Ecommerce Blog

Announcing Our New Marketing Site for Small Business, ChiliFries.com

Published on June 29th, 2011 by Mitchell Harper

Guess what – we’ve been working on a new content website for the last few months and today is launch day!

The new site is called ChiliFries.com and it was created to help you become an expert at Internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and e-commerce!

Our new website is updated regularly with fresh content and will teach you:

  • Search engine optimization
  • Search engine marketing
  • Social media marketing
  • E-Commerce strategy
  • On-site merchandising
  • Public relations
  • Conversion optimization

… and lots of other tips, tricks, strategies and ideas which you can use to either start a new e-commerce business or grow your existing e-commerce business faster than you thought possible.

Go to ChiliFries.com

View the press release here

P.S. Really important – make sure you like ChiliFries on Facebook and follow ChiliFries on Twitter so you don’t miss a post!

P.P.S. Become part of the ChiliFries community by leaving comments on a few posts you like. It’s fast, easy and is a great way to meet like-minded business owners.

[Video] Dropshipping & E-Commerce 101 From Our Friends At Ordoro

Published on June 23rd, 2011 by Mitchell Harper

If you’re just getting started with e-commerce, then dropshopping can help you source and sell thousands of products – without ever having to store or buy your own inventory. In this video Naruby from Ordoro (a great multi-channel dropshipping solution that, of course, integrates with BigCommerce) does a great job explaining the basics of dropshipping.

She explains the 3 simple steps involved in setting up your own online store with full dropshipping capabilities using BigCommerce and Ordoro. Definitely worth watching if you’re more interested in making (lots of) sales than buying, storing and shipping your own products.

New Webinar Series: How to Use Facebook, eBay, SEO and Free Tools to Skyrocket Your Traffic

Published on June 7th, 2011 by Mitchell Harper

Overview: New advanced webinar series
Title: How to Use Facebook, eBay, SEO and Free Tools to Skyrocket Your Traffic
When? 1pm CDT on Thursday, June 9th (See this in your time zone)
Register: Click here to register (limited spots available)


We already run regular webinars that teach the basics of e-commerce and BigCommerce, but today I’m happy to announce that we’re adding a third series to our already popular webinars.

Lead by certified BigCommerce design partner and e-commerce experts Madwire Media, How to Use Facebook, eBay, SEO and Free Tools to Skyrocket Your Traffic is our latest webinar series and the first webinar kicks off at 1pm CDT on Thursday, June 9th (see this in your time zone).

So, what will you learn during this free webinar? Here’s a taste:

  • Easy SEO strategies to dominate your competition on Google
  • How to use Facebook to drive traffic and sales
  • How to generate and submit your sitemap to Google
  • How to push your products to eBay as auction or BIN
  • How to drive huge traffic using Google Product feeds
  • How to improve your SERPs using Google and Bing webmaster tools
  • How to track your marketing using Google Analytics
  • Tools to increase your search engine ranking and traffic

Click here to register (limited spots available)

Archived Webinar: eCommerce Tips for Displaying Trust, Effective Store Design and Better SEO

Published on April 30th, 2011 by Mitchell Harper

A few weeks ago I announced that Madwire Media, one of our certified design partners, would be working with us to launch a new webinar series called “eCommerce Tips for Displaying Trust, Effective Store Design and Better SEO”. Well, the first webinar took place last Wednesday and was a massive success – over 600 people attended the webinar!

For those of you who couldn’t make the live broadcast, we’ve created an archived version of the webinar which you can watch whenever you like. Just click the image at the top of this post to watch it – and make sure you share the webinar on Facebook or Twitter because it contains a lot of FANTASTIC information to help you drive more traffic and get more sales from your BigCommerce store.

New Webinar Series: eCommerce Tips for Displaying Trust, Effective Store Design and Better SEO

Published on April 16th, 2011 by Mitchell Harper

Overview: New advanced webinar series
Title: eCommerce Tips for Displaying Trust, Effective Store Design and Better SEO
When? 1pm CST on April 27th (See this in your time zone)
Register: Click here to register (limited spots available)

We already run regular webinars that teach the basics of e-commerce and BigCommerce, but today I’m happy to announce that we’re adding a second series to our already popular webinars.

Lead by certified BigCommerce design partner and e-commerce experts Madwire Media, eCommerce Tips for Displaying Trust, Effective Store Design and Better SEO is our latest webinar series and the first webinar kicks off at 1pm CST on April 27th (see this in your time zone).

I’ve been lucky enough to watch a test-run of this webinar and the content is excellent, so this is definitely one webinar you don’t want to miss. We were very selective in choosing the right partner to run our new webinars, and JB and his team at Madwire have done a phenomenal job of organizing the webinar based around their real world experience and customer case studies.

So, what will you learn? Here’s a taste:

  • Easy SEO strategies to dominate your competition on Google
  • How and why to display trust and credibility indicators
  • Effective store design and layout principles and examples
  • How to choose an effective domain name that increases sales
  • The effects a professional logo can have on your conversion rate
  • The importance of product reviews and how they factor into the sales process
  • How to design an effective home page layout for maximum conversions
  • Real world strategies to lower your visitor bounce rate
  • Tools to increase your search engine ranking and traffic

Click here to register (limited spots available)

Free Guide: 20 Proven Ways to Jump Start Your Online Sales

Published on February 7th, 2011 by Mitchell Harper

eBook: 20 Proven Ways to Jump Start Your Online Sales

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If you’re just getting started with e-commerce then it can be a bit daunting to know what to do once you’ve added products to your BigCommerce store. Do you run Google AdWords? Should you hire an SEO consultant? This is a question we hear a lot, so Luke (our ninja technical writer) and I decided to team up and write a guide for you.

In 20 Proven Ways to Jump Start Your Online Sales we share 20 simple, fast and (mostly) free strategies you can implement right now to boost traffic to your BigCommerce store. The goal here is to get your first order in the next few days and then build up from there.

Like anything worth doing, it can take time to receive your first order. But hang in there – it will happen. After receiving your first order, you’ll soon get your second, third, fourth and before you know it you’ll be receiving multiple orders a day.

These strategies are simple but extremely effective. Here’s a list of the strategies in the free guide – each is broken down into actionable steps complete with videos and/or step-by-step tutorials to guide you through the specific action items:

  1. Integrate Google Analytics with your online store
  2. Submit your products to Google Merchant Center
  3. Setup your shipping FAQ & returns policy page
  4. Submit your online store to all free directories
  5. Create a fan page on Facebook and setup SocialShop
  6. Link to your Facebook page from your online store
  7. Share your Facebook page with friends
  8. Setup integrations with Shopzilla, PriceGrabber, etc
  9. Setup your home page title, META keywords and description
  10. Add your page title, META keywords and description for products
  11. Add keyword rich descriptions to all product photos
  12. Make sure your product pages are filled out completely
  13. Create an “About Us” page with your store and photos
  14. Announce the launch of your store in related forums
  15. Get a 1800 phone number and add it to your website
  16. Setup and use free live chat software
  17. Setup your “Contact Us” page
  18. Create targeted link exchanges
  19. Setup email marketing with Mailchimp
  20. Run mutli-variate tests Google Website Optimizer

Click here to download our free guide: 20 Proven Ways to Jump Start Your Online Sales

[Video] 3 Tools to Improve the Conversion Rate of Your Website

Published on December 10th, 2010 by Mitchell Harper

In this video I discuss 3 tools designed to help increase the conversion rate of your website.

First up is HelloBar which allows you to add a toolbar to your website which can encourage visitors to sign up to your email list, Facebook page, etc. You simply choose the color of the bar, type in the text you want to appear and specify the link. Dead simple but super effective.

Next is KissInsights which allows you to include a floating question box on your website to ask visitors questions at certain points during the checkout/browsing process. You can then take these questions and include answers in your FAQ page or use them to improve the flow of your checkout process.

Finally, Visual Website Optimizer allows you to run multi-variate tests on your website. Tests can be created using a simple point-and-click WYSIWYG tool and it’s not uncommon to improve your conversion rate by 10% or more simply by testing different headlines, buttons and banners.

P.S. BigCommerce.tv is now live. It’s a quick shortcut that takes you straight to my YouTube guru channel.

Top 10 BigCommerce Blog Posts of 2010

Published on November 19th, 2010 by Mitchell Harper

I was looking over our traffic reports in Google Analytics earlier today and saw that our blog now gets close to 50,000 unique visits a month! I was also able to pull posts in order of popularity, so here they are – the top 10 most viewed posts for 2010:

  1. Presentation: Bootstrapping to Seven Figures – This is a presentation I gave just once to about 3,000 business owners via webinar. In the presentation I run through the guerilla marketing and positioning strategies we’ve used to grow our e-commerce platform, BigCommerce, to just under 10,000 clients without any funding or debt in just over a year.
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  2. How to: Promote Your Business on TV In Front of Thousands of Potential Customers for $100 With Google TV Ads – This post is even more relevant now that Google TVs are starting to hit the market. Right from your Google AdWords account you can create a TV advertising campaign for around $100 and start reaching potential customers in under 24 hours. This post explains how.
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  3. [Video] How to Spy on Your Competitors Keywords, Traffic & Visitor Demographics -  In this video I show you how you can use two free tools to see how much traffic your competitors get, which keywords they rank for on Google and also the age, income, location, etc of their visitors. You can then use this information in your SEO, SEM and marketing campaigns.
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  4. Innovation in the Cloud – 10 Game Changing SaaS Applications – In this post I talk about 10 innovative software applications which are making the move from desktop to cloud easier and faster for consumers and businesses.
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  5. How to Write a Profitable Returns Policy – In this post I look at a few things which should be included in your returns policy. Returns policies are extremely important when selling online. If you sell expensive products or if you’re a new store looking to build up your customer base quickly, the best thing you can offer new customers is a lenient returns policy.
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  6. Would You Spend 10 Cents to Almost Guarantee Repeat Customers? – By thinking outside the box it’s easy to impress the hell out of new customers. In this post I share one real world example that a crafty Australian tea company is using to get the word out about their brand – at weekend markets of all places.
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  7. Head to Head: Product Page Design From Top Online Retailers – In this post I share, compare and discuss screenshots of product pages from sixteen of the top online retailers. You will of course notice a lot of similarities on their product pages, but I’m sure you’ll also notice a lot of small differences. All of the best practices implemented by these top online retailers can be found in BigCommerce.
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  8. [Video] 6 Tips for Designing a Beautiful Online Store – In this video I share six tips to help you design a beautiful online store which will attract customers and increase your conversion rate. If you’re not a designer but are thinking about hiring an ecommerce website designer then this video will help you make the decision.
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  9. [Video] How to Build a Loyal Fan Base Who Buy From You on Facebook – In this video I explain why setting up a Facebook fan page for your business is so important. I show you the steps involved and discuss how Facebook’s viral effect can attract thousands of people to your business for no cost at all. I also discuss SocialShop, our free Facebook application.
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  10. How to Track Visitors and Sales From Facebook and Twitter Using Google Analytics – Using Google Analytics to track visitors can be tricky. In this post I teach you how to track visitors from Facebook and Twitter in a simple, step-by-step fashion, complete with screenshots.

Our blog is now one of the 10 most popular e-commerce blogs in the world, so thank you to everyone who keeps coming back and also to everyone who takes the time to leave a comment. 927 comments were posted on the blog in 2010! If you’re new to the blog then make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed, fan us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter so you don’t miss a post!

[Video] The Magic Conversion Rate Formula

Published on October 20th, 2010 by Mitchell Harper

In this video I share my “Sales to Content” ratio which, if used correctly, can have a dramatic impact on the conversion rate of your online store.

The basic premise is simple: for every “sales” page on your website, you need to have at least two pieces of content that help establish trust, credibility and respect with your potential customers. Watch the video to learn which particular types of content work best.

Presentation: Bootstrapping to Seven Figures by BigCommerce Co-Founder Mitchell Harper

Published on August 19th, 2010 by Mitchell Harper

If you haven’t already guessed, I’m big on educating people. A few weeks back I put together a presentation called “Bootstrapping to Seven Figures” which took me about a week to create.

Basically it contains the core ideas and strategies we’ve used to build our company to over 50,000 clients and high seven figures in yearly revenue. I shared my presentation with around 3,000 people on a webinar I did recently for one of our design partners and was blown away by the response – I even managed to score two marriage proposals before I was done!

Anyway, I wanted to share the exact same presentation with you, our loyal clients. If you’ve just started your business and you’re looking for a way to grow your sales to $1,000,000 within 12 months then this is it.

I’ve broken my presentation up into four videos, each of which is embedded below – the entire presentation runs for around 40 minutes. It contains absolutely no sales pitch (I HATE pitches) – just good, honest advice based on my experiences building Interspire (the parent company of BigCommerce) to what it is today with co-founder Eddie Machaalani and our awesome team.

The presentation I used in the video is also embedded at the bottom of this blog post.

Part 1 of 4:

Part 2 of 4:

Part 3 of 4:

Part 4 of 4:

The Presentation I Refer To In The Videos Above

Download it here

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