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E-COMMERCE
150 CRO best-practices that Amazon, eBay, Asos & other major retailers are leveraging
f you are in the Ecom Empires group, chances are that you’ve come across Matt Tanguay’s posts before. He pops up pretty often with interesting and insightful tidbits related to conversion best practises, but now he’s taken it one step further with a complete guide around the topic.
We are talking about 1041-pages of how to increase your store conversion rate.
The guide is divided into 11 categories, but let’s see some of our favourite tips:
+ On mobile, opt for a consolidated header that takes up minimal space: Some limit the rows to a burger menu, search box and the promos you’re currently pushing (discounts, FAH-REE shipping, etc.).
Some examples? Visit Amazon, Adidas, or Apple. Check their websites and you’ll understand what we mean.
+ Provide auto-suggestions as users are typing in the search box and return search results for the corrected spelling when users make typos, just like Google does.
+ Place a clear & descriptive call-to-action button above the fold. But avoid labels such as “Shop Now”, “Continue” etc. Instead, be more specific. Depending on your store structure, you may want to have more than one CTA. For example, “Shop Men’s Shoes” and “Shop Women’s Shoes”.
+ Add urgency elements to category pages: Show how much users can save on sale items, and include limited quantity or limited time offers.
+ Feature products, bundles or deals at the top of category pages: Once again, Amazon does a good job of showing you the best sellers items when you select a category.
Remember, these are just 4 of the 150 conversion rate best practices you’ll find in this guide. Considering that each of these tips include examples from other major retailers such as Amazon, Asos, eBay, Nordstrom, etc, it’s really a worthwhile read.
Admittedly, some of them are basic and ones you’ve probably already implemented, but there are other less well known tips in there that could push that CR up!
Reddit Year in Review: What’s the web talking about?
Hey hey hey! Every now and then, we like to talk about the not-so-squeezed traffic sources that might benefit your marketing efforts. This time, it’s all about Reddit.
The company just shared their Year in Review, highlighting the top communities, topics and trends of the year. It also includes some stats about the audience.
Apparently, the Reddit community is growing:
- 43M monthly active users – a 30% YoY increase.
- Monthly comments have grown 37% YoY.
- Monthly view count has jumped 53% YoY.
Some of the most popular trends:
- Increase in YoY subscribers in the top 50 beauty (+63%) and style (+52%) communities.
- 87% YoY increase in subscribers in family/parenting communities.
- 35% YoY increase in subscribers in top 50 food communities.
- 30% YoY increase in subscribers in top 50 fitness/wellness communities.
So, yeah, Redditors are interested in health topics, but other things too. Why are we telling you this? Well, it’s not just about generating customers, but also to catch the latest trends and hop on board before they grow even further.
Reddit shared the stats on the most popular topics for almost all communities on the platform, so take a look and let us know if you find anything interesting!
SPONSORED
👩⚕️ The nutra affiliate program with a REAL DOCTOR formulating the products!
In the times when there’s a clear crackdown on certain promo avenues for classic nutra products, there are some companies that stand apart adapting to the changes. One of those companies is Zenith Labs!
First of all, they actually have a real doctor in-house to help with all the products. Adapting to the crackdown doesn’t stop there!
- Zenith Labs makes sure their pages and products are fully compliant by working closely with ad networks like Taboola. Way fewer compliance issues for you across the board!
- It uses a straight-sale model, not a trial one. This means more transparency for all: customers, affiliates and networks. And more sustainable campaigns for you!
- Prepared for merchant account challenges. Zenith Labs is set up with PayPal and BuyGoods, plus will set up their own merchant accounts soon. A big benefit of BuyGoods is that it works with different merchant banks. In other words, less headache on payments so your offer is less likely to disappear.
- 20+ in-house supplements plus another line of 15+ products to launch, starting at a $90 CPA! Working direct gives you a lot of choice in this case!
- Pretty much around-the-clock access to Zenith Labs’ affiliate manager. Constant communication and acting fast to make sure you get the support you need!
Look, nutra changed, no doubt about it! Even so, people still want help to achieve goals related to weight, fitness, looks, etc. and Zenith Labs can give you those products to promote!
In-house offers, compliant, with a real doctor formulating all the products on a straight-sale basis.
Sign up to Zenith Labs affiliate program right here.
SEO
SEO Activity: A history of Google algo updates
Google Search algorithms… One of the most complex systems comprised of hundreds of ranking signals that Google uses to rank sites according to relevance on its SERPs.
Well, most of us already know that, but how many of you have kept a track of all the updates Google has released over the past few years?
If it’s a minor update, we sometimes don’t even notice, but major updates often have significant effects on the SERPs rankings.
Google has released thousands of updates in the past few years, so it’s not gonna be possible for us to list all of them. However, we did try to mention all major updates released by Google over the last 5 years.
Since most of us are busy these days with AWA, BFCM, personal vacations and whatever else, let’s do a fun activity (PS: It’s gonna be a rollercoaster ride, so strap yourself in).
Head over to your Analytics, Search Console or whatever 3rd party tools you use to track your site statistics and review which of these updates had a positive or negative effect on your website.
You might learn something new about your site stats and how each update affected your site behaviour.
So, here’s the calendar of updates from the last 5 years:
- October 25, 2019: BERT Update
- September 24, 2019: Broad Core Algorithm Update
- June 2, 2019 June 2019: Core Update
- March 12, 2019 March 2019: Core Update (a.k.a. Florida 2)
- February 13, 2019: Valentine’s Day Update
- October 31, 2018: Unconfirmed Halloween Update
- August 1, April 16 & March 9, 2018: Broad Core Algorithm Updates
- December 12, 2017: Maccabees Update
- September 8, 2017: Fall Flux
- March 7, 2017: Fred Update
- January 10, 2017: Intrusive Interstitials Update
- November 10, 2016: Unnamed Update
- September 23, 2016 Penguin Update: 4.0 & Core Algorithm Integration
- January 11, 2016: Panda Core Algorithm Incorporation
- October 26, 2015: RankBrain
- July 17, 2015: Panda Update 4.2 (#28)
- April 21, 2015: Mobile-Friendly Update
Want to know exactly what each of these updates entailed and how it affect SERPs in general? Check out this post with detailed explanation on each update, plus a few more updates to look at beyond the last 5 years.
ROUNING UP THE STACK
- FACEBOOK: Our eyes are everywhere, and we found an Ad Policy Checklist in an Italian FB group called GCLE. We couldn’t find when and where Facebook shared this, but it looks very useful. It includes more details than FB’s Ad Policy Page has and constitutes a true checklist you might want to look at before putting your ads up for review. Download here.
- SEO: Khalid Farhan from SEO Signals Lab shared one of the techniques he uses to get DA 40+ backlinks for free. Does it help your outreach efforts?
- CHATBOTS: Helping you prep up for the Jan 15th policy update, the Manychat team has released a new update that will warn you if & when you send messages to subscribers outside of the 24 hour window.
- GOOGLE: Starting today, Google will show the optimization score for Display campaigns as well. This means you can now see and act on optimization score for Search, Shopping, and Display.
- E-COMMERCE: Alex Fedotoff shares his top 5 tips for packaging and shipping goods to your customers. This could help you double your e-commerce sales in 2020!
- INSTAGRAM: New IG users will now be asked to input their date of birth when signing up, and users below 13 won’t be allowed to join the app. Existing users can continue to use the app without any age restrictions. Well okay IG, whatever works for you.
BRAIN TEASER
What goes up when the rain comes down?
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
The most bizarre use of VR has nothing to do with the adult industry…
It has to do with… a dairy farm!
Yes, we’re talking about real dairy farm with real cows.
When people are talking about the potential of VR, us marketers inevitably think about the increased ad space. Then there’s games, improved simulations for skilled jobs, and a plethora of other cool stuff that becomes a possibility. However, using VR headsets on cows on a dairy farm isn’t something that ever crossed our minds!
Yet here we are… A farm just outside of Moscow is testing VR glasses for its cows.
Some devs and veterinarians teamed up to adapt the human versions of the headsets into ones suitable for the cows. Nope, this isn’t making it sound less weird to us either.
Why would anyone do this?
Studies have shown that the environment impacts the quality and quantity of milk that cows produce, and by using VR farmers are basically trying to put their cows in a better mood.
Have you heard of a more bizarre use of VR?