Tips to Improve E-commerce Sales with Product Recommendations

Businesses know that acquiring new customers is more difficult and costlier than selling new products to existing customers. This is why eCommerce businesses prefer to invest in a good loyalty program. And product recommendations is one of the best marketing tools that a retailer can have in its arsenal. After all, the right recommendation helps sell more products to existing customers.

Simply put, recommendations are suggestions made by the retailer on various things that the customer might also be interested in. But in order to do this, the company has to know its customers and what they want. This is to avoid scenarios like recommending red stilettos to a client who prefers white trainers.

The question now is how to successfully use recommendations to improve eCommerce sales. Here are five suggestions:

1. Generate Personalized Product Recommendations

Personalized recommendations are carefully calculated and chosen products that are offered with the customer's shopping behavior and history taken into consideration.

Amazon is a prime example of personalized recommendations. First-time site visitors will initially see some generic suggestions that are either crowd sourced bestsellers or what other visitors are checking. But once a purchase has been made, they'll see recommendations based on items they've bought or searched for recently. These suggestions are found in the product description of the item a customer is currently checking or on the homepage that they're logged into.

2. Have Well-Timed Customized Email Recommendations

Email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing strategies. It's affordable, practical, and can boost conversions. But to have a more robust customer engagement, personalized email recommendations are the way forward. After all, the more relevant the email's content is, the higher the rate of emails opened, website visits and sales.

Amazon is again a good example of this strategy. The company's AI sends well-timed emails that recommend products that the customer has just browsed on the site. The emails are also sent as soon as the customer leaves the site, thereby ensuring that they're still receptive to recommendations.

3. Make Product Pages More Appealing With Relevant Suggestions

The product page is one area where you can make more recommendations. However, it's important that you find the best way to showcase your items because at this stage, you'll either push your client towards the checkout process or drive them away altogether. Data-backed recommendations can provide shoppers with more choices at this key stage. By putting together selections based on the customer's interest, the odds of conversions can increase by as much as 411%.

Brands can boost conversions by suggesting complementary items. For instance, if the shopper is looking for shoes, they can cross-sell by suggesting a shoe rack. Product recommendations can also be based on the shopping patterns of other shoppers. For example, if previous shoppers also bought a necklace after buying a blouse, then the product page would recommend what “people who bought this product also bought.”

4. Don't Stop at a Confirmed Order

A successful order confirmation doesn't mean you have to stop making recommendations. This stage of the shopping process can still be a good arena for recommending items that the customer could buy. Think of it as a last chance to add more products to the deal.

There are two good ways to make the most of order confirmations. One would be to have recommendation popups. Aside from thanking your customers for their latest purchase, include messages that suggest “you might be interested in this product.” The second way would be to integrate recommended products in the order confirmation email. Make your offer more compelling with the promise of freebies or discounts in their next purchase.

5. Making Friendly Referrals

As already mentioned, recommendations shouldn't stop just because a purchase has been made. Recommendations can be used as a referral tool, one that can push a brand further, generate traffic, and boost more sales.

Brands can do this by asking customers to share the news of their latest purchase with their friends via social media. Bear in mind that people are more likely to buy or use the same brand that a trusted friend has used and recommended. To make this easier for your customer, integrate a “Share This” button on the customer's order confirmation page.

There's no question that recommendations have positive results. It's a marketing strategy that eCommerce businesses can easily adopt. So this year, put more emphasis on recommendations and see your sales numbers grow.

Quick SEO Tactics to Push Higher in SERPs

Nearly every SEO tactic today falls into one of three categories; white hat, black hat, or the nebulous gray. White hat tactics are those recommended by Google and other search engines which take a straightforward approach to reaching the top of the SERPs. Black hat tricks, on the other hand, are methods that are considered unethical in the world of SEO. Yet no matter how you slice it, there are plenty of strategies that fall into the gray.

The SEO cheats presented here are neither black nor white; they just are. Some may consider them to fall on the black hat side of things, but that’s only a misconception. Keep reading and you’ll see.

If you are seeking genuine SEO tactics to give you a rise in the SERPs, look no further. Here are three SEO “cheats” that will deliver impressive results.

1. Targeted Outreach with Google Keyword Planner

Most leverage the Google Keyword Planner simply for AdWords purposes and keyword research. This tool, however, is far more powerful than its implied uses. The Keyword Planner is a stellar tool for identifying outreach opportunities for your site to benefit from.

When conducting an outreach campaign, it is vital to focus your efforts on those who are already discussing similar products or services. Anything broader and you are likely to waste massive amounts of time getting turned down. To find the most relevant sources, focus on those who are already incorporating your long-tail keywords into their mix. You can locate these bloggers by simply loading your keywords into the Keyword Planner and filtering the results for low search volume keywords. Once you have your list, export it.

From here, begin plugging your long-tail words into Google individually while actively searching for blogs or articles that cater to these topics. With this list in hand, you can begin reaching out; you will likely have far more success with your campaign as these folks are already engaging in your industry’s conversation and will be far more apt to respond.

2. Building Links through Building Connections

This method involves persistence and patience, but it will pay off if you remain steadfast in your efforts.
The typical route for many SEOs is to employ tools that will automate and scale their efforts for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. The rationale here is fairly solid, granted that the right elements are scaled. For this approach, however, we are going to take a seemingly counterintuitive path and refrain from scaling.

Much of the online world revolves around relationships, and this is exactly what you are aiming to build. This is the sweet spot on how you will earn your links. When reaching out to potential partners, you may have to contact them a half dozen times before making your pitch. Cold pitches are rarely received well so playing the long game is essential for this to work.

Additionally, with this tactic you have to be willing to go the extra mile and do something that 95 percent of SEOs won’t do; pick up the phone and call people.

It may sound absurd calling someone to ask for a link, but the power of human-to-human connection is something that should not be underestimated. Next time you find yourself inspired by someone’s post, locate their contact information and give them a call to thank them for the information and share your feedback with them. As this is an uncommon practice, you are going to stick out in their memory. And in many cases, that will pay off big.

By connecting to various voices, authorities and influencers in your niche in this manner, sharing and interacting with their materials will feel natural and they are more likely to take notice. This amps up the possibility of them linking to you exponentially because they know who you are.

3. Comment on Blogs – A Lot

Commenting on blogs is one of many tactics that is perceived to be black hat. This is simply not true. Google’s Matt Cutts has been a proponent of this strategy for a long time and has even gone on record stating that he does this as well. In reality, blog commenting is a fantastic way to acquire more traffic, gain visibility and even drive revenue. Since very few people leverage this strategy, it becomes all the more powerful.

The key to gaining the benefits of blog comments lies in ensuring your statements feel natural; automating this process will ultimately backfire. Your comments need to be organic and useful to the overall conversation.

Approach this by compiling a list of reputable, high-quality blogs within your industry. Then narrow things down by entering the URLs into the Moz Domain Authority tool; only keep sites that have a comparable domain authority to your own. Once you have your list, start engaging and driving people to your site. Just bear in mind that most sites have an approval filter for comments. To ensure that yours passes, make sure that it looks natural and adds to the conversation in a valuable way. If it doesn’t achieve these two aspects, you are just spamming someone else’s blog. While this strategy is no quick fix, it is quite effective.

If you are trying to reach the top of the SERPs, you can’t just follow the same practices and tactics that everyone else is. You have to think outside the box and employ strategies that others won’t. By breaking away from the herd and forging your own path to SEO prosperity, you gain a much more solid foundation to your ranking status.

Tips for Organizing your Digital Life Using Awesome Digital Tools

Organizing clutter is an ongoing battle for most people.

Accumulating stuff seems to be the default mode, and over the years it can get out of hand. Back in the day, that meant the closet or the desk, but nowadays, it also means your computer and any other gadget you use regularly. Digital technology has made life easier, no doubt, but it has also made it a lot messier.

If you have been remiss about organizing your digital life, then you have a big problem. You will have to deal with it sooner or later, and sooner is better. Here are 10 tips for organizing your digital life using digital tools to make it more manageable.
 

Upgrade your software

Does your computer crash often or your apps stop working all of a sudden?
This might mean you have not updated your software. In most cases, software developers provide updates on their software for a reason: the old ones don’t work so well. Ignoring prompts or deferring updates to some other time merely means you are working with programs that may be costing you time and resources.

You may also be vulnerable to security breaches without knowing it. You can become more productive and secure if you take the time to update all your regular programs and apps whenever available, instead of waiting until you have to.

You can use the FileHippo App Manager for Windows or MacUpdate Desktop for Mac. There are tons of apps that perform this function that are suitable for all kinds of gadgets, including mobile.

Clean up your inbox

Yes, it has to be done. An overstuffed inbox not only causes stress, but you might even miss important e-mails.

You can easily cut down on your inbox clutter by using apps that filter incoming e-mails, such as Google Inbox for Gmail users. To unsubscribe in bulk try a tool such as Unroll.Me.
Of course, you still have to set the parameters, but it sure beats clicking a box for the 3,000th unread messages in your inbox.

Clean up your desk(top)

The only things that should be on your desktop are your recycle bin and shortcuts to your most frequently used apps. If you can hardly see your desktop through the mess of icons, you definitely need to check out Fences for Windows or Synchronize! Pro for Mac.

Clean up the system cache

Everything you do leaves a footprint in your system cache, so you want to wipe it clean. You can use Disk Cleaner, which is built into Windows 10, or find an app like Dr. Cleaner for Mac.

Clean up temp files

Most people ignore temp files because they are out of sight, but a lot of them can slow you down. You usually get rid most of these every time you reboot your computer, but not all, and over time it can accumulate.  Use CCleaner regularly to find and remove temp files your computer creates every time you open a website, create or modify a file, or download stuff.

Find duplicates

Free up some space by finding duplicate photos using a tool such as Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto for Mac and simply Duplicate Cleaner for Windows.

Remove old files

Remove documents, images, videos, downloads, and contacts you have not used in months or years. You can back them up in an external hard drive or the cloud (you can use Bittorent Sync for this, which is free for personal use, and has no size limit) if you feel anxious about losing something before deleting  them permanently from your system. Yes, that includes your photos. Your computer should have a built-in app for making backups. Do this at least once a year to keep your computers and smart phones working at peak levels.

Uninstall old software

Maybe you had a printer that died a couple of months back, and you have a new one now. You will not need the old software, obviously, so go ahead and uninstall it. In Windows, go to Control Panel, click on Program and Features, and uninstall that and anything else you see that you never use. In Mac, head on over to Home, click on Library then Application Support, and drag and drop all the apps you don’t want.

Organize your files

Now that you have removed all the stuff you don’t need, you still have to organize whatever’s left. You can do it the old-fashioned way, creating folders and putting stuff in, or you can use FreeCommander  for Windows or FastCommander for Mac.

Organize as you go

Now that everything is in place, and there is a place for everything, make sure you don’t start making problems for yourself again. New files need to be put in the right folders as they come in. Delete old files as you receive updated versions, archive photos and back them up to the cloud, and clean up your inbox on a daily basis. This is the only way you can keep up and be productive.


There is no reason to become overwhelmed with a cluttered digital life. You can use a plethora of digital tools, many of which are free, to help you become and stay organized. It might be painful at the start, but you have to do it. Once you do, you will be much more relaxed and productive.

Top Ten Ways to Drive More Visitors to Business WebSites

For more visitors to your business website specifically, those who at some point want to purchase. Like any other online business, the success of your own business is tied in directly with the amount of targeted traffic your site can attract.

Fortunately, there are many techniques you can use right away to start attracting increasing amounts of quality traffic to your site. And they work long-term too.

1. Recommendations

Recommendations from other online businesses are very powerful, and drive valuable traffic for months if not years. So it’s worth investing time and effort in attaining some of these links.
After all, potential customers are far more likely to believe a third-party review of your business than your own marketing materials.

To help encourage these recommendations:

• Ensure whatever you provide through your business is the best it can be and delivers real value to your customers.
• Prioritize customer support, deal with inquiries on a personal level and build up a personal rapport with some of your best customers.
• Create an affiliate program, providing incentives for other businesses to start recommending you.
• Ask for referrals – you’ll be surprised how often your customers will be happy and willing to refer others to your business.

2. Article Marketing

Yes, article marketing has received some negative coverage of late, but much of it comes from business owners who use SEO as a central pillar in their marketing strategy.

Instead, it’s important to develop links from all over the web that drive traffic to your business independent of search engines, and reduce any such reliance on SEO. Article marketing remains one of the most effective ways in which to achieve that.

The fact is article directories are among some of the most highly-visited sites online … why wouldn’t you want your link on them, siphoning traffic back to your site?

And if you need any proof that article marketing can increase the online visibility of your business – you’re reading this, aren’t you?

In fact, my own articles tend to get hundreds if not thousands of views within just a few days of publication. Some go on to achieve tens of thousands of views. And that’s just one article directory …

Multiply that when you syndicate to several high-traffic article directories, as well as other potential online publishers, and you start to appreciate how effective article marketing can be in raising your profile.

It’s also not always about linking back to your main website either. You can for example also link back to your pages on social media, or perhaps a squeeze page domain to help build your email list.

3. Paid Traffic

Can’t that be costly? Yes, but only if you do it wrong. Get it right, and it’s a continual, long-term profit stream.

Personally, I’ve been paying for traffic for years, as well as using other traffic-building methods.
Take time to master it; be willing to invest some cash up front while you get it working effectively, and it becomes an important asset for your business.

4. Retargeting

Of course, retargeting also involves buying traffic, but it works slightly differently.
When you get a visitor to your site, you then drop a cookie on them, and they continue to see ads for your site on other websites around the web long after they have visited.

This not only brings a percentage back to your site, but can also raise your profile with them and keep your business front of mind, increasing the likelihood of purchase.

5. Email Marketing

Capture the email address of your prospect, and you can then follow-up with them by email for weeks, months, and years to come. Some people on my own list have been receiving emails from me for several years now, and still end up back on one of my sites after clicking links provided in the emails I send out.

Communicate with your list regularly, and invite them to return to your website, whether for a promotion, to read your latest content, or to interract in some way with you.

It’s a powerful way to build a relationship with your prospects, build traffic for the long-term, and of course increase their likelihood of purchase.

6. Blogging

I’ve now been blogging for years, and it’s one of the central planks to my long-term traffic strategy:

• It gives you a lot of content in the search engines, with each post that you write (or have written) working to attract visitors over the long-term.
• It helps build relationships with the people who read your blog, who return repeatedly to read your latest content.
• It builds your credibility and authority, increasing the chance of both purchase and referral to others
• It gives you content to feed your social media activities.
• You can leverage the content for other purposes (for example, this article originates from a blog post).

7. Forum and Blog Commenting

Engage with forums relevant to your niche, and you can drive a lot of targeted traffic back to your site.

For example, link to a blog post where it helps someone’s question. Link back to your site from your signature, and via your profile.

You can also build up some powerful relationships which can result in long-term traffic from referrals and so on.

It works in a similar fashion with blogs. Avoid spam commenting completely, but instead add a useful, informative comment of real value. You can either link back by adding your website details into the field provided, or where appropriate try linking back to say one of your own blog posts where it adds further to the discussion.

8. Videos

YouTube can be hugely effective in driving traffic to your site, simply because it gets so much traffic itself as the world’s second largest search engine. By posting videos that will match up with some of those searches you’ll reach new audiences and attract new visitors to your site.
What’s more, you can create new videos relatively easily by simply basing them on earlier blog posts.

9. Social Media

Social media signals are becoming increasingly important for SEO purposes, and it also allows your content to spread far beyond your own shores and get seen by audiences you otherwise wouldn’t reach.

Every time you create or add new content somewhere, you can also post it to your social media profiles. This drives up engagement, attracts new followers, and raises the visibility of your business in general.

10. Do They Want What You’ve Got?

You might not think it’s a ‘traffic strategy’ as such … but in fact, it’s the most important one.
If people don’t want what you’ve got, you’ll find traffic generation a whole lot harder.

On the other hand, when you sell what people want, particularly when combined with a powerful USP (unique selling proposition) it all becomes a lot easier. People will spread the word naturally, your traffic will grow based on their willing referrals, and your marketing costs will reduce substantially.

Tips for Launching an Ecommerce Business Online

It is finally time come to become your own boss. You have a product idea that you know people will love to invest in that can make you more money than what you make at your regular job. It's time to start an online business. Yet before you begin marketing yourself to friends and neighbors through social media, you'll want to get your online business off to a great start from the very beginning. Use this checklist of the 10 elements to have in place before opening your online business.

1: Have a Business Plan

Business plans are basic outlines and details about your business as it shows what you will do to make your business a success. It helps define who you plan to market your products to, what products you will be offering, how your product fits into the industry market, how you plan to promote your business, and how you plan to finance it.

2: Secure Your Vendors

You will want to secure all the vendors who will be supplying the materials and merchandise for your online store. Evaluate vendors to ensure that they can deliver your items to you in the fastest amount of time and that the products are of a quality that you want to associate your name with when selling them to customers.

3: Get Financing

Unless you have a nice nest egg you can use to finance your business for the first year or so until you start to make enough profits, you will have to get the working capital to see your business become a reality. You can obtain a business loan from a financial institution or a government-backed loan. If you have poor or no credit to get a loan, consider asking friends and family members to finance your business.

4: Obtain any Business Licenses, Permits and Insurance

Even though you will be offering products or services online instead of through a regular brick-and-mortar store, you still need to abide by all state and federal laws based on the type of business you operate. Obtain the suitable licenses or permits to open your business. You should also look into getting insurance to legally protect yourself and your business.

5: Create Promotional Materials

Even though you may be selling your products exclusively through your online store, you will still need to create physical promotional materials to hand to people so they will visit your website. Create promotional flyers to hang on store bulletin boards or pass out to pedestrians. Also make business cards to hand out to people you meet.

6: Develop a Functional Website

The website is the hub of your business. While it should be appealing to all web traffic, it also needs to be functional with easy-to-use navigation features and ordering instructions. Strive to make the website look professional with photographs and content that appeal to your customer niche. There are tons of website templates to allow you to create the website yourself, or you can go through a web design company who can help you get your business seen online.

7: Set Up Your Website for Payment Processing

There are so many e-commerce software and hosting solutions available that you truly can pick the right one that works best for your business. Whether you want to set up a simple shopping cart on your website, or you want something more robust through an e-commerce hosting company, will be based on your business preferences. Research and compare your options so you can process credit cards or accept payment services such as Paypal without any problems.

8: Define Your Customer Support Services

For some reason customer support always get pushed to the side as eager small business owners are more focused with promoting and marketing their sites. Yet you need to set up a reliable customer support service to handle returns, upsell products and deal with customer complaints. Options you have for customer support include email contact pages and a dedicated telephone line for your business. Always set aside a portion of your time to deal with customer service issues or hire someone to strictly handle this role.

9: Market Your Business Online

Customers won't know that your online business exists if you don't have an online marketing plan. While you promoted your business out on the street, you also need to promote yourself through all online avenues. Create a social media presence, set up a blog, offer opt-in newsletters and engage in ad campaigns to spread your business brand far and wide.

10: Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices

While marketing your products to online customers, you don't want to leave out mobile customers. More people are shopping and making purchases through their smart phones or tablet devices. You will need to have a mobile-optimized site, landing page and ad marketing campaign suited to mobile customers.