Since your ecommerce site visitors are using their eyes and ears as they arrive on your storefront, podcasting offers some fresh opportunities to deliver your message. From articulating a message with audio, to enhancing an article with the addition of sound, podcasting can offer some extra benefits for the average site visitor.

Consider Podcasting for Increased Profit, Credibility, and Reach

On-demand broadcasting on the web has grown steadily over the past five years, bringing forward a unique presentation of today’s most valuable content. According to 2006 Forrester® Research studies, podcast uptakes are expected to reach almost 12 million US households by 2010. This increase in multimedia downloads will make even more content readily available on the web; so, the challenge for podcast broadcasters is having files and content easily searchable and found.

After creating and implementing your latest podcast, an essential step is optimization. You’re probably already aware of strategies and initiatives for optimizing your web content; using appropriate keywords, tagging, and setting up your articles and layout to be search-engine friendly are parts of successful online marketing.

In order for your podcasts to gain the same recognition, you’ll want to create an effective optimization strategy. This will help your podcast reach the high ranks of audio search engines, making it easy and simple for potential visitors to find your essential material. Besides submitting your piece to various podcast directories and feeds, you’ll want to take advantage of the additional optimization tactics below.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #1: Make the file attractive

Optimize your audio files. You’ll need to make sure all the tracks are accurate and working; search engines cannot locate broken files, and you’ll have a hard time tracking it down yourself. Remember that most people are going to download the file to an MP3 player or other media playing device, and you want this process to be straightforward and the file to easily downloadable. You’ll find quality tools available for download online; Audacity is free, and can help with encoding and compressing your files. Other programs can help you streamline your file to make it easy to download and share.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #2: Less is more

You’ll need to make your podcast easy to find. Many podcast publishers make the mistake of creating excessive feeds in hopes of reaching higher search engine placement. This strategy can backfire, since search engines like Google™ are now being programmed to find relevant and appropriate content. If your podcast is being distributed through too many articles, networks, or websites, it may have a lower chance of being recognized.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #3: The power of tags

Keep in mind that podcast search engines work in a very similar style as traditional search engines. Web crawlers are designed to trace all rich media content files with specific features; tagging can help tremendously, and will give you the added leverage you need for higher search engine rankings.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #4: Build value through appropriate feeds

Each type of feed you select to share your file can be distributed in a unique way. Remember that you need to create a new one for each mode of distribution; iTunes will require it’s own unique channel, and you might need to do some research on creating appropriate RSS-friendly content.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #5: Build a landing page for each submission

If you can create an individual landing page for each file, you can increase your search engine rankings in two ways: through both the audio search, and regular text search. Adding the title of your podcast file into the landing page URL will also help you reach the higher rankings on most standard search engines. Including a player on this landing page, or link to download one, can improve visitor interest and site visibility as well.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #6: Embed content with metadata

This is especially significant if you are creating a landing page for the file; metadata can help increase your chances of pickup from major search engines, and a simple list of keywords and phrases inserted into the file is all it takes. iTunes® has its own format for publishing this information, and most platforms will require that you include a descriptive title, notes, and other keywords.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #7: Transcribe your podcast

If possible, script out the podcast itself and include this on your landing page. Not only will the keyword counts be increased dramatically, but you’ll have a dual opportunity for search engine crawlers: content-related searches, and audio search. A summary works well also, if you’d rather not include the entire piece.

Get Found!

The ever-changing web offers more dynamic content, day after day. Podcasting has created a new segment in website publishing, incorporating the power of audio. Now that MP3 owners and other media outlets give us new opportunities to publish and share, quality content, distribution is a high priority. Making podcast files findable on the web is possible with the right tools and optimization strategy in place.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

Upselling is a procedure designed to get more money from customers at the point of sale. It’s a simple approach any business can implement quickly and get immediate results.

Customers will never be more receptive to an attractive offer from you than when they’re paying you money. Develop the habit of offering your customers or clients an upgraded product or a related item at the time they make their first purchase.

Some businesses avoid upselling because they’re afraid the customer may get irritated and not buy at all. I found the opposite is true. Customers appreciate your thoughtfulness in offering them an added benefit they didn’t know about.

What to Offer

Think about your business. What else can you offer customers or clients while they’re making their first transaction with you? Can you offer them…

• A discount on a related product or service?
• A volume discount if they buy more now?
• A special priced combination package including the initial product or service?

How to Present An Upselling Offer

Upselling has none of the characteristics usually associated with selling. It’s simply offering an already receptive buyer an opportunity to enhance the value of his or her purchase.

Present your upselling offer casually, as an afterthought. For example, someone selling web site hosting might say the following when speaking in person or by phone with new customers:

“Your website will be up in 48 hours. If you’d like, we can double your server space, include unlimited autoresponders and a shopping cart for secure online ordering. The regular price for all of this is an additional $40 per month. But I’ll give it to you for just an additional $25 if you order it today.”

Most businesses report acceptance rates between 40% and 60% for their upselling offers. This is a big increase for so little effort. Plus, the profit from the upselling portion often exceeds the profit from the initial product or service because there is no advertising expense.

If you’re not making upselling offers to every new customer or client, start doing it now. It’s an easy way to boost your profits fast with little effort and no expense.

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

Imagine the following scenario: you visit your local supermarket, only to find that more than half of the shopping carts in the store have been left there in the store aisles, abandoned by their owners. Sounds a bit eerie, doesn’t it? Well, according to current industry research, this is the sad reality for many e-commerce sites.

Recent reports from trusted sources such as the Yankee Group and DoubleClick show that more than 50 percent of online shopping cart sessions are in fact deserted. Among the top reasons cited for shopping cart abandonment: shipping options that are either too confusing or too expensive. Online store owners can improve their chances of order completion and get their e-commerce sites in “ship shape” by following this simple advice.

Five tips to streamline shipping options

1. Present shipping calculations to customers before check out.
Show the calculated shipping charges on pages that list the amounts of products purchased or on pages that appear even earlier in check out process . The goal should be to inform customers about shipping costs as early as possible. You should also ensure that all relevant shipping rates and information are placed in a prominent location in your store so visitors can review the shipping information anytime.

2. Provide real-time shipping calculators.
Offer web-based calculators from shipping providers so your customers can calculate shipping rates. Ensure that the calculators are linked prominently from the appropriate areas in your site.

3. Provide a variety of choices from popular shipping vendors.
Offer shipping services from reliable and well-recognized shipping carriers, such as UPS, DHL, and Federal Express. Show the rates for each delivery option like two-day shipping, overnight delivery, etc., and allow customers to choose the option which best meets their needs. A brief description of the features of each option should also be provided.

4. Offer live order tracking from your website.
Provide functionality that will let customers track the status of their orders right from your website. Shopping carts integrated with tools like UPS Online® Tools offer more than just convenience—they also make the store look impressive and encourage visitors to spend more time on your site.

5. Streamline back-end order processes.
Unfulfilled orders do not promote a respectable image for your business. Streamline your supply chain, inventory levels, and order fulfillment systems before you begin taking orders. Then, follow through with each sale by ensuring customers get their merchandise in accordance with selected shipping and handling methods.

If it’s free….

InternetRetailer.com informs, “This holiday season, free shipping tops the list of marketing promotions retailers plan to use, with 63 percent saying they expect to offer them.”

If you decide to offer free shipping, it’s important to do the math before you roll out a free or reduced shipping offer. For example, free shipping for a limited time on minimum order quantities and within a specific geographical region may help to entice new customers and increase sales.

Regardless of the type of promotion however, a careful profit analysis should be done to ensure that free shipping and other promotions will not adversely impact your online store’s bottom line.

Posted by MixedSoup | 1 Comment »

You’ve optimized your site to ensure it receives top rankings in the search engines. Your site got indexed, but the best position it received was number 137 on Yahoo. So you wait; after all, good search engine positions takes time. However, another two months go by with no real movement. So what should you do now? Wait longer? Re-optimize your site?

Examine Your Site’s Back Links

The first thing you want to do is closely examine your site’s back links. Essentially, you need to make sure the search engines are recognizing a large quantity of one-way links from relevant, authoritative sites to your site. BBB.org, your Local Chamber of Commerce, and industry associations you belong to can be the best places to start. You can get a little more creative by purchasing links from BOTW.com, HackerSafe.com and W3C.org. Quality link building is key to any search engine optimization campaign so pay special attention to it.

Consider Strict Re-Optimization

You may also want to consider switching up your optimization tactics. For example, you can execute a full revision of the site’s internal link structure, and remove any pop-ups, AJAX, and flash features. You should also make sure your code is W3C compliant and that all title and META tags are unique. This may seem like overkill but the results are usually well worth it.

Add More Unique Content

We have all heard the saying “Content is King.” Well, that it as true today as it was 2 years ago. Your site must contain a large amount of unique and relevant content in order to get well positioned by the major search engines. Clients often ask us how they can quickly add more content to their site without having to sit down and write. There are a number of things that you can do to develop your sites content, just be a little creative. For starters you can develop a tips section and/or upload a glossary of industry terms. You may also want to consider offering a newsletter and including that on your site as well. The goal is to introduce a substantial amount of unique relevant content to the search engines through your site.

Beware of ‘Possible’ Penalties

If you are having trouble getting good rankings, your site may need to be examined for possible penalties that may be preventing it from ranking well. It is highly recommended that you consult with an expert on this. Duplicate content penalties, backlinks from bad neighborhoods, links to low quality sites, hidden text, code errors, and search engine crawler traps are among the many possibilities. These are some of the first things we review when taking on new clients.

Go Above and Beyond Search Engine Optimization

If you are in a highly competitive product or service category, you may also want to employ some additional tactics. For example you could try introducing a blog for your vertical. Keep in mind that these days blogs are a dime a dozen so make sure you can bring value to your customers through the blog. You could also try creating and distribute an online video about your company or products. Participating in forums or online communities within your vertical can also help with building quality backlinks to your site and generating additional buzz. Your objective is to get people to speak about and link to your site from key communities that currently don’t or normally wouldn’t.

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

It’s an unavoidable fact of being a business owner: you will eventually encounter an unhappy customer, an impatient customer or someone who is just downright difficult to please. For the online store owner, handling the irate online customer “virtually” needs tact and timely execution. In this article, we’ll provide sound advice for dealing with customers that be summarized by the golden rule of customer service: treat your customers—even difficult customers—as you expect to be treated yourself.

Is the Customer Really ALWAYS Right?

In a word, yes! Providing great service to your customers is an ongoing challenge. Providing great service to angry, unrealistic, or irate customers can be an exceptional challenge. When the time comes to address an irate online store customer, it’s best to be prepared with a pro-active strategy so you’re not caught off guard in the heat of the moment.

The Better Business Bureau Recommends…

The Better Business Bureau recommends the following tips for dealing with unhappy customers: http://www.bbbvan.org/resolve_customer_complaints.php

• When you receive your customer’s complain, put yourself in their shoes and try to see the problem as though it were your own.
• Disregard outrageous claims or expressions of frustration and stick to the central issue(s).
• Acknowledge your customer’s distress and apologize for it (even if it’s not your fault).
• Respond quickly and as briefly as you can.
• Offer a settlement, a compromise, a goodwill gesture, or some options. Don’t just dig in your heels, claiming that truth is on your side and that the other party deserves no consideration.

Do:

• Listen.
• Show empathy.
• Remain calm and respectful.
• Acknowledge the anger.
• Apologize without accepting blame.
• Agree with the person who is angry.

Don’t:

• Debate the facts.
• Ask “why” questions.
• Jump to hasty conclusions.

Other Tips

Make complaining easy:
Provide customers with an easy method for venting their feelings. This can be done by placing contact form links at prominent locations on the storefront—and adding sentences like, “Are you satisfied? If not, please contact us or help us improve.”

Respond Fast:
It’s a good idea to respond to complaining customers more quickly than to those who are satisfied: criticism spreads quicker than appreciation, and with the current pervasiveness of online bulletin boards, newsgroups, blogs, wikis, etc. criticism on the web not only spreads fast, it sticks.

Test the Waters:
Do you generally know whether customers are satisfied with the ecommerce experience on your website? For many online storeowners the answer to this question is a resounding “No.” A simple way to get feedback is to create an online survey and market it to customers who have purchased via your site.

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

1.
A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. The tech asked her if she was “running it under Windows.” The woman then responded, “No, my desk is next to the door. But that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his is working fine.”

2.
Tech Support: “OK Bob, let’s press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter ‘P’ to bring up the Program Manager.”
Customer: “I don’t have a ‘P’.”
Tech Support: “On your keyboard, Bob.”
Customer: “What do you mean?”
Tech Support: “‘P’ on your keyboard,
Bob.” Customer: “I’m not going to do that!”

3.
Customer: “My computer crashed!”
Tech Support: “It crashed?”
Customer: “Yeah, it won’t let me play my game.”
Tech Support: “All right, hit Control-Alt-Delete to reboot.”
Customer: “No, it didn’t crash — it crashed.”
Tech Support: “Huh?”
Customer: “I crashed my game. That’s what I said before. I crashed my spaceship and now it doesn’t work.”
Tech Support: “Click on ‘File,’ then ‘New Game.’”
Customer: [pause] “Wow! How’d you learn how to do that?”

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

The word trust is a very powerful word. This is primarily because it conveys emotion. It is imperative that your customers have a positive emotional connection with your site in order for it to successful. To create trust, there are certain things that online merchants must do.

A Trustworthy Web Design is Vital

The most important place to begin building trust is with your web design. When visitors come to your site do they get the impression that you are a serious online merchant? Too many people fall into the “I designed it myself!” trap and refuse to get out. Let a web design professional coupled with a site usability and optimization specialist work with you to create a site design that will both maximize your online/offline sales and comply with industry best practices. This alone can dramatically increase the number of conversions your web site receives.

Other Essentials

• Your site must have a physical address and phone number confidently displayed on every page. This is one of the first things online shoppers look for when dealing with small online businesses.
• Be sure to include links to your Privacy Policy, Return Policy and Shipping Policy. Many online shoppers want to review these before placing orders so it is highly recommended to create these and make sure visitors can easily locate them.
• An SSL certificate seal from VeriSign® or GeoTrust® will give customers reassurance that their online transactions are safe and secure. It is amazing how many sites still accept online orders without having a SSL certificate installed. This is that is both extremely reckless and very illegal.
• You should take special care to ensure that your pages are free of typos and spelling errors. After all, your site represents you to the world. It is highly recommended that you hire a professional copywriter to write or at least edit all site copy.
• Check out the BBBOnline® Reliability and Privacy Seal programs. The Better Business Bureau is one of the most important trust building seals available today. We only recommend displaying this seal if you have a perfect record with them; otherwise, including the seal could have a negative impact on your sales.
• Your site should be completely free of broken links. A recent poll by emarketer.com reported that consumers find broken links to be highly annoying.

Highly Recommended

• Keep your site content up-to-date! If people arrive at your site and see “Affiliate program coming in 2003!” they are going to think the site is dormant and leave.
• Include genuine customer testimonials, third-party endorsements, achievement awards, and case studies
• Hacker Safe’s slogan is “Build the trust that builds your business. Start boosting sales today by certifying your site HACKER SAFE”. – Their sales pitch says it all.
• Offering alternative payment methods such as PayPal® can help boost your online sales and displaying their verified by PayPal seal can also help boost consumer confidence.
• Include seals of industry associations to which you belong.

Optional

Place professional photos of your staff and facilities on your About Us pages. People want to know who they are doing business with.
The TRUSTe® seal lets consumers know that you are committed to protecting their online privacy.

It is unfortunate to say that most of the above tactics are rarely used. Thus, many merchants never realize the full potential of their online store. By executing the above trust-building tactics, you are practically guaranteed to see an increase in online conversions.

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

You can maximize your sales during the Holidays …even if you have to deal with more intense competition - or if you normally experience a drop in business because your products and services are not commonly used for “gift giving“.

What’s the best way to get the attention of prospective customers and clients during the Holiday Season - and to motivate them to buy from you?…

…Give Them an Irresistible Offer They Cannot Refuse

Everybody wants to get a “special deal“. Most people don’t expect to find one during the Holiday Season. Surprise them with a Special Holiday Offer.

Make your Special Offer as attractive as you can afford. The greater its value to customers the more sales it will generate.

Here are 5 different offers you can use for almost any product or service.

1. Special Holiday Discount:
People don’t expect discounts during the Holidays. Surprise them with an unexpected Holiday Discount Offer. It gets attention - and motivates many prospects to buy.

2. Special Combination Price:
Combine several products or services for a price that’s lower than the total cost of buying each item separately. A combination offer increases the number of orders you get and the size of your average sale.

It increases your number of sales by generating orders from prospects who were only “shopping around”.

It increases the size of your average sale by motivating buyers to spend additional money to get the “good deal” of your Special Combination Package.

3. Complimentary Bonus
Offer to include a complimentary bonus with each purchase. It doesn’t have to cost you very much so long as it has high perceived value to your customer.

For example, I recently visited a web site offering special interest travel books. They offered a map of any country as a complimentary bonus with each order. I’m sure the map cost the site owner much less than its perceived value to the customer.

4. Complimentary Fast Delivery:
People want to receive something immediately after buying it …especially during the Holidays. You can motivate them to buy by offering complimentary fast delivery. For example, a company selling personalized desk accessories offers complimentary overnight shipping during the Holidays.

5. Bill Me Later or Bill My Credit Card Later Option
This offer generates many sales you normally wouldn’t get during the Holiday Season. It removes the customer’s concern about spending too much money right now.

Tip: Always include a deadline for your offer. Prospects are more likely to take immediate action when faced with the risk of missing your offer.

Advertise Your Special Holiday Offer

Your Holiday Offer is short-lived. So use advertising methods that produce fast results. For example, send a brief email or postcard announcement to your customer or prospect list. Place online and off line ads that will run immediately after you place them.

Tip for Internet Marketers: Announce your Special Holiday Offer prominently near the top of your home page. Something as simple as the words, “Special Holiday Discount“, will grab your visitor’s attention and draw them into your web site.

Everybody likes to get a “special deal“. But they don’t expect to find one during the Holiday Season. Surprising them with a Special Holiday Offer will motivate many hesitant prospects to buy.

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

As an online store owner, assisting customer with additional ordering channels can help increase reach and sales. Allowing your customer to book order over the phone is a good first step in that direction. Phone orders provide your customer with an alternative choice to order, while giving them the flexibility to “shop online” even when they are not online.

In this article, we highlight process, benefits, and tips to promote phone orders on your website.

How Do Phone Orders Work?

The process is simple:

1. A customer, who has registered with your store previously, informs you about the product that he or she wants to purchase.

2. You, as the online store administrator, take the customer’s orders over the telephone and then submit the orders through the administration panel of your online store.

3. The order invoice is created.

Please note: Many ecommerce solutions do NOT support placing orders by the store administrator.

Key Benefits

The greatest benefit of offering an option to order via Phone is the increased flexibility provided to online customer. Other benefits include those listed below:

Customers can decide to buy at a later time
Customers are not forced to decide and place the order in a single visit. A customer can copy down your phone number, ruminate and place the order at a later date. This allows you to target research-oriented customer who might want to consider things carefully before buying a product.

Customer and Merchant can engage in a lively two-way dialog
Ecommerce does not typically allow for “live” interaction, directly and in real time. Ordering via phone allows customer to interact with a representative of your store. Questions can be immediately resolved ensuring that the order gets placed faster. This level of interaction with customers also provide an excellent opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell the products —and increase order value.

Customers can place orders without being on the Internet
Customers often make impulse buying decision. Offering a phone number to place an order ensure that you’re ready to take the order whenever customers are ready to buy —even from a location that may not be web-accessible.

Promoting Ordering through Phone/Mail at the Web Storefront

We suggest following ideas to promote this functionality at the storefront:

Display the Telephone Number at a prominent location on your Website
The telephone number should be displayed at a prominent location to generate the required attention—like the header of the website or the bottom navigation. Also, through basic web analytics, you can identify pages with high exit rates and place the phone number on such pages.

Display the Telephone Number during marketing communications
Mention this option in all communications send out to your customers like marketing collateral, promotional emails and response to the questions through emails.

Advertise your phone number via search engines
You can also market the functionality to book orders via telephone in search engines. Many search engines now offer a service working on the principle of “cost per call.”

Ecommerce need not necessarily depend solely on online sources. You can develop your business effectively by utilizing offline mediums as well. Ordering via phone or email is one such example of how offline and online channels can co-exist harmoniously and in a way, is a win-win situation for both merchants and consumers.

Posted by MixedSoup | No Comments »

The threat is real

These days, you can’t turn on the television, pick up a newspaper, browse your favorite news website, or flip through a magazine without learning about the latest security threats plaguing online businesses and consumers. And last month’s disclosure by major credit card companies that over 40 million cards may have been compromised is evidence that even the leading financial institutions are not immune to the threats. Clearly, it’s more important than ever to secure your web storefront—to safeguard your customer’s private information and ultimately protect your bottom line! As an online store owner, one of the easiest and most responsible things you can do to secure the data submitted via your site is to implement secure sockets layer or SSL.

SSL to the rescue

The SSL protocol allows client/server applications to communicate in a way designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and data forgery. SSL protects network access, online communications, and digital transactions by enabling a secure channel between your servers and your users. With SSL in place, information transmitted from your online store (e.g., via web forms) is encrypted before it is sent over the Internet.

When you connect to a secure web server such as https://www.domain.com, the server authenticates itself to the web browser by presenting a “digital certificate.” A digital certificate is an electronic file that uniquely identifies individuals and servers. Digital certificates allow the client (i.e. web browser) to authenticate the server prior to establishing the encrypted SSL session. Typically, digital certificate requests are reviewed and approved by an independent and trusted third party to ensure their validity. This “signer” of the digital certificate is known as a certification authority (CA). Popular CAs include Geotrust® (www.geotrust.com) and VeriSign® (www.verisign.com). A valid, signed certificate gives consumers confidence that they are sending personal information securely and to the right place.

Install confidence

SSL certificates provide non-forgeable proof of your website’s identity, and they are a great way to instill customer confidence in the integrity and security of your online business.

Without SSL security in place, information is transmitted in “clear text.” This is practically an open invitation for hackers, script kiddies, and other mischief makers to use commonly available “packet sniffing” software to snatch the information while in transit.

Customers are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of SSL security and will often (and with good reason) not purchase online from stores that have not implemented digital certificates and SSL. All major web merchants now use SSL security to encourage customers to buy online.

For more information

Two additional resources to help you get better acquainted with SSL, digital certificates, and e-commerce security are provided below:

• VeriSign’s Secure Socket’s Layer: How it Works
• GeoTrust’s 10 Best Practices for Securing Your Enterprise

Posted by MixedSoup | 1 Comment »