Magento has become synonymous
with ecommerce website development. This open source platform of PHP was
introduced a decade ago. This platform is making ecommerce website development
easier because of its ability to create high converting ecommerce sites.

In this post we will talk about
Magento tools and extensions you can use to build scalable, flexible and
dynamic ecommerce stores.

Magento Debugger is an extension that allows you to debug your
Magento ecommerce store in a simple and fast way. It allows developers to
access blocks, models and database queries.

The EcomDev PHPUnit lets developers test blocks, helpers, modules,
models, controller actions and layout rendering processes in an integrated PHP
framework with this extension.

Commerce Bug 2 makes debugging simple for developers. Even though
it’s not a free tool, it is popular among Magento developers for searching
class names, identifying controllers and finding code.

Get template path hints in the
front end and back end using the Easy
Template Path Hints tool. Activate this tool by adding a query string to
any URL.

Mgt Tool is a paid extension and is used by developers to identify
performance problems by examining every page of an ecommerce site.

Bulk Image Uploader allows you to upload bulk images from Dropbox
for display in your Magento store. You only need to have the images to have
their SKU in the filename for bulk uploading.

Store Manager is a Magento catalogue management tool that can help
locate invisible products, create sales reports and find broken images. It can
also create PDF brochures for importing and exporting order details.

Social Media Product Update is one of the best for social media
advertising and marketing. It automatically updates social media platforms
every time a new product is available.

Cloud Backup is a migration and version checking tool that backs up your data by storing it in cloud. It uses cloud technology that helps in exclusion of files, tables and directories for faster performance.

Boost the performance of your
Magento site by compressing images files using the Image optimizer via Cron. It is compatible for compressing .jpg,
.gif and .png files.

Magento is an open source
platform that encourages smooth navigation and encourages user engagement and
higher conversion. A Sydney
Magento Web Designer can provide premium ecommerce solutions and websites
using the Magento platform

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There are a lot of digital marketing
strategies available today and there are even more suggestions available. But how
many of them are actually effective?

To compete in the overly
competitive digital landscape today, you need to be armed with the right
strategies. You’ve probably heard about some of these and they have become the
standard today and the coming decade.

Here are some effective digital
marketing strategies.

SEO

SEO is and always will be a very effective
digital marketing strategy. If you really want to succeed, it’s best to have a professional manage your
SEO especially because Google’s algorithms are confusing.  While you learn SEO basics, it’s always
helpful to have professionals back you up to realize fully help you realize SEO
strategies.

SEM  

Search engine marketing (SEM) is
a form of internet marketing where you increase your SERPs through paid
marketing methods.

This is also a confusing strategy
but a professional can help you learn the ropes especially when it comes to
Google AdWords. In the case of AdWords, you want to educate yourself on how
that works.

Google AdWords is fascinating
because it uses customization. They let you choose what to display for search ads,
YouTube ads, text based ads or in-mobile app ads. They also have local ads
capability and superior metrics so that you can track your ads performance.

Local Search Marketing

Get started on local search
marketing by utilizing some of Google’s gifts like Google My Business. They will
let you have your listing turn up when somebody does a Google search based on
keywords. It also includes your business appearing on Google Maps. Google makes
it easy to update your business so nothing is out of date.

Local search marketing is getting
a lot of attention lately and it will remain a strong digital marketing
strategy as many local businesses find the value of being found by local
customers.

Content Marketing

Content marketing plays a big
part in attracting a large audience that’s why it needs to be relevant, consistent
and valuable. In today’s internet you need to focus on solving pain points and
stay relevant by researching popular topics. Always keep in mind that content
is king and using black hat strategies won’t work thanks to Google’s all-seeing
eye.

Also consider mobile content
because studies show that approximately 50% of people access the internet through
a mobile device. This is going to impact your advertising and how influencers
promote your brand.

Responsive Web Design

Speaking of mobile, it’s more or
less the standard now. Making your website conform to mobiles screens is one of
the most important aspects of digital marketing. With responsive programming you
can make your website conform to any mobile device and include all formats
including tablets and smart watches.

Google gives precedence to
websites that are mobile friendly so this step is very necessary.

Social Media Marketing

Everybody has at least 1 social
media account they’re active on. According to Forbes, to capture audiences’
attention you need to post about content that they’re reading. You will also
want to curate content to prove your clout. Don’t be afraid to do this because
it adds lustre to your authority and brand.  

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a digital
marketing tool that hires influencers to promote your brand. An influencer on
social media does not have to be a celebrity. It can be someone with a lot of
followers and has a good track record of promoting products.  

Identify influencers first before
reaching out to them and ask them to promote your brand. Some of them will do
it in exchange for products but most will demand a fee.

Keeping these digital marketing
strategies in mind can help you gain more customers and boost sales. You can expect
these strategies to be effective today and the future.

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Are you a passionate writer who’s
in love with your subject?

If so, then perhaps blogging is a
good career path for you. You can turn your passion into a very good living by
writing online.  

However, it can also be a hard
path to follow. According to statistics, many bloggers don’t make enough money
to support themselves just by blogging alone.

Let’s take a look at the 2 kinds
of bloggers.

2 Types Of Bloggers

There are mainly 2 types of
bloggers: the freelancer or the employed kind who works for a company or
website. The other type is the blogger who starts from scratch.

Getting a job as a professional
blogger is easier compared to starting your own blog. Those who blog for a big
company can start earning a decent living right off the bat.

However, setting up a blog,
monetizing it takes a lot more work; it’s just like starting your own business.
It can be hard to predict a career trajectory for bloggers. There are people
who have made hundreds of thousands of dollars writing their blogs and there
are also people who have yet to see a dime.

The hard truth is that, it can be
hard to carve a name for yourself in the internet today compared to back then
when blogging was new. It’s hard to build an audience to the point where it is successful.
According to studies, the most successful blogs today were started in 2005 or
earlier. This means that you can’t get rich immediately by starting a blog.

Salaries of bloggers vary.
According to Glassdoor, it ranges from $19,000 to $79,000. There are also other
sources that state that 14% bloggers on salary make around $24,000 per year.
Freelance bloggers earn anywhere from $10 to $100 for every post.

As for running your own blog, a
survey of 1,500 bloggers shows that 9% make between $1,000 and $10,000 a month
and 4% make over $10,000 a month while the rest make $3.5 per day. However,
most of these blogs are less than 2 years old.

Bloggers earning power depends of
certain factors like frequency of blog, quality of content, how competitive
your topic is and how effective you are at building an audience and generating
traffic. And of course, let’s not forget some luck.

However, a blog itself is not
really a business. It’s more like a platform for your income streams. The
content itself won’t make you money. Instead you need to find advertisers, sell
services, use affiliate marketing to get commission for every product sold.

Success Is Not Easy

Blogging is a very competitive
space so success is not easy. It could take months or years for your blog to
make money.  But you can think of it as a
long term investment. Generating a ton of income means you will be able to
generate money given time. Writing a blog each day is hard work. You can do it
as a sideline for a time and then go full time when your blog starts generating
funds.

If you don’t want to make money
off your blog, you can still use it to improve your writing, reach out to other
people who think the same way or use it as a creative outlet.

If you really want to make money
through blogging, a web
designer from Sydney can help you with your digital strategy so that your
business can grow.

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For many businesses that are new
to the internet, there is the misconception that SEO (search engine
optimization) and social media are two different entities with their own
separate goals.

This is not true because SEO and
social media work together to create value and provide relevance for your
audience. A good digital
marketing strategy needs to have social media and SEO working together in
tandem.

Let’s take a look at how social
media and SEO work together to bring more traffic for your website.

Social Media for Content Promotion

Social media allows for content
promotion. You can write, film or record many high quality content but it won’t
matter unless it is consumed by many eyes and ears. Social media allows you to
get the content you worked hard to produce and promote it through its various
platforms.

Social media is the most cost-effective
way of promoting content. Social media does not have the same impact as
authentic links from high-quality sites but it can influence bounce rate and
site engagement. If content is good and people stick around to read it,
engagement metrics communicate this to search engines. Therefore, your goal
should be to turn organic content to social media content so you can encourage
engagement and drive traffic back to your website.

Social Media Encourages Engagement

Social media boosts engagement. If
somebody found useful content and shares it, it can improve site SEO through
engagement. A share is not a ranking signal or factor for search engines but
engagement is.

Using social media to promote
content is advantageous because engagement impacts in SEO. It boosts online
reputation so that you can make connections and generate leads for your
business.

Social Sharing Can Lead To Link Building

Social sharing can lead to high
quality links from influential websites. Influencers are also big users of
social media and if your content is on the same channel as they’re on, there’s
a chance that they might see it and link to it form their own websites and
blogs. High value link building from influencer marketing can be hard to land
without social media.

Social media is beneficial to SEO
because it encourages external sites to link to your content. The more diverse
your external links, the more authority you have in Google’s eyes.

Increased Brand Awareness Boosts SEO Rankings

Social media and SEO increase
your brand awareness. Increasing engagement through consistent and high quality
content will lead to increase online brand awareness. Increasing brand presence
will lead to more brand search engines. The more searches you have the higher
you are more likely to rank compared to your non-branded competition.

Google’s Partnership with Twitter

We all know that Google has a
partnership with Twitter. We don’t know what this means for search marketing
but it’s clear that it’s becoming more common to see relevant tweets in Google’s
search results for branded searches.

Having your Twitter posts show up
on Google’s SERPS does not impact SEO but it can improve your brand awareness.
So always remember to tweet and tweet often.

Social media can work to improve
your organic ranking over time. You can use social media to promote brand
awareness, improve SEO and engagement and boost link building.

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Are you always on the go but need
time to update your blog?

Do you want to blog using your
mobile phone but don’t know how?

In this blog post we will show
you the different ways to blog from your phone.

Why Blog From Your Cellphone?

Relax because you’re not going to
create a blog site entirely from your cellphone. However after you’ve launched
a blog using a platform like WordPress using your computer, it’s no longer
needed to continue to post, engage with readers and interact with them.

In today’s world, more and more
people are using their cellphones to browse the web and many readers prefer the
140 character bite sized chunks of information they get from multi-media posts.

Luckily, microblogging is not
just a Twitter thing. There are many WordPress themes that are able to create
short blurbs and post photos.

If you take a look at the
dashboard you can choose different formats so it is easy to publish short-form
content. It encourages search engines like Google to be flexible when it comes
to ranking content no matter how many words are contained in a post.

This feature plus the convenience
of mobile devices makes posting a blog from a cellular phone easier than ever.
This means that bloggers like you don’t have to be chained to their desks and
PCs just to update or post new content.

Mobile Blogging Apps

Evernote always gets a lot of attention in the mobile world.
And while it’s great as a note-taking app, it’s more convenient to publish
straight from the app you’re using.

Here are some apps to help you with that.

• WordPress for iOS: it streamlines the bloated
  desktop version and lets you simply publish text, videos and photos straight
  from your phone. Formatting and HTML can be a pain though so keep you copy
  simple if you’re using a mobile device.
• CoveritLive: embed a live chat in your blog by
  using this app. This is a great choice when you’re covering an event.
• Quicklytics: this app can track Google Analytics
  on all of your blogs in your portfolio. This app is amazing because if you have
  a content that’s gaining a lot of attention you immediately know about it so
  you can complement with a topic that’s related to the post quickly.

Email As A Mobile Blogging Tool

Did you know that you can send posts to your site via email?

Tweaking your admin settings in
your WordPress blog will enable you to publish via email on your WordPress
blog. The platform gives you a unique email address where you can email posts
but make sure to keep it a secret to avoid being spammed. For posting, the
title of your post goes to the subject line and the body goes to the email.
Just hit send and it will be published as soon as it is received by the server.

Flickr For Photo Blogging

Email posts are easy but attaching multi-media is more
challenging. For this you need a partner like Flickr. It has a publish by email
feature which is great for review posts, where photos often carry the post.

Video Blogging Through Mobile

Video blogging is more time consuming than photo blogging
because the former needs more time to be processed. However, it has become
faster thanks to WordPress and YouTube.

The WordPress app also allows you to upload video through
your mobile device. However, not many people know that the app allows you to
embed a YouTube video just by pasting the YouTube URL on in the blog editor.
This means you can use a mobile device to publish a video blog easily.

Event Blogging

Using CoverLite allows bloggers to cover a live blog anywhere
in the world. You can even post the live blog on Twitter making it more
convenient.

This can be a very convenient tool because you could be the
only one covering a live event which can help boost your content.

Using these apps and tips can help your blog stay active
despite your busy schedule.  A Sydney WordPress
Developer can also help you reach more customers through your blog.

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Social media has become a great
tool for business to reach out and interact with their customers. Engaging
customers and communicating with them is important because it does not only
improve brand awareness but also boosts customer satisfaction.

If you’re a business that’s
looking for ways to manage your social accounts better you’re in the right page
because we have social medial tool suggestions that you really need for
efficiency and better workflow.

Buffer App

Buffer is a very popular
scheduling app. Using this tool makes it easier to share on social media
because it automatically schedules submissions to sites like Twitter, LinkedIn,
Goolge + and Facebook. Buffer works by staggering content throughout the day so
you don’t have to worry when to post or how frequently you need to post it.

Buffer can also give you
analytics for each post so that you can quickly see which ideas are working and
those that aren’t.

You can choose between a paid and
free plan for Buffer. In the free version you only have 1 account per social
network and you’re restricted to 10 posts at a time.

Crowdfire

Crowdfire is a one-minute marketing tool.  Just tell the app what you want to be known
for, connect your website, blog and social accounts and it will analyse all
your accounts and monitor them in real time so you can get a clear picture of
who you are. It will then determine how you can grow your social media
presence.

Once you know who you are, the app will walk you through
daily tasks that can help you meet your goals which can include increasing
traffic, sales, clicks, etc.

Crowdfire can:

• Find content it thinks your target market is
  interested in.
• Help you post regularly on all platforms at the
  optimal time to optimize viewership.
• Create posts that generate traffic to your
  e-commerce store.
• Automatically promote content such as new blogs,
  updated web pages across multiple platforms.

DrumUp

Coming up with fresh content for
multiple platforms can be very hard. This is where DrumUp comes in. it helps
you discover and share content on social media to improve workflow. DrumUp
claims to cut the time you spend managing social media up to 90%.

The DrumUp dashboard has all your
social media accounts so you don’t have to waste time navigating between
multiple accounts. Once your accounts are linked you can add favourite feeds
and link blogs you like. This allows you to curate updates so that you can
share with followers.

They also have Android and iOS
apps so that you can “drum up” content using your mobile phone and communicate
with followers on the go. It also features built-in analytics to tell you how
your posts are doing.

HootSuite

HootSuite allows you to follow
all your social media accounts in just 1 dashboard. This is also where you find
relevant content and schedule it to post on your accounts.

If you’re not sure what to post,
the app shows you real-time analytics so that you can spot developing trends
and gain insight to find out how your post is being received by your followers.

Because social media is a 2-way
street, HootSuite also provides tools to protect your profile against hackers
and external threats to your accounts.

Raven

Raven is similar to HootSuite but
its best suited for businesses that have a lot of social media accounts. Using
the Raven dashboard you can plan and distribute content, review mentions and
understand your data. They will also monitor mentions of your brand around the
web.

What’s great about Raven is that
the dashboard also has other tools like SEO, content management and even PPC
management. It’s priced $99 per month but it’s an all-in-one solution that
eliminates the need for other tools. Best of all it also allows you to
integrate Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Twitter and Facebook thus brining
all data in just 1 dashboard.

Social media clearly has a big impact on businesses. If managing all social media accounts become tricky any of these tools can help simplify management so that you can engage customers better.

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Facebook is one of the most
popular social media networks in the world. It has also become one of the most
popular marketing tools for businesses. However, social media has also become a
competitive space for businesses and brands.

This is one of the reasons why
businesses have turned to PPC advertising to reach their audiences. Facebook
PPC or better known as Facebook Advertising is one of the options available to
marketers and businesses on Facebook.

Running a Facebook PPC requires a budget and it can become expensive. This is why some people are asking if this route is worth it.

What Is Facebook PPC?

PPC is a form of advertising
where a company pays a platform every time their ad is clicked. It has become a
popular form of advertising across the internet because it creates highly
targeted ads and create tangible analytics so that you can understand how the
audience is engaging the content.

Facebook Advertising is similar
to Google Adwords.

Advantages of Facebook Advertising

Here are some reasons why
Facebook Advertising can be advantageous to your business.

• Global Audience

Facebook has over 2 billion users
worldwide and over 1.37 billion users visit their accounts at least once a day.
Data also shows that people are spending more time on their Facebook pages
compared to other social media platforms.

This means that there is a good
chance that your future customer is using their Facebook account right now.

• Targeted Audience

Another reason to invest in Facebook
Advertising is their ability to create a highly targeted audience. If you think
about it between our profiles, the things we “like” on Facebook and the things
we share, there is a lot of our information available on the network.

Since Facebook knows this
information, they let advertisers narrow down targeting options like age, location,
gender, behaviour, interests and connections; marketers can target multiple
different personas at different stages of the funnel.

• Extensive Analytics

Gauge the effectiveness of your
ads by using some of Facebook Advertising’s tools like:

• Reach: number of people who saw your ad.
• Impressions: the number of times your ad was
  seen.
• Clicks: the number of times your ad was clicked.
• CPC: number of clicks divided by impression you
  got. This is the cost per click.
• CTR: number of clicks vs. how many people saw
  it.
• Engagement metrics: how many likes, reactions or
  comments you’re receiving.

All these metrics are valuable
and can help marketers determine what worked for their campaign and what didn’t
allowing them to adapt a marketing strategy moving forward.

• Variety of Formats & Mediums

Many users know when they are
being sold to so they tend to tune out paid media. This phenomenon is called “ad
blindness”. But because Facebook is a visual platform, it has become adept in
combating ad blindness by creating attention grabbing ads.

With Facebook Advertising you can
use videos, graphics and even multi-frame carousels to capture audience
attention. Other platforms are limited to text and tiny graphics.

• Proven ROI

Facebook is committed in
improving their algorithm so that the right ad can be seen by the right person.
This is one of the reasons why Facebook Advertising has proven ROI.

According to data, Facebook PPC
has a conversion
rate of 9.2% across all industries. This number rises and falls depending
on your specific industry and targeted audience but it shows that this platform
is effective in delivering advertisements to the right users.

In fact, Facebook PPC is the
leading paid media campaign provider ahead of other platforms like Twitter,
LinkedIn and YouTube.

So, Is Facebook PPC Worth It?

If your target market is active
on Facebook, then it’s worth the investment. Since organic reach is declining,
Facebook might be the only way to reach your target audience in social media
platforms. Facebook regularly updates their algorithms so that users receive
content they regularly interact with.

However, if your audience is not
active on Facebook it’s better to find another marketing platform.

Sydney Web Developers
can help you reach customers and build ties with them through social media. They
can help raise brand awareness and improve customer relationships.

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When we talk about UX (User
Design) we always think about usability. However, UX is broader these days and
covers more than usability. Just like web design tools, UX design is evolving.

Whether you want to improve your
workflow or just want to find out if you’re practices are within industry
standards, here are some of the golden rules for UX.

Design for Users

It’s easy to fall in love with an
idea. In fact we think it’s harmless; it’s infatuation. However, infatuation
fades over time. This is why many freelancers and web designers continuously
redesign their portfolio. They are infatuated with visual aesthetics rather
than the user’s needs.

Luckily figuring out whether your
ideas have user value is easy. All you need is to ask these 2 core questions
during user testing:

• Do you want this?
• Can you use this?

It’s not romantic but at least
you don’t end up using precious resources like time designing the wrong thing. It’s
easier (and faster) to simply ask users what they need. When the results come
in you will feel relieved even if the feedback is negative.

Another aspect is User Testing
and we all know that this is important. However, there are still some
undervalued tips that you need to be aware of.

• Maintain a loyal list of users and ask them to
  test often.
• Award free access in exchange for honest
  feedback.
• Have fun automating workflow of apps.
• Sit down regularly with your team to organize
  and discuss feedback.

Provide Clarity

Users can become confused. When this
happens they stall, trust the brand less or worse, hit the back button. This is
because we live in an impatient world and alternatives are always just around
the corner. This is why users cannot be taken for granted. UX needs to be
clear. Here are examples of clarity.

• Colour is one of the ways users understand an
  interface. It’s human nature to understand rather than recall and colour is one
  of the subtleties that is easily recognizable. For example, if you want to
  convey error, use red.
•  Contrast helps
  elements stand out. It helps users shift the user’s attention. It’s a nonverbal
  way of telling users to concentrate on what they should be looking at.
• Repetition is also a good way of enforcing
  clarity. Do you want them to click a certain button? If yes then display it
  contextually a few times.
• Proportion refers to visual hierarchy. Ensuring
  that important elements stand out just by making them visually bigger than
  other elements.
• Lastly, there is the wording itself. Imagery is
  sometimes subjective, but words are literal. Hitting the submit button is fine
  but sending a confirmation letter can go a long way especially in the event of
  a lost connection.

Give Users Control

Websites offer a lot of options
but sadly humans have yet to develop mind reading. Take ecommerce sites for
example, they have a ton of categories and items can be filtered by features
such as colour. This means that aside from having filtered results on the
search results page customers have to deal with more interactions but this is
not a bad thing. However, users want their own customized experience.

User control is beneficial
because it enriches overall customer experience. Giving control can also lead
to the development of new features and boost engagement.

Predict and Adapt

According to Hick’s Law the
amount of time it takes to make a decision is related to the number of options
a user has to make. This means that if it’s too long, users won’t make a
decision. This cognitive over load is called cognitive paralysis. It’s happens
when you can’t act because there are too many choices. Here are some tips to
reduce choice.

• Keep contextual and visual layouts minimal to
  help customers decide faster. But it can be hard to push an element to the
  backseat in favour of another. This is why you also need context. What’s
  important on one screen might not be important in another. Here are some tools
  to find out what to keep and forgo:
  • A/B testing.
  • Heat maps
  • Google Analytics
• Artificial intelligence can help users access
  relevant content without having to do a search. Here are some examples:
  • Similar products
  • Products you might like
  • Customers also purchased
  • Similar reading

Maintain Consistency

Consistency is one of the key
elements not only of branding but of UX too. Our brains are designed to
recognize shortcuts and there are many times that we don’t even recognize it
anymore. When the traffic light turns green, we don’t analyse it anymore. We
automatically press the gas pedal. Now imagine if the red, yellow and green
buttons are suddenly replaced with stop, get ready and go. We would all be
taken aback. Thankfully it’s just for a few seconds.

The problem is, those few seconds
are precious in UX. Users automatically expect things to make sense and become
quickly frustrated if it doesn’t. if you’re used to doing a certain action on a
website, you expect to mimic the same action on another page. This is an ideal
example of consistency.

Another good example is the
submit button. If you’re filling out a form online and then submit using the
blue button. Then another form needs to be filled and the blue submit button is
used again. Therefore it makes sense that your subscribe button is also blue.

Treat Customers as Users and Vice Versa

Customers are the same as users.

A user is someone who uses an app
or website but some users are also customers. What happens when a user becomes
a customer? Many companies sell a product and then abandon their customers. This
is called churn and burn and it’s bad for business because:

• Customers can experience anxiety after purchasing
  a product.
• A bad customer experience means they might never
  come back.
• Bad reviews can stop users from becoming
  customers.

The solution is to treat all
users as customers. Improve their experience by providing free updates,
requesting feedback or letting them know that they’re there if you need
customer support. A huge factor in customer experience is how we treat
customers when they’re not customers anymore.

Convey Value Proposition

Value is not understood
subconsciously. It needs to be communicated consciously in order to be
understood. Humans constantly look for gratification and if there isn’t a sign
we lose interest right away. When it comes to value proposition, we think about
the product right away. However if we can communicate to the user the positive
experience even during the most boring interaction, the sense of fulfilment is
higher.

Many users will never think that
answering forms are fun. However, encouraging them along the way can be the motivation
they need to keep going. If they feel that you want them to stay, then they
will stick around.

UX should be treated like each
step is an adventure; like every step is accomplishing a goal and receiving
benefit once it’s completed.

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Did you know that as of last year almost 12% of retails sales came from ecommerce?

This number is expected to grow up to 17.5% this year and considering that retailers reported over $5.5 trillion in sales in 2017, it’s safe to say that ecommerce has arrived.

However, the world of e-commerce is a very competitive space. Not only do you have to do battle with giants like Amazon and Ebay, you’re up against the rest of the world. Ecommerce is changing the face of business because it’s now possible to sell products anytime and anywhere in the world.

One of the keys to a successful ecommerce store is working hard and working smart. In order to work smart, you need to have the right tools to help you run, analyse and market on ecommerce platforms. Some of these tools are free while others have a subscription fee.

Here are some of the most recommended and useful ecommerce tools.

Marketing

Google Shopping (Paid)

This is also known as Google Product Listing Ads and they are a good way of getting your products up in search ads in the Google Network. It gives people an idea of what you’re selling immediately without going to your website.

Fomo (Paid)

Credibility is important in ecommerce because it helps to boost conversions. One of the easiest ways of gaining credibility is by providing social proof. Fomo is a good tool to show new customers what other customers are doing.

Sumo (Paid)

Ecommerce stores can create a popup on their site for customers to fill with their contact details using Sumo. This is a good tool to capture email addresses and to build an email list. The popup can be activated after interacting with an action on your website.

Ecommerce Managing Tools

Unsplash (Free)

Stock images can make a website look professional but it can be a pain to keep them organized and bookmarked. Thankfully Unsplash is a free tool that can help you stock image sites bookmarked.

EasyShip (Paid)

It can be hard to keep track of shipping especially if you ship multiple packages regularly. Now, there’s a way to connect your store and shippers globally. EasyShip has hundreds of solutions in just 1 platform. This is a good tool to have because one of the easiest ways to increase market share is by going global and EasyShip can help you deliver.

Wiser (Paid)

As an entrepreneur you need to know what your competition is doing and Wiser lets you do that. This tool gathers and analyses data points to help your business optimize pricing structures.

Ecommerce Tracking Tools

Google Analytics
(Free)

This is probably the most useful and most popular analytics tool in the market and it’s free!

Google Analytics lets you track traffic and conversions. This tool can help you make better business-related decisions on how to improve your website.

Hotjar (Free and
Paid)

Use heat maps and videos to track users when they visit your website using Hotjar. This tool can help you gain insights and make the right changes for your site to improve conversions.

AerialScoop (Free)

Get all your necessary data daily in one useful tool with AerialScoop. This tool combines information from your online accounts in an easy-to-understand report and delivers to your inbox.

A Sydney Web Developer can help you with your ecommerce website. They can help your brand grow and prosper using the best ecommerce practices and tools.

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Have you ever bought a product online you never thought you’d buy? If your answer is yes, you’re not alone. According to data, over 77% of consumers who listen to word-of-mouth advertising are likely to buy after reading a recommendation from a trusted source. This is due to a social phenomenon called social proof.

Take a look at these numbers:

• 85% of customers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.
• 92% of customers trust recommendations online even from people they don’t know.
• 49% of customers say that they need to see positive reviews first before working with the company.
• Every 1-star improvement in a Yelp rating leads to 5-9% increase in revenue.

According to Robert Cialdini’s marketing book Influence, humans are social beings. We are more likely to value and trust something after we see somebody else value and trust it first. Today, social proof is even more important in the digital age. The question is, how do we leverage it to boost our selling efforts?

Types of Social Proof For Ecommerce

Product-Specific Reviews and Ratings – some examples include star ratings, thumbs up/down and text summaries. This answers the question: what do customers think of this product?

Testimonials – reading about other people’s experience regarding a product or service doesn’t always come with authority but it does weigh heavily on the customer’s mind. According to studies, customer testimonials are very powerful content with an effectiveness rating of 89%.

Photos & Videos – according to a survey, 73% of customers are more likely to purchase after watching a video of your product or service. Another study discovered that testimonials with photos were also more likely to perform better.

Celebrity Endorsement – a celebrity endorsement usually translates to instant trust and authority by association. We feel we know celebrities so seeing them chug down a sports drink make them relatable.

Social Posts – Why is Kim Kardashian’s social post valued at over 6 digits? This is mainly due to their massive following online. But the value of the post is not just due to the celebrity endorsement. Brands like Pantene and Coke associate themselves with key influencers and they encourage likes, shares and subtle branding effects that is due to the popularity of their products on pop culture.

Why Does Social Posts Matter In Ecommerce?

One of the reasons is because our social lives are deeply entangled with our digital experience. You will be surprised to find out how social the ecommerce world is. Nowadays social media and quick button research allows us to consult with others before purchasing a product.

This does not mean to say that people are more social when they’re buying something. Social proof just means that we hold products to a higher standard and we want to ensure that the product we want to buy holds the wisdom of the crowd.

It’s very hard to replace physical marketing schemes like “try me”. However, the digital age came up with an alternative by simulating the “try me” experience with the experience of somebody who has tried it in person. This is why social proof is important.

If you look at ecommerce sites nowadays there are a lot of evidence of social proof all around. In websites like Amazon and Ebay, there are tons of reviews you can read so that you can experience the product before buying it.

Email newsletters are also good places for embedding social proof. Since customers are already interested in a product you can email them to tell them and remind them of the product they have in their wishlist.

Perhaps the best place for social proof is social media. This is a very sharable platform and people are more likely to tell their friends their experience after their purchase.

Even if you’re confident about the quality of your product of your service, it does not matter until you can convince people to buy them. In the end the ability to show customers the quality of your product is by answering the question: can you prove it?

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