The coronavirus pandemic is forcing many companies to adjust to a home-based workforce. TaxJar, a sales-tax compliance platform, has been entirely remote since its founding seven years ago. All 160 employees work remotely, mainly from their homes. Mark Faggiano is founder and CEO of TaxJar. I recently spoke with him about managing a large, distant workforce.| Practical Ecommerce
Corey Wilks, a clinical psychologist, helps founders and creators improve their mindset to overcome obstacles.| Practical Ecommerce
Shopify's growth continues, with Q1 2024 revenue up 23% from the prior year, mainly owing to Shopify Payments.| Practical Ecommerce
First there was Ruby, and now there is Ruby on Rails. Ruby is an open-source web-programming language that was developed in Japan in 1995. Ruby resides on your web server and operates similarly to other programming languages, such as PHP, ASP and Perl. “Rails” is a separate pre-built ...| Practical Ecommerce
David Heinemeier Hansson created the Ruby on Rails software framework. He’s also a partner in 37signals, producers of the popular Basecamp suite of online collaboration tools. In this excerpt from a longer audio interview, Heinemeier Hansson discusses the state of ecommerce. PeC: What...| Practical Ecommerce
First-party data remains an underutilized marketing asset of ecommerce companies.| Practical Ecommerce
Platforms such as TikTok, Google, Meta, and LinkedIn provide free details of all advertisements — the owner, views, run date, more.| Practical Ecommerce
Andrew Faris manages large Meta Ad budgets. He says the best creative emphasizes a product's benefits — clearly and directly.| Practical Ecommerce
In 2013, most ecommerce merchants generated losses from first-time shoppers. It's the same for 2022, although the circumstances differ. Contributor Charles Nicholls revisits the drivers of ecommerce profitability: 2013 vs. 2022.| Practical Ecommerce
Keywords no longer guarantee traffic, but they do reveal prospects' needs.| Practical Ecommerce
Google's core search algorithm includes a "helpful content" component, making its definition of the term critical.| Practical Ecommerce
Google's quality raters' guidelines suggest a new approach to searchers' intent: "know simple," "know," and "do."| Practical Ecommerce
Search Console can identify non-indexed pages, duplicate content, crawl errors, and more.| Practical Ecommerce
Consumers increasingly turn to ChatGPT and similar channels for product and brand recommendations.| Practical Ecommerce
Structured data helps search engines understand a page's purpose and elevate its visibility in organic listings.| Practical Ecommerce
Adding web pages to its index is Google's first step in evaluating rankings. Here's how to ensure indexation and speed it up when necessary.| Practical Ecommerce
Merchants looking for AI visibility should create problem-solving content. Attempting to match keywords to prompts is fruitless.| Practical Ecommerce
ChatGPT does not maintain an index of global websites, instead relying intially on Bing's index and now, apparently, on Google's.| Practical Ecommerce
ChatGPT recommends products directly in search results for prompts with clear purchase intent.| Practical Ecommerce
Robots.txt directives and JavaScript often prevent generative AI bots from accessing content.| Practical Ecommerce
Mathias Schrøder grew his company's revenue, but bloated overhead meant little profits and even less free time. Then he had an idea.| Practical Ecommerce
Having sold Grasshopper, the virtual phone service, for $175 million in 2015, David Hauser assessed his priorities. Grasshopper was his third launch and exit, following ReturnPath (email services) and Chargify (subscription management).| Practical Ecommerce
Persistent stomach pain prompted Allison Ellsworth to formulate a prebiotic soda, which she named Poppi. That was in 2018. It's now among the fastest-growing beverage brands in the U.S.| Practical Ecommerce
The co-owner of Lori Beds opens up on business, divorce, children, and more.| Practical Ecommerce
Our huge library of search engine optimization articles addresses strategies and tactics for ecommerce businesses. Our 12-part “How-to” series explains the basics. Advanced topics include faceted navigation, crawling and indexing, cross-border optimization, and much more.| Practical Ecommerce
Armen Alajian's children now work in the global ceramic business founded by his father.| Practical Ecommerce
Rich snippets are additional details in organic listings that stand out in search results. Ratings, prices, FAQs, videos — all are examples of rich snippets. "Structured markup" is programming code that creates rich snippets. Any website can contain structured markup — Schema.org is the most popular type.| Practical Ecommerce
Google's policy to not duplicate URLs on page one of search results is likely bad news for publishers. Here's our primer on "deduplication" and tactics (if any) to overcome.| Practical Ecommerce
HTML headings are phrases or short sentences introducing a new section of content. Google has confirmed that headings help communicate the content's purpose. But search engine optimizers often debate how, exactly, Google uses those headings.| Practical Ecommerce
Combining the features of RankIQ and Jasper, two artificial-intelligence-based tools, can quickly produce compelling content drafts optimized for search engines. We explain in this helpful tutorial.| Practical Ecommerce
Looking to monitor your organic search competitors? Here are five handy (and affordable) tools to track rankings, content updates, links, and more.| Practical Ecommerce
A serial entrepreneur looks back. Employees and attitude drove his success — more than the products or services.| Practical Ecommerce
To David Perell, writers and readers are thinkers and doers.| Practical Ecommerce
Harry Joiner advises job seekers to research prospective employers and stay in the right mindset.| Practical Ecommerce
"Ecommerce Conversions" is my weekly podcast interview with an entrepreneur. But this episode is different. I'm interviewing no one. Instead, I'm addressing a singular topic: bootstrapping.| Practical Ecommerce
Sean Frank addresses the overall state of ecommerce in 2022, the perils of excessive debt, and his goal of selling the company within three years.| Practical Ecommerce
Apple's iOS 14 privacy changes have upended Facebook advertising performance, forcing merchants to seek alternative marketing channels. Direct mail is back.| Practical Ecommerce
Josh Paulson acquired his grandfather's pet-accessories business when it was losing $25,000 per month. Focusing on pet chinchillas provided the long-term turnaround.| Practical Ecommerce
Business is booming for the direct-to-consumer brand launched just four years ago.| Practical Ecommerce
Amid slower sales, Beardbrand needed a less costly fulfillment provider. The first choice was a mistake.| Practical Ecommerce
Jeff Sheldon's direct-to-consumer desktop accessories merge function and aesthetics.| Practical Ecommerce
Should a business contest improper suits or pay the money and move on?| Practical Ecommerce
Future Commerce founder Phillip Jackson sees the good in commerce as a societal stabilizer.| Practical Ecommerce
The right font on an ecommerce website enhances the brand's mission. Here are four ecommerce examples of typography done well.| Practical Ecommerce
On a hiking trip in Utah, three ecommerce owners joined our host for a table-side discussion. Why start a company? Is it worth the hassle?| Practical Ecommerce
Sometimes customer relationships fade. A shopper may have made several purchases, but then, over time his orders become less frequent until finally, you don't hear from him. But your business can re-engage at least a few lapsed customers and win them back with email marketing automation.| Practical Ecommerce
In the natural progression of most email programs, there comes a time when an ecommerce site is ready to tackle the power of triggered emails. Although a challenge to set up, they can be a crucial element in your overall marketing communications strategy, and for good reason. Triggered ...| Practical Ecommerce
Automated bids in Google Ads remove control from advertisers and rely on Google's algorithm for cost and performance. Google can set automated bids by the query, ad creative, apps, browser, language, operating system, and search partner. Plus, automated bidding utilizes first- and third-party data and other signals not available to advertisers directly.| Practical Ecommerce
Once found only at the bottom of a sales funnel, the ecommerce product detail page is evolving to address the entire buyer journey, from awareness to sale. Consider a free, basic theme on Shopify called "Simple." Its product detail pages are sales-focused, with eight sections.| Practical Ecommerce
Optimizing content for organic rankings requires knowing how Google will interpret searchers' intent — informational, commercial, or navigational.| Practical Ecommerce
Based on popularity in 2022 and trends in the past few years, we can anticipate Google Ads' focus in 2023. Here are four likely themes.| Practical Ecommerce
Google's Performance Max campaigns run on auto-pilot, allowing little control or transparency to advertisers. With three recent updates, that grip is loosening a bit.| Practical Ecommerce
Contributor Matt Umbro, a pay-per-click pro, responds to questions from Google Ads advertisers, addressing campaign budgets, keyword limits, Search Network tactics, growth, and more.| Practical Ecommerce
Optimizing for keywords can improve a page's organic rankings. But the competition for keywords varies. Here's how to tell which ones are worth the effort.| Practical Ecommerce
There are many expensive tools that claim to simplify and speed up the keyword research process. If you don’t have thousands of dollars in your budget, however, there’s always the old-school, free method.| Practical Ecommerce
Google Trends and autocomplete both use data from actual searches. But unlike autocomplete, Trends is not personalized or filtered. It's a valuable source of keyword optimization opportunities.| Practical Ecommerce
How will Google's Search Generative Experience impact organic listings?| Practical Ecommerce
Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience will soon roll out to all users, replacing the current layout and results.| Practical Ecommerce
The first step in diagnosing declines in organic search traffic is identifying which pages and queries account for the loss.| Practical Ecommerce
How to block Google Bard without jeopardizing organic search traffic?| Practical Ecommerce
Certainly Google and Bing can find a web page on their own. But submitting sitemaps can expedite indexing. And product listings require submitting from merchants.| Practical Ecommerce
Modern search result pages are much more than 10 blue links. SEO performance metrics have changed, too.| Practical Ecommerce
A growing set of tools measures and improves how products and brands appear in generative AI answers.| Practical Ecommerce
Why does a 1940s-era model interest large advertisers and platforms? Three reasons.| Practical Ecommerce
A customer journey map outlines the process of buyers leading to a purchase. Optimizing each step can greatly increase conversions.| Practical Ecommerce
Google Analytics "Assisted Conversions" reports are hidden attribution gold deep in the platform's conversion analysis tools. While most Analytics reports show the immediate source ("last click") of traffic and conversions, Assisted Conversions identify the relationship between all channels and conversions.| Practical Ecommerce
Merchants have long dreamed of delivering the perfect marketing message to a specific shopper at the ideal time to close a sale.| Practical Ecommerce
Starting an ecommerce business can be the first step in a rewarding career. But it's not easy. This guide by Senior Contributor Armando Roggio, a 20-year ecommerce veteran, is realistic and thus enormously helpful.| Practical Ecommerce
Conventional ecommerce wisdom is that merchants should sell across multiple channels, manufacture or control their products, and scale. Don't tell that to Brian Goulet, president of The Goulet Pen Company, which sells high-end fountain pens and writing accessories.| Practical Ecommerce
Producing quality videos is immensely difficult. It requires a clear vision from idea to finished product. This is episode nine in my series on building an ecommerce business from the ground up.| Practical Ecommerce
Paul Jauregui launched BK Beauty, a direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand, with Lisa, his wife, in 2019. Unlike many DTC brands, BK Beauty does not rely on Facebook advertising.| Practical Ecommerce
Aaron Marino says he hates to read. He's bad at grammar and writing, he claims. But he's really good at making videos. "I had a fitness center that didn't work out," he told me. "I started making YouTube videos in 2008 with no idea that I could ever make a buck on that platform."| Practical Ecommerce
There is a page on your ecommerce site that likely needs attention. Perhaps you don't have it, but a frequently-asked-questions page is essential to any online store. Done right, FAQs can close sales.| Practical Ecommerce
Product descriptions are vital to attracting website traffic and closing sales. But the type of description to use depends on your target audience and the channel, beyond your own ecommerce site. Potential customers are everywhere, waiting to be found.| Practical Ecommerce
The king of A/B ecommerce testing (and conversions) is Amazon. Affordable tools make testing doable for all merchants. Here's how to get started.| Practical Ecommerce
When it comes to compelling product pages, less can be more. Cluttered pages distract from selling points. Focus on the crucial details. Embrace a minimalist approach to lessen the thinking process and close the sale. What follows are 11 product page features from three online stores.| Practical Ecommerce
Consumers conduct more product searches on Amazon than on any other site, including Google. Hence understanding those search terms on Amazon informs merchants not just on that platform, but for Google optimization, too.| Practical Ecommerce
I discussed in my previous post two compositional rules that could make your product photography more engaging. I'll expand on that subject in this article. This is the ninth installment of my series to help ecommerce merchants take better product images.| Practical Ecommerce
I'm frequently asked to recommend a camera. Sometimes folks inquire about the camera I use to display my artwork online. But both queries miss the point. Knowing how to use a camera is far more important than the unit itself. Nonetheless, choosing a suitable camera is critical.| Practical Ecommerce
Quality product photography has less to do with a camera and lenses and more with lighting and its use. Thus if you're looking to improve product photos, learn about proper lighting. This is the third post in my series on helping ecommerce merchants take better product photos.| Practical Ecommerce
Andrew Foxwell launched his agency in 2012, focusing on social media advertising. Amid nonstop industry change, Foxwell concludes successful marketers must adopt a learning mindset.| Practical Ecommerce
Apple rolled out iOS 15 on Sept. 20, 2021. The release provides users of iOS devices — iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch — the ability to load remote content privately, blocking the sender's ability to track opens. I've addressed iOS 15 twice.| Practical Ecommerce
Apple recently unveiled its iOS 15 software, which rolls out this fall. Most of the new features focus on privacy, data tracking, and user security. Two features, "Mail Privacy Protection" and "Hide My Email," will dramatically impact email marketing.| Practical Ecommerce
Andrew Bialecki launched Klaviyo in 2012 as a data repository for other businesses. Then a friend told him about Shopify. Fast forward to 2022 and Klaviyo is a global email-marketing juggernaut.| Practical Ecommerce
Many consumers prefer text messages to email. Moreover, SMS subscribers are "owned" media, the best kind of marketing.| Practical Ecommerce
Trading an ebook for a prospect's contact information is among the purest forms of content marketing. It's an effective way for B2B sellers to find their next customer. B2B companies supply the products that ecommerce and omnichannel sellers retail to the general public.| Practical Ecommerce
New consumer privacy laws in the U.S. and elsewhere apply to many forms of digital promotion, including email marketing. Thus it's worth reviewing the requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which sets rules for the use of commercial email to U.S.-based recipients.| Practical Ecommerce
The pandemic is prompting consumers to stay at home and buy online. It's a perfect opportunity for ecommerce companies to introduce a well-defined loyalty program. Also called rewards or points, loyalty programs help the business and its customers in three key ways.| Practical Ecommerce
Many online merchants have experienced traffic surges due to the pandemic. Converting the new traffic to immediate purchases can be challenging. The next best option is enticing visitors to subscribe to your email communications. In this post, I'll offer tips for converting new visitors into email subscribers.| Practical Ecommerce
Many ecommerce and omnichannel marketers treat text messaging as pared-down email campaigns. But text alone is a powerful way to drive sales. Nearly everyone, after all, grabs their mobile phone the moment a message arrives.| Practical Ecommerce
Text commerce is the process of obtaining payment and shipping info from shoppers upfront as well as permission to send offers. The model can solve multiple hurdles for merchants.| Practical Ecommerce
Text messaging can be among the most productive retail marketing channels, provided the workflows are automated and the performance is tracked. Entrepreneur Jordan West, the owner of an ecommerce marketing agency and an apparel company, uses text-message marketing to drive sales. He believes text messages are among his best marketing channels.| Practical Ecommerce
"AI Max for Search," Google Ads new campaign type, aims to understand searchers' intentions beyond keywords.| Practical Ecommerce
Five campaign settings can make or break performance and often require overriding Google's suggestions.| Practical Ecommerce
Optimizing for generative AI is different from traditional search engines. The distinction lies in the underlying technology.| Practical Ecommerce
In a helpful reporting update, Google Ads now shows click and conversion data for each headline and description line of Responsive Search Ads.| Practical Ecommerce
Pricing should not be a mystery. Posting clear, understandable prices for the products that your online store sells should be an important part of the| Practical Ecommerce
Rich Communication Services enables relatively more message interactivity, such as buttons, carousels, and branding.| Practical Ecommerce
A print-on-demand t-shirt store attracts and retains customers with a five-step marketing framework.| Practical Ecommerce
Loyal, repeat shoppers convert easily, spend more, cost less to service, and help spread the word about good online shopping experiences. Earning long-term customers can significantly improve an ecommerce business. Loyal shoppers demonstrate conversion rates 5-to-9 times greater than f...| Practical Ecommerce