Sunday 17 March 2019

Six Simple Ways You’re Killing Conversions On Your eCommerce Store

How to Increase E-Commerce ConversionsVisitors to an eCommerce website or store are potential customers, but most of them don’t buy anything. The industry’s average conversion rate hovers between one and three percent. Conversion rate optimization aims to narrow the gap by making a store better at convincing visitors to become buyers. CRO is a continual process, shaping the shopping experience through small evidence-based changes. But before you get started with split testing and incremental improvement, the fundamentals must be in place. Here are six ways your eCommerce store may be frustrating your ability to turn visitors into customers.

Bad Copy

Product page copy comes in many varieties. Content ranges from utilitarian to flowery and from terse to expansive. Style is dictated by branding and the products themselves: a style that sells boatloads of luxury fashion is out of place on a page that sells office furniture. But, in spite of the diversity of effective product-page copy, there are rules that must be followed:

  • The copy must describe the product accurately and with enough detail to provide the shopper with a clear idea of what it is and why it is useful.
  • Grammar and punctuation should be impeccable. Shoppers don’t grade copy for grammatical correctness, but sloppy, badly-written copy makes them wonder what else the store is careless about.

If no one who works for you can write clear, concise, and correct copy, hire a writer who can do it for you.

Low-Quality Images

Images are perhaps even more important than copy. They give customers a clear conception of what they are buying and help them to picture the role it will play in their lives. When presented with dimly lit and badly framed images, shoppers assume that the products are similarly slapdash. Stores that decorate product pages with stamp-sized images “curated” from their suppliers are unlikely to flourish.

It is possible to take excellent product shots with the camera on any modern phone. You do not need to invest in an expensive DSLR. Lighting, in contrast, can make a massive difference to the quality of an image. If you take your own product images, invest in a set of studio lights. If you have reached the limit of your photographic ability, there are many inexpensive professional product photographers who have the ability and equipment to take excellent product shots.

Accessibility Issues

There are 57 million disabled people in the US. Approximately 35 million have disabilities that impact their use of the web. They spend over $200 billion each year. But some online retailers make little effort to avoid design decisions that make shopping next-to-impossible for customers with mobility or vision issues. Common problems include:

  • Low-contrast copy on pages. Your CTAs will pop if the rest of the page is filled with grey text on a slightly lighter grey background, but millions of people will be excluded because they can’t read your copy.
  • The impossibility of navigating pages and carts with the keyboard. Many shoppers don’t use a mouse, and they can’t buy anything if a store’s forms and navigation elements cannot be navigated with a keyboard.
  • Product listings that aren’t compatible with screen readers. Many product pages sound like inscrutable gibberish to people who use the web via a screen reader.

Alison Walden wrote an excellent article about why accessibility should matter to eCommerce retailers, and what retailers can do to make their stores more accessible.

Letting Abandoned Carts Go Without A Fight

Of all the people who put items in their carts, three-quarters don’t buy anything. Many of these people will not have planned to buy. They were window shopping. However, some of them intended to buy an item, but for some reason didn’t: they were distracted, the tab with their store session was forgotten and then closed, their phone ran out of power on the commute home. Whatever the reason, some of these abandoned carts can be recovered. How? By sending an email to the shopper to remind them and perhaps to offer a promotion.

All major eCommerce platforms have abandoned cart recovery features, often as an extension. WooCommerce has Yith Woocommerce Recover Abandoned Cart and Magento has Abandoned Cart, among others. Most abandoned carts can’t be recovered, but the few that can make the attempt worthwhile.

Off-Putting Returns Policies

Online shoppers take a risk when they hit the “Buy Now” button. They can’t touch, smell, taste, or otherwise interact with the product. All they have to go on is sales copy, a few pictures, and perhaps a video — that’s not enough to be sure that a product is right for them. So, they need to be reassured that if they find a product is not to their taste, they can return it easily. If they can’t, they may conclude that it isn’t worth the risk.

The most common return-policy mistakes that I see are:

  • No return policy.
  • A hidden return policy.
  • A return policy that puts too much of a burden on the shopper.

Retailers don’t like returns: who wants to lose a sale that has already been made? But a store with a bad return policy will make fewer sales. It’s a balancing act.

A Slow Server

Last month I was on the train returning from a family gathering. I decided to do a little shopping. My partner’s birthday was coming up. She likes clothes from a particular small fashion retailer, so, figuring that was the easy option, I tried to browse their products on my phone. I had a decent 4G connection — YouTube worked fine — but loading pages on the store was like waiting for cold honey to run off a knife. Each page took at least ten seconds to load. I have little patience for clothes shopping anyway, so my partner ended up with flowers. Slow stores lose sales.

There are two main causes of slow stores. Bad hosting and an unoptimized front-end. High-quality web hosting is the foundation on which a store’s performance is built. Lot’s of things can go wrong with hosting to make it slow: the server hardware, poorly optimized software, insufficient resources, inadequate network routing. A good eCommerce hosting provider will take care of all that for you. If yours doesn’t, perhaps it’s time to make a move — migration isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Front-end optimization is a bit more complicated. It’s largely down to the retailer and their ability to make good technical choices. Services like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix can analyze an eCommerce store’s pages and make optimization suggestions.

We’ve covered six of the most common conversion killers. There are more — great sales copy won’t make up for shoddy customer service — but these are a great place to start. Once you have the basics sorted, you can begin the real work of incremental conversion rate optimization with split testing.

 

Author Bio:

About Graeme Caldwell – Graeme is a writer and content marketer at Nexcess, a global provider of hosting services, who has a knack for making tech-heavy topics interesting and engaging to all readers. His articles have been featured on top publications across the net, TechCrunch to TemplateMonster. For more content, visit the Nexcess blog and give them a follow at @nexcess.

The post Six Simple Ways You’re Killing Conversions On Your eCommerce Store appeared first on EDKENT® MEDIA.

Six Simple Ways You’re Killing Conversions On Your eCommerce Store

How to Increase E-Commerce ConversionsVisitors to an eCommerce website or store are potential customers, but most of them don’t buy anything. The industry’s average conversion rate hovers between one and three percent. Conversion rate optimization aims to narrow the gap by making a store better at convincing visitors to become buyers. CRO is a continual process, shaping the shopping experience through small evidence-based changes. But before you get started with split testing and incremental improvement, the fundamentals must be in place. Here are six ways your eCommerce store may be frustrating your ability to turn visitors into customers.

Bad Copy

Product page copy comes in many varieties. Content ranges from utilitarian to flowery and from terse to expansive. Style is dictated by branding and the products themselves: a style that sells boatloads of luxury fashion is out of place on a page that sells office furniture. But, in spite of the diversity of effective product-page copy, there are rules that must be followed:

  • The copy must describe the product accurately and with enough detail to provide the shopper with a clear idea of what it is and why it is useful.
  • Grammar and punctuation should be impeccable. Shoppers don’t grade copy for grammatical correctness, but sloppy, badly-written copy makes them wonder what else the store is careless about.

If no one who works for you can write clear, concise, and correct copy, hire a writer who can do it for you.

Low-Quality Images

Images are perhaps even more important than copy. They give customers a clear conception of what they are buying and help them to picture the role it will play in their lives. When presented with dimly lit and badly framed images, shoppers assume that the products are similarly slapdash. Stores that decorate product pages with stamp-sized images “curated” from their suppliers are unlikely to flourish.

It is possible to take excellent product shots with the camera on any modern phone. You do not need to invest in an expensive DSLR. Lighting, in contrast, can make a massive difference to the quality of an image. If you take your own product images, invest in a set of studio lights. If you have reached the limit of your photographic ability, there are many inexpensive professional product photographers who have the ability and equipment to take excellent product shots.

Accessibility Issues

There are 57 million disabled people in the US. Approximately 35 million have disabilities that impact their use of the web. They spend over $200 billion each year. But some online retailers make little effort to avoid design decisions that make shopping next-to-impossible for customers with mobility or vision issues. Common problems include:

  • Low-contrast copy on pages. Your CTAs will pop if the rest of the page is filled with grey text on a slightly lighter grey background, but millions of people will be excluded because they can’t read your copy.
  • The impossibility of navigating pages and carts with the keyboard. Many shoppers don’t use a mouse, and they can’t buy anything if a store’s forms and navigation elements cannot be navigated with a keyboard.
  • Product listings that aren’t compatible with screen readers. Many product pages sound like inscrutable gibberish to people who use the web via a screen reader.

Alison Walden wrote an excellent article about why accessibility should matter to eCommerce retailers, and what retailers can do to make their stores more accessible.

Letting Abandoned Carts Go Without A Fight

Of all the people who put items in their carts, three-quarters don’t buy anything. Many of these people will not have planned to buy. They were window shopping. However, some of them intended to buy an item, but for some reason didn’t: they were distracted, the tab with their store session was forgotten and then closed, their phone ran out of power on the commute home. Whatever the reason, some of these abandoned carts can be recovered. How? By sending an email to the shopper to remind them and perhaps to offer a promotion.

All major eCommerce platforms have abandoned cart recovery features, often as an extension. WooCommerce has Yith Woocommerce Recover Abandoned Cart and Magento has Abandoned Cart, among others. Most abandoned carts can’t be recovered, but the few that can make the attempt worthwhile.

Off-Putting Returns Policies

Online shoppers take a risk when they hit the “Buy Now” button. They can’t touch, smell, taste, or otherwise interact with the product. All they have to go on is sales copy, a few pictures, and perhaps a video — that’s not enough to be sure that a product is right for them. So, they need to be reassured that if they find a product is not to their taste, they can return it easily. If they can’t, they may conclude that it isn’t worth the risk.

The most common return-policy mistakes that I see are:

  • No return policy.
  • A hidden return policy.
  • A return policy that puts too much of a burden on the shopper.

Retailers don’t like returns: who wants to lose a sale that has already been made? But a store with a bad return policy will make fewer sales. It’s a balancing act.

A Slow Server

Last month I was on the train returning from a family gathering. I decided to do a little shopping. My partner’s birthday was coming up. She likes clothes from a particular small fashion retailer, so, figuring that was the easy option, I tried to browse their products on my phone. I had a decent 4G connection — YouTube worked fine — but loading pages on the store was like waiting for cold honey to run off a knife. Each page took at least ten seconds to load. I have little patience for clothes shopping anyway, so my partner ended up with flowers. Slow stores lose sales.

There are two main causes of slow stores. Bad hosting and an unoptimized front-end. High-quality web hosting is the foundation on which a store’s performance is built. Lot’s of things can go wrong with hosting to make it slow: the server hardware, poorly optimized software, insufficient resources, inadequate network routing. A good eCommerce hosting provider will take care of all that for you. If yours doesn’t, perhaps it’s time to make a move — migration isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Front-end optimization is a bit more complicated. It’s largely down to the retailer and their ability to make good technical choices. Services like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix can analyze an eCommerce store’s pages and make optimization suggestions.

We’ve covered six of the most common conversion killers. There are more — great sales copy won’t make up for shoddy customer service — but these are a great place to start. Once you have the basics sorted, you can begin the real work of incremental conversion rate optimization with split testing.

 

Author Bio:

About Graeme Caldwell – Graeme is a writer and content marketer at Nexcess, a global provider of hosting services, who has a knack for making tech-heavy topics interesting and engaging to all readers. His articles have been featured on top publications across the net, TechCrunch to TemplateMonster. For more content, visit the Nexcess blog and give them a follow at @nexcess.

The post Six Simple Ways You’re Killing Conversions On Your eCommerce Store appeared first on EDKENT® MEDIA.



from EDKENT® MEDIA https://ift.tt/2CnIdwQ
via

Thursday 7 March 2019

Clutch Names Edkent Media a Top Agency in Canada!

Clutch Names Edkent Media a Top Agency in Canada!

Edkent Media is excited to announce that we have been identified by leading B2B ratings and reviews platform, Clutch.co as one of the top fifteen advertising agencies in Canada. In order to have been selected for this 2019 award, we had to be a top performer on Clutch. Our agency was evaluated on our thought leadership, types of clientele, work portfolio, and above all, client interviews.

Senior Business Analyst, Sara Philibotte says of this distinction, “Clutch’s sophisticated scoring methodology is a data-driven assessment that accounts for myriad strengths and skill sets. Companies who lead the ranks on our platform have demonstrated not only an ability to deliver, but also a competitive edge as an industry leader. Of the countless service providers in Canada we researched, these companies are truly best in class.”

>

Clutch is a B2B ratings and reviews firm that ranks businesses by a number of criteria, including carefully conducted interviews with past clients. This means that our success is largely a result of the kind words of our clients, who we would like to thank for taking the time to talk to Clutch about their experiences with us.

Clutch also has two sister sites, Visual Objects, which showcases agencies that do outstanding creative or design work, and The Manifest, which lets users view quick bios of B2B companies, ranked by service focus and location.

Edkent Media is also listed on The Manifest, as one of the leading SEO services providers in Canada. We were featured for the comprehensive breadth of our advertising services, as well as a successful marketing campaign we did for a jewelry store.

We are honored to receive this recognition. We know how important good marketing is to any business, but we also know how important trust and transparency are for any partnership. For this reason, Clutch remains an invaluable partner, and we’re looking forward to continuing to provide our clients with the best quality services and solutions. Get in touch for a quick chat about how to improve your online visibility with our proven best practices.

The post Clutch Names Edkent Media a Top Agency in Canada! appeared first on EDKENT® MEDIA.

Clutch Names Edkent Media a Top Agency in Canada!

Clutch Names Edkent Media a Top Agency in Canada!

Edkent Media is excited to announce that we have been identified by leading B2B ratings and reviews platform, Clutch.co as one of the top fifteen advertising agencies in Canada. In order to have been selected for this 2019 award, we had to be a top performer on Clutch. Our agency was evaluated on our thought leadership, types of clientele, work portfolio, and above all, client interviews.

Senior Business Analyst, Sara Philibotte says of this distinction, “Clutch’s sophisticated scoring methodology is a data-driven assessment that accounts for myriad strengths and skill sets. Companies who lead the ranks on our platform have demonstrated not only an ability to deliver, but also a competitive edge as an industry leader. Of the countless service providers in Canada we researched, these companies are truly best in class.”

>

Clutch is a B2B ratings and reviews firm that ranks businesses by a number of criteria, including carefully conducted interviews with past clients. This means that our success is largely a result of the kind words of our clients, who we would like to thank for taking the time to talk to Clutch about their experiences with us.

Clutch also has two sister sites, Visual Objects, which showcases agencies that do outstanding creative or design work, and The Manifest, which lets users view quick bios of B2B companies, ranked by service focus and location.

Edkent Media is also listed on The Manifest, as one of the leading SEO services providers in Canada. We were featured for the comprehensive breadth of our advertising services, as well as a successful marketing campaign we did for a jewelry store.

We are honored to receive this recognition. We know how important good marketing is to any business, but we also know how important trust and transparency are for any partnership. For this reason, Clutch remains an invaluable partner, and we’re looking forward to continuing to provide our clients with the best quality services and solutions. Get in touch for a quick chat about how to improve your online visibility with our proven best practices.

The post Clutch Names Edkent Media a Top Agency in Canada! appeared first on EDKENT® MEDIA.



from EDKENT® MEDIA https://ift.tt/2H9rO30
via

Sunday 3 March 2019

How to Use Podcasts to Market a Brand

Podcasts for Marketing a BrandPodcasts probably aren’t very high up your list when you’re thinking about marketing for your brand. Although that is understandable, the fact of the matter is that you should be giving podcasts some very serious thought.

Right now podcasts are undergoing a resurgence of sorts, and their popularity is higher than it has ever been in the past. On top of that podcasts are easier and less expensive to create than videos, or even most long-form articles.

To sum it up podcasts are easy to create, inexpensive, and will let you expand your marketing reach. Doesn’t that sound like something you should seriously consider using?

Now that you understand why you should use podcasts, you need to know how to use them to market your brand:

Create niche podcasts that resonate with your target market

The podcast that you create should be very specific and niche. The more niche it is the more it will stand out from other podcasts and be able to target and engage the right market.

If you are already creating other types of marketing content, you can use them to get ideas. Base your podcast niche around the blog posts, videos, and social media posts that perform the best – and you should be all set.

 

Make sure each episode is short

Because podcasts are episodic, you should establish some consistency – and that starts with their duration. Try to aim for 30 minutes or less if you can, rather than trying to create podcasts that are hours and hours long and will probably bore many listeners.

 

Set up a schedule

Another area that you need to make sure is consistent is the publishing schedule for your podcasts. If you want you can create the podcasts in advance, and then queue them up to be published based on the schedule that you prefer.

Try to aim for a weekly schedule to start, and if you find that is doable you can even bump it up to twice-weekly.

 

Establish a structure for the podcast

One way you can start to showcase your brand in the podcast is by establishing a fixed structure. For example you could open with the same blurb that introduces your podcast (and your brand) and explains what the episode will be about.

Having a fixed structure will make your podcasts more consistent, and reflect well on your brand at the same time.

 

Let your audience get to know you

Podcasts will allow you to connect with the audience more easily than other types of content. For that to happen you need to let your personality show and allow them to get to know you.

Keep in mind that this will position you as the face of your brand, and in time your listeners will associate it with you.

 

Try different formats and styles of podcast content

Initially you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with different formats and styles of podcast content. For example you may want to bring in guest speakers, interview authority figures, or even have periodic Q&A sessions.

It should be noted that expert interviews are one of the more popular types of podcasts. Not only will you be able to attract more listeners if you use them, but the expert’s following will probably tune in and listen too – expanding your audience further.

 

Provide a transcript and useful links

Make it a point to transcribe every episode, and upload it to your website. Then let listeners know that if they want they can go read the transcript and find other useful links of some of the things that were discussed in the episode.

By taking this step, you will be able to increase your brand exposure by getting listeners to visit your website. If you want you can even offer an email opt-in for anyone who’d like the transcript and useful links delivered to them directly – and will generate leads in the process.

 

Always have a call to action

Every podcast needs to have a call to action – whether it directs people to the transcript and useful links (as mentioned above), to your blog, videos, social media, or even just to subscribe to the podcast. It is through your call to action that you can more directly promote your brand – if you choose to go down that route.

Unlike articles or videos, the call to action doesn’t necessarily have to be placed at the end of the podcast. Instead you can sprinkle small calls to actions throughout your podcasts at various intervals.

That is really all you need to know to market your brand using podcasts. In fact based on that you should be able to start creating a podcast of your own, and all you need is to know how to record audio on Mac or PC and then edit it a little to tidy it up.

By taking advantage of podcasts to market your brand you should be able to increase your reach significantly. All in all that will translate to more brand exposure, and build on the strength of your brand as well.

The post How to Use Podcasts to Market a Brand appeared first on EDKENT® MEDIA.

How to Use Podcasts to Market a Brand

Podcasts for Marketing a BrandPodcasts probably aren’t very high up your list when you’re thinking about marketing for your brand. Although that is understandable, the fact of the matter is that you should be giving podcasts some very serious thought.

Right now podcasts are undergoing a resurgence of sorts, and their popularity is higher than it has ever been in the past. On top of that podcasts are easier and less expensive to create than videos, or even most long-form articles.

To sum it up podcasts are easy to create, inexpensive, and will let you expand your marketing reach. Doesn’t that sound like something you should seriously consider using?

Now that you understand why you should use podcasts, you need to know how to use them to market your brand:

Create niche podcasts that resonate with your target market

The podcast that you create should be very specific and niche. The more niche it is the more it will stand out from other podcasts and be able to target and engage the right market.

If you are already creating other types of marketing content, you can use them to get ideas. Base your podcast niche around the blog posts, videos, and social media posts that perform the best – and you should be all set.

 

Make sure each episode is short

Because podcasts are episodic, you should establish some consistency – and that starts with their duration. Try to aim for 30 minutes or less if you can, rather than trying to create podcasts that are hours and hours long and will probably bore many listeners.

 

Set up a schedule

Another area that you need to make sure is consistent is the publishing schedule for your podcasts. If you want you can create the podcasts in advance, and then queue them up to be published based on the schedule that you prefer.

Try to aim for a weekly schedule to start, and if you find that is doable you can even bump it up to twice-weekly.

 

Establish a structure for the podcast

One way you can start to showcase your brand in the podcast is by establishing a fixed structure. For example you could open with the same blurb that introduces your podcast (and your brand) and explains what the episode will be about.

Having a fixed structure will make your podcasts more consistent, and reflect well on your brand at the same time.

 

Let your audience get to know you

Podcasts will allow you to connect with the audience more easily than other types of content. For that to happen you need to let your personality show and allow them to get to know you.

Keep in mind that this will position you as the face of your brand, and in time your listeners will associate it with you.

 

Try different formats and styles of podcast content

Initially you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with different formats and styles of podcast content. For example you may want to bring in guest speakers, interview authority figures, or even have periodic Q&A sessions.

It should be noted that expert interviews are one of the more popular types of podcasts. Not only will you be able to attract more listeners if you use them, but the expert’s following will probably tune in and listen too – expanding your audience further.

 

Provide a transcript and useful links

Make it a point to transcribe every episode, and upload it to your website. Then let listeners know that if they want they can go read the transcript and find other useful links of some of the things that were discussed in the episode.

By taking this step, you will be able to increase your brand exposure by getting listeners to visit your website. If you want you can even offer an email opt-in for anyone who’d like the transcript and useful links delivered to them directly – and will generate leads in the process.

 

Always have a call to action

Every podcast needs to have a call to action – whether it directs people to the transcript and useful links (as mentioned above), to your blog, videos, social media, or even just to subscribe to the podcast. It is through your call to action that you can more directly promote your brand – if you choose to go down that route.

Unlike articles or videos, the call to action doesn’t necessarily have to be placed at the end of the podcast. Instead you can sprinkle small calls to actions throughout your podcasts at various intervals.

That is really all you need to know to market your brand using podcasts. In fact based on that you should be able to start creating a podcast of your own, and all you need is to know how to record audio on Mac or PC and then edit it a little to tidy it up.

By taking advantage of podcasts to market your brand you should be able to increase your reach significantly. All in all that will translate to more brand exposure, and build on the strength of your brand as well.

The post How to Use Podcasts to Market a Brand appeared first on EDKENT® MEDIA.



from EDKENT® MEDIA https://ift.tt/2EJNZua
via