“Never assume.” - These 2 words represent the greatest advice ever given to me on the topic of website optimization. Here’s a list of 10 assumptions site owners make (myself included) that could cost you a ton of business.
Assumption #1: People will know how to find your website
We often assume that people have memorized or bookmarked our web address. But what happens when people forget, or are using a different computer and don’t have …

Ever had one of those “aha” moments with your website? You know, that instant when you suddenly realize you’ve been doing something wrong for a long time?
What is your site’s stumbling block? Confusing navigation? Broken links? A tedious checkout? Odds are, there’s something hindering the performance of your website. Since it’s usually challenging to catch our own mistakes, here’s 6 ideas for how to discover them with the help of others.

Use Screen Recording Software: …

“How can I SEO my product pages?” - It’s a good question that I hear frequently. After all, who has the time and resources to build links to hundreds, even thousands of individual products on an eCommerce site? Who has the time to write compelling, keyword rich copy for all these pages as well? Obviously, product page SEO must take a different approach. First, let’s start with the problem:
Why Product Pages Get Screwed:

Nobody links …

Speed kills. In the case of website usability, the lack of speed kills. Many have erroneously assumed the advent of high speed internet connections would make website performance optimization irrelevant. On the contrary, it seems as internet connection speeds increase, users simply become more impatient and demand faster browsing. Below, I’ve gathered some simple (and advanced) ways to speed up your site.
Before making any changes, I would recommend benchmarking your download time with WebSite Optimization’s …

Email deliverability is a headache. We used to worry about the content of an email blast, and avoid spammy words like free or using ALL CAPS. But with the shift in the last few years towards repuation based SPAM filtering, email deliverability tactics have changed drastically. Now, instead of one isolated email getting stuck in the bulk folder, you risk damaging your long term sender reputation if you’re not using best practices. Below, I’ve gathered …

In some ways, it seems search engines have a grudge against eCommerce sites. Often times, I don’t blame them. Many online stores offer little useful content, including dry manufacturer product descriptions, poor internal linking, and no unique, user generated content. Without a doubt eCommerce sites have unique challenges when it comes to SEO. Below I’ve gathered 25 tips that I’ve successfully used while optimizing eCommerce sites in the past.

Avoid Manufacturer Product Descriptions: It’s tempting …

Ever since Shop.org coined the phrase “Cyber Monday” back in 2005, online retailers have realized the sales potential of this first Monday after Thanksgiving. After all, people are back at their office jobs, tired and overweight from the Thanksgiving holiday. What better to do than shop online?
 Below I’ve gathered some Cyber Monday marketing ideas for eCommerce sites.

Bounce Back Discounts: Capitalize off the huge amount of traffic you’ll be receiving by offering an incentive for …

Surprisingly, many ecommerce sites waste the thank you or receipt page by making it a dead end. Instead of encouraging your visitors to close the window, continue to engage your customers with one of the following tactics:
1. Refer a friend form: After the user completes the purchase, ask them if they would be willing to tell a friend or family member about your product or service. Obviously, if they trusted you enough to …

Hopefully, you’ve already begun to consider any necessary improvements to your site to accommodate the influx of holiday traffic.  Below I’ve compiled holiday improvement ideas for e-commerce sites. I hope you find something here useful.

Offer Bounce Back Discounts: Think about how much traffic your site will receive during the holidays. How can you harness that traffic to create year long business? Consider offering a good discount incentive for customers to come back and shop in January. …

Imagine walking into a busy, high traffic grocery store. Despite the large number of customers in the store, you notice abandoned shopping carts strewn about the aisles and checkout lanes. For many online businesses, this example illustrates perfectly the predicament many online retailers find themselves in. Why? For one, I believe many online retailers rarely actually test their own checkouts from the user’s perspective. If they had, they would have identified stumbling blocks. Below …