Published on November 4th, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
The bounce rate is one of the most important metrics you can track for new visitors to your website. You might have heard the term “bounce rate” in the context of email marketing but that’s not what I’m talking about. When it comes to tracking visitor quality of your online store, the bounce rate is a measure of how many people leave your website and never come back after viewing just one page.
In this video I’ll explain how you can track your visitor bounce rate, how you can see the bounce rate of your competitors and some strategies you can use to reduce your bounce rate if it’s classified as high (which to me is typically 60% or more).
This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Published on October 22nd, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
Depending on what you sell, Twitter can be a good way to reach potential customers and improve relationships with existing ones. If you’re a one man show then it makes sense to spend 5 minutes a day on Twitter finding conversations which are happening about your online brand, jumping in to address any questions if appropriate.
In this video I’ll share with you 5 simple strategies you can use to increase your online sales using Twitter. Now, keep in mind that Twitter is generally better at building good will with potential customers so you might not see an immediate boost in sales, but done regularly over the period of a few months you will see results, especially if you track the links you post on Twitter.
The tips I share in these videos are:
Share useful content every day
Participate in conversations about your brand
Link to your Twitter profile from your contact page
Reuse and repurpose testimonials found on Twitter
Post coupons or special deals exclusively on Twitter
This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Published on October 22nd, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
If you’re on a limited marketing budget for your online store then one excellent way to drive targeted traffic to your website is to become a guest blogger on blogs related to what you sell. In this video I’ll teach you how it’s done, and if you can dedicate just a few hours each week to writing a few posts you’ll be amazed at how much free traffic it can bring!
This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Published on October 22nd, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
If you’re just starting out selling online then of course your most valuable asset is your customer list. But if you’re currently at zero customers then how can you grow your list to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of customers? The key is to start with a solid marketing plan.
Depending on your budget there are different marketing strategies you can use to drive people to your online store. If you’re on a limited budget then Google AdWords and a solid email marketing strategy to repeat buyers is a good start. If you’ve got a larger marketing budget you can reach a mass-market audience through radio, TV, direct mail and wide-reaching online advertising campaigns.
In this video I explain what a marketing plan is, how to personify your typical customer, how to find where they spend time both online and off, and how to use both traditional and creative marketing strategies to attract them to your online store. This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Keyword proximity is a measure of one keyword’s position in relation to the others. It’s used in search engine optimization (SEO) to create page titles which can help your online store rank highly in Google and the other search engines.
In this video I explain keyword proximity from scratch and give you real, concrete examples of how improving your keyword proximity can increase your rankings in the search engines, therefore driving more traffic to your online store. Keyword proximity is quite an advanced topic, so if you’re new to SEO then you may want to bookmark this video and come back when you’ve learned the basics.
If your online store has been around for a while and you want to improve your search rankings, an improvement to your keyword proximity might be exactly what you need to climb up the SERPs. This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Published on September 19th, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
If you don’t offer free shipping from your online store then you’re missing out on a substantial amount of revenue. While you might initially think that offering free shipping will erode most or even all of the profit in the order, I can tell you that it wont – if you use the simple formula and strategy I’ll share with you in this video.
Using free shipping as a motivator for customers to buy from you can help increase your average order value by up to 30% in just a few short months. You simply need to workout your average order value, your average shipping cost, and offer free shipping on your average order value + 10%, or whichever amount covers your average shipping cost and provides enough of a profit to slightly increase your average order value.
If you repeat this process every 3-4 weeks, your average order value will increase by 30% or more in just a few months. The basic idea here is that a certain percentage of your customers will be willing to spend more with you on each transaction in order to “trigger” the free shipping option you setup. This creates a win-win situation: your customers get free shipping and you increase your average order value resulting in a better bottom line for your business.
This video is the fourth of many which we’ll be publishing on our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Published on September 13th, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
All online marketing budgets should include a significant budget for Google AdWords. If you understand how to create effective ads that attract the right audience and a high click-thru rate, you can easily generate a 100% or more return on investment for every dollar you spend. In this video I’ll share with you a formula you can use to create highly effective Google AdWords ads.
Don’t let the simplicity of the formula fool you, however. The formula has been proven by thousands of successful online marketers and works extremely well in the B2C space, so if you sell products such as t-shirts, makeup or computers primarily to non-business users from your online store then you should be able to use this formula to generate a great ROI from Google AdWords.
In the video I mention that you don’t need an SEM (Search Engine Marketing) company charging you thousands of dollars a month to create or man your Google AdWords campaigns. You can do it yourself, especially if you’re just starting out. It’s not hard, and once you learn the basics you’ll have everything you need to get started. The key is to ALWAYS monitor your ads and split test no more than two different versions of your ad at once.
You can then take the best performing ad, tweak it and test those tweaks. This way you can slowly but surely increase your conversion rate over the period of a few short months. It’s worked for us countless times and I know it will work for you, so give it a try.
This video is the third of many which we’ll be publishing on our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Published on September 8th, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
When it comes to selling your products online the first thing you need is the ability to accept and process payments via credit card. There are two ways to go about getting started – you can either apply for your own merchant account through a bank or use an online payment provider such as PayPal or Google Checkout.
If you’re looking to get started quickly then PayPal or Google Checkout might be the best option, however they typically attract a higher transaction fee (around 3-5%) than using your own merchant account.
If you’re a little more patient or expect to process a large amount of orders through your online store then having your own merchant account is the best solution. You’ll pay a low transaction fee of around 1-2% per order and you’ll get paid directly into your bank account. We provide merchant accounts which allow you to accept credit cards online for a low rate of 2.10% + $17/month. You’ll get an all-in-one solution which integrates with BigCommerce in 3 clicks. It will also allow you to process payments for phone orders, so it’s definintely worth considering if you’re in the market for a merchant account.
In the video above I go into more detail about each option and give you some other points to consider so you can decide if a merchant account is the right choice for you, or if you might be better off using a third party payment option like PayPal or Google Checkout.
This video is the second of many which we’ll be publishing on our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
Published on September 6th, 2009 by Mitchell Harper
Return on Investment (or ROI for short) is a tool you can use to measure the success of your marketing campaigns. As an online retailer, it’s critical you know which campaigns are performing so you don’t fall prey to the old saying “50% of advertising works and 50% doesn’t. I’m just not sure which half is which.”
In the video above I discuss return on investment. I’ll teach you what it is, why it matters and how – in combination with your sales cycle – you can track your ROI for every marketing campaign you run. This will lead to more profitable marketing campaigns for your business, whether it’s Google AdWords, email marketing, postcards or TV ads.
If you’re actively involved in tracking marketing campaigns then you may already understand the concepts presented in this video. If not, it’s a good grounding for basic marketing theory which you can put in to practice – and which we’ve used to runs successful marketing campaigns both online and off, with conversion rates of up to 27% and an ROI of over 1,200%.
This video is the first of many which we’ll be publishing on our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
About This Blog
The BigCommerce Ecommerce Blog is written by Mitchell Harper, co-founder of BigCommerce ecommerce software and e-commerce expert, having sold both physical and digital goods online to over 50,000 customers since 2001.
This ecommerce blog includes proven tips, tricks and strategies to help you sell more online and use our ecommerce software to launch your very own online store.
Make sure you grab the RSS feed so you never miss a post - and please feel free to leave comments or questions.
The BigCommerce Ecommerce Blog is written by Mitchell Harper, co-founder of BigCommerce