Content Marketing: The Hard Working Listicle
March 17, 2016 1:03 pm
Listicles are articles that include lists. BuzzFeed has used listicles to propel its reputation.An article in listing type or a easy record extensively annotated, the listicle is directly common, visitors-driving, and a straightforward-to-comprehend type of journalism and content material advertising. It's the blue-collar strategy to partaking clients and producing content material, and is slowly profi
Search-marketing Insights from Connect Search Engine Watch Conference
March 16, 2016 3:06 pm
I recently attended the Connect Search Engine Watch Conference in Miami. The conference covered two tracks ? ?Engage with Organic? and ?Innovate with Paid? ? over two days. I spent my time on the organic track the first day and the paid track the second.In this article, I’ll share my observations from the conference.1. Local search optimization is strongly influenced by Google My Business, as Goo
Pros, Cons of Email Preference Centers
March 16, 2016 3:06 pm
Email preference centers can allow subscribers to choose the frequency in which they receive emails, as well of the types of content they want to receive. Home Depot’s preference center, for example, allows users to choose their skill level and interests in an easy-to-navigate process.Years ago, email preference centers popped up on all kinds of websites. Preference centers were an effort to curb
The evolution of FringeSport?s KPIs
March 16, 2016 3:06 pm
How do you run your business? What numbers are meaningful, and on what intervals do you review them?When FringeSport was a side project, I mainly looked at revenue and gross product margin after projected shipping costs. I reviewed revenue whenever we got excited, which was daily or hourly, and margin rarely ? usually only when we were pricing a new product.The reason we chose these two metrics was tha
How to select a new ecommerce platform
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
In “Why change ecommerce platforms?,” my post last month, I discussed my decision to switch ecommerce platforms ? from Volusion to Bigcommerce ? in the fall of 2013. I made that decision based on several things that I felt were holding us back. Since the migration, I?ve talked to dozens of folks who have felt the similar pain points with their current provider. They’ve asked what they
What HTML5 Means for Ecommerce Merchants
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
What is one thing all?ecommerce stores have in common? They use HTML. In fact, just about every website uses HTML. That means when an update to HTML comes out, it has far-reaching effects.What Is HTML?HTML ??HyperText Markup Language ? describes how a web page is structured. A web browser ? e.g., Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer ? uses that description to render the page on your screen.For example, a
How to Run a Proper Online Contest
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
Contests can build awareness and help grow lists for future marketing. Moonray’s, a seller of landscape accessories, runs sweepstakes on Facebook. Folks simply enter for a chance to win.A well run online contest can bolster your social media following, energize loyal customers, collect information about the folks who enter, and help build lists for further marketing.Contest marketing uses contest
Image Recognition APIs May Help Ecommerce
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
A pair of new image-analysis solutions could open the door for powerful ecommerce and retail applications that significantly improve shopping experiences or create new marketing opportunities.On Feb. 18, 2016, Google released the beta version of its image recognition service as a public, paid application programing interface called Cloud Vision API.Google Cloud Vision APIOpen to everyone, Cloud Vision
Pop-ups bad for the web, bad for business
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
Our company is approached frequently by app makers that are selling pop-ups, or modals, for our ecommerce site. The pitch is usually the same: Use our pop-up to get more email subscribers, close more deals, and keep visitors on your website. But the question isn’t which app to go with. It’s whether we should use pop-ups at all.Let me first separate categories of pop-ups. There are user-expe
Entrepreneur, founder, C.E.O.?
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
What is a C.E.O.? If you founded and are running a start-up, when should you really take C.E.O. as a title?These are questions I?ve struggled with over the last year. It?s easy to look at Silicon Valley unicorns ? companies with at least $1 billion in valuation ? or public companies and see their C.E.O.s as ?true C.E.O.s.? But what about bootstrapped start-ups? It seems like every person who has an ide
