These days, no one would blame you for being confused about the mobile-frenzy that’s going on. Understanding what the new smart phones are capable of is hard and it’s only getting more complicated.

A common misconception is that mobile shoppers are only after certain things. After all, who’s going to shop for office supplies on their mobile? Don’t count your business out; as more data is compiled we are learning that there are no set patterns for smart phone shopping habits.
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I know you’re excited. We just installed Google Analytics on your site and the dream of increased conversion rates glows brightly in your eyes.  You login and… uh-whaaaaa?  What is this jibber-jabber?  All you see is squiggly lines and a page full of numbers and links to more pages full of even more squiggly lines and numbers.

This is a common reaction to the Google Analytics Dashboard. The numbers look intimidating but with a little help, they’ll soon be your best friend.  The first step of being able to release the power of your site’s analytics is to understand the terms used.  After we get you familiar with what the terms mean, we’ll move on to understanding the way they interact with each other.  But that’s for another time.

So, put on a pot of coffee, grab your spectacles and settle in; I’m going to teach you some key definitions that will help you get the most out of Google Analytics.
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If you Googled “Enter your site title here”, what do you think you would find in the search results? Surprisingly, you get a lot of legitimate e-commerce sites, most of them using AspDotNetStorefront, that just haven’t figured out how to set their site’s meta title. By not making good use of this tag, a lot of store owners are missing out on an opportunity to make it easier for shoppers to find their site.
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Having trouble figuring out how to navigate the AspDotNetStorefront admin backend? Vortx is now offering a series of instructional training videos to introduce you to some of the cart’s more basic administrative features.

Click and watch our selection of video tutorials for great tips and hints.

• Adding A Product
• Organizing Products
• Managing Topics Part 1
• Managing Topics Part 2
• Adding An Admin User
• AppConfig Parameters

Is there something you’d be interested in learning more about in a video tutorial?  Just let us know.

Presented December 17th, 2009 by Jo Benson, COO of Vortx

In my first post on mobile commerce, I talked about the future of m-commerce and the need to provide a mobile-friendly user experience.

Some of you may be ready to take that leap into the world of m-commerce. Others of you may be shaking your head at the prospect of keeping up with yet another technological advance.
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Presented November 23, 2009 by Jo Benson, COO of Vortx

If you were among those who listened in to our webinar recently on “All Things Google” then you’re likely feeling inspired to get to know much more about the tools within Google Analytics.

Jo Benson, COO of Vortx, reviewed key ways to increase traffic to your site, using Google Analytics. In the webinar Jo provides specific reasons why these techniques work and what you gain by using them.

The “All Things Google” webinar includes the following topics:

• Defining your pages with a sitemap
• Cloaking some content with robot tags
• Labeling pages with title tags
• Keywords
• Google filters
• Optimizing images
• How to please the Googlebots
• Google Product Feeds
• Techniques to increase web sales
• How to submit products for free
• Ways to reach qualified shoppers
• Why you should use Google’s “local” feature
• Google Product Search (aka Google Base)
• Major ranking factors for Google Products
• Google Analytics
• Google Optimizer

Consider using Vortx to partner with you in implementing the right tools to drive traffic to your site.  Please contact us by using our form or call Christian Young at 541.201.9965.

Vortx now offers a complete mobile solution for AspDotNetStorefront! Contact Us to bring your products to a whole new market!

Smartphones and other mobile internet devices are creating a shift in consumer habits and online retailers need to adapt to the mobile commerce world.

According to Nielsen Mobile, there are already more than 40 million active mobile internet users in the United States which reportedly represents a 73% increase since 2006.

It is expected that this trend will continue to grow. Worldwide it is estimated that there are at least 800 million smartphone users. Some of these 800 million people will start shopping online.

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If a page on your website doesn’t load in about 8 seconds, you could be losing 30% of your site’s visitors. 30% of potential customers are lost when they get impatient and leave, likely not to return.

One cause of slow-loading pages is over-sized images. Lots of large images on a page means slower load times.

But, if you optimize each image to load as quickly as possible you dramatically reduce load times, keeping visitors at your website.

Let’s review why optimization is important:

1. What is Optimization?
2. Practical Tips

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Social network marketing is changing the face of e-commerce. Social networking’s biggest draw is its immediacy, and none are more immediate than Twitter.

So how can e-tailers take advantage of Twitter? I’ll highlight a couple quick promo and marketing ideas.

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