Nexternal Solutions eCommerce Blog – eCommerce News Articles

The United States and much of the western world is in the midst of a recession that has made business credit difficult to find. More than 1 million Americans lost their jobs… Read More.

If you would like to edit your product or website images but don’t want to spend the money for an expensive editing program like Photoshop, try PhotoPlus SE from Serif. This free program has a lot of the same features and even the same layout as Photoshop without the hefty price tag. While you can expect a difference in quality on things like text or layering, PhotoPlus SE gives you some basic tools needed to get started on your images. PhotoPlus SE has online tutorials and an upgraded version (only $9.99) if you need some advanced features. So, if you are just looking to add some basics to your photos PhotoPlus SE should do the trick.

Here is a quick list of the top 6 pay-per-click advertising mistakes that I’ve seen. I suggest that you print this list and go through it before you start your next pay-per-click campaign.
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Have you ever wondered how a design change to a webpage might affect conversion? If you are a serious online retailer, the answer is likely yes. Often times even small page modifications like simply changing the color of a button can have an immediate impact on your conversion rate. One of the greatest things about having a website is that almost everything can be measured scientifically. Although detailed measurement is possible, it’s not surprising that most people still take a fairly subjective approach to their websites. With the help of Google Website Optimizer, there really is no longer an excuse for “guessing” that certain changes will improve the key metrics of your site.

Google Website Optimizer is a free tool found within Google AdWords. Google Website Optimizer makes it very easy to run an A/B test or even a multi-variant test. In the case of running a simple A/B test, you would simply create two different versions of the same page with just one variation. Google then asks you to put two snippets of JavaScript code on the original or control page (one snippet at the top and one at the bottom). You also need to put a snippet of code at the bottom of the new version of the page and a different snippet at the bottom of the conversion page (this is the page that someone visits when your site has successfully achieved its objective). Once those pages are successfully loaded on your site, you tell Google Website Optimizer to start running the experiment.

Google Website Optimizer is very clever. You do not need to change any navigation components on your site. Once the experiment is running, all of your visitors will still visit the original control page. However, half of them are going to be directed to the new version of the page (the top JavaScript snippet enables that redirect). The other half will stay on the control page.

Through the web-based Google Website Optimizer interface, you can decide how much traffic is going to be used for the experiment. Naturally, if you use 100% of your traffic, you’ll be able to determine sooner which option is working better. Google also gives you the ability pause the campaign at any time.

Once the experiment has begun, be sure to regularly check on the results of the reporting. If the reporting tells you that Version B of your test is the high confidence winner, congratulations….your intuition that a change was necessary was correct. If version A prevails, stop the experiment and rethink your approach. Making even slight changes to your site can have a positive impact and Google Website Optimizer gives you the means to prove it.

An ecommerce website, boiled down to its dry essence, is a virtual salesman at best and a slow-to-deliver electronic vending machine at worst. Consciously or not, online stores are conceived, designed, and created to sell products while making as little personal contact with a customer as possible. And as such, well-written product descriptions can have a significant impact on a store’s success.
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Ecommerce entrepreneurs frequently earn their profits in small margins, where slight competitive advantages can be the difference between flourishing and floundering.

Gaining a competitive advantage…Read More.

I was contacted by a gentleman in the music industry who wanted advice regarding online marketing for his website. He seemed to have strong old-school marketing ties…Read More.