Though small, the call-to-action button (add to cart, begin checkout, continue, submit, etc) can have a major influence on conversion. The size, placement, color, wording and even shape matters, but you don’t know what’s optimal until you test variations of each variable.

In a recent interview, conversion optimization legend Bryan Eisenberg recently shared one of his secrets for great call-to-action buttons, using irregular shapes (rather than typical rectangle or oval shapes)…

If your ecommerce site has (or is thinking of adding) user generated content (UGC) like product reviews, questions and answers, forums, knowledge bases, photos, video, blogs, comments and social tags, here are 9 things to keep in mind:

1. What’s Right for You?

Just because Amazon is doing user-submitted video and photos or product tagging doesn’t mean it’s right for your business…

There is no lack of case studies that demonstrate video has a positive impact on conversion rates, sometimes a very dramatic improvement. (The most dramatic I’ve seen is eBags, claiming 138% increase in conversion. There’s also evidence that the mere presence of video can improve conversion, whether the video actually is viewed or not.

While conversion is often the de facto KPI to measure, because the customer cannot reap the benefits of a product video without interacting with it, a video’s “view through rate” (VTR) should not be overlooked…

Bloggers Digest is our monthly ritual that highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.

• Big news: site speed is now confirmed as a ranking factor in Google. But don’t freak out just yet, Google says:

“While site speed is a new signal, it doesn’t carry as much weight as the relevance of a page…

Our friends at Wider Funnel and WhichTestWon.com were surprised to find that an unconventional left-hand placement of the add to cart button on BabyAge.com outperformed right-hand placement in an A/B split test, achieving a 16.7% higher conversion rate.

The discovery was surprising because it seems 99.9% of online stores place the cart button on the right hand side, and you’d think that customers have been conditioned to look for the cart button there…

Event delegation in JavaScript is the concept of using a single event listener to manage all of the mouse and keyboard events on a given page thus improving performance.

Often web developers will assign an event listener to each element that is associated with some effect or bit of AJAX. For example, perhaps I have three buttons on a page each of which will initiate a specific and unique animation when a user clicks…

We’re grateful to be nominated in this year’s Search & Social Awards alongside great Conversion and ROI blogs Wider Funnel, GrokDotCom, Site Tuners and others.

If your RSS reader is looking a bit thin lately, voting in these awards is a great way to “discover” blogs that you want to read in categories like SEO, PPC, affiliate management, Web analytics and social media…

The Apple Store is a shining example of an ecommerce site that uses behavioral targeting to trigger very relevant emails.

For instance, on two occasions I have visited Apple’s website looking at its photo book creation page. The first time was in January, and I received this email the same day I visited the Apple Store (I apparently am on Apple’s mailing list though I don’t remember registering my work email with the site – perhaps Apple is that good):

The triggered email was relevant to the product I was viewing on the e-store, as well seasonally relevant (“Make last year’s memories last forever”)…

If you’re an online retailer, you care about reducing your shopping cart abandonment rate. ‘Nuff said. The following are 10 no-brainer ways to turn abandoned carts into completed orders.

1. Keep the cart alive

According to a study by SeeWhy, 16% of males and 26% of females abandoned a cart because they wanted to complete the purchase later. Many customers expect that their carts will remain in tact when they return…

Cart abandonment is one of the top concerns of online sellers, and one of the first areas of investigation when starting a conversion optimization effort. And what is the checkout process other than a series of forms to complete? Every form field presents an opportunity for human error, technical error or simply confusion and frustration. Though usability problems are not the sole culprit in cart abandonment, (some customers are comparing prices, want to save a cart for later, change their mind at the last minute, have fears of a site’s security, etc…

There’s a trend in ecommerce that’s exploding like a supernova in the way online stores did 10 years ago – application stores, and they’re not just for mobile phone applications. New application platforms for software, hardware and even enterprises are popping up every day, targeting business, consumers, developers and even employees. Currently, the Wireless Industry Partnership lists 68 known application stores (up from 34 only a few months ago)…

Listening to your conversion consultants, reading all the books and blogs, watching webinars and running A/B split tests will only get you so far unless you’re listening to your customers, as a recent post from Justin Palmer illustrates:

For years, customers have been telling us to show the pictures of clothing on real people, rather than mannequins. For years we ignored the advice due to the impractical task of always having models on standby when new products arrived…

On Wednesday we looked at tips for developing customer surveys with Theresa Maddix of Foresee Results. Today we’re going to look at other ways retailers are collecting customer feedback – asking for feedback through on-site calls-to-action, rather than inviting a visitor to participate in a survey.

While any customer with a complaint about a website can use the “Contact” link, some e-tailers offer a suggestion box or Feedback link on the site, making it more specific than a general contact…

I recently caught up with Theresa Maddix, a Satisfaction Research Analyst with ForeSee Results to interview her on the subject of customer surveys. ForeSee Results is a market research consulting firm which also offers a customer survey tool for retailers.

Linda: Where do you start when planning a new survey?

Theresa: No matter what the purpose of your website survey, it is helpful to start with the end in mind…

Ever noticed those sub-links under search results when you Google name brands?

They’re called sitelinks (according to Google), and they only appear for certain websites triggered by certain keywords. For the privileged sites that receive them, they give the search listing more prominence in search results and expose a bit more of what the site has to offer. But not every site earns sitelinks…

Quick quiz: Which of the following is the correct definition of “conversion rate”?

A. sales / unique visitors
B. sales / total visits
C. actions / unique visitors (e.g. home page test, conversion goal is not a sale but a reduced bounce rate or a click on the main call to action)
D. sales / number of carts initiated
E. sales / relevant visitors (segmented by geography, campaign, etc)
F…

SLI Systems has given me permission to publish of nearly 80 tips on site search you’ll find in their latest e-book Big Book of Site Search Tips (free download).

Enjoy!

1. Regularly check the top search terms on your site.

They can be good indicators of new items your clients are looking for, or product lines that are performing well. For example, SLI customer Jelly Belly used to offer only a 10-pound bulk case of its Champagne Bubbles jelly beans…

Spotted a clever way to entice repeat orders – offer a credit off a customer’s next purchase. If the credit is unused after a period of time, send a triggered email reminder, as 1-800-Headsets does below:

Subject line: You have a credit waiting for you at 1800Headsets.ca

Email body:

We thought you should know, you have a $10 credit with us
You earned it, so why not enjoy it?

$10 may not sound like a lot, but ten bucks could get you 25% off a cellular headset, an extra 17% off a new Bluetooth headset, or even better…

Take $10 off any:

* Wireless Headsets
* Computer Headsets
* Home Office Headsets
* Wireless Telephones

There are many new headsets at 1-800-Headsets…

Not long ago I had the privilege of teaming up with George Michie of the Rimm-Kaufman Group for an interview on ecommerce issues. George has graciously reciprocated to offer his expertise in paid search. George is a well respected thought leader in search marketing, serving as co-founder and CEO of RKG, member of Google’s SEM Advisory Council, professor at Market Motive, columnist for Search Engine Land, frequent speaker at ecommerce and search conferences and has worked for top retailer Crutchfield Corporation…

Came across this humorous video via Storefront Backtalk. Check out Hitler’s reaction to cloud computing security problems:

Can’t see video? View it on Youtube.

…

Earlier this week, Google offered a free download of its own SEO Report Card, an open and honest document that grades around 100 of Google’s own “products” (think Youtube, Maps, Adwords, Reader, Blogger etc). While it may satisfy your curiosity on how well the Big G does at SEO itself (seasoned search pros may snicker that only 10% are using the title tag properly), it can also help you audit your own website…

Elastic Path is running an Ecommerce Tip of the Week series on the Elastic Path home page, with archives on our Youtube Channel.

This week’s video is on mobile websites vs. mobile applications and features Elastic Path’s Peter Sheldon.

RSS and email subscribers, can’t see video? View this post on the web.

Video Transcript:

Mobile commerce is growing…

February was a short month, but there was no shortage of great articles popping up around the blogosphere. Blogger’s Digest is Get Elastic’s monthly roundup of can’t miss posts from Linda’s RSS reader.

• Not one, but two of our Elastic Path software developers sent me a link to this fascinating case study by Luke Wroblewski: “Mad Libs” Style Form Increases Conversion 25-40%…

This post is a recap of yesterday’s webinar Ecommerce for Technology Vendors: Maximizing Your Online Channel. The replay is now available on-demand at www.elasticpath.com/software/.

The webinar is the first in a series of software and technology related topics based on the top issues we have found working with and speaking to enterprise firms in this industry. In the webinar we took a deep-dive into the issue of “owning the conversation” and bringing all relevant content and information to bear on each transaction…

Those moving to cloud computing are doing so around the promise of more effective and efficient computing. Indeed, cloud computing is not a revolution in computing, but a simple platform change that holds the potential to reduce our need for a huge amount of software and hardware to support our ecommerce systems. However, the intersection is a bit more difficult to find.

First, since this is really the first blog to explore the value of cloud computing within the world of ecommerce, let’s put forth a general definition of cloud computing…

Product configurators are becoming more and more common as manufacturers take advantage of consumers’ hunger for personalized goods. One category where this is particularly popular is shoes.

Brands like Vans, K Swiss, Etnies, Shoes of Prey, Puma, Converse, Reebok and Timberland are a few examples.

I while back I had a chat with Heather Frost, Ecommerce Merchandise Manager from Timberland to discuss Timberland’s product configurator…

Persuasion Architecture, developed by conversion optimization gurus Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, is a persona-based approach to marketing. If you know a customer’s “buying modality” (Competitive, Spontaneous, Methodical or Humanistic), you can tailor your design, copy and direct marketing to best persuade that type of personality.

It would be ideal to segment an email list by personality type…

I received an email from Esprit, one of the apparel few retailers I have bothered to sign up for a loyalty card with. Upon sign up I was opted-in to Esprit’s email program, and received this offer yesterday:

What’s wrong with this picture?

Esprit is offering 30% off all items, including new arrivals. While this looks like a sweet deal for me, it makes me shake my head at Esprit…

According to a study by the e-tailing group on consumer comparison shopping:

63% of consumers say they would like to see competitors’ prices on a retailer’s site
78% would likely return to a site that shows competitors’ prices
36% would be “much more loyal” to a retailer who displays price comparison

“Savvy consumers are using the Internet to find [...]

…

Buried within every analytics tool is an often overlooked piece of data – the breakdown of operating systems your visitors are using. Most web analysts don’t pay much attention to it. Some web designers use it as a reference, web pages may look different on different operating systems, and it’s good to know which are important to test before launch.

But this data has great application for software and technology vendors who sell products that have operating system requirements…