Increasing your return on investment from paid search is not as difficult as it may seem. It is true, you need to consistently keep a watchful eye on your analytics and always be aware of your opportunity vs. expense. Despite that seemingly daunting concept, you can run a successful paid search campaign if you pay attention to the right metrics.

Having said that, with a little knowledge at your fingertips you might not become an expert at paid search but your efforts will deliver a positive ROI if you follow the following 5 tips.

1) Focus on Conversion Rate not Click Through Rate (CTR).

Too often people focus on how many visitors (clicks) they receive from a paid search campaign. It is their belief that the more clicks they get, the more sales they should get. To make matters worse, there are companies out there who actually measure paid search success on CTR (click through rate) alone.

Any of these beliefs is a recipe for disaster. These methods often result in spending more money than you actually make on paid search. In other words, you spend more advertising dollars than you generate in sales.

To correct this problem, you should focus on the Conversion Rate metric as it pertains to sales generated when running paid search. This is a more realistic indicator of whether your campaign is moving toward success or not.

The formula for calculating conversion rate is:

Completed Actions (sales) / Total Number of Visitors (Sessions)

One reason many people overlook this metric might be because in order to calculate your Conversion Rate metric you often need to install the proper tracking code on the thank you page of your website. For ecommerce sites this is most often the page a customer arrives at after completing a successful sale. The tracking code placed on this page gathers data on completed actions which as I have illustrated is used to calculate conversion rate.

All major paid search providers have code similar to this at your disposal. For Google Analytics this is called “conversion tracking” and is obtained from within your Google AdWords account. This tracking number is different from that which is provided to you through the use of Google Analytics alone.

Your conversion rate is a measure of unique visitors to completed actions on your website. Alone it will not guarantee you make money from your efforts, but combined with the remaining elements outlined below, it is one of the key metrics toward running a successful paid search campaign.

2) Know your Value per Visitor.

Your Value per Visitor is the revenue you generate from each pay-per-click visitor to your website. In other words, it is a measure of how effective your website generates sales from the visitors it receives. The higher your value per visitor, the more effective your website is at converting them into sales.

You calculate your value per visitor using the following formula:

Revenue Generated / Total Number of Visitors (Sessions)

Value per visitor can be confusing for many. Take for example a site with a value per visitor of $.95. Given this measurement we could accurately say that the site owner makes 95 cents for every visitor who arrives at their website. It gets confusing for some because they ask “how can I make $.95 for each visitor when not every visitor buys from me?”

The answer is found in the way the metric is perceived. It shouldn’t be looked at as each visitor actually completing a “transaction” with your site, but rather each visitor being worth an amount that ideally should be less than your CPC (cost per click).

To further illustrate, if your Average CPC was $1.25 and your value per visitor is just $.95 then you are losing $.30 for each visitor you drive to your website! In other words, you spend on average of $1.25 to get one click that is only worth $.95 to you. At this rate you will never profit and should consider reworking your paid search campaign, hiring an expert ppc marketer, or shutting it down until you can do one of those options.

3) Keep your Average Cost per Conversion in check.

Your Average Cost per Conversion (sometimes called Cost per Action) is the average amount of funding it takes to generate one action (a sale in the case of ecommerce sites.)

It is calculated using the following formula:

Advertising Cost / Total Completed Actions

In its simplest form, your average cost per conversion should be lower than your average order value or you are losing money.

To illustrate, if your average order value is $35 and your average cost per conversion is $40 then you lose $5 each time a sale is completed on your site. In other words, you are spending $5 more in advertising than you are receiving from a sale.

This one can be hard for many to see as they look at only the end result … the completed sale. They neglect the advertising cost which went into achieving that sale and therefore often end up continuing to run paid search campaigns which are not profitable to their business.

The exception to the rule is a company who has built in average lifetime value of a customer and is willing to lose money or break even on the first sale in order to gain future sales from that same customer. With careful planning and proper implementation this strategy can successfully be used to build a viable business online.

4) Use long tailed keywords and exact match instead of shorter more generalized keywords and broad match.

When internet users begin their search for more information on a product or service, they often use what are called general or broad keywords. They do not know exactly what they are searching for but do know they need more information on a given item of interest. As a result, the keywords tend to be shorter and more general.

Searches result in terms like “shoes”, “running shoes” and “nike” for example. While these terms would likely return data relating to a given product type, they would likely not return data on a specific shoe.

These terms would yield traffic on a broad level with all visitors looking for information yet few looking to buy. Not only would these search terms yield broad scale traffic, but they would come at a high price. Often times the more broad the keyword is, the more competition there is for it and the higher CPC you will pay.

Consider now the user that has already done their research and is ready to buy. They have performed all the searches, learned what is the best running shoe for their needs, and are now in the hunt to find out where they can get it.

As the user narrows their search and has gathered more data about a given product their search shifts to a more exact methodology. They begin to use what are called long tailed keywords to find more specific results. Terms like “Nike airmax running shoe” or “Nike airmax size 7 running shoe” are used.

You can see just by looking at the search terms utilized, the user is more qualified to buy. They know exactly what they want and now they want to know where to get it.

Although there will be competition for these keyword types, the competition will likely be less than what is seen at the broad level. As a result, you’ll achieve lower CPC prices and in turn more qualified traffic by bidding on these types of “long tailed” terms.

5) Build smaller lists of keywords targeted across more specific ad groups and campaigns.

One of the most common mistakes made by non-experienced paid search marketers is “dumping” large lists of unrelated keywords into a few ad groups across a few campaigns.

While this tactic may save you time, it will ultimately be the iceberg that sinks the ship in the end. Trying to save time and money in the beginning will only result in losing money at the other side.

Take your time upfront, perform your due diligence and structure your paid search campaigns to take advantage of the opportunities that smaller, more targeted keyword groupings can do. In case you are asking “what can they do?” here’s a list.

• Provide more control over ad presentation.
• Increase click through and typically increase quality of traffic.
• Increase quality score.
• Increase relevancy.
• Increase Quality Score which decreases bid cost and increases placement.

Paying attention to these 5 tips might not make you an expert at paid search, but it certainly will put you on the right track toward achieving higher ROI from your efforts.

Specific updates included with this release are:

Bugfix: Corrected issues with export button not showing up on some users installs. (if you made any manual fixes to this yourself based on the forum feedback suggestions you’ll want to upgrade to this new version as the changes suggested by others in the forum were not accurate.)

New Feature: Added the ability to export the ISO country code (both 2 character and 3 character) per request.

You can get the contribution from either of these locations:

My downloads page

Zen Cart download page

Best Offers: 20 Ways to Increase Sales Using Zen Cart Free ebook revealing proven ecommerce strategies that always increase sales.

Throughout this process you will need to continually reassure them, providing them with the necessary elements essential to developing trust and security. These elements are commonly called customer assurances. Their job is making the customer feel comfortable enough to complete the intended action (i.e. buying your product.)

Cart abandonment is a problem that all eCommerce sites see in some degree. The rate at which your visitors abandon depends on how effective you have structured the checkout process. Shopping cart abandonment is an important statistic that needs to be tracked as it could mean the difference between a profitable eCommerce store and a potential loss.

According to industry publications, average shopping cart abandonment rates are between 60% - 70%. Put in to sample numbers, if you have 100 people start the checkout process and 65% abandon it, you just lost 65 sales. To take that further, if your average order value is $49 you lost $3185 in revenue.

To further demonstrate the hit your business just took, not only have you lost revenue but you lost 65 potential new customers as well. This translates to an undeterminable amount of future recurring revenue through repeat orders.

Many factors that contribute to cart abandonment are out of the merchant’s control; however there are a number of factors you can concentrate on that will help reduce the overall effect on your store.

1. From a technical perspective, make sure your cart is working properly and is free of bugs. As elementary as this may sound, it is a vital component that often is not given the weight it deserves. Simple logic tells us that if a cart is not working correctly it will prevent a customer from being able to order. To alleviate this potential problem you should go through your order process and ensure it is free of bugs and works as you expect. It would be a good idea to also have others go through and test it periodically - especially after any updates to code or structure have been made that involve the checkout process.

2. Keep your pricing competitive. Customers are also shoppers. What I mean is they are always searching for and comparing similar products prices. Unless your product is totally 100% unique and not easily duplicated, you must be aware of the price you assign to it. With the increase use in shopping comparison sites by consumers and in light of the current state of the economy, competitive pricing is more critical than ever. If your prices are out of the ball park your customers won’t stay to watch the game.

3. Decrease the steps in your checkout process. If your cart has the ability for a one page checkout that is fantastic. However, if you don’t have that luxury, don’t worry. Test have shown that shorter checkout processes which aren’t one page only work just fine to convert visitors into sales providing a few elements are met. A good rule of thumb to follow here is to combine logical steps during the checkout process (shipping and billing address information as an example) and eliminate any extra steps. If you can get your checkout process down to four steps or less you’ll be ok in most cases.

4. Add process indicators to checkout procedure. You don’t want a customer to wonder how much longer it will take to checkout or what part of that checkout process they are in. This is an easy fix. Simply adding process indicators in a graphic format near the top of the checkout process will help keep customers in the checkout until the end.

5. Clearly provide proper customer points of assurance at the right locations. There is one word which makes customers buy and that word is “trust.” Customer points of assurance provide information to the end user which build trust and answer questions. Things like security seals, customer service phone numbers, live chat, and privacy policy are examples of a few customer points of assurance. These should be displayed and easily seen especially at times when you are asking the customer to act.

6. Clearly display your security and trust seals. Customers want to ensure the information they submit during an order is secure and protected. Make sure you clearly and plainly tell them that their transaction is secure and show them the seal to prove it. Don’t hide the seal at the bottom of a page or make it hard to find. Tests have shown that adding a security seal within the user eye flow at critical times during checkout can improve conversion.

7. Offer multiple payment methods including PayPal. Offering multiple payment methods opens up the number of people who will do business with you. Customers like to choice and control. Providing them with the choice of multiple payment methods in addition to PayPal will help keep them in the checkout process. In fact, 1 in 3 shoppers expect to be able to pay with PayPal or at least be given that option in addition to other methods.

8. Enable customers to order over the telephone if desired. No matter how perfect a site is, there are going to be customers that prefer to complete their order over the phone. Whether they start the checkout process and have a question that needs to be answered or simply don’t feel comfortable providing their personal information over the internet, you must give them the ability to call you to complete the transaction. Placing a customer service phone number in a clearly visible location with the text “Prefer to order by phone?” will help decrease cart abandonment.

9. Clearly state return and shipping policies. In survey after survey, shoppers say one of the big reasons they abandon the checkout process is due to the shipping charge or return options. Many sites don’t provide the shipping and return information to the customer until they are in step two or three of the checkout process. If the information they find there does not appeal to them they will leave. You can prevent this by offering them the shipping and return information at the first step of the checkout process or better yet from the page they are viewing their shopping cart from.

10. Don’t require registration to checkout. This is difficult for some stores to implement because of the architecture their cart is built upon. However, if you have the ability to offer what is often called a “guest checkout” feature you should do so. For privacy reasons, there are a number of people out there who do not want the information they provide you with saved and it is those people who will leave unless you provide them with an option to checkout without registering.

Following these principles will not completely eliminate shopping cart abandonment at your site but it should help in reducing it to a more reasonable level thus increasing sales.

I’ve got 10 Twitter Tips you’ll want to consider as you create your Twitter account.

Craft a Relevant User Name. Use your real name or your company name, but whatever you do don’t get too cute or too sultry. There are Twitter spammers out there and they tend to use cute or sultry names – they also tend to get banned. If you will be the only one Tweeting on behalf of your site and you’re not that well known yet, stick with your site or company name. If you have some notoriety, use your real name (assuming someone else hasn’t taken that User Name). Examples of good e-commerce User Names could be Philly_WaterTrtment; Diapers_r_us; Kids_Corner_Toys, etc.

Don’t neglect your profile image. No one will take you seriously if your Twitter profile’s image is the default brown box. The default box either tells your fellow Twitterers you’re new or don’t care. Instead, use a site logo, a fun graphic or even your own headshot.

Remember to write a profile. Your Twitter profile is a searchable section of your Twitter persona. You can write your profile to include keywords as well as a website URL. An example of a good Twitter profile would read something like this: KittyTreats.com is a e-commerce site specializing in cat toys and treats.

Write a non-lame first post. A lot of people will draft their first Tweet something along the lines of “This is our/my first Tweet.” That’s all well and good, but if you want to capture future follower’s attention, you may want to post something a little wittier. Consider doing some basic marketing with your first Tweet: “Looking forward to talking to people on Twitter about cats and the humans who love them.”

Post a few more introductory posts before you start to find people to follow. When you start to follow people (or sites) on Twitter, they’ll most likely check out your profile and see if you’re legit or up to no good. One clue you’re a little shady? Having a single posts and a bunch of followers. Follow up your first tweet with a second, similar “getting-to-know-you” tweet: “Just getting the hang of Twitter and hoping to connect with cat lovers and let them know about our cat toys.”

Find and follow your fellow Twitterers. Twitter offers an option of rummaging through your e-mail inbox to look for people whose email addresses you have that they also have on Twitter. This is one option for finding people to follow. Another option is to use “Find on Twitter” function under “Find People.” Go ahead and see if your local paper, favorite websites, or retailers have a Twitter presence. Not only you have some followers to look at and read, you also get a better sense of how different folks craft their tweets. Another good option for finding people to follow is by using Twitter Search (search.twitter.com/). Essentially a Twitter search engine, Twitter Search allows you to plug in a term or terms and see who is talking about them on Twitter. Once you’ve found people (or sites or companies), go ahead and follow them.

Concentrate on crafting good Tweets. No one (and I repeat, NO ONE) likes having sales-only Tweets rammed down their throats. Twitter is best used as an extension of your brand. Use it to converse with cat lovers (or whatever your site sells), or cat food manufacturers, etc. If you’re running a special sale on your site, it’s a great idea to Tweet that; however, don’t let it be the only thing you Tweet. Twitterers love a conversation.

Spread the love and ReTweet good Tweets. In keeping with our fictional KittyTreats.com idea, say you follow Purina on Twitter and they’ve just posted a recall on their food. All of your followers may not know about the recall and you want to let them know. By ReTweeting (RT as it’s commonly known in Twitterville), you can spread the word to your followers as well. A word about retweeting: A retweet requires the RT and then the @____username in order to be considered a retweet. If your RT is too long, you can condense it to fit within 140 characters, just be sure to keep the gist of the message intact.

Broadcast your Twitter presence. Be sure to add a widget on your own site that proudly displays your presence on Twitter. Whether your run a live Tweet stream on your site or just a graphic and a link, online buyers will see you on Twitter and odds are, will hop over to Twitter to follow you (if they’re already on). In this day and age, a lot of online shoppers are finding e-retailers with social media flavor to be a little more “hip” and with it which translates to sales for you.

Find a good desktop (or mobile) Twitter application to increase your productivity. Twitter can be time consuming if you let it; however, with good desktop or mobile application, you can turn the time-suck into a productivity win. TweetDeck (tweetdeck.com/beta) is my favorite desktop tool. Within one simple download, you can follow, respond, search and check on Twitter trends all on one navigation pane (rather than on Twitter.com where you have to move around the site).

For a while now they have tried to work out a business plan that would generate revenue from its over 100,000,000 users. Lately word is stirring that they have hinted more at the possibility of charging users for their service. Exactly how remains to be seen but some thoughts have been possibly charging for the use of vanity urls (currently free so get one while they are) or even for allowing you to purchase credits that can be used to buy virtual goods from the third-party applications that run on the site, or from Facebook itself.

There has yet to be a full disclosure of the concept but it brings me to the new poll I’m running on the site (look to the right side of the screen and scroll down a bit in the navigation areas): “If Facebook began to charge for their service, would you still use it?”

Voice your opinion and let me know your thoughts.

Best Offers: 20 Ways to Increase Sales Using Zen Cart Free ebook revealing proven ecommerce strategies that always increase sales.

What does this mean for you?

Well, much like Twitter does already by allowing you to direct followers to a url that looks something like this http://www.twitter.com/VoomVentures so too does Facebook now.

If you have a Facebook profile you can now set a username for that profile and turn your previously long numbered link into a shorter more meaningful one. So what used to be http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890 now might look like this http://www.facebook.com/YourNameHere.

If you have created a Facebook Page then you may have to wait for a vanity url. Currently, Facebook is only allowing Pages to select a vanity url if they have over 1000 fans as of May 31, 2009. Word has it that restriction will be lifted near the end of July 2009 and Facebook will enable anyone with a Page to reserve vanity url.

Statistics show that during the first 3 minutes after launch the site had already reserved over 200,000 names and after 15 more minutes went over the 500,000 mark. After one hour it went over the 1,000,000 mark and that continues to climb.

In short, if you haven’t reserved your url yet you might want to do it (providing the one you want isn’t already taken now). You can reserve your Facebook username here.

Facebook surpassed MySpace as the largest social network last year sometime and continues to explode. Now with yet one more previously missing link added (the ability for Facebook users to choose a unique vanity url) they look poised to stay on top for a while and have now put a stranglehold on Twitter. Both could be considered a form of micro-blogging with Facebook offering a large variety more of “social applications”.

So if you have a store and associated Facebook profile or Page you should consider reserving a username of your choosing before it’s too late. It would be a shame to have marketed your business and developed a name for yourself only to have another person come in and lay claim to a domain with your company name in it.

Research has shown, however, that e-commerce retailers are reaping the benefits of social media (i.e., offering better customer service and increased sales) so it pays to use it.

Not everyone is social media savvy nor do they have the time which is why a lot of companies hire social media consultants to help them with their campaigns.

Do you need a social media consultant or should you do your own social media work?

When to hire a social media consultant:

• If you really do not have the time to commit to social media sites
• If you don’t have the time to learn social media sites
• If you don’t consider yourself a strong writer and/or interactive with your audience
• If you want to launch a large social media campaign and need experts to help get things off the ground.
• If you tend to defer project work to experts rather than attempt to try it yourself.

When to do your own social media work:

• If you’re familiar with social media sites (like YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook) and use them on a personal basis.
• If you’re a quick-learner and tech-savvy.
• If you’re planning a small campaign with only one or two social media sites.
• If you have content ready to post on a blog (or Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

Note: Social media consultants tend to pay per project or per hour depending on their rates and availability.

My laptop is a treasure trove of sites, tools, gadgets and widgets I’ve found on list-blog posts like these. Don’t even get me started on my phone. It’s my laptop’s “mini me.”

For the sake of productivity — and to make your e-commerce toolbox as rich as they come — I’ve compiled a list of the tools I can’t go without throughout my day so that you can use them as well. (You’ll see a lot of Google products pop up on my list. This has more to do with their ease-of-use and free pricetag than anything. I highly suggest using Google’s applications as much as possible particularly if you’re watching your dimes.)

1. GMail/GCalendar. (http://mail.google.com/) Used by some of the most intelligent and techno-savvy minds I know, Google’s email platform, Gmail, is similar to Microsoft’s Outlook email client insofar as organizing e-mail is concerned. Where most e-mail systems use folders, Gmail uses Labels which are color-codable organizing tools. You can also create filters and rules to jettison your email into a particular “label” thereby keeping your inbox relatively clean. Gmail also works in concert with the Google Calendar which is a God-send for busy types like me. Both Gmail and Google Calendar are accessible by phone, which brings me to…

2. iPhone. I just bought mine a few weeks ago and quite honestly, I’m not sure how I managed without it. In a coming post, I’m going to detail some great social networking apps, but for now, I’m just going to rave about the phone. It’s true that the iPhone isn’t a social networking too, per se, but as I mentioned, it has a number of apps (applications) you can install to keep you as connected as you would be sitting in front of a computer screen. On my own phone, I have several applications that can tell me how far the nearest bathroom is — great when I need to change for a face-to-face meeting; where the nearest free wi-fi spot is; recipes I shouldn’t go without; up- and down-loadable shopping lists that I can concoct while I’m sitting in traffic. My iPhone has become my lifeline.

3. Skype. (http://www.skype.com) My phone only has so many minutes without my seeing a huge bill which is why I depend on Skype for cross-country, international or lengthy phone calls. To call Skype’s calls phone calls isn’t quite true. They’re computer-to-phone line calls. Skype is incredibly easy to use (and free for basic use) and even offers an instant messaging feature if you’re without one. Other options include an telephone address book and search tools to find people or businesses you may know also using Skype. Skype-to-Skype calls are free so you may want to invite everyone you’ve ever done business with to download and use.

4. Widgetbox (http://www.widgetbox.com) If you’ve ever seen a feed of recent video, blog, Twitter, etc. posts, odds are, the site was using a Widget. There are several widget sites you can use, but my favorite is Widgetbox. I’ve created easy-to-install widgets for my own sites to keep visitors updated on recent posts. Like most tools, there is a free, basic version and a pay-for-customization version. I’d play around with the free version and if you like what you see, pay for the rest.

5. Lijit (http://www.lijit.com/) I’ve talked about Lijit before. Lijit is useful when you get around in the social media sphere like I do. I have a membership on a lot of sites, blogs, etc. and I like to show them off which is why I’ve housed my networks in my Lijit account. I can use embed code Lijit gives me to display my social media-prowess on my own sites if I chose (which I often do).

6. Twitter. (http://www.twitter.com). I hope you’re not getting tired of hearing me talk about Twitter because I’m a huge fan. I can connect with thousands of people throughout the world in 140 characters or less (which is good, because I can get wordy). I can ask a question about a social media app, find other people like me who want to connect and even promote myself and my sites. I use a desktop application called Tweetdeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/) to manage my incoming and outgoing messages which clears up valuable real estate on my browser’s search bar.

7. Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/) Another free tool, Google Analytics lets me know who is visiting my sites, when, where from, what terms they’re using to get there. I consider Google Analytics my owner personal website private investigator.

8. Google Docs. (http://docs.google.com) Similar to Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Docs has some similarities to Microsoft’s Office suite. Google Docs, unlike Microsoft, let you create and share online rather than emailing a document back and forth. Consider Google Docs the next time you need a word processing or spreadsheet tool and/or also need to share it with another person or group.

9. iGoogle. If you’ve signed up for any of the Google products mentioned above, odds are you now have a Google account. Great!!! Good job. Now you can also customize your Google homepage to include RSS feeds and other widgets that will keep you informed and more productive. Need an example? Using our fictitious animal toys e-commerce site, imagine you want to keep track of your e-mail, calendar and RSS feeds from your favorite animal-related websites. iGoogle lets you create a homepage that houses all of these things on one screen. Nifty, eh?

Best Offers: 20 Ways to Increase Sales Using Zen Cart Free ebook revealing proven ecommerce strategies that always increase sales.

In a later post titled Most Important Parts of a Product Page I broke down the various sections specific to a product page. In this post I wanted to point out a number of elements that should be present on the home page of any ecommerce site.

Although a well optimized — from an seo perspective — ecommerce site will likely receive traffic entering on any number of sub pages (rather than the home page), the home page will see its fair share of traffic.

Keep in mind I am not saying the home page will receive less traffic than other pages on the site. I’m saying that any number of pages on a site can be the entry page. This is how each website should be built anyhow — each page being considered a separate landing page which can receive traffic at any given moment from any source.

The home page though does play an important role in the overall picture of a successful ecommerce site. It is the page that many visitors will turn to even if entering first on another page within the site and is the page that no matter what, can set the tone for the rest of the visitor experience.

Although not the only elements, I’ll present below 4 important elements a good home page should possess for driving ecommerce sales.

1) Displays a clear offer. It can have multiple offers but works best when the “featured promotion” (that which you are looking to push hardest) is given prominence. If this is a monthly sale you run, give that sale front and center attention then support it with additional creative.

The image below shows an offer that could be considered the feature.

It clearly attracts your eye even when additional offers are presented and drives home the message that if you buy from Overstock.com you get free shipping on your entire order.

The offer, although simple, does even better to win the sale though. It creates urgency through adding just one simple word — today. The use of that one word alone strengthens the offer for building sales on the company side and persuades the visitor to act now or else potentially lose the opportunity to receive free shipping.

I talked about creating urgency in my post titled Planning Ecommerce Promotions.

2) Contain a clear call to action. A call to action persuades the visitor to act upon something. This can be clicking a banner to see the monthly sale item(s), signing up for a newsletter mailing, adding an item to their cart, etc… Each of these actions should contain a call to action that supports the end result.

Common calls to action on a home page might be in support of sales, new products, daily features, and more. An example call to action would be a banner with details on the sale of the month and the text “click here to shop now!’

The image below is a good representation of the use of calls to action.

3) A clear and precise navigational path for accessing site content. This may seem logical, but many sites neglect the “clear and precise” portion. They provide navigation not thinking of how it is presented nor how it will impact their visitors.

4) Multiple presentations of accessing the same information within the site. Most home pages receive a variety of visitor demographics. Each visitor is seeking products to fit their needs yet each searches in a different manner to get to those results. One visitor may use the main navigational elements within the frame work of the site while another may prefer to read a little more before committing themselves.

You must learn your demographics and address them accordingly. To illustrate this point let me present this conceptual example. Let’s say you sell beach clothing.

Two different visitors arrive at your site — both looking for the same product.

The first visitor is going on vacation in the coming weeks and is looking for an outfit to wear on the beach. The second visitor lives on a beach and is looking for the same outfit.

Navigation that might speak better to the first visitor would be a heading that says “Outfits for Vacation” (with a subset of links pointing toward things like beach outfits, bathing suits, sundresses, etc…) while the second visitor may respond better to categorical navigation that simply says “Bathing Suits.”

A good example of how to deliver links to similar content from different angles can be seen in the home page screenshot below. Take note of the lines connecting links to similar products. Notice how they appear in not only different context at times, but also under different headings — each targeting a different search habit based on visitor demographic.

In order to get your home page working to drive visitors deeper into your site you must speak to the various demographics in a language they understand. To do this you obviously must know what your visitor demographic is compromised of. If you’ve planned out your business correctly then you should have a good idea of the answer to that question.

If you don’t know the answer you better go back and find it out. You can’t expect to grow business by randomly targeting any person that comes to your site. The list of items I presented in this article should give you a start for shaping your home page to work for your audience.

Have no fear, free social media tools are here.

I’ve put together this list of 10 extremely popular social media sites that have tools you can use to market your products, keep in touch with clients, and manage projects all without paying a cent.

1. Blogger. http://www.blogger.com/ Blogger is one of the most well known blogging platforms (next to WordPress, which I’ll talk about below). Why should a e-commerce site blog? The more appropriate question to ask is why not? Maintaining a blog lets you communicate to past, present and future purchasers that there’s a human behind that site of yours. Use your site to feature a new prouduct or a popular customer.
2. WordPress. http://wordpress.com/ Not to be confused with WordPress.org (which is the pay-for-customization side of WordPress), this blogging platform is very similar to Blogger in its means to publication. I you do decided to start a blog, here’s something to consider when deciding to choose Blogger v. WordPress: Without paying any money, Blogger is more customizable if you intend to add widgets; however, WordPress has many more templates and styles but does not let you customize much more than that.
3. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/ This video site isn’t just for teen-agers and wanna-be Rock Stars. Consider using YouTube to upload a commercial about your products or how-to videos explaining how a product is used (or constructed). YouTube accounts are free and easy to set up and can be embedded on your site.
4. Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ A microblogging site that asks you to tell the world what you’re doing in 140 characters or less, Twitter truly is sweeping the world as a form of communicating with anyone and everyone who’s interested in what you have to say. Use Twitter to announce an upcoming sale or as a customer service tool. Keep an eye out for trends using TwitterSearch or download Tweetdeck to keep up with your conversations. Check out the folks at Zappos or an example of an e-commerce site that Twitters.
5. Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ This social networking site is most noticeably used to keep up with old pals, however, many consumers are also using it to profess their love for the products they use. Why not create a Fan Page for your products or site and invite your best customers to become a fan. Remember the phrase “If you build it, they will come’? Same thing applies here.
6. GoogleGroups http://www.groups.google.com/ Part of the Google Applications Suite, Google Groups is a free tool you can use to collaborate with multiple users. Think of Google Groups like your very own intranet or wiki. You add content, hit publish, send a note to the other users you want to see it and voila – you’ve communicated to your staff (or vendors, franchisers, etc.).
7. GoogleDocs http://www.docs.google.com/ Another component of the Google Application Suite, Google Docs is a free tool you can use to create word processing documents and spreadsheets. Docs will also let you publish and share with whomever you choose if you so need.
8. Flickr http://www.flickr.com Flickr is a photo management and sharing site with global reach (and popularity for that matter). How can you use Flickr? Upload product images and tag them appropriately. When someone searches for, say, Water Filtration, if you’ve done your job right, your images should appear. Voila: free marketing.
9. Anyvite http://anyvite.com/home If you’re considering trying an offline event, Anyvite helps you assemble an e-mailed invitation (without ads), import contacts, add locations including links and keep tabs on your guest list. If you’ve followed the advice above, you’re also on Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. This site will also collaborate with those sites to post images, videos and messages about the event.
10. Skype. http://www.skype.com Do you ever find yourself wishing you had a second phone line but aren’t sure how to pay for it? Consider downloading Skype, a free voice-over-internet tool