Best Practices
101 Ways to Drive Traffic to Any Online Store
Marketing Tips for Internet Retailers
This list of traffic building tips can work for any online retailer or Internet business. I hope you find several marketing tips to use in your business.
FIND FREE TRAFFIC:
1. Submit and follow-up with human edited directory like Mahalo.com
2. Write a valuable post comment on someone else’s blog and link back to your site
3. Submit your site to Forbes.com Best of the Web
4. Participate in industry forums and link to your site from your signature
5. Pick a section of your site and perform some search engine optimization
6. Implement a sitemap.xml page (and tell Google about it)
7. Log into Google Webmaster Tool and look for any site opportunities Read more
Marketing Lesson - How Not to Feed a Dead Fish
Each day I would feed our pet fish, Max. Max is a blue Betta fish.
The first point you should understand is that Max is my family’s first pet. My kids wanted a pet and since neither my wife nor I are exactly pet people, we decided we can handle an easy-to-maintain, starter fish like Max.
Since we got him about a year ago, I was in charge of feeding him and my wife was in charge of the inside of the tank - cleaning it, replacing the filter, etc. Yes, somehow I got the easier job.
So, I feed Max daily, rarely missing a feeding and if I ever did, I would make it up to him with a little extra next time. Sort of like my eating habits.
Over time I actually enjoyed the ritual of feeding Max. I’d like knowing my efforts are appreciated. Sometimes he’d realize the food was dropped in the fish tank and he’d immediately swim to the top of the fish tank and begin his feast. He seemed very happy and content (for a fish).
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9 Tips to Improve Email Signups for Online Retailers
It’s important for Internet businesses to capture opt-in emails throughout the shopping experience. Building an email list is one of the most important marketing efforts any online store can do.
Well, let me clarify. Your email list won’t matter much if you don’t have a strong email program, but email list building is still a key effort to set up your email program for success. Read more
E-commerce Lesson - Holes in the Bucket
Take a moment to envision your online business as a bucket.
You fill the bucket with two types of customers - potential customers (leads or prospects) and repeat customers. But not all these “customers” purchase from you every time (if they do, let me know…I want to invest!), so there are holes in your bucket.
So, here are some hard facts. Every day your business is losing sales. You are letting customers leak out from the bucket. Sometimes these customers find you again and sometimes your competition finds them.
In fact, if your business is like most businesses, you already have MANY holes in the bucket. Some small holes (or cracks in the bucket) cause only several customers per day to funnel out. And some holes are the size of the Lincoln Tunnel leading customers escape every day never to come back again. Bye Bye!
Let’s explore these two types of holes for online retailers.
The small holes in your bucket are often unknown or not discussed in your day-to-day business. Often they are not measured, so they are easy to miss. Luckily, these are easiest to fix too. Read more
Email Marketing – Forget the Excuses
Many pundits have incorrectly dismissed email marketing. They’ve pronounce it DEAD. I’m baffled by this! What’s next, people won’t use credit cards? People won’t watch television?
Many “marketing experts” are spewing email goobly-gook. Be careful if you listen to this nonsense. Please don’t fall for the lame excuses…email deliverability is not what it once was or nobody is reading emails anymore because there is too much email clutter.
These are just excuses and should not be used in YOUR thinking. Read more
7 Simple SEO Tips and Tricks for Your Online Store
Here are seven of the easiest search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that ANYONE can implement in their online store. No tech department needed!!! Read more
