Have you joined the mobile-friendly website bandwagon? Still holding out due to uncertainty that it’s really necessary? Consider this. Analysts predict that by 2017 two out of three users worldwide will access content via mobile device rather than a personal computer.
Being halfway through the third quarter of 2016, it’s a good time to optimize your site for mobile and be ready to engage as many holiday shoppers as possible.
Does your email newsletter stand out from all the others in your subscribers’ inboxes? Research from the Content Marketing Institute indicates more than 80 percent of marketers use email newsletters. That’s a lot of ‘noise’ on the email channel, so how do you avoid getting lost in the crowd?
Competing for attention in email marketing requires many of the same principles as competing in other areas of business. It requires knowing your customers and prospects, having a well-planned strategy, targeting your message and communicating clearly.
Hopeful entrepreneurs start up thousands of new eCommerce businesses every day. Nine out of 10 of the online ventures will not survive the first year. What makes the difference between eCommerce success and failure? For anyone with an online business or considering one, here’s our list of the top 11 must haves and excerpts from the online ‘buzz’ about them. Also check out Mailchimp’s article on how to start an online store.
1. A Niche Market
“Most people who are just starting out make the mistake of looking for a product first, and a market second. To boost your chances of success, start with a market. The trick is to find a group of people who are searching for a solution to a problem, but not finding many results.” Entrepreneur.com
Google is about to update their authentication policy that impacts people who use Gmail to send emails through a third-party service like email marketing services or website contact forms. Free email providers like Yahoo, AOL, and soon Google have adopted the strict DMARC email authentication protocol to prevent spam.
If you’ve clicked an online ad, you’ve likely ended up on a landing page. These pages play an essential role in online marketing. If your small business site is not using them, you may be missing opportunities to increase leads or sales.
Landing pages are generally stand-alone elements of a website that exist to generate leads or “click throughs.” A leads generation page asks visitors to provide contact information in exchange for an offer such as a free white paper, e-newsletter subscription or e-book. By collecting this information from visitors, the page produces a list of business leads. The purpose of a “click through” landing page is to educate and motivate visitors to respond positively to the page’s call to action – such as clicking a “buy now” button.
Do mobile users find what they are looking for when they land on your business site? How quickly does your site load on mobile devices?
Google wants you to know the answers to these questions and how to improve your results. The company has introduced a new, free tool created with small business owners in mind. “Test My Site with Google” analyzes a site’s performance across devices and provides specific fixes for less-than-optimal results. It’s easy to use and does not require technical knowledge to understand.
There’s ‘buzz’ about Pinterest in the social media marketing world, and it is touting the platform as a good bet for business promotions. Here’s an example from a January 2016 post from Content Marketing Institute (CMI):
“ …. Pinterest has virtually unlimited engagement potential. … it’s undeniable that Pinterest can help you connect with your customers, make more sales, get people excited about your business, and spread the word about your services around the web.”
Their reasons for confidence in the platform might include some of these findings:
The New York Times “Bits” blog reported in September 2015 that Pinterest reached the milestone of 100,000 monthly active members. While that number is dwarfed by social counterparts Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest’s 97 percent rate of growth far exceeded the others’ rates.
WooCommerce released its latest upgrade, version 2.5 – dubbed the “Dashing Dolphin,” in January.
Here’s how the WooThemes product release announcement describes the new features:
This latest version focuses on getting the store itself to run quickly and is aptly named Dashing Dolphin.
We made several changes under the hood that improve the speed of your store.
First, we improved how WooCommerce knows who is on the site and what they have in the cart, known as a session handler. … We’re now storing less temporary data in the database, which speeds up every page load.
Several pages in the backend were improved, such as the tax settings screen. For store owners that collect taxes in a lot of regions, this screen will both save and load much faster.