Viralogy

A simple way to understand page rank, is to think about votes. In a voting system, with every vote that you get, you are slowly achieving more visibility and credibility. The more you get, the stronger you get. Similarly, page rank is a link analysis algorithm used my Google search engines that essentially tells how influential or ‘important’ a site is.

In relation to eCommerce sites, page rank can be especially important as it not only helps in search results, but it also is a way to gauge your sites influence among your competitors. While the actual algorithm that Google uses is not public, there are many ‘experts’ that like to chime in with their advice. (more…)

If you had to wait 30 minutes to get into a theme park would you still go? While there will still be people who say “yes,” the fact remains that no one likes waiting. Similar to how Speed Racer was the best because was the fastest out on the track, when it comes to shopping for something online, the same can be said. If an eCommerce site is slow in loading a page, they are risking losing a potential sale. In an age where consumers have more and more options when it comes to shopping online, making sure that your site is able to optimized to bring a user the best experience possible includes making sure that your site has fast load times.

If you take a look at some of the top eCommerce sites, page load times are in and around 3.5 seconds max:

eCommerce Site Load times

Amazon.com — 3.1 seconds               BlueNile.com — 2.8 seconds
Zappos.com  — 1.9 seconds                Borders.com — 3.5 seconds
Dell.com — 3.3 seconds                       Overstock.com — 2.6 seconds

If you notice that your eCommerce site is slow when loading pages, here are 5 ways that you can improve your sites page load times.

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When it comes to your eCommerce website, Search Engine Optimization is probably a term you’ve heard on more than one occasion. Along with that, you’ve also probably heard about making sure you are using meta descriptions and tags.

For an eCommerce business, there are many factors that account for one’s success. Among them is enabling your customers to find you and your products; meta descriptions and tags are exactly the ‘tools’ that allow you to do this.

What are meta descriptions and tags?

Before we jump into talking about some best practices regarding meta descriptions and tags, we should first answer the question of what meta descriptions and tags are.

Simply put, meta tags and descriptions tell search engines like Google information about your site as well as directions on your site. Your meta tags and descriptions can be found in the HTML of your site. Your meta tags and descriptions are invisible to visitors unless they decide to view your websites source code. (more…)

The user interface of an eCommerce store must be simple, clean, and user-friendly so that the shopper can easily navigate and browse the store.  If your shopper spends more time figuring out how to use your store, instead of browsing the shop looking at all of your great products, then the shopper will get frustrated and leave.

Reduce bounce rate, increase page-views and time on site, and increase conversions by following the 7 steps below to improve navigation usability for an eCommerce store:

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The main goal of the Shopping Cart is to allow the shopper to easily review the products in her cart, and encourage her to proceed through the Checkout process and make the payment. You need to close that sale.

Second in priority is increasing the average order value of a purchase through product recommendations, which can be done in two ways:

1. Demonstrate products that are complimentary to those in the shopping cart, with the goal of increasing the number of products purchased
   • Cross-sells are excellent: if a shopper has basketball shoes in his cart, then cross-sell an ankle brace or knee brace
2. Demonstrate products that are up-sells by showing similar items to those in the shopping cart that are more expensive
   • The up-sell will lead to an increase in average order value because the shopper pays for a more expensive item when she was looking to purchase a less expensive item

Product Recommendations are very important in the Shopping Cart because it allows you to always keep selling.  The biggest variables are the algorithm used to recommend products, the placement of the widget in the Shopping Cart, the wording of the widget, and the number of items displayed in the widget.  Our detailed analysis describes the optimal usage of each variable, and what pitfalls to avoid in the Product Recommendation process.

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The Checkout button must be clearly visible, large, trust-worthy, and attractive to encourage the shopper to take the final step toward making a purchase. Below you will find the top ten best Checkout buttons along with an in-depth analysis of what makes them excellent.

At the end of the page, we have included the .PSD to an optimized Checkout button that you can utilize for you eCommerce store.

1. Amazon

The number 1 retailer online should know a thing or two about optimizing for sales. The button is clean, easy-to-find, attractive, and to the point. Keep in mind, there is no “Trust” or “Security” marker on the Checkout button because Amazon is already to most trusted online retailer. Therefore, they don’t need to use extra space for a “Security” marker.

Our Analysis:

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For many eCommerce sites, one of the most commonly mentioned area that they wish they could improve is where they lie in search engine results. While it would be great to just snap your fingers and be at the top of the Google results page, unfortunately we can’t have everything we want. Still, there are ways for an eCommerce site to actively increase they fall in regards to certain keyword results. One relatively simple way is to regularly practice using ALT tags on one’s site.

Alternative Tags

ALT tags or alternative text, are used as an alternative description of an image. While this may seem like a difficult concept to understand, here is a simple example that will help explain it. (more…)