NOT USED* Blog

Page Load Speed Tips for Ecommerce Managers

It’s widely accepted that minimising page load speed is good practice for ecommerce, to ensure visitors get a fast service and search engines don’t mark the webpages down for usability.

But what does this mean? What are the techniques you need to use to achieve this? And if you’re not technical, how can you make sense of the jargon to make sensible decisions?

In this guest blog for Econsultancy, I look at the most common causes of slow page loads speeds, which will hopefully give ecommerce managers a useful starting place.

You can read the full article at Econsultancy.com

Thanks, James 

AB & MVT Testing for Ecommerce Checkouts

Checkout testing is one of the most important things you should be doing for your ecommerce site yet many businesses don’t prioritise testing. Without it, you’re essentially providing a checkout without really knowing what makes people convert and what causes abandonment.

In my Postcode Anywhere guest blog I discuss a structured approach to testing to help you make sensible decisions. You can read the full post on the Postcode Anywhere blog.

Thanks, James

Ecommerce Information Architecture

I’ve worked with many clients (and on my own sites) where avoidable structural/data problems add unnecessary complexity to website management.

I say avoidable because they’re usually a result of not asking the right questions upfront before the site is built. It’s a tough task to cover all bases for an ecommerce platform because there are so many factors in play that can affect elements like on-site UX, business reporting, data flows and SEO.

In my experience, it’s a continuous learning curve, picking up insight from specialists along the way to build a (hopefully) thorough knowledge base of what information you need to effectively build a website, what format the data needs to be in and what it needs to do e.g. data field X in the CMS drives site search results.

Information Architecture (IA) may sound dull but it’s a critical component of ecommerce and helps put the right data structures and standards in place to enable, amongst other things:

  • Site & catalogue structure
  • Core processes & functions e.g. site search
  • Business reporting & web analytics
  • SEO.

My Econsultancy guest blog takes a look at some of the key components and guidelines for what ecommerce teams need to think about. It’s split into three parts that I’ll publish over the next three weeks to break up the hefty tome I’ve written to do this justice (and it’s still high-level!).

I’d welcome comments to add to my views and share advice/experience of what works, what mistakes to avoid and useful resources to use. Hope you find it useful reading.

Thanks, James

Ecommerce Landing Page Optimisation

Best practice’ learning promotes placing the primary CTA (call-to-action) for your landing page near the top of the page, above the fold. At face value, this seems logical, right? You want visitors to complete the primary goal for the page, which means following your CTA.

However, there are several reasons why this basic recommendation isn’t necessarily true or accurate.

You can find out why and pick up advice on landing page optimisation on my Smart Insights guest blog.

Thanks, James

This Post Looks Beautiful even with Long Interesting Title

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SEO Page Title + Meta Description Testing

I’ll show how to improve page titles and meta descriptions to increase traffic from natural search. This type of testing should be an integral part of any optimisation program and these two elements are often overlooked.

The words that people see on search engines results pages (SERPs) influences their click decision. The more persuasive the copy and the closer it appeals to the needs of the searcher, the greater the propensity to click. Google rewards pages which have a higher relative click through rate since this is a positive relevance signal. Furthermore, the title is a well-known search ranking factor as one of the key relevance signals to Google related to each page.

In my Smart Insights guest blog I provide advice and guidance on testing for SEO.

Thanks, James

 

This is a Single Clean Post

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5 Ways Crowdfunding Benefits Retail Ecommerce

The UK’s innovation agency, NESTA, predicts the UK crowdfunding industry to raise £14bn in 2016. That’s a big number considering the global market was expected to reach $6bn in 2013, up from $2.7bn in 2012.

The growth is being driven by an increase in platforms, rapid adoption of crowdfunding as a finance source by businesses and growing consumer awareness.

Crowdfunding is providing the platforms to connect many parties, both individuals and businesses, with the goal of financing projects and ventures.

In my Econsultancy guest blog I look at 5 ways crowdfunding can benefit retail ecommerce.

Thanks, James

Markup: Text Alignment

Default

This is a paragraph. It should not have any alignment of any kind. It should just flow like you would normally expect. Nothing fancy. Just straight up text, free flowing, with love. Completely neutral and not picking a side or sitting on the fence. It just is. It just freaking is. It likes where it is. It does not feel compelled to pick a side. Leave him be. It will just be better that way. Trust me.

Left Align

This is a paragraph. It is left aligned. Because of this, it is a bit more liberal in it’s views. It’s favorite color is green. Left align tends to be more eco-friendly, but it provides no concrete evidence that it really is. Even though it likes share the wealth evenly, it leaves the equal distribution up to justified alignment.

Center Align

This is a paragraph. It is center aligned. Center is, but nature, a fence sitter. A flip flopper. It has a difficult time making up its mind. It wants to pick a side. Really, it does. It has the best intentions, but it tends to complicate matters more than help. The best you can do is try to win it over and hope for the best. I hear center align does take bribes.

Right Align

This is a paragraph. It is right aligned. It is a bit more conservative in it’s views. It’s prefers to not be told what to do or how to do it. Right align totally owns a slew of guns and loves to head to the range for some practice. Which is cool and all. I mean, it’s a pretty good shot from at least four or five football fields away. Dead on. So boss.

Justify Align

This is a paragraph. It is justify aligned. It gets really mad when people associate it with Justin Timberlake. Typically, justified is pretty straight laced. It likes everything to be in it’s place and not all cattywampus like the rest of the aligns. I am not saying that makes it better than the rest of the aligns, but it does tend to put off more of an elitist attitude.

Ecommerce Delivery & Returns Battleground

Why is delivery and returns a key battleground for retail ecommerce? Quite simply, delivery and returns is seen by customers as far more than an essential website policy; it’s a key competitive differentiator. The convenience of the service provided influences shopping habits.

The Independent on Sunday revealed that during December 2012, an estimated 225,000 parcels each day failed to arrive when promised. In an article titled “The great online delivery scandal”, they revealed the impact of poor service delivery on customers’ future shopping habits. Failing to live up to promises is damaging for your brand.

My Postcode Anywhere guest blog discusses this in more detail.

Thanks, James