An ecommerce store is a highly effective and economical way to grow your business beyond your brick-and-mortar store. It is an easy way to multiply sales without incurring exorbitant costs. Since selling online does not require extra square footage, displays or employees, an ecommerce solution is an ideal way to increase profits with minimal investment and risk. The primary goal is to make shopping easy and enjoyable. From searching for a particular product to entering payment information, the design of your ecommerce website requires careful planning to ensure that shoppers have a pleasant experience. Not only will this prevent shoppers from ...

Asking for patience is easier said than done. It’s a virtue that many of us just don’t have, especially when browsing the Internet. When it comes to the time it takes for a website to load, anything above two seconds will push anyone’s patience. A website that takes too long to load will turn visitors away. After all, it’s just as easy and fast to enter a new address in your browser’s address bar. If your website suffers from a slow load time, you could be missing out on potential leads or customers. Moreover, increasing your website’s load time helps you ...

Year by year, the number of smartphone users increases dramatically. Thanks to devices like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, Internet access on the go is becoming more sophisticated and user friendly. According to a recent ComScore report, smartphone users account for nearly 42% of all mobile users. As a business owner, understanding this trend and developing a mobile strategy is crucial for staying relevant and ahead of competitors. The first step, of course, is creating a mobile version of your website. When designing your mobile website, make sure you keep these tips in mind. Keep Your Design Simple Given the reduced screen space, ...

Your website is a critical part of your online image and reputation.  It’s the first impression many potential clients have of your business.  A bad impression may turn them away for good.  A quality website requires many different components to work harmoniously.  From design to content, your website should send a clear message about your services and products while creating a unique and enjoyable user experience. It doesn’t take a professional designer or a marketing guru to spot problems with your website.  Want to know if your website is turning away potential clients?  Ask yourself these questions and see how well ...

Just like cars, there are a variety of tests you can run to evaluate your site’s performance.  Although they may seem simple, they can provide a lot of useful information that may help you discover and fix problems with your website. Here are five crucial performance tests your website should pass. 1. Loading Speed Test High-speed internet connections and overall demand for faster connections make a fast loading speed a must.  If your website takes too long to load, visitors may abandon your site all together.  Don’t know your website’s loading time?  There are a variety of free web tools, such as pingdom.com, ...

Evaluating your website with a critical eye is one of the best things a small business owner can do. Your website is one of the most powerful assets you have so it’s important to make sure it’s working with you instead of against you. Take the time to look over your website, or better yet have an unbiased friend do so, and ask yourself these 10 questions. An honest answer will help evaluate your website and put you on the track to making it even better. 1. What do you see first? – The first impression is the most critical. Are you ...

As the digital age advances, it’s hard to believe that print media is still a worthwhile endeavor. Between PPC ads, corporate blogs and social media strategies, it may be easy to think that online marketing alone is sufficient to grow a business. As effective as online marketing campaigns can be, no business should dismiss print media as part of their overall marketing strategy. Print media is still an important piece of the marketing puzzle. Here is why: •Print is Portable – Even with laptops and smart phones, print media still retains the ultimate portability. It’s available everywhere and to everyone, ...

E-newsletters have long replaced traditional print newsletters. Cost, ease of use, tracking capabilities and convenience are just a few of the reasons why business owners have turned to e-newsletters. Although there are many pros to using e-newsletters to stay connected with your customers and followers, your e-newsletters still need to be worthy enough to read.   Use the tips below to create an effective e-newsletter.   Think of Your Readers This may seem like a no-brainer, but we sometimes get too involved in what we want to say that we forget about what our readers want to hear. Understanding your readers means that you know ...

Your website is an essential marketing tool. Your business depends largely on its success, especially if you are running an eCommerce website. Making sure your website is an effective marketing and sales tool is essential to increasing your bottom line.   If you’re just getting ready to launch your website or have had a website for some years now, it’s always a good idea to double check that you aren’t making obvious mistakes. Here are 9 common website mistakes that can be easily fixed.   1) Unprofessional Look and Feel For many, your website is the first impression of your business. An unprofessional website that you ...

Your website is a very important part of your marketing plan and as such, should be created and designed with users in mind. This will ensure a positive user experience and effectiveness in getting your message across. If you don’t yet have a website and are just starting to create your master plan or feel that you have an ineffective website, make sure you consider these tips for a more engaging and effective website. 1. Less is More With so many technologies and tools available, it’s possible to have your website filled with features that might cloud your message. While this may ...

Starbucks has made it possible for you to pay for your drinks directly from your iPhone or Blackberry. Would you consider transferring your Starbucks card information and only using your iPhone for payments?

With an estimated 5.2 billion mobile subscribers in 2011 and 1.7 billion mobile web users expected by 2013 (Infonetics Research), tapping the mobile platform is critical for businesses. While some technology innovations and gadgets are merely shortly lived fads, there are others that transcend time and effectively change the way we function and do business. Mobile technology has expertly turned smart phones into web surfing devices, sometimes surpassing or taking the place of traditional internet surfing on personal computers. As technology advances and connections become faster and more reliable, more and more users will take advantage of mobile web surfing. What does ...