Frank Siano

This is not my video, but the spyfu program is great. For analytics I would just use Google analytics. This is free to.

Enjoy

If your like most people I speak to, you have no idea what your cart abandonment is. This is the reason you conversion rate is so low (In most cases). If you have people in place then a live chat intercepts is the answer.

I have done a hand full of test with live chat and within your check out process if a live chat window opens and say “Can I help answer and questions?” pops up, about 90% of the people will close the window quickly. However if you can close a portion on the 10% that do either have an issue or need some questions answered then your in business my friend. The site I been involved with all have 75 - 90% abandonment rates. I am talking top retail companies I have consulted for.

It works I tried it. Don’t do this for every page or you will annoy your customers, but within the last steps of the check out process is a great place to start testing.

What are you waiting for get going.

A lot of people ask this question on a regular basis. Are reviews worth it? This is a tricky question. They can be if people actually write reviews down. If you have a site and no one writes a review then its not worth it.

Let me explain.

If you have a site with lots of traffic and people post reviews regularly then it’s worth it. If there are products with no reviews this can hurt the sale of that product.

The next question I usually get is what about negative reviews? Again tests I have done shows they can be good, but they can be bad. If you only have one review and its negative it will defiantly hurt. If you have 10 - 20 reviews and 1 - 3 are negative this will actually help conversion because its more believable.

I personally don’t like to put them or recommend them unless you have a dedicated moderator for them.

Do you create video? If not you need to start. If you think it hard or takes to much time it only gets easier with time. Once you do create a video here is the site you need to use to submit your video.

Click here to see the online video tool.
TubeMogul is the first online video analytics and distribution tool that allows publishers large and small who need to upload videos to the Web’s top video sharing sites.

Check it out and if you have questions on how to use it I am here to help. Plus TubeMogul has a lot of training to help.

Enjoy

Anchor linking is a part of SEO and gaining in-bound links. The question is How Important is Anchor Linking? It is a big part of SEO in my opinion. Its important for a few reasons.

It helps with navigation. Think about it… if your on a site reading something and there is a link that validates what you are reading your likely to click on it. On page anchor linking will help keep the spiders on your site longer which will help your ranging. Don’t go crazy but you can have 1 - 2 anchor links per page.

Another great way to get in-bound links is through article submission. When you write and submit articles make sure you link a keyword back to your web site.

If don’t tastefully it can help, but do go crazy.

I did not put these in any order and it really depends on your budget, but I just wanted to let you know what you need to start looking at to get ahead of the game or even in the game for that matter. This is a fast moving game, like a roller coaster so buckle up and get ready to move fast. I like to look at it as a game since games are fun and love what I do.

Here are the 11 Things You Need To Put In Your Online Marketing Business Plan:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - This means using optimization techniques so search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) will rank your website within the top 10 search results. By doing this, thousands of people will come to your site every day for free. I know easier said then done for most people. 
2. Pay Per Click (PPC) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM)- This means you will be bidding on keywords so that text ads are displayed when a person conducts a search on a particular keyword or key phrase. Google, Yahoo and MSN all have pay per click internet marketing platforms.  
3. Email Marketing - This is where you will continually build an email database. You will email the database once a week to start. The context of the email will include, but not limited to promoting new products, promotions or news. Two great tools for a small business is www.constantcontact.com and www.aweber.com
4. Write Articles and Distribute Them Online - This is a great way to get tons of one-way links pointed at your site (which search engines love!). Once an article is written we will submit the article though an article submission program that will spread content throughout the web generating hundreds of in bound links. 
5. Write Press Releases and Distribute Them Online - Similar to writing and submitting articles, this is a very simple and extremely effective way to get tons of links pointed to you. It is also a great way to drive targeted traffic. The most popualr is www.prweb.com. There are also free ones out there.  
6. Blogging – This is a great way to get original content and build a community around your products and brand. You will need to write in the blog at a minimum of once a week. If not then dont bother starting a blog 
7. Social Media  - You will set up a profile page for your site on Social Networks. Then you will add relevant friends as well as join and start groups related to your products. This will also help you to build loyalty and gain credibility to your consumers and allow you to build your email database.  
8. Affiliate Marketing – With the right company, or hire, affiliates post your products on there site and in return they ask for a percentage of the sale. The magnitude is tremendous based on hundreds of affiliates all selling product for you. 
9. Videos – Here you will be looking to create video on things related to your industry. Then you will submit the videos across multiple channels. You have to post on www.youtube.com for sure. If you have extra cash floating around have www.trafficgeyser.com post them for you.  
10. Viral Marketing – You can use video or animation to create a viral buzz around the internet to help build your brand as well as obtain new customers. 
11. Comparison Shopping – This is a great and inexpensive way to test different marketing channels.

Try them and see what works best for you. Some of these channel might not be a good fit. You know what I always say Test. Test. test

If everyone could make a dollar out of 50 cents we would all be rolling in the dough big time. Unfortunately that is no the case at all. Many people ask me what bring in the most ROI and from my experience that has always been email marketing.

I have worked for some of the top retail ecommerce site in the world and it has always been the same thing. Why is this? Its because these people come to you site and register to opt in because they want to know what your doing, they want the discounts and free offers. These people are coming to you, so how easy is it to sell to them.

One big issue I see with most site is that there email newsletter sign up page is hidden. Put it on the top of you page with a nice offer and watch you list grow. With one company we went from 500k to 1 million in a year. How can this be possible you might ask your self? its simple, people wanted to sign up so we made it easier for them.

Build that list and watch your cents turn into dollars. But build it naturally. Buying a list will help sort term, but not long term.  Trust me I tried it.

There are 5 basic elements to SEO that your need to do on every page to try to get top ranking in SEO.

1. Title Tags- This is the text on the top bar of your browser. This is what the search engines use to determine what the page is about. You don’t what to rewrite and keyword stuff here. You want to keep it to 12 words maximum. That includes the name of your company if you choose to put your company name here. I would only write for two keywords per page so limit your title tag to two keywords in your title tag. Anything more can confuse the search engine.

2. META Tags - Some say that these tags don’t matter. I think their wrong and you want to be prepared for any algorithm changes that might happen. There are two META tags that are a must for each page. The first is the META Description tags. Here you want to write a sentence or two about the page. Make sue you use your keywords here a few times. Keep it to a 26 word maximum. The search engines something use this in there result when they display your page.

The next tag is the META Keyword tags. Here you can put different variations for your keywords. Don’t repeat keywords and start with the longest phrase and go to the smallest phrase.

3. H1 Tags- There are different ranges for the H1 tags ranging from H1 - H6. Use H1 for you main title. Then go down in H tags for the sub title of the page. Next title you would use an H2 then H3 and so on. Again its good to use a nice keyword variation here. Don’t write your keyword more then once here.

4. ALT Tags- These are the tags you use to title your images. Just use a keyword to write what the image is. It will help. You can get ranked in Google images and also if an image doesn’t load for some reason it will put this text so users will at least know what image is supposed to be. This tag is often overlooked so its easy traffic.

5. Site Map- This last one was hard since I would have probably listed 100 things, but I wanted to keep it to the basics. A site map is great for the search engines. it allows them to spider you whole site within one link. Something that often happens is that owners often forget to update there site map when adding more pages. A site map is also good for users to view your whole site when they are lost. This is great for site usability.

For those of you not familiar with SEO there are tons more you need to do, but these are the basics. Read on for more.

For the experts reading I plan to start simple then get more advanced in due time, but you can feel free to ask me any advanced questions.

Every great marketing pofessional should always be on the look out for great new tools. One of the most important way the market your product or service is word of mouth or viral marketing. The best part is that viral marketing is FREE!

This new tool allows users to log into there personal accounts and pulls in there data so they can invite friends to share there data.

I just want to share this great new find so check it out. http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/index.jsp 

Enjoy

The fact is if you can move the needle on conversion rates you can double or triple your sales with the same amount of traffic. Let’s do some simple math here. If you have a 1% conversion rate and your doing $1,000,000 in sales then if you can raise your conversion rate to 2% then you can do $2,000,000 in sales. The problem is its easier said then done.

Here are the 5 things you need to do to increase your conversion rate

1. Test your website pages. What do you test? Your home page, your checkout funnel, your landing pages, your products pages etc. You should test everything. Run your tests based on your traffic and how in demand your product is.

If your have a higher ticket item them its good to test for a few months to see how the tests move the needle.

If you have a lot of traffic with a low ticket item then in a few weeks you will know if your changes are working.

If you have a big budget i would recommend using the top companies like optimost or offermatica (now Omniture). If your budget is slim (like most are) then use google’s free tool Website Optimizer.

2. Test your creative. Try different button colors, use photos instead of text. Try using a different layout. Move things around.

3. Do a competitor analysis. How can you beat your competition if you don’t know what they are doing? You cant… so go on there site and see what there doing.

4. Take everything in moderation. You don’t have to send 100% of your traffic to see what will move the needle. Only send 10% to start if its working then try 20%. You don’t want to completely change your site and it not work. That can be to costly. Start small and the results will show if done properly.

5. Have a plan in place. This one I shouldn’t have to explain, but if you just put a bunch of random stuff out there then how will you know what your testing? Have a plan then execute. Again start small.

Conclusion

There are definitely a lot more things you can do, but I just wanted to provide you with the simple and most basic. Once you prefected these 5 suggestions your doors and ideas will open up. If you can just move the needle a little it’s worth it.

Again I welcome comments and questions since I am here to help.

Best of luck.