SEO & Marketing

4 Ways to Expand Your Mobile Strategy

The debate about whether you need to design a mobile experience for consumers has been settled. With Google’s algorithmic changes last year that favor mobile-ready sites and the fact that the majority of adults use smartphones, if you have not yet optimized your site’s mobile user experience, do so now. As you build and improve your mobile user experience, remember that mobile isn’t a new or separate avenue of ecommerce; it’s an integral part of the consumer journey that provides new opportunities to personalize a shopper’s experience. It allows you to strengthen the relationship between them and your brand. As you plan your mobile engagement strategy, consider utilizing the following four tactics:

• Social engagement rewards
• Make email contact mobile-friendly
• Utilize mobile-ready interactive ads
• Craft your strategy for how customers use mobile today, but consider how to respond to future technology

Encourage Social Sharing

Consumers are already engaging heavily with social media via mobile. With devices constantly in hand, sending incessant notifications to interact, the average adult spends significant screen time on their phone. Capitalize on this this level of interaction by adopting strategies to capture consumer attention while they are on their mobile devices.

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Effective Search Functionality and Design

Data indicates that customers who arrive on your site ready to search for something are more likely to convert than those who come just to browse. On-site searching plays a role in as much as 40% of online purchases, so it’s essential that your site offers fast, useful search tools to help customers find what they are looking for. Pay equal attention to search design – such as placement, colors, and calls-to-action, as to functionality – such as facets, filtering, and spelling suggestions.

A cardinal rule of ecommerce design is to make navigation as intuitive and seamless as possible. Search is no different – your search bar should be easy to locate as soon as a customer lands on your homepage.

Achieving this may involve:

• prominent placement in the top center of your header
• highlighting the search bar in a contrasting color
• using an unconventional, but intuitive, call to action
• buttons that match your contextual design

How you present r... Read more

9 Tips for Stellar User-Generated Content

Most consumers today turn to the internet to research purchases, regardless of what they’re shopping for. While detailed product descriptions and catchy marketing copy are foundational to persuasive product pages, research indicates that most people trust content generated by other users over any content you might write. According to Bazaarvoice, 51% of Millennial shoppers were more persuaded in purchase decisions by consumer opinions on company website than by recommendations from family or friends. Additionally, a recent Zendesk survey found that as much as 90% of online consumers are influenced by product reviews – both positive or negative. If you aren’t utilizing user-generated content yet to engage and persuade customers, you should start now.

If your site isn’t currently set up to showcase user-generated content, where do you start?

First and foremost, ask... Read more

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Replatforming – Total Overhaul or Gradual Update?

Jan 12, 2016 by Erica

To stay competitive in ecommerce, it’s important to periodically assess the effectiveness of your ecommerce platform. Are the tools available to you meeting the demands of your business? Has the design become outdated or ceased to be user-friendly? Have customers expressed frustration with the frontend shopping experience? Is it challenging or time consuming to make the smallest changes to the site – either to the frontend or in the back office? Has your business outgrown your existing platform, or beyond the expertise of those currently managing your site? If so, it may be time to update your ecommerce platform.

After assessing the capabilities of your current platform, you may conclude that while updates are needed a complete overhaul of your site is not feasible or appropriate in the short term. So what are you to do? Is it better to stick with your current site, hoping to make it last until you do have the necessary resources to replatform? Or look for a solution that w... Read more

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