Survey says Six in 10 merchants to invest more in their E-commerce Web Sites this year

1. Page Speed; your website MUST load fast on all devices. Slow loading websites cause people to leave, and search engines don't like that. Fast loading pages makes your website more relevent, which means search engines will give it a higher level of importance.

2. Keywords and Placement; Keywords, the words people use to find the products, services, or information in search engines, need to be found in the page title of each page, the meta description, and the meta keywords tags. For Google, the meta keyword tag has been discontinued, but it's still valuable for other search engines. Avoid over-using keywords on your pages. Make sure to include the keyword for the page close to the top of the page, and within the body content of the page.

3. Page content; pages need to be information rich. Write a couple paragraphs of text on each page. As a rule of thumb don't try to create what you think a search engine wants, but just give your customers a good description of your product. Use different descriptive words that support the keywords.

4. Pictures; Use pictures but don't use too many. Add in keywords in the alt text tag describing your photo. This can help a search engine understand what the image is about. Optimizing the image also means compressing the image and saving it in a web friendly format. You don't want each page to be too large in file size due to a 300MB photo. JPG or GIF at 72 dpi usually. This will give you a smaller file size and faster page load. Most importantly, search engines will factor it into your rankings. Don't worry about pic sizes within a gallery though as long as your gallery has it's own page.

5. Video content; everyone likes video, including search engines. The top search engines even have seperate tabs for video searches. Advancements in technology have made it possible for some search engines to decifer the words being spken in video, so be sure to use keywords when you're speaking. You should also use keywords in video descriptions and titles to help search engines.

6. Links; Place links on your pages that take people to the most important pages of your website. Search engine crawlers act a lot like people, and they follow links from your pages to other pages on your website. If a search engine crawler cannot follow a link to another page on your website, it may not every know about that page and even if it does, it may not think it's an important page because there aren't fast and convenient ways to find it. e ages on your different pages. It tells a search engine that each page is important to somebody else and it will index it accordingly. Make your home page function like a site map but try to keep it from looking like typical boring site maps. Since it's our homepage it needs to be inviting to visitors.

A note on hosting links for others; in a general sense, it's my opinion not to allow other links like google ads and such on your own site. You will send your customers away from your site, possibly to a competitor.

7. Add your website to Google Search Console. The process places code on your website and verifies you as the owner to Google. That can help make your website more relevent and provide some information that can help ensure the site is running properly on Google's system.

8. Add Your XML Sitemap into Search Console; An XML sitemap file containing all of the url's on your website can be added to Search COnsole. This gives Google another way to find pages on your website and adds more credibility and relevence.

9. Be Careful When Changing Your Website Content! Any changes you make to your site will take time to take effect within search engine rankings. Most people make the mistake of making lots of changes and checking on a regular basis and not finding any changes or improvements and giving up, or hiring someone that doesn't have a clue about SEO, unlike Kevin Gannon with TheNetCorp.com who does. Make changes, but always remember to keep keywords in the content. If they aren't there, your page won't be reelvent for that phrase. In just a few short months you'll see your "keywords" rising in the search engines.

10. Site platform; use a partner like WebsiteForge, if you know nothing about the 'behind the scene' coding and what search engines like and dislike. WebsiteForge will keep this up to date for you. This by far is the biggest element, perhaps the largest factor and the average person has no control over it, only the professionals like WebsiteForge. I whole heartedly believe that WebsiteForge will help make your website succesful in the search engines and if you are successful there, you will be successful bringing the money to the bank!

Got Questions?

I Have Answers!

Website Marketing Consultant

Business - (888) 558.2446 Ext. 1

Shane.merem@websiteforge.com

< E-commerce Web Sites Increase Sales

E-merchants fight Colorado law >

Survey says Six in 10 merchants to invest more in their E-commerce Web Sites this year

April 26th, 2010 at 6:10 pm star

As the economy begins to rebound, marketers are planning to reinvest in their e-commerce web sites with a particular emphasis on targeted e-mail marketing, improved on-site search and enhanced on-site merchandising, according to a survey by The E-tailing Group.

The organization's Ninth Annual Merchant Survey found that 59% of respondents plan to invest more in their e-commerce web sites in 2010 than they did last year. At the start of 2009, 36% said they would increase e-commerce web site investment.

With the economy in recession last year, e-commerce web sites, though a bright spot on the broader retail landscape, fell 2% to $209.6 billion, marking the first yearly decline for the category, according to ComScore figures. Nonetheless, 92% of those surveyed predicted their 2010 e-commerce web site revenues would increase from last year, with 33% predicting growth of between 6% and 15%.

“Seasoned sellers, emerging retailers and manufacturers are all positioning themselves for growth as the economy rebounds,” said Lauren Freedman, president of The E-tailing Group, in a statement. “Results of our Ninth Annual Merchant Survey find retailers taking a laser-like focus on performance where results dictate category-centric demands and solid execution sets the tone for incremental revenue.”

Keyword search, cross-sells, seasonal promotions, sales or specials and e-mail remain the most valuable tactics, but merchants continue to improvise new ways to sell.

Online conversion rates remained at 3% or lower, according to the survey. To increase engagement and profitability, merchants are relying on analytic data such as conversion rates, but they also plan to increase targeted e-mail (79%), refine onsite search (72%) and enhance merchandising (70%). Other popular improvement tactics for 2010 include usability or A/B testing (58%), videos (48%) and social networking efforts (58%).

Merchants also mentioned social networking efforts considerably more than last year (44%). More respondents also added blogs, customer reviews and community features such as forums and share-by-social to their sites as well. Facebook fan pages ranked as the top social tool for merchants, though 80% also will employ Twitter in the next year. In addition, nearly 40% plan to use mobile to improve e-commerce performance, compared to 19% last year.

The Chicago-based consultancy surveyed 152 merchants in the first quarter of 2010.

To find out how we can increase your E-commerce web site sales online call me today!

Douglas A. Marks
Website Marketing Consultant
Website - www.websiteforge.com
Business - (888) 558.2446 Ext. 208
Fax - (517) 338-5064

Business Hours: (Monday - Friday) 10 AM - 6 PM Eastern Standard Time

Posted in eCommerce Online Selling by Doug Marks

< Return to Post List

Jim Fisher says:

May 21st, 2010 at 1:09 pm star

It goes back to the old adage: You have to spend money to make money. You just need to be aware of where the money is being spent. I believe that it is important to have a focused plan for website improvement and be able to stick to it.

Name *

Email *

Spam Protection

Blue, dog and green: the 1st color is?


Website Feature List	Search Engine Marketing	Website Graphic Design	Website Forge FAQ's
E-commerce	Payment Processing	Website Design	Website Prices
Hosting Data Center	Content Management	Custom Website Design	Testimonials
E-Bay Publishing	Copy Protection	Flash Website Design	Contact Us
Security	Website Design Portfolio	E-commerce Website Proposal	Informational Website Proposal