OuterBox’s eCommerce Blog
Why Use Schema.org on eCommerce Websites
Schema.org has created a standard in website coding to allow developers to include code that the search engines are looking for. Of course this is the most basic description, but it allows you to include certain snippets such as reviews, pricing, etc. that can then be displayed in a unique format by Google. In June 2011 Google officially introduced schema.org and began using schema in their result displays. There are many different elements that can be used on a website but for this article we’re covering mainly elements that benefit an eCommerce website.
The most used eCommerce schema item types for eCommerce include product rating (AgrregateRating), brands, model, product ID, offers and reviews. All of these schema “Product” tags can be found on the schema.org product information page. To include schema microdata into a website is fairly easy as certain tags or html elements are included are specific text or code. For example a tag of itemprop=”reviews” would be included on the section of the website code for your reviews. There is a little more to it than this and certain more detailed tags such as “worstRating”, “ratingValue” and others can be included on detailed elements.
So, what does this get you and why is it important? Below is an example of how search engine results can appear when using these tags. These tags allow Google to identity a product pages important elements and easily display those within the search results. These details create an eye-catching search engine results and typically increase your click-through rate thus increasing your website traffic. If you have products rated 5 stars and you’re showing that within the search results it makes sense that more people would want to look at your product.
Whether you’re developing a new website or already have an existing website these Schema elements can be integrated into your website. For more information and details on this top visit SEO Moz’s article on Schema.org and Why You Need to Use It.
Google’s Panda Changes & SEO Effects on eCommerce Websites
With Google continually rolling out Panda algorithm updates we’ve seen changes in the way eCommerce websites are ranked. Panda updates seem to be focusing heavily on content and on-site optimization. Google is looking for website owners to make their website better, not just build links. Google has said their goal is to make the web a better place and this change is pushing website to become more informative and offer higher quality content.
Content: We’ve seen effects on eCommerce websites that have minimal content, especially on ranking specific product pages. Many eCommerce websites, especially sites with a large amount of products, have weak product descriptions. We’ve seen these pages begin to drop. Other issues arise when sites have a large amount of products with duplicate content. Often similar products may have an identical description as another product on their website. Not only can duplicate content on your own website effect rankings, but also copied or supplied content. For example, many manufacturers provide product databases and product descriptions are sometimes supplied. If you’re using the same product description that other websites are using your chance of ranking is greatly diminished.
To learn more about duplicate content read Google’s page http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66359
Category Pages: Many times large amounts of products in a category will create a type of duplicate content. For example you have category A. Now category A has page 1, page 2 and page 3 as you’re showing 15 products per page. Google often ends up seeing this as 3 different pages optimized for the same keywords. This will give 3 pages a third of the weight that one page could possibly have. There are ways around this that we’re not going to get into for technical reasons, but the easiest fix is to show all products on one page. Sometimes this is easy, as in the example above with only 45 products in a category. If you have hundreds of products showing all of them on one page may not be the best option.
Link Building: We hear so much about link building, especially from clients. It’s old school SEO and everyone still wants to submit 100 articles a month and blast content out to the web with their links embedded. Remember, often these articles end up on a page rank 0 page and the incoming links probably means nothing. Our suggestion is instead of blasting large amount of content to other websites, write great content for your website. I’d rather a client post 4 great article a month on their own website instead of sending out 100 questionable pieces. The content on your website can last forever and bring direct traffic to you!
So, what is our link building strategy? Build good content and people will want to link to you. If you can get other people to link to you because they want to you can then focus on making your website better. It then becomes a circle of developing good content, building your brand and letting others link to you.
eCommerce Product Page Conversion Optimization – The Basics
Getting visitors to your website is one thing, but turning them into customers is another. This is called your conversion rate (learn more about eCommerce conversion optimization ). A solid product details page is often where the customer is making the final decision (as long as you have a solid checkout) on whether or not they want to buy from you. There are some basics in eCommerce website design and development that should be taken into consideration. Remember, if your web design company makes these type of recommendations, do you best to see how they can apply to your business. Often we make suggestions that are shot down simply because “oh, we can’t do that”.
Pricing: The basics of pricing is always have the best, or at least a competitive price. But what about how your display your pricing? Having the MSRP and showing what the customer can save with your price will let them see that they are getting a deal. Even showing a percent saved figure isn’t a bad idea.
Product Photos: No one wants to buy something if they’re not sure what they are getting. Having professional product photos will go a long way. Remember, you don’t want to look like you’re shipping this stuff out of your basement (whether you are or not). Also, pay attention to where multiple photos of a product could be beneficial. A lot of items warrant close-ups or multiple angles.
Reviews: We all look at reviews when purchasing online. Not having a reviews section, or have “0 reviews” is not going to help that conversion rate. Try hard to encourage reviews and even get some via email or over the phone and post them for your customers. Everyone wants to know what someone else who went through the same purchasing experience thought about it.
Discount Codes: If you’re running promotions and offering discount codes, make sure these are prominent on the product page. Too often these are only displayed on the homepage or within the checkout. If no one adds your product to their cart, they’ll never see the checkout!
Videos: If you have videos, or the manufacturer does, make sure you show them! Video will allow a visitor to learn a lot about a product in a small amount of time.
Warranty & Returns: Make sure these are somewhere that can be found. Before purchasing, customers want to know what they’ll need to do if something breaks or they are unsatisfied.
Shipping: If you can show a flat rate shipping price on the product page, do it! Visitors love to know the shipping before adding to the cart. Also, tell them when the product will ship. Saying “Ships in 24 Hours” or “Ships Now” will get people buying!
Phone Number: When they have questions make sure they can call. There is nothing worse than shopping online and not being able to find a phone number. Without a phone number, you’re going to lose a lot of business. And oh yea… make sure someone picks it up!
Trust Seals: If you have an authorize.net account or your own SSL, make sure you display your seals. Other seals such as Verisign or McAffe can also instill confidence.
What Influences The Typical Online Shopper?
In a word: everything.
It’s an immense undertaking to define, catalog, interpret, and tend to all the factors that may influence your typical online shopper; anything about a user’s experience (design, navigation, colors, logos, steps-to-checkout, etc.) may be interpreted as an influence on their buying behavior, for better or worse. For the sake of efficiency, we’re looking today at the lowest-hanging fruit – several factors of an ecommerce site that are easily changed to help boost user experience, and, yes, conversions.
This list originates from Adam Audette’s article 3 Important Ecommerce Trends to Watch, which solidly explains how the following three factors may impact an ecommerce site’s success.
Price Points
When EVER has price not been an influencing factor in buying trends? And it’s not always the lowest price consumers seek; propelled by the adage “You get what you pay for,” many shoppers are perfectly happy, willing, and able to spend more to hit their standard of quality or remain loyal to a brand.
Yet, over the past few years, the brand bias has slipped as consumers adopt a more frugal attitude. Yes, the economic fall-down is a contributing factor to consumers’ spend-thrift ways, but couple this with the popularity of CSEs, or Comparison Shopping Engines. Searching a CSE as compared to, for instance, a store’s site, a searching shopper is reminded not only of brand, but also of price. According to comScore, from July of 2008 to July of 2010,
shopping across more diverse brands (including generic) increased by 10% to 62%
unique visitors to comparison shopping sites increased by 30%
Shipping Rates
Dovetailed into the influence of price points are shipping rates, which can push a shopper to abandon their purchase at the last crucial step. Some interesting statistics from comScore, July 2010, in regards to online shopping:
23% of shoppers will make purchases only if they receive free shipping
47% of shoppers expect to pay between $0.01 and $4.99 for shipping
70% of shoppers will only pay $4.99 or less for shipping
Visual Search
You want to buy a shirt.
Consider the shopping experience provided by a catalog: you have a picture, a little description, a smattering of color swatches, and a handy size chart stapled in the center.
Now, consider the shopping experience provided by a typical ecommerce site: you have a picture (or 12) with a magnifying glass and click-and-drag functionality to view your item at each and every 360 degree angle; you have a little description with text links, user reviews, and ratings; you have a smattering of swatches and the ability to view your product in each available color; there’s a size chart there, too, sometimes with testimonials regarding an item’s true fit. Moreover, there is a handy list of similar items you may be interested in; a pair of pants that match that shirt, or a coordinating sweater.
Taking it one step further, studies show enhancing the online shopping experience with video can increase conversions and time-on-site. To be more specific, comScore data shows that on sites that incorporate video into the shopping experience
shoppers are 64% more likely to make a purchase
shoppers will spend an additional 2 minutes on the site
What Should You Do?
PRICE POINTS – Research your completion, research CSEs, determine where your product line falls into the price point spectrum, and ensure your prices will compel potential shoppers to buy from you. With brand loyalty fading for want of lower prices, there is a golden opportunity for many online retailers to snag an attentive audience’s attention with savings.
SHIPPING RATES – Make sure your shipping rates don’t push away a converting customer on their last shopping step. Shoppers like to feel that they’ve found a sweet deal, and nothing is sweeter than free, or even flat, shipping rates.
VISUAL SEARCH – Enhancing the shopping experience is vital, especially as more and more online retailers adopt the same product listing techniques (think images, reviews, ratings, and the like). Incorporating video into the shopping experience shows a tremendous leap in conversions and longer on-site visit. What’s more, it makes your product listing viable for placement within YouTube (arguably the second largest search engine.
Cyber Monday Tips for Your eCommerce Website
It’s almost time. The biggest online retail day of the year (or at least supposedly the best deals). Historically we’ve seen sales around 300% higher on Cyber Monday compared to the previous Monday. Being an eCommerce web design company, it’s also one of our busiest day of the year getting ready. It takes planning and a well executed online marketing campaign to make it happen. From running the correct promotion to PPC ad text, it’s important to get the message across.
Create an Enticing Promotion
First things first, you must create a promotion or sales that makes visitors want to buy. Your competitors will have sales, too, so be sure you create something that you feel will be unique. Watch your competitors and write down what they do each year. In the following years this can be useful information. A few ideas are free gift cards with a purchase, a percentage off, discount codes, next day shipping special and a free gift or product with the purchase of another item.
Getting Your Website Ready
Creating an aesthetically pleasing ad and placing it appropriately on the website is important. This will allow your visitors to see your promotion right away. Make sure to not only place this ad on your homepage, but in a spot where visitors can see it on all pages. Also, you may want to set up a special discount code. For example, “enter CYBERMONDAY to save 40% on your order”. With most eCommerce website platforms and administrations you will have the ability to set the code to activate and de-activate on dates and times. Set it up and let it run!
Pay-Per-Click Ads
When watching PPC ads on Google this Black Friday, we noticed about 20% of ads had the word “Black Friday” in them or “Ends Today!”. It’s important to update your ad text in your PPC ads to display your sale and let people know that your website is participating in the Cyber Monday (or whatever day it is) sale. If you don’t make this update, you run a good chance that your competitors ads will be clicked before yours.
Newsletter Blasts
A well designed newsletter blast should always be sent out letting all of your current customers know about the sales coming up. Make sure they remember to shop with you and possibly give them an extra 5% off for already being a customer. I feel repeat customers should always get a little something more to keep them coming back. Chance are, they’ll end up telling someone else how awesome your website is and you’ll get even more business.
Social Media & Press
Be sure to update your Facebook status, send of a tweet and pass around the discount codes. Many coupon website will give you the ability to post codes. You may also want to consider a press release. Remember, whenever sending out a press release it needs to be interesting! You have to turn the release into a story, not just a straight promotion. If done correctly, you may end up getting some visitors and even potentially spots in other media outlets.
Benefits of Open Source in an eCommerce Web Design Project
When talking with potential clients about eCommerce web design it often comes up, “Why don’t we just purchase a shopping cart?” You have a problem and need a solution. Often the general problem is you’re not selling online now and would like to… but to what degree? $1,000 a month in sales or $1,000,000 a month? What is your marketing strategy going to be with your new eCommerce website? These questions all factor into the solution you’ll need, but are questions a cart alone will never answer. You need a team and not a product.
Custom eCommerce Design & Unique Layouts: When purchasing a shopping cart you’re often going to run into issues with your website looking like 100 other sites (if not thousands). This image is probably not what you’re looking for in a strong brand and will not place your company where you’d like to be. A customized solution will allow you (and us) to be creative in the way the website looks and is branded creating a customized shopping experience.
Flexibility of Functionality: Adding functionality is a given. You’ll need to at some point. Whether you need to now or not isn’t always the question, but what happen when you outgrow your eCommerce cart? Who is going to make modification for you? If you have a custom cart you’ll always have developers available, whether us or another company, that can take over your site and add additional functionality.
Search Engine Marketing & Optimization: Many eCommerce shopping carts really lack on the search engine marketing side, or they have to many clients selling the same items. What happens is 50 websites sell the same items, using the same cart and in return all end up with pretty much the same website. Google doesn’t like this. The search engines look to see how unique you are and how you stand out. If you’re just like everyone else, you won’t stand out at all. Also, custom designing the site allows us to constantly use the latest in web code trends and the latest SEO techniques. On each project we strive to implement the latest and greatest!
Controlling Your Destiny: Owning your code is huge! With many shopping cart systems you will not own the code, meaning if you’d like to move your shopping cart to another developer or hosting plan, you do not have access. It’s like renting code. You’re stuck with them!
What Elements Affect Pricing?
We want you educated! We’ve recently written an article to help you better understand what goes into the price of an eCommerce website. Read it here: Pricing an eCommerce website: What Affects Cost?
Pay Per Click Optimization – Reducing Risks and Making Money
As we’ve been analyzing our most successful clients and working on marketing plans, we’ve seen a pattern…. Pay per click advertising. It’s true. If you can optimize your pay per click campaign it can be very successful and sometimes the results are exponential. Spend a dollar and make two I often say. Who wouldn’t take that? That’s a much better return on investment than I’ve seen on any of my stocks in the last few years! Pay Per Click advertising can be scary, so we really do need to take a good look to understand what it’s all about and how we can reduce risk. It’s all about stats and numbers. It’s not a guessing game and if you make it one you’re setting yourself up to potentially lose a significant chuck of cash. Spending $5,000 a month or $200,000 a month can seem out of the question, but it’s not when the ROI (return on investment) is there. In this article we’ll look more in depth on whether PPC (pay per click) is a method of advertising you may be interested in and if you feel it’s a method that’ll work in your business model.
Will PPC work for me? This depends on a few factors. I’ve listed the main factors below:
1) Conversion Rate (what percent of users purchase after visiting) – A typical conversion rate is 1.5% on the low end. We usually use this number.
2) CPC (cost per click) – How much will it cost for each visit
3) Average Sale – How much is the average sale
4) Profit Margin – How much do you make on each dollar purchased
4) Potential Visitors – How many visitors do your keywords allow you to receive. Each market and industry has a certain amount of searches per day.
These 3 variables can usually tell you if you’ll make money. An example is a client’s marketing plan we’ve been working on.
We’ll do this based on 10,000 visitors purchased.
20,000 visitors @ $.50 (CPC) = $10,000.
20,000 visits at 1.5% conversion rate = 300 orders.
300 orders X $340 (average order) = $102,000 in sales.
$102,000 (total sales) X .30 (30% profit margin) = $30,600 profit.
Well, the numbers don’t lie. That’s a lot of money to make. Yes, it was a $10,000 investment but it was a 300% return! This is how you make money. The saying “you have to spend money to make money” is the first thing ever business man and business woman knows. PPC is the perfect example.
The biggest thing to look at is whether or not you have a product with a decent profit margin. If you don’t, any advertising is tough. The next variable we need to take into consideration is the CPC. The cost per click is going to let us know if this is possible. If the most per click was $3 for the industry in the example above, PPC wouldn’t be profitable. As you see, it’s a science and not a guessing game. Guessing is expensive. Guessing loses our clients money.
The next step in pay per click optimization is looking at the conversation rate. A 3% conversion rate in the example above would yield results that would be out of the world. Huge numbers. The numbers we’d all like to see. The way to achieve a conversion rate above and beyond the industry average is to optimize the pay per click campaign. The way this is done is to remove keyword that are not converting, run ads move often during times that visitors purchase the most and be sure clients are being driven to the page on the website that converts on the highest level for the keyword. This is done through constantly monitoring and updating the campaign. Creating powerful landing page for specific keywords that have clear calls of action (COA) is also a very important step.
Remember, spending money to make money is necessary, but spend wisely. If you’d like help in creating a successful PPC campaign, contact us.
The Importance of Online Video – Social Media and Conversions
Lately we’ve been working on and developing multiple videos and rich media presentations for various applications and I felt I’d be beneficial to discuss some of the benefits video can bring to the table and what we’ve seen happening. I believe video is the best way to quickly educate a visitor on your service or product, but it also has a lot of value in other respects.
For many of who run (or advertise) eCommerce websites / online stores or even a serviced based business, it’s not always easy for the owners or partners to meet with each client and give your customers the warm feeling that you’re there for them and you genuinely care about them. Online video is the perfect way to say “hello”, introduce your company and build that personal connection. The personal touch may be a larger benefit to a service based business while product demo may be more powerful for the eCommerce industry.
Working with Germ Guardian on their most recent site launch we not only developed a custom eCommerce website, but also put together a rich media piece that incorporate a presentation and also has video embedded. The rich media piece has been used on their website but will also be featured on Cosco, Lowes, Walmart and other various outlets in which they sell. Within days of the launch we saw the presentation almost double their sales of the featured product. Why? Because a buyer wants to know what they are getting into. They want to lear all they can about the product and we need to make them excited!
Keeping a visitor on your website and engaging them in one of the toughest parts to developing any website and we’ve found that video make it much easier to accomplish that at a high level. Simply offering video on the homepage will often double the time a visitor may spend on that page and in the end increase your conversion rate. As we all know, in the end it’s about the conversion rate! Below are a few tips to consider when developing an online video:
- Be to the point. If the video drag on too long your visitor may lose interest. Say what you need to say or show what you need to show in order for someone to make the decision of buying from you or requesting more information. I believe product demo should be short while a company introduction or overview may be longer.
- Quality is Key. We’ve all seen the attempts at web video that look like they were shot on a web cam. If the video is not as professional or as high of quality as your products or services, don’t use it! Spending the money on professional video recording is the best money spent.
- Brand it well. When shoot and editing the video be sure to include contact information at the end, your website address and of course your logo. Use company colors throughout and be sure there is a call to action (purchasing, calling, filling out a quote request, etc.)
- Share it! Once your video is done it may have a powerful impact on social media sites, You Tube and all over the web. Don’t put the video on your website and no where else. You have it, show it!
What is Web 2.0 and How Does it Work?
Many clients ask about Web 2.0 features as they have heard this phrase before and of course, it sounds like the latest and greatest. In some ways, it is. Web 2.0 can be very complicated or can be basic, clean and easy. Our goal in using Web 2.0, especially within eCommerce design, may be a little different than some of the over-the-top Web 2.0 sites.
How Web 2.0 works in eCommerce design and development: When designing an eCommerce website we look at the user experience. The question we try to answer is “how could the user experience be easier and quicker?” The goal of any eCommerce site is to get a visitor from point A to point B (ordering). If Web 2.0 features are distracting than it can hurt your site and send visitors in the wrong direction. An interesting navigation is great, but would you rather a user play with a navigation for 5 mintutes or learn more about your products? Website visitors have a certain amount of time to purchase an the quicker you can get them through the order process the better! We often use Web 2.0 and AJAX to load content without the page reloading. This is one of the most effective ways to use these features to make the experience easier. When going from one tab to another, for example, the tabs content can reload but not the whole page. When options are choosen on a products (red shirt, green shirt) the product image can change or fade to the next color. These basic, but effective, Web 2.0 features will give you site the edge needed to boost sales.
Flash or Web 2.0? A lot of elements or interactivity that was acomplished through the use of Flash is now accomplish through Web 2.0 development. Sliding navigation, fading images, roating photos and interactive experiences can be developed without the use of Flash. What the benefit? One, Flash is not always installed on all computers. If a visitor does not have Flash installed those elements will not dispaly for the visitor. If your navigation is in Flash, you’ve just lost a customer. Web 2.0 features do not include 3rd party programs to run (Flash does) and it will also allow the search engines to easily read all of the content within your site. eCommerce Search engine optimization is one of our key services and we always want to be sure everything we develop will be found by the search engines.
If you’d like to see some Web 2.0 examples check out Moo Tools. This will show you some basic functions that Web 2.0 Javascript can accomplish: http://demos111.mootools.net/
