Kevin Donnelly says, ““How do I drive more traffic to my online store?” That thought crosses the mind of every ecommerce entrepreneur at some point. Maybe you’ve just sunk time and effort into painstakingly setting up your store, only to open up shop and wonder where your sales are. Maybe you’ve seen steady growth over the past 6 months, but just hit a plateau. Or maybe you’ve built a million dollar business and now you’re setting your sights on your next big goal. Whether you’re trying to attract your first customer or your 10,000th customer, generating more traffic to your... [...]

Jordan Simas says, “It’s hard to do things alone. Especially complicated things like growing an ecommerce business. When it comes to selling online, the more friends you have the better. Having connections who can talk up your product is essential to driving traffic to your site and increasing sales. This is where blogger outreach comes in. Even if you don’t have a lot of contacts online you can still reach out to people for help. You just have to do it the right way—and I’m here to teach you how! Types of Blogger Outreach Blogger outreach is about more than just making... [...]

Kevin Donnelly says, “Your store needs to be designed with your customers in mind. While boosting your traffic can generate more sales, it’s just as important to focus on turning your current traffic into paying customers. At every step of your customers’ purchasing journeys, there are new opportunities for you to make their paths shorter, easier, and more enjoyable. Through rigorous experimentation and analysis, you can fine-tune your website to push people closer to making a purchase. This process is called Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO. Conversion Rate Optimization is a technique... [...]

Jordan Simas says, “It’s hard to do things alone. Especially complicated things like growing an ecommerce business. When it comes to selling online, the more friends you have the better. Having connections who can talk up your product is essential to driving traffic to your site and increasing sales. This is where blogger outreach comes in. Even if you don’t have a lot of contacts online you can still reach out to people for help. You just have to do it the right way—and I’m here to teach you how! Types of Blogger Outreach Blogger outreach is about more than just making... [...]

Jordan Simas says, “Seasonal and Black Friday shoppers are unique in that many of them will buy your products without knowing anything about your brand. This means they might forget about your business entirely if you don’t make an effort to keep them interested. Turning Black Friday shoppers into repeat customers can have an enormous impact on the success of your business; over time they’ll cost less, buy more, and even develop a real connection with your business. Now that Black Friday is over, turning these first-time customers into lifetime fans should be your number one priority. In... [...]

Parviz Parvizi says, “Podcasting is having a celebrity moment: Serial’s Sarah Koenig has appeared on The Colbert Report; Arnold Schwarzenegger has been on theTim Ferriss show; and, most recently, Barack Obama visited Marc Maron’s garage to appear on his WTF podcast. The $65 Billion Question Beneath the headlines, however, we see conflicting stats that lead us to ask whether podcasting is truly taking off or just getting more popular with existing diehard users. Measured by Google searches and episode downloads, podcasting has seen 30+% annual growth in recent years. On the other hand,... [...]

Lucas Matney says, “The newsfeed has dominated how users have absorbed information from businesses on Facebook for the past decade. Now, it seems the company is ready to revitalize Facebook Pages and transform them into commerce destinations where users can not only quickly grab business info, but as of today, also buy stuff. Today, Facebook made a pretty clear statement that Pages is shifting to become a major priority for them in terms of user traffic. BuzzFeed reported that the company had recently started testing shops with ‘buy buttons’ inside of Facebook Pages. It’s... [...]

Sarah Perez says, “Consumer demand was there for Amazon Prime Day, but the deals did not deliver. At least, that’s the sentiment being shared on social media about Amazon’s first-ever attempt at creating its own sales holiday – one which the company had promised would feature “more deals than Black Friday.” In celebration of Amazon’s 20th anniversary, Prime Day was meant to somewhat replicate the post-Thanksgiving sales rush in the U.S., or perhaps Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba’s “Singles Day” – but one that took place via Amazon’s own website and apps. Unfortunately... [...]

Christine Magee says, “DIY website creator Wix wants to make starting a career in web design as easy as it’s made building your own site. Today, the company is launching WixEd, a free online education program that teaches Wix users everything they need to know to launch their own website design business. The course consists of three parts: Wix Webmaster, which teaches web design with the tools Wix provides, and two business and marketing classes that cover all aspects of running a small business with intros to SEO, e-commerce, accounting, and photography. A group of Wix instructors... [...]

Jordan Simas says, “IFTTT (If This, Then That) is a free online tool that automates actions between websites, apps, smartphones, gadgets and more. Want your tagged Facebook photos backed up on Google Drive? IFTTT can do that. Wish your smartphone could turn off WiFi when its battery gets too low? IFTTT can do that, too. IFTTT has a lot of novel uses for the average user, but it can be a major marketing ally for small business owners. With the help of clever “recipes” (how IFTTT refers to each automation), you can spy on competitors, streamline your social media, and delight your followers... [...]