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Online Business

Should You Upgrade Your Ecommerce Site? 8 Signs To Help You Make The Right Choice

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Article Contributed by Mark Walsh
Are you confused about when you should upgrade your E-commerce site? How do you decide when is the right time to tweak things. Obviously you do not wish to spend money during the present liquidity crisis and recession.
You probably still remember the pain and efforts that went into building your site and making it live. You do not wish to revisit the same trouble again. Right? Wrong. This obvious reluctance to make do with the existing site without any changes, upgrades or tweaks can have disastrous results.
With rapid technological innovations taking place, online browsers expect and demand instantaneous online services. You need to show your customer that you care for their comfort and you are aware of their wants and desires.
Following are the 8 signs that can help you decide that it’s time to make changes on your site:
1) Website is not compatible on major browser platforms:
An e-commerce website is a virtual shop for your business. Imagine if it looks disfigured on different browsers (IE, Fox, Netscape, etc). Issues with different browser might not surface immediately, but when the browser’s upgrade their own software, the results can affect your website negatively. Problems could be as minor as graphic design defects to major issues like functional problems, shopping cart problems, problems with online payment etc. If these problems are not found and attended immediately, you will lose potential customers who might be using such browsers to surf for their online shopping expeditions.
Never forget to ask your website designer to check your website on various platforms and personally test this periodically to ensure the coding is compatible on all browser interface for best display of your website. If your website looks distorted or functionalities are not working completely, you need to rectify the same.
2) Changed or Diversification of Business Model:
‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’. Similarly a business that is flexible and changes with time survives, while the stagnant businesses go down the hill.
Innovation, research and development are part and parcel of today’s business world, ensuring products/services stay in line with the current demands. Your site might require minor changes with regards to graphics and additional features or major ones like offering completely new products line or services, or when you diversify and enter altogether different industry vertical.
Never forget to update the information and content in your website according to the changes occurring in your business model. Try and be as accurate, lucid and factual about the data displayed on your site as possible, as your site is the source of information for all your clients, industry experts and even competitors. You cannot afford to goof up here.
3) Site has become dull and old:
With the arrival of web 2.0 online browsing experiences are undergoing many changes. Online visitors are bombarded with creative gimmicks, flash and images to attract attention and motivate them to take the desired marketing action planned for them.
If your website looks like it has come straight from the 90s with a dull layout, slow loading graphics, table like frame with each panel taking its own sweet time to load, your visitor will say sayonara before your first product is displayed. They will go off to your competitors site which is faster, convenient and more user friendly.
Never forget to keep your customer as the focus of your website activities. Ensure you take help of technology to make online visitor’s experience on your site as happy, error free and convenient as possible.
4) Your website bugs your customers:
Yes, website can annoy online visitors. A recent online survey displays the following pet peeves of online visitors:
>>93% of consumer said POP-UP ADS extremely annoyed them
>>89% were annoyed by REQUESTS TO INSTALL EXTRA SOFTWARE
>>83% noted LOG-IN / REGISTRATION PROMPTS (to access content).
The result was: 75% of customers said they’d never return, 74% of customers said they would unsubscribe from the company’s messages, 71% said they viewed the company in a negative way and 55% said they bad mouthed the firm to friends or associates. (That’s dangerous!)
Other extreme irritations include:
-Dead links (86%)
-Confusing navigation (84%)
-Slow-loading pages (83%)
-Ineffective site-search tools (80%)
-Moving text (59%)
-Poor color, fonts and format (55%)
Never forget the simple rule ‘Keep your site simple and user friendly’ . Don’t go overboard with too many features, confusing navigations and too many irrelevant choices
confusing your visitor from finally placing that order. Make it as simple as possible for them to order online.
5) Textual Content on your site is boring:
Sit down and read the content of your website out loud? Does it sound right? Do you come across as sincere? Do you make sense to you? How about the language? If your content sounds insincere, misleading, confusing, you definitely need to hire a professional content writer to take care of this problem.
Never forget content is very important to make your site meaningful and interesting. Interesting copywriting helps to grab attention and convince visitors to turn into customers. Also proper content is required for search engine optimization to ensure your site is picked up by the major search engine and right kind of traffic is drawn to your site.
6) Your site embarrasses you or your employees:
If you find yourself feeling apologetic when referring your ecommerce site or handing out your business card, then it’s obviously time to change your site. Your website should be a source of pride for you and your employees. If you find yourself apologizing for outdated information, broken images, poor design, difficult navigation or anything else on your site, redesign the site without delay. Your website is an easy access to information for your customers and affiliates so make it good for them.
Never forget, your website represents your business. You cannot afford to get shoddy and compromise on quality of your ecommerce site.
7) Current Navigation has turned confusing:
Websites grow with changes in your business model, and this might increase the visual hierarchy of links. Your site may have started with only a few web pages and now you realize you have so many links that it’s hard for visitors to navigate through all your content. An overgrown or scattered link structure is a good reason to redesign your existing site. Below are some solutions to interface design:
· Drop Down Menus
· Collapsible Navigation
· Dynamic Flash Menus
· Good Hierarchy Layout
· Site Map
Make it possible for your clients to seek information within maximum 3 clicks. Do not confuse them with too many complicated navigations. Use web statistics tools to find out your popular pages and analyze why they are so popular. Try and duplicate the benefits and good points of those pages on your entire website.
8) Lack of proper customer service:
There are still many trepidations bothering the online shopper and it can get tricky for an ecommerce site to overcome all those prejudices and barriers. As an website owner think of the problems, fears and complications faced during shopping online. One of the major issue is the inability to touch, feel, see the product before buying. Online browsers have to pay in advance and that too basis the description and photograph shown on your site. Your site lacks the human interaction factor that is available when going physically to shop.
One of the major way to tackle this problem is to have strong support and customer care service in place. If possible have ‘live help’ available on your site to guide your visitors. If not, see that toll free numbers are prominently displayed on all the web pages and there is a friendly and helpful customer care rep to guide and solve your visitors problems. Ensure your FAQ section address all the major and minor problems associated with ecommerce sites and helps alleviate the fears of your visitors. No problem or doubt is too small or stupid to prevent you from attending them ASAP.
The above indicators will give you an idea on when your site requires tweaks, upgrades or complete redesign to turn into a source of profit center and pride for your business.
About The Author:
Mark Walsh is the marketing manager at Analytix Solutions (http://www.analytixsolutions.com/it/index.asp). Analytix team consists of IT experts and Internet Marketing professionals who help small business owners take their business online through website designing, ecommerce site designing and search engine optimization services.

Categories
Newsletter

BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 76

BIZNESS! Newsletter
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Cover Story
Navigating Through Change And Landing On Your Feet
If you’re facing (or anticipating) one change of several changes, these tips will help you navigate through transition and help you land on your feet: 1. Acknowledge what’s happening. Get real about your situation and eliminate denial. Identify what you can control and/or influence to gain perspective in devising a strategy for action. 2. Invite collaboration. Brainstorming is an excellent resource for pooling knowledge by gathering…
Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 76 >>>
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Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>
Top Stories From GetEntrepreneurial.com
– Where Have All The Leaders Gone?
– Search Engine Marketing: Can It Drive More Business?
– Blog VS Ezine? How To Choose For Your Solo Service Business
– 10 Tips To A Wellfunded Business
– It’s All About Building Relationships
– Easy Accounting for Sole Traders
– Success Happens By Design
Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

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Categories
Online Business

Blog vs Ezine? How To Choose For Your Solo Service Business

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I often read debates on forums about whether you should have just a blog or just an ezine, with questions like,

“I currently publish an ezine and a blog, but I’m thinking of dropping the ezine and going with just the blog.”

My answer… you need both!

And here’s why:

Creating a blog post is much easier to do than going down the whole ezine publication route; however, as you do not know who is reading your blog you cannot begin to build a relationship with the reader in the same way you can when publishing an ezine.

Therefore you are missing out on building the like, know, and trust factor that is so important for a solo service business owner.

That said, a blog is also an essential online communication tool simply because there are some people who do not wish to subscribe to a regular newsletter, but will subscribe to a blog’s RSS Feed.

RSS Feed? Put simply, anyone can come along to your blog, and subscribe to your RSS feed thereby receiving any blog posts that you submit as soon as you submit them. By not publishing a blog you are missing out on this whole other target market reach.

My preferred tool for blogging is WordPress and I’ve been using this for the past three years. The main reason I use it is because it’s hosted on my website so each time I post to my blog, I’m creating fresh content for my website, which the search engines love, and all of this goes towards improving my search engine rankings.

A blog allows you to interact with your target market as readers can leave comments. However, as it’s not directly delivered to your target market’s inbox, it can be much harder to develop a relationship.

So let’s just take a look at some of the pros/cons of a blog vs. a newsletter:

Pros
* You can really show off your expertise by posting on a regular basis.
* Blog posts don’t need to be very long – approx. 200-350 words.
* If you have some important information to share, you can instantly create a post – no waiting for your next newsletter to make your announcement!
* If you use a blogging platform such as WordPress, this is hosted on your website. Each time you post to your blog you are creating fresh content for your website, which the search engines love!

Cons
* You need to post regularly – at least once a week – in order for this to be an effective marketing strategy.
* You need to feel confident that you will be able to write fresh content regularly.
* It can be difficult to build a direct relationship with your reader.

When And How Often To Post

Now, this can be a dilemma. It’s important that you post to your blog regularly in order to provide fresh content to the search engines; some experts say you should be posting at least two to three times a week!

Now that’s a big commitment if you’re not really a writer, so here’s what I advise to get your blog going…

Each time you publish your newsletter and write a fresh article for it, post that article on your blog.

And then try and make other posts throughout the month so you’re keeping your blog content continually updated. Posting to a blog is not as rigid as publishing an ezine so it can be difficult to create an editorial calendar or some other system. You want your blog posts to be spontaneous wherever possible. You also want to have in place a sign-up box to your ezine on your blog either in the sidebar or at the bottom of every post.

Some possible topics for your blog posts:

* Links to other blog posts of interest to your target audience
* Any new products or services that you’ve launched
* Any places where you’ll be speaking
* Events that are taking place within your industry
* An opinion that you have about something that is happening within your industry
* Links to resources that you’ve found to be invaluable

Conclusion: A blog + an ezine = more targeted traffic to your website, more subscribers to your list, and positions you as an expert within your niche!

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Pointers To Making Your Business Profitable

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When you have got a business that you can continue and sustain, what’s the fastest way to make it profitable?

There are a few pointers you can take note of to make your business profitable.

Focus on the marketing.
In any business, number 1 is leads. Every single day, you have to track and measure your leads. How many leads did we generate this month? How many leads did we generate this week?

Most businessmen when you ask them, what will they say? I am not sure, I have to check. It has to be at your fingertips. You have to track your leads and constantly experiment using new strategies and new techniques to increase leads.

Advertising as an investment.
The best way to increase leads is through advertising right. Now, is advertising an expense or is it an investment? I always ask people that question.

If you throw in an ad and you don’t measure the leads, it’s an expense. If you throw in an ad and you don’t make money to cover it, it’s an expense. But if you throw in an ad and you track your response, and if for every dollar you spend, you get a dollar and twenty cents back, it becomes an investment.

So if you put in a dollar and you get back a dollar twenty. What’s your return? 20%. Your ad is an asset; it just could give you 20%. So how many dollars would you put in if you get a dollar twenty back? You put in as many as you can. You just keep putting it again and again. But all of us know that there’s this thing called the Law of Diminishing Returns.

As you keep putting ads, your returns will drop from a dollar twenty and drop to a dollar ten. So what happens. Do you give up your ads? No. you create new ads. And the moment you create new ads with a bit of different skew in that headline, what happens. Your return will again jump up. So that’s the first thing.

Focusing on the conversation rate.
Experimenting with new ways to increase conversion is very important. One way to do this is through creating a community. It’s easier to resell to a current client than it is to sell to a new client. So by making sure the moment you get a client, the same person comes back again and again and he brings all his friends. This will end up in better conversions as we all know that referrals through friends have a high rate of conversion.

Focus on margins
The last pointer is to constantly focus on your margins How can you do something more cost effectively, yet not compromising on quality. A lot of people ask this question. How do I know when I should hire someone? Or should I just do it myself?

The answer is this, when you hire someone, are you hiring an asset? If you’re paying the person $3,000, is the person making back for you another $3,000? If by hiring this person you can make $6,000, invest in that person. If by getting that person at $3,000, you lose that $1,000, then it’s not a good investment. So look at things from an investment perspective, from an asset perspective.

Here you have it, the key pointers that you can apply to your existing business and making it more profitable.

Categories
Success Attitude

Success Happens By Design

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The following study was conducted at Yale University in 1953. In that year, a batch of fresh graduates was surveyed, and in this batch, only 3% had their goals written down.

Some of their goals included: ‘being a best-selling novelist, starting a computer company and taking it public, running for President etc…’
97% of the students had no clearly defined goals written down. Many of them chose to adopt the ‘whatever will be, will be’ mindset, possibly popularized by a hit ’50s musical titled ‘Que Sera Sera’ (Whatever will be, will be).

Twenty years later, a follow up study revealed that the 3% of students who wrote down their goals earned a combined income three times greater than the combined income of the 97% who had no goals written down.

This surely shows the incredible power of goal setting.

I can tell you that if I did not sit down 14 years ago and design my life the way that I wanted it to unfold, I certainly wouldn’t have achieved what I have right now. I would be somewhere else, probably doing something totally different.

Very often, if we don’t have a clear plan for our life, we will fall into somebody else’s plan. For most people, it would be our parents’ plan: ‘Be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer in order to make plenty of money’.

Though it may seem to be (in their view) for our own future good, more often than not it is more of meeting their expectations and sometimes their very own unrealized dreams.

Now, don’t we all want the freedom to do and be whatever we choose to become?

When I was first featured in the newspapers as a 26-year old millionaire who’s speaking fee commanded a thousand dollars per hour, many of my friends asked me how I was able to command such a high fee within two years of graduating from university.

At age 26, two years after graduation, I had written a best-selling book, started and ran three companies, spoken to thousands of people and made over a million dollars. Most of my peers were either looking for their first job or working for other people for about $2000 + a month.

The irony is that many of these peers and friends are probably just as intelligent, talented and hardworking as I am. The only difference between us was the fact that at age 15, I sat down and scripted out a detailed life plan.

I wrote down exactly what I was going to achieve in the next 10 years of my life.

After scripting out my life plan, I took action and each action I took enabled me to focus all my talents, my intelligence and energies like a laser beam. I use the analogy of a laser beam because I was so energized I felt I could cut through anything that was in my way.

Achieving success rarely ever happens by chance. The roll of the dice never made anyone happy or rich for a long time. It always begins with a clearly defined outcome fuelled by a passionate desire.