Including your product's SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), MPN (Manufacturer Part Number), and UPC (Universal Product Code) in all product pages is necessary for enhancing your PageRank for those codes.The organic visitors you will get, will be at the conversion stage of the funnel with a very high conversion rate! Tip #140 – © Franco Folini Not... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #139: Let your customers use their favorite payment method!
Don't limit your customers to only one payment option! Let them use their favorite method. The minimum set includes credit/debit card, PayPal, wire transfer (plus terms for B2B). But don't overdo it. Too many options will make the checkout unnecessarily complicated. Tip #139 – © Franco Folini For every vertical market, country, and eCommerce merchant... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #138: Add Security Seals to your store to increase trust and Conversion Rate.
Add Security Seals throughout your store. Make sure they are prominently visible in the shopping cart pages. If your brand is not yet fully established, the seals will increase the trust, in particular for new visitors. Tip #138 – © Franco Folini eCommerce retailers measured an average 3% increase in conversion rate for all traffic... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #137: Personalize your homepage for each returning visitor
Don't offer the same experience to all. Personalize the user experience for returning customers! You have the information to do it! When a returning customer lands on your home page, offer a highly personalized experience. Populate the page with the products he/she checked during the last visits and recommended products based on his/her profile. Tip... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #136: Get a toll free phone number, your customers will love it
Many eCommerce customers still like to talk to a real human by phone, mostly in B2B but in B2C too. Get a toll free numberDisplay and highlight it on the header of every pageHave a competent person promptly answering every call (at least during business hours) Tip #136 – © Franco Folini When talking about... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #135: Create visual, effective, and readable content to improve your Conversion Rate
How to make your content more effective? Create proper subheadings.Use bullet points to organize your content and to attract attention.Improve readability with larger font sizes (recommended: 16px).Add visual content such as videos, diagrams, and real photographs.Generously space the content to make it more readable. Tip #135 – © Franco Folini Content is not only about... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #134: Increase Conversion Rate with a better search bar
A Search Bar is a must for every eCommerce! Leverage data in your CMS to implement the search autocomplete. Show search results using a combination of text and images and consistently with your website style. Tip #134 – © Franco Folini Make sure the search bar is always prominently visible at the top right corner... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #133: How to leverage your content to attract valuable backlinks
Do you want more links, also called backlinks, driving traffic to your website and improving your page ranking? Make sure your content is unique, well-written, relevant, and easy to share and link! Tip #133 – © Franco Folini Once you have created high-quality unique content you can send email to the most relevant website and... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #132: Recommend different products before and after a purchase!
After a conversion, only suggest companion products such as maintenance, extensions, and optional modules. Do not recommend alternative products. You are risking to irritate and confuse your customers. Tip #132 – © Franco Folini This issue is frequently underestimated by the people or teams in charge of product recommendations. There is nothing more irritating than... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #131: Help Google crawler by adding a Canonical Url tag to your pages!
Add a Canonical Url Tag to every page! <link rel='canonical' href='...' /> It’s the single most crucial tag to help Google Crawler to understand your website and to improve your SEO. Tip #131 – © Franco Folini The canonical tag will tell Google crawler that a set of pages that differ only for their Url... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #130: All crucial content must be served as plain HTML not by Javascript!
Make sure all crucial content is served as plain HTML and not generated by Javascript script. 80% of eCommerce sites make this mistake. Google Crawler is is getting better at capturing dynamically generated content, but still prefer plain HTML. Tip #130 – © Franco Folini If your eCommerce website or SPA (Single Page Application) is... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #129: Use customer feedback for user retention, not for user acquisition
Almost all the user feedback we get, it's from users who purchased from us. It’s crucial for customer retention but worthless for customer acquisition. Usually, we don't receive feedback from users who never visited us or left without buying. Tip #129 – © Franco Folini Don't get me wrong, customer feedback is very important and... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #128: Don’t trust your gut feelings, A/B test everything!
Do you want to please your ego, or do you want to sell more? Intuition can be a good starting point to explore new options, but you must A/B testing everything. Don't trust your gut feelings, only trust data. Tip #128 – © Franco Folini When it comes to business, there is not right opinion... Continue Reading →
How to boost your pages SEO with JSON-LD – Structured Data for eCommerce
For many websites there is an opportunity to boost pages SEO performances with a simple JSON-LD structured data injection. In many cases it's a low hanging fruit, and we should take advantage of it.
eCommerce Tip #127: Don’t ask a question if an algorithm can find the answer
Reduce friction! Don't bother the customer with questions or options when an algorithm or a query in a database can figure out the answer. Simplify your customer's life, not your job! Tip #127 – © Franco Folini If you are 80% confident you can guess the correct answer fill the corresponding input fields with smart... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #126: Show video snapshots and only embed videos on-demand with Javascript.
You know your visitors and customers love videos (and Google too), but you are concerned videos will slow down your product page?Display a video’s snapshot and use Javascript to embed the video on-demand, when the user clicks on it. Light pages, great UX , improved SEO. Tip #126 – © Franco Folini Any Javascript programmer... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #125: Use Structured Data to describe your page to Google crawler
Stop being afraid of structured data (JSON-LD). Structured Data is a simple snippet of JavaScript describing the content of your page. It’s easy to write and even simpler to validate (just google it!). Great SEO results guaranteed! Tip #125 – © Franco Folini Structured Data for eCommerce not only makes Google crawler life easier (and... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #124: Leverage positive reviews to provide social proof and improve Conversion Rate.
On each product page, highlight the best and most recent reviews as social proof for your visitors. Don't highlight negative reviews, but keep them. They are proof that your review system is fair and honest. Tip #124 – © Franco Folini People love to read reviews, and they trust reviews! Make them happy by listing... Continue Reading →
eCommerce Tip #123: Don’t compete on price, compete on quality
Don’t compete on price! Eventually, your competitors will match your lowest price. It’s a lose-lose battle. Compete on quality of service, brand image, visibility, and user experience. Tip #123 – © Franco Folini Nobody likes price wars, don't start one! Unless you are moving huge volumes and have access a exceptional prices on a consistent... Continue Reading →
How to Write an Engaging eMail Newsletter that Will Get Read
This article was first posted on LinkedIn on November 20, 2019. Recently I was asked to explain the rules to make a company marketing email newsletter worth reading, a newsletter that gets read. It's an excellent question. Publishing a newsletter gives you the opportunity to increase awareness and understanding of your company and its products... Continue Reading →