With Halloween still a couple of weeks away, Thanksgiving and Christmas may still seem like events far into the future for some of us. Ecommerce merchants, however, know that these holidays, and the subsequent increase in consumer spending that goes along with them, are right around the corner.

Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the kickoff of the holiday shopping season and as such, is a point of focus for many online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Followed closely by “Cyber Monday” or the Monday after Thanksgiving, sales from both of these days are seen by many merchants as a predictor for overall online ecommerce sales during the holiday season.

How can you make sure that your store is ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Here are some tips that can help.

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Most ecommerce stores have their own Facebook page, and behind each one is an ecommerce store owner (or employee or team of employees) whose job it is to promote their company’s presence in the social media sphere.

Whether you’re just starting out with your Facebook business page or have had one for a while, you know that gaining fans and maintaining relationships with them online can involve many things. With this in mind, here are some simple Facebook marketing tips to help you improve your Facebook presence and social engagement.

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

For sellers of the unusual, the unique, one-off’s, few-off’s, and artisanal products, this article will really hit home. But, even if you’re selling products that everyone else is selling - name brand stuff that its sold strictly on who-has-the-lowest-price-including-shipping metrics, these ideas will help you set pricing that works, rather than simply competing to sell at the lowest possible price.

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Yesterday, I reported that a recent study shows that for ecommerce merchants, engaging directly with customers during the holiday shopping season is a more effective method for driving sales and conversions than focusing on traditional marketing strategies.

While the survey provided a lot of useful information about why it is important to connect with customers online, it didn’t really address the question of how this is supposed to be done. I decided to do some research of my own to discover some effective ways that ecommerce merchants can connect and engage with customers during the biggest shopping season of the year—and all year round. 

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Depending on which region of the United States that you live in, the start of the new school year is either right around the corner or has already begun.  While the exact dates vary by state, and in some cases, school district, back-to-school shopping season is officially here.

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Yesterday, Internet Retailer stressed how important it was for ecommerce merchants and ecommerce-only merchants in particular, to stick with a niche.  Reading this article made me want to research and share some ways that ecommerce sites can find, and subsequently grow and market their niches.

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Today’s guest blog post comes from Gillian Muessig, President and Co-Founder of SEOmoz.

Write great content, promote it, and you will be rewarded with inbound links that will help your website rank well in the SERPs (search engine result pages) when people are looking for your products.

Um, yeah. But my website is an ecommerce website. How much content can I write that anybody really wants to link to? Descriptions of products? Not so much! Get real!

I hear your cry. So how does an ecommerce get to the top of the SERPs?

Fortunately, there are more ways to get there than there used to be. While links are still the cornerstone of how the Web is put together (search bots still need to hop from one page to another via links), social signals have become increasingly important over the past months.

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Today’s guest blog post comes to us from Dave Goodwin, CEO of Digital Winds Media, a video marketing and production company based in Jacksonville, Florida .

Teaming QR codes with video connects the retailer with the fast-growing mobile marketplace by leveraging the power of smartphones to both access and display rich content. QR codes are a physical-world tool. Since not all ecommerce sites have a physical presence, today I’m going to cover how ecommerce-only companies can leverage video with or without QRs and how those with a physical presence can combine QR codes and video.

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Reputation is everything, and online reputation management (or lack thereof) can make or break your web presence. Fortunately, there are steps that ecommerce store and online business owners can take to maintain both their online reputation and customer relationships.

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Today’s guest blog post comes to us from Bruce Golub of Phosphor Media, a Miva Merchant Developer Partner.

We use email everyday. Yet many of us don’t stop to think about how our email use speaks to our customers, potential customers and business partners. When you use email as part of your business, it becomes the “voice” of your business. Here are 10 simple things you should be doing to put your “best voice forward.”

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