Of all websites, e-commerce stores have arguably the hardest time attracting links. The typical etailer’s site lacks substantitive content, and as a result draws few natural links. To make things worse, link requests are often ignored due to the purely commercial nature of an e-store. Link building for e-commerce takes extra patience and creativity. Below are [...]

#1 – Barely anyone sees your homepage Far too many online businesses worship at the alter of the homepage. While certainly important, homepages today carry far less importance than in years past. When I review the analytics on most of the sites I work with, the vast majority of visitors never see the homepage. (When [...]

I believe online stores focus too much on technology, too much on traffic generation, and even too much on site conversion optimization, and forget that it’s still all about the product. Everything else is just a tool. Below I’ll share what I believe to be the 4 biggest mistakes made on the product pages of today’s [...]

I’m making the list, be sure to check it twice to ensure success for your e-commerce website this holiday season. Offer Bounce Back Discounts: Your site will be flooded with traffic this holiday season. How can you harness that traffic to create year long business? Consider offering a good discount incentive for customers to come [...]

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 [...]

The not to-do list is often as important as the to-do list. As you begin planning your web strategy for 2010, consider making these new year’s anti-resolutions: Stop relying on discounts: Pretend that for the next year your business had to survive selling only full price products or services. Would you survive? What does your [...]

Most online transactions are fast, efficient, and completely lacking human contact. Why not shock your customers once in a while with a truly personal online experience? Below are 13 ways to get personal (in a good way) with your customers. Shock your first time customers by calling them within a day of their order. Ask [...]

In the early days, online retail built itself upon the foundation of convenience and value. It was easier to buy online, and many times cheaper. With the astonishing growth of e-commerce, and the unique combination of an always on store with relatively low overhead, some online store owners would assume they’ve got a leg up [...]

For the last several years, I’ve had the privilege of directing the e-commerce site for C28, an online Christian clothing store. In the last 3 1/2 years, we’ve been fortunate to experience a 1600% increase in sales. I’ve recently been reflecting on lessons I’ve learned through this exciting but tumultuous experience. What follows is a [...]

As much as customer service is all the rage, and heralded as the new marketing, it’s still viewed as a cost-center by most online businesses. This I believe, is entirely due to a defensive approach to customer care. Defensive customer service can be defined as any type of reactive customer servicing such as answering calls, [...]