Let’s face it, no one likes criticism, even constructive criticism intended to help us.  Ecommerce store owners are no exception to this rule, and it can often seem like online criticism is the hardest to ignore and combat.  You can’t talk to the disgruntled customer in person, after all, and they are free to post negative comments and reviews about your business and products online at will.

Just how important are customer-generated reviews? According to a recent survey conducted by Minacs Marketing Solutions, 52% of consumers said that positive reviews make them more likely to choose one business over another. 

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You may be wondering, how is navigating an ecommerce site like driving a car?  The answer is simple: both processes are designed to get people (whether they are customers or drivers) from point A to point B. 

Ecommerce site owners, the ones responsible for making sure that their ecommerce sites achieve this goal, are busy people, and often wear many hats as part of running and maintaining their businesses. When people become busy, we tend to look for shortcuts. Usually, this is a time-saving measure that works, but in some cases, cutting corners can really hurt your bottom line. 

Many of the most common ecommerce site mistakes result from the desire to take a shortcut and accomplish things quickly. Think that your site is exempt from these mistakes? Don’t be so sure.  Common mistakes are common for one reason: many people make them.

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Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and for some retailers, the holiday that is synonymous with love and romance is also one of the biggest sales days of the year. 

Unfortunately, as we all know, with more sales comes the possibility of more returns. In a perfect world, no one would ever want to return anything that they purchased, or anything that was given to them, especially not something that they were given as a Valentine’s Day present. 

In the real world, when someone does want to return an item, for whatever reason, here are three ways that you as an ecommerce store owner can help to make sure that this process goes as smoothly as possible.

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Today’s blog post comes to us from Gillian Muessig, Founding President of SEOmoz

SEO is more than SEO. In 1999, it was enough to make sure that keywords were on your landing pages and that your website was crawl-able. By 2003, it was a good idea to add keyword rich text to your H tags, and create horizontal adjust site architecture, and building inbound links took up most of an SEO’s time.

Fast forward to 2012. Social signals are strong and increasing in importance. The industry is maturing and expanding. The Internet marketer’s organic toolbox has a new name: Inbound Marketing or Earned Media Marketing. The distinction is significant. This collection of tools is growing and changing to accommodate major shifts in the search engine algorithms.

Gianluca Fiorelli recently posted this simple graphic illustrating the expanded inbound marketing landscape:

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Today’‘s blog post comes to us from Nancy Woo, a professional writer who has done her fair share of online holiday shopping, and uses these tips to stay safe every time.

Hardly any of us can call ourselves “Moneybags” this season, and in a tumultuous economy, the last thing anyone wants is to find themselves suddenly the victim of Internet fraud or identity theft while innocently shopping for gifts online. Isn’t the holiday season already stressful enough?

We all know how exciting it can be to think that you’re getting a fantastic massage at a quarter of the price from a website that resembles Groupon. But imagine how you’d feel the next day when you found out that Joe Hacker was going to be doing your relaxing for you.

Unfortunately, online fraud does happen, and the holiday season offers the ripest pickings for hackers. So, rather than spending a grueling half-day on the phone with your bank trying to convince them you haven’t been to Moscow lately, follow these tips to protect your account information online.

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We all know the saying “you only get one chance to make a first impression,” but have you ever stopped to think about how this applies to your ecommerce site? Brick and mortar store owners know that window shoppers are a dime a dozen and that it is the shopping experience inside of the store that determines whether or not a sale will take place.

For ecommerce store owners, who don’t interact with their customers face-to-face, however, it is easy to focus more on the day-to-day tasks of running a business and less on the messages that shape the impressions that online shoppers form of an ecommerce business.

If your ecommerce site. . .

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A few years ago, while working as a freelance writer, I wrote some blog posts about the importance of having a blog for your business.  Nowadays, the majority of business owners have heard this message-they know that their business needs a blog, and most businesses have one.

What many business owners (and bloggers) still struggle with, however, is how to make their blog compelling and relevant to their readers, and to encourage interaction and feedback. 

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Right now, your customers are visiting your ecommerce site, searching for special deals and savings. They’re also scouring your social media profiles for the same, and we all know that when it comes to social media, the more fans and followers a company has, the more exposure their social media profiles receive.

How can you develop a social media strategy that will set you apart from the crowd in 2012? Here are three quick and easy tips to help you get started.

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If you’re an ecommerce storeowner, you don’t need me to tell you that Black Friday, and the official start of the holiday shopping season, is a week away.  Most merchants are probably promoting their Black Friday sales and specials as I write this. 

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We’ve all heard that old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and it is a saying that is particularly true when it comes to using a picture to persuade someone to buy a product from an ecommerce store.

Since online shoppers can’t lift, smell, touch, or actually see a product in your ecommerce store, they rely on your product descriptions and your product photos to do this for them. Succeed, and you have a sale. Fail, and the shopper will buy a similar product from one of your competitors instead.

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