’ll never know.

Fast forward a couple of years.

I’m more well rounded in my technical skills. I’m also a bit wiser perhaps and I know how to trigger a shopper’s emotional response. Now I do things the right way. For instance, when I’m researching new e-commerce platforms I make sure they have the ability to multivariate test. If they don’t I cross them off my list and keep moving. Why?! Because whether you have ten products or thousands of them you have to think clearly and keep evolving due to the fact that even the smallest and seemingly insignificant change to a product page can boost or drop conversion rates.

Back to the title of this blog post. The perfect add to cart button. Guess what… it doesn’t actually exist. Let me rephrase – the perfect one size fits all add to cart button does not exist. But here are a few tips to get you on the right path for the perfect button for YOUR site:

1. Make it pop. Do what you have to do to make the button stand out from the rest of the page. If your site’s color scheme is blue for example, test with a red button. If there’s a lot of white space, use a drop shadow. Don’t be afraid to make your button look like it doesn’t belong on the page. After all, it’s supposed to stick out like a sore thumb so people notice it. If it blends with the rest of the site’s color scheme, it’s less likely to be noticed.
2. Use “Add to Cart” instead of “Buy Now”. I’m sure there are such instances out there, but I can’t really think of a good time to use “Buy Now” as opposed to “Add to Cart” unless you only sell a single product. The problem with “Buy Now” in my opinion is that it says, If I click this button I’m done shopping even though I may want one or two more items. “Buy Now” also sounds more forceful and intimidating than “Add to Cart”. Think about how you trigger customers’ emotional responses.
3. Rectangles aren’t necessary. Feel free to play with Ovals. Personally I’ve had Ovals convert higher on some sites.
4. Make it big. Big enough so you are uncomfortable as a web designer, then go even bigger.
5. Never stop testing. Those three words are so important that I have them printed out and read them every single day.

Remember – what works today may not work tomorrow in this business, so testing an ever evolving website such as an online store is a major key to success and the Add to Cart button is and always will be a factor of said success. Don’t let it consume you though, set up a few tests and let them run their course, then set up a few more and continue the cycle. There is no perfect Add to Cart button floating around on the net for your niche so you’ll have to put in the work and create it for yourself.