Your store on your blog

Look on the right side of this page. See the "E-commerce solutions" section with the ProductCart logos? It's here not to promote my company (I promise), but rather to show you a (cool) little tool that we recently developed at Early Impact.

It allows you to very easily and quickly take some products from your store catalog, and show them on your blog (or other Web pages not related to your store).

• If you are a ProductCart user, learn more here about the E-Commerce Widget For Blogs
• If you don't use ProductCart, ask your e-commerce provider if they have something similar or if they can create it in the near future. It's not that difficult to design and it can be quite helpful.

How it works
For the techies out there: we like Adobe's SPRY framework for AJAX quite a bit and our E-commerce Widget for Blogs was created leveraging SPRY. Among other things, the built-in pagination is really cool, in my view (the widget on this page has 2 pages, for example).

Blogging and e-commerce
If you have a Web store, and still don't have a blog, consider adding one. Blogging can help you grow sales in a variety of ways, from better organic search engine rankings (search engines typically love blogs since they're mostly text), to further establishing yourself as a go-to place in your industry, to creating a more personal relationship with your customers.

Tips & Tricks: E-mail to sale: can you track it?

When it comes to marketing your e-commerce store, there is little doubt that understanding where your sales come from is key. Key to investing your marketing dollars as effectively as you can. Key to understanding what works and what doesn't (e.g. web pages, e-mail messages, etc.).

Web to sale
Google Analytics, by allowing you to integrate the e-commerce portion of your Web site into your Web statistics, does a nice job in trying to associate Web sources and sales. That is: if your shopping cart can communicate to Google Analytics that a sale occurred, you can then see which keywords entered in a search engine, for instance, turned into orders on your storefront.

This is really important information. For instance, you can focus on optimizing the landing pages that those keywords lead to in an attempt to reduce the bounce rate and increase the sales that come from those visits.

E-mail to sale
What about the large amount of visitors to your store for whom a program like Google Analytics cannot detect where they are coming from? It's typically a lot of unique visitors. What can you do to try to understand how they ended up on your Web site? Was it just word of mouth or marketing dollars you spent, for example?

Take all the e-mail marketing you do. A monthly newsletter, for instance. Or a e-mail promotion run through a third party. Many times those links simply do not contain enough information for your Web statistics program to understand where the corresponding clicks came from.

Luckily, you can rather easily add more information to the links and track them much more effectively.

Meet the URL Builder
If you - like many - use Google Analytics, one thing that you might not have heard of is the URL Builder. It's a simple Web page that helps you add meaningful, trackable information to your links.

Detailed instructions on how to use the URL Builder are available at the bottom of the page.

A tool like this can be really helpful. It can tell Google Analytics that your "April 2008 e-mail newsletter" - for example - triggered a certain amount of visits to your store. Once the traffic source is known, it's then used for all sorts of other statistics. So if any of those visits turn into a sale, Google Analytics will show it to you in the e-commerce reports.

Spend a bit more time preparing your links with a tool like the Google Analytics URL Builder whenever you send an e-mail to existing or new customers. You'll be surprised of how much more information you'll be able to learn from the clicks that originate from the mailing.

Targeted stores work

An article I recently read about NetShops caught my eye. In case you don't know them, NetShops is a company that runs over 200 very targeted Internet stores.

Each store is totally focused on a specific niche. Are you looking for a coffee table? There's a store just for that. Don't know where to put your bottles of wine? There's a store that is dedicated to wine racks. Tired and need a break? Head to the hammocks store.

Their strategy has proven very successful, and they keep adding new, niche-oriented stores to their portfolio.

When I first started blogging, the reason for it was mostly that I wanted to point out something that I see over and over on my job: Internet retailers that focus on a niche - if they know their stuff - will be successful. If they are not focused, or forget to stay on track, they have a much harder time.

There are many reasons why this is the case. If you have a few minutes, go back to The niche is the trick (first part) and The niche is the trick (second part) for more on the subject.

The story is not going to change in 2008. If anything, social networking (the idea of people coming together on the Net based on something they have in common) will make this even more true. Stay focused on what you know best. Become more and more the "go to" Web site in your niche (or at least one of them). It will pay off.

Some ideas:

- First and foremost: write good copy for your Web site, keep it current and make sure it is effectively indexed. Your home page should contain some of it, and change regularly to link to the new articles you have written. Those articles should link to products and categories in your store. Basic, extremely effective search engine optimization, without doing anything special.

- Create a community around your store by allowing visitors to write product reviews, post on a forum, and maybe even collaborate on a wiki. These are all things that have become quite easy and inexpensive to implement.

- If you haven't already done so, start a blog on the subject, then link to it from your main Web site.

- Consider attending industry trade-shows. Start small, see if the ROI is there. Given the cost of Internet marketing these days, spending a few thousand dollars on target offline marketing might turn out being money well spent.

And if your Web store ends up being one of the leaders in your niche, NetShops might even write you a check :-)

Tips & Tricks: Using a custom Google search engine on your Web store

Google recently started marketing a pretty interesting tool called "Custom Search Business Edition". Let's take a look at what it is and how it could help your e-commerce store.

What is it?

It'a a Google-powered search engine for your Web site. What does this mean? In a nutshell:

• You can add a search form anywhere on your Web site (e.g. on every page, at the top)
• The results come from Google's index (fast, good results)
• You can define the "portion" of the Google index that the results come from
• The search results can be an integral part of your Web site, with no ads

For example, here is a search for "Google Checkout" on our Early Impact Web site. Notice that the results include both static content (e.g. Web pages, PDF files) and dynamic content (Knowledge Base articles). The results are framed within our Web site interface.

Pricing

This service has been part of Google for a while. What's new is that now you can get an ad-free, cheap version of Google, seamlessly blended into your Web site design. Pricing right now is as follows, based on the number of pages that are being searched:

• Up to 5,000 web pages: $100 per year
• Up to 50,000 web pages: $500 per year
• Up to 100,000 web pages: $850 per year
• Up to 300,000 web pages: $2250 per year

About the search index

A custom Google search engine is a subset of the whole system. Results in the custom search engine exist in Google. You cannot "add" content to the index. You can only filter it so that results that exist in the Google search engine do not come up in your custom version of it. In other words: your custom version of Google is a filtered version of the Google index. Filtered so that it only returns results that you want to show (e.g. only pages that contain your Web site URL).

Getting your store pages to come up in the results

Your store catalog pages (e.g. categories and products) will come up in the results only if they have been indexed by Google. So make sure that Google is building a good index of your store pages.

This article is not the right place to talk about good search engine optimization for your Web site. That said, the approach to getting your store properly indexed is probably known to you by now: use a store map, a Google sitemap, and lots of Well-designed, text-rich static pages to link to your catalog.

In fancier terms: build a lot of link popularity for your category and product pages within your Web site. If you do, you can be almost positive that all of those pages will be found and indexed by a search engine spider.

Why it can help your e-commerce store

Your shopping cart software already has a search feature. I'm sure that's the case. It could be more or less sophisticated, but it's there. The issue is that the search feature included in your e-commerce system typically only searches your store catalog, not the rest of your Web site. What about your forum, knowledge base, regular HTML pages, blogs, etc. etc.?

Could a search that includes those documents help? Could you convert more sales if customers were able to search all of that content? Search is king, they say. That's true on your Web site too. Many studies show that a majority of visitors to a Web site are likely to use the search feature, if it's there.

Since the cost of adding this Google service to your online business is rather low, I would give it a try.

But how can you easily combined the custom Google search engine with your other search feature? Here is a simple suggestion for quick implementation. I'm sure that a much fancier integration of the two could be done, but let's keep things simple and "non-technical" for now.

Combining a Custom Google Search Engine with your e-commerce search form

Again, this is just a suggestion for quick implementation. If you have access to a good developer, they can probably use the API that Google has made available for the custom search service to get a much fancier integration implemented on your Web store.

What I am suggesting is that you alter the advanced search page provided by your e-commerce software to include both the Google Custom Search form and the rest of the search filters. That way you can offer your store visitors a way to either perform a generic Web site search or a more specific store search. The latter will typically have more search filters available (more or less advanced based on how sophisticated your shopping cart software is).

Here is a visual example of this approach. The search form for the Custom Google Search engine is at the top. Technically speaking, the page contains 2 HTML forms.

I hope this helps you convert more store visitors into customers!

Tips & Tricks: avoid security warnings

Does your store use SSL? Probably so. If the answer is "yes", then here is something that you should really try to avoid: security warnings. I see them way, way too often. And they are quite easy to avoid.

What's a security warning? It's an alert window shown to your customers whenever the browser detects that something on the page is not secure, but the URL is a secure one (https). I'm sure you've seen a security warning many times. It looks like this:



It bugs you (and maybe scares you) when you see it... and it bugs your customers too.

How can you make sure your store is free of security warnings? It's actually rather simple. You need to ensure that your Web site does not load any element over the HTTP protocol. If you are loading a page element (e.g. images, CSS and JavaScript files, etc.) using an absolute location (i.e. full URL), you must use the HTTPS protocol. For example, there should be no src="http://... on your page, but rather only src="https://

Where to look? Here are the common culprits:

• Google Analytics (or another, remotely hosted Web statistics service)
  Make sure that the code snippet that you grab from your Google Analytics account is the HTTPS version, and not the HTTP one. I've seen a lot of store owners make this mistake, because Google by default gives you the HTTP version. The same is true if you are using a service other than Google Analytics. They pretty much always allows you obtain a secure version of the piece of code to be placed on your page.
  
  
• Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing conversion tracking
  Same thing here. Make sure you get the HTTPS version of your Pay-Per-Click conversion tracking code. Typically this code ends up on the last page of the checkout process, so the bugging security alert won't prevent customers from ordering (they've already placed the order). Still, it just doesn't look good :-)
  
  
• CSS and JS files
  If you are loading an external stylesheet or a JavaScript file, which happens pretty often, make sure that the URL that points to the file uses HTTPS. If you use relative links, you're never wrong (i.e. place those files in a folder on your Web server so that you can just point to them using a link such as src="styles/myStyle.css" instead of src="http://www.anotherWebSite.com/styles/myStyle.css")
  
  
• Flash elements
  If you have any Adobe (Macromedia) Flash elements on your page, make sure that the code that is added to the page by Dreamweaver or another HTML editor to handle the Flash file does not contain HTTP URLs. It often does.

So check your site (or have your Web designer double-check his/her work). Remove those security warnings: no reason to give your customers one more reason not to stay on your Web store!

Google Checkout: should you add it to your store as a payment option?

Well... yes. Here is why.

By now you're probably familiar with Google Checkout. If not, read the intro on Google, and buy something using this service to really see first-hand how it works.

As an Internet shopper, it makes sense to me to be able to just log into my Google account and shop at different stores without having to re-register. It also makes sense to me to be able to hide my e-mail address from the merchant. On the other side, I don't like the idea that the folks at Google know about every product that I have purchased and where. Hey, good and bad like with anything else.

Why do you need to add it to your store as a payment option? The reason is that this is not the right question. The right question is... why not?

Google has huge pockets, so they are marketing their new payment system in a way that is as aggressive as you could ever imagine. They are paying ecommerce software developers to include it in their products (which we at Early Impact did in the fall), they are paying customers to use it (rebates on first purchase available at many stores), and they are giving merchants free transaction processing for 2007 (so you save around 2% * sales, compared with the same sales processed via another payment gateway).

PayPal is reacting to this by more aggressively marketing their competing service, called PayPal Express. Still, Google Checkout is quickly gaining marketshare (see JP Morgan study that says that it had around 6% in 2006, but it's probably much higher now).

Note, the service has many limitations: no batch processing, limited functionality when it comes to shipping calculations, not available outside of the US, and many others. Check with your shopping cart software publisher to see the exact limitations that apply to your software (if you are a ProductCart user, see Using Google Checkout with ProductCart).

If you are looking for a shopping cart that is compatible with Google Checkout, here is the current list.

My suggestion: activate it on your store. If it doesn't work for you, you can always turn it off. But why give customers a reason to shop elsewhere if they want to earn their bonus (currently $10) by using Google Checkout on your store?

And I'm sure that later in 2007 there will be many more customers that will want to use Google Checkout for all sorts of other creative reasons that Google will come up with. If I were you, I'd add it to the payment options.

The niche is the trick (second part)

In the first part of The niche is the trick I started making my point about why I strongly believe that small businesses should target a very specific market when embarking on an ecommerce project.

I talked about the first reason why I think this makes sense: when you build a store that goes after a niche market that you're an expert in, you're almost automatically gearing yourself up for better search engine rankings (and therefore more visits, customers, and sales). Go back to ONE: Niche = SEO to see if you agree.

Let's keep going. Here is the second reason why I think targeting a niche is key.

TWO: Niche = Your Budget
That is: targeting a niche is likely more compatible with your ecommerce budget. Ok, are we done with these cryptic paragraph titles? Not yet: I like them because they're easy to remember.

Anyway, here the point is that if you are a small business, you typically have a small business budget for your ecommerce store (if your uncle is a billionaire you can stop reading). So don't try to compete with Office Depot, Buy.com, or Macy's. It's much better (and more profitable) to sell 20 products and do it right, than trying to sell 20,000 products and do it poorly.

Why is this a budget matter? Because quite honestly running a store that features 20,000 products can require technology and human resources that are beyond your budget. Don't get me wrong: it can be done. There are many store that use our ProductCart shopping cart software or competing systems like X-Cart, MonsterCommerce, Storefront, etc. to sell thousands of products online. The businesses that do it right typically have years of experience in selling stuff online and find their way around technical limitations. But generally speaking, less is more!

You typically have $10,000 to spend on your online store (maybe less), not $1,000,000. There are many reasons why a small biz ecommerce Web site doesn't cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and "scalability" (big buzz word) is one of them.

Here are a few thoughts on why targeting a niche (and therefore a limited number of products) is more compatible with your budget:

• Content, content, content
  If you are a small business it's typically easier to compete on service than on price. Service on the Internet means - among other things - lots of good information for people to make good purchasing decisions. That's what your store visitors are looking for. It's hard for you to have the best price out there... and you don't have to be the cheapest guy around. As mentioned in Part 1, one of the ways to get people to come back to your store is definitely to have great content that they love to read. That is: become the "go to" Web site in your niche. And it's much more doable to write detailed product descriptions, articles, and "how-to's" when you're dealing with a manageable amount of products, rather than with 50,000 SKUs.
  
• Store management tools
  At Early Impact we have spent (and keep spending) a ton of time building into our ecommerce software tools that help businesses cut down on repeat tasks and be more productive. For example, in the latest version of our software we added AJAX-driven product search tools to most of the store management features, so you are rarely faced with ugly, long lists of products to sort through (e.g. adding quantity discounts to a product: search -> add discounts; adding product options to 5 products at once: search -> add options; etc.). Many of our competitors have done the same. Still, you should not expect from a small business ecommerce system the same scalability that you find in tools that cost 100 times as much (otherwise we'd charge the big bucks too!). Will your system help you effectively setup and manage cross-selling relationships among 20,000 products? Probably not. Keep that in mind.
  
• Performance
  Many small businesses don't have the budget to run their Web store on powerful, dedicated servers. The cost of doing so is coming down (which is great), but we still see the majority of our customers running their stores on shared Web hosting accounts. And, more importantly, on shared database servers where their store database is hanging out with dozens (sometimes hundreds) of other databases. Well, a storefront search against a database of 1,000 products is less demanding on the server than a search against the same database with 30,000 items.
  
• Expectations
  Your customers don't expect you to have the inventory found on a huge ecommerce store. If they need Staples, they're going to Staples, they're not coming to your store. They come to your store for other reasons: content, customer service, unique products (not in order of importance). They don't expect you to be Amazon, but they do expect you to be an expert in your field: good information, good advice, good products. It's like when I go buy wine at a small wine shop vs. a big grocery store. I'm looking for a good suggestion on a Napa Valley zinfandel (hey, we're in California), not a huge selection of 100 zinfandels: I don't care that they carry 100, but I do expect them to have picked a few good ones, and know all sorts of interesting details about them.

If you focus on a niche market, typically that means that you are focusing on a somewhat limited amount of products (not outdoor gear, but kayaking gear; not electronics, but smartphone accessories; not furniture, but teak patio furniture; etc.).

A store that carries a manageable amount of products is likely more compatible with the ecommerce tools you can afford and the human resources you can dedicate to running the shop. What "manageable" translates to depends on your experience running an online store and on the kind of products you are selling. My suggestion: start small (up to a few hundred products), then expand your product selection as your sales grow.

The niche is the trick (first part)

Small business ecommerce: it's amazing how literally hundreds of thousands of businesses all over the world, every day, sell their products and services using a tool that a decade ago virtually didn't exist. At Early Impact - the company that I co-founded several years ago - we have the privilege of seeing companies start from scratch and grow an online business, in a ton of different industries, selling all kinds of stuff, every day. It's truly fascinating... if you care at all about this ecommerce thing, that is.

This is my first post here. So let's not waste time and get right to it. The trick to being successful selling online is focusing on a niche. That's it. Focus on a niche market, and you chances of being successful go way up. Interested? Read on.

Targeting a niche means you don't sell office supplies: you sell sexy office supplies for women (in case you are wondering, that's a "real" target market: I didn't come up with it, the ladies at SeeJaneWork did - and they sell a ton of those pink binders!).

Focus, focus, focus. Narrow the list of products (or services) you want to sell. Become the expert. Become one of the gurus in your market. It'll pay off big time.

Let's dig deeper. Why is focusing on a niche so important? I'll give you 5 great reasons. Let's start with number one. Then I'm going to shut down the computer and read a book. And I'll add the other 4 (or maybe more) in future posts. No marketing trick to have you come back to this blog. I just can't write all that in one post.

ONE: Niche = SEO
What the heck is that? Target a niche, and - believe me - it'll help tremendously with your SEO efforts. SEO is an Internet buzzword that many of you know already. If you don't, it stands for Search Engine Optimization. That is: you'd better get your Web store to show up on search engines if you want to be successful.

Well, guess what? Focusing on a niche can be a crucial part of your search engine optimization strategy. Why? Because when you focus, you focus on something you know and care about.

So you'll write articles, product reviews, how-to guides, tips & tricks, frequently asked questions, maybe even a blog! And when you do that, you're working on the most important element of your SEO strategy: lots of quality, keyword-rich text for your Web pages.

Of course good search engine rankings are the result of a lot of other things. The structure of your Web site, the way your Web pages are written, the external (links from other domains) and internal (links within your site) popularity of your pages, etc. etc. But the truth is: good content triggers interest, which triggers links, which triggers visits, which trigger sales. I've seen it so many times. And even if you stop at the "trigger links" step, that's crucial, as you well know: get good quality incoming links, and your Web store will start climbing up in the search engine rankings.

Selling baby products is tough. That industry is crazy competitive. What about organic baby stuff? That sounds more doable if you are a small business with a limited marketing budget. The nice folks at Better For Babies really care about organic baby products: look at all the stuff they write on their Web site. Search for "organic diapers" on Google and they're in the top 10 results (at least when I checked :-). Can people read there and then shop elsewhere? Sure. But many will stay and shop. And the online store is very likely to grow and prosper. And that's exactly what we see happen over and over here at Early Impact.

So to recap: you are a small business, you've got an online store (or starting one) and a limited marketing budget. You've got to focus on a niche. One reason is that...

• You're likely going to focus on stuff you know and care about
• You've got the knowledge to add lots of good information to your Web store
• You'll naturally spend time adding all kinds of content that shows you know your stuff
• Your store visitors will like what they see... and search engines too!
• Niche = SEO

What do you think?

Number 2 comes in a few days...