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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In the final installment of our series on how to reach out to more customers, we talk about Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.

Each of these methods revolve around one thing, interaction. If you expect to create a profile or blog, then just sit back and wait for the customers to come to you, you’re in for a long wait.

Each of these methods has different requirements for success.
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Want to deliver content directly to your shoppers instead of relying on them remembering to come back to your site?

That’s what this series article is all about.  I’ll give an overview of seven different ways to deliver content to your users instead of waiting for them to visit your site.

In this part I’ll explain how to use RSS feeds and product feeds to attract customers.
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Credibility is essential for eCommerce success. Testimonials establish your credibility and make customers feel secure and comfortable during their shopping experience on your site.

Considering how much of an impact solid testimonials could have on your sales, it’s important to be smart about how to get them and then use them on your site.

Here are a few quick tips:

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Landing Page Optimization is the process of improving a visitor’s perception of your site so that they’re more likely to complete a goal or convert to a sale.

Landing pages target a specific audience or support a certain advertising campaign. If a landing page is well-optimized it will lead to higher conversion rates.

If your store sells audio equipment and is running advertisements about Logitech speakers, you would create a Logitech speaker landing page for customers that come to your site from that ad campaign.

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Conversion Rate is the percentage of visitors to a site that complete a desired action.

Conversion rate is the primary measurement for testing and optimizing an eCommerce website. If the conversion rate goes up a larger percentage of people are completing the desired action.

Generally conversion rates measure whether a customer bought something, but it can measure other goals like newsletter sign-up or creating an account too.

Conversion rate can measure specific actions on a single page or can be used more broadly to represent an action relative to the site.
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In our third installment on email marketing we explore design elements for effective email marketing campaigns. We previously talked about the advantages of email marketing, list building strategies, and developing your email marketing plan. Now it is time to focus on the design of your email.

While content may be king, good design ensures your content will be seen. The objective is to design emails that are opened and acted upon. A well designed email attracts the recipient’s interest, holds their attention and stimulates action. It can also enhance your company’s image.

So What is “Good” Design?

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Inbound links are possibly the most important part of SEO. In this article I’ll define what a good inbound link is and what it takes to get them.

A lot of people focus on metadata when they’re talking about SEO. But metadata is only part of a successful SEO strategy. In fact, I’ve heard stories of horribly optimized sites ranking well for popular keywords solely because they had a lot of inbound links from popular sites.

The right inbound links will make the difference between whether customers will find your site or not.

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Recurring orders save your customers grief and provide a steady income for your business.

As you might imagine, the Vortx crew goes through a lot of coffee. A few years ago we decided to start buying our coffee online through a local vendor’s website. Each month we go to their site and browse for the type, grind, size, and quantity we always get, then re-enter our payment and shipping information.

Wouldn’t it be great if our coffee vendor was able to process our standard shipment on the same day each month without waiting for us to get online and order? They should really be making use of recurring orders.

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We know that persuasion works. We’ve all been talked into doing something that we weren’t sure about only a moment ago. Let’s take what we’ve learned in ‘real life’ and apply the four most common persuasion techniques to web design.

Reciprocity – that nagging feeling that once you’ve been given something, you’re obligated to give something back. This tactic is used with free gifts all the time – give away a freebee and a customer becomes more likely to return the ‘favor’ with their business and/or trust. Think about swapping a freebee for something as simple as an email address – it’s free and both parties benefit! (more…)