Five Easy And Effective Tactics How A Speaking Character Helps
1.Engage customers with a memorable holiday greeting
2.Make your promotions come across loud via a SPOKEN message
3.Use an interactive FAQ to save time for your customers
4.Persuade customers to take action
5.Reinforce special deals in the shopping cart and up-sell
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With SitePal, creating and publishing your own speaking character is as easy as 1,2,3. Using our online editor, you can easily customize any character to your liking, and add your audio message by using our Text-to-Speech or Record-by-Phone feature. The process is automated, no technical experience is required.
Friday, December 14
5 Easy And Effective Tactics To Improve Holiday Sales
Monday, November 19
6 Steps To Improve Customer Loyalty From Site Visitors
by Omaro Ailoch
Online shopping has quickly outstretched high street shopping for popularity and overall spend. One of the big advantages that consumers gain is the ability to comparison shop for a better deal. However, for the e-store owner or service provider, this can make it difficult to survive without offering the lowest prices and the greatest deals. Decreasing prices has an obvious effect on your revenue and profit so it is vital that you aim for the right target market and attempt to build customer loyalty.
Customer loyalty means repeat business and repeat customers offer the lowest marketing spend requirements. As such, improving customer loyalty can vastly reduce your spend and increase your ROI. Many of the methods of retaining customers for your website are developed from tried and trusted methods used by large organizations and businesses offline.
Know Your Target Markets
By really getting to know and understand your target markets you will have a much greater understanding what it is that they're after. By learning this kind of information you will be better placed to send out relevant after-sales communication and entice your buyers to buy more.
Know Your Competitors
Knowing what your competitors are selling and for how much will help you determine the best prices for your own products. If you have a good customer retention rate it is often possible to increase the amount you pay for a new customer or reduce your prices without affecting your overall profit too much.
Customer Service
Perhaps the first aspect that many of us consider when looking at customer retention rates is customer service. You must supply a high level of customer service. If you go the extra mile for your customer, they will go the extra mile to come back to your site. Being polite in all communications is only a very small part of good customer service. Everything from your website content to complaint responses need to be well thought out and geared towards retaining customers.
Branding
The more synonymous your website becomes with the products or services you sell, the more likely that people will return to your site. Make sure that all of your web pages, emails, newsletters, invoices, and other forms of communication include your web address at the very least. Make it memorable and don't chop and change designs and logos unless a re-branding is deemed absolutely necessary.
After-Sales Communication
There is an art to after sales communication, and it is an art that you need to learn to master. So, your website operates online, but that doesn't mean that the whole of your business has to. If you sell digital products that are downloaded then ensure that emails and all online communication includes your branding. If you sell physical products, then your paper invoices, and everything down to your packing labels should also be branded.
Get Your Visitors Involved
Involving your site visitors will help to bring them back to your site time and time again. Web 2.0 applications provide a plethora of ways to involve site visitors. Blogs, forums, and any interactive tool will help to make your site bookmarkable. Even for visitors that don't take action while on your site, you will attract them back more frequently, and the more exposure a visitor has to your website, the more likely they become to make a purchase.
Why Customer Loyalty Is Important To Your Business Website
Return visitors or return customers are one of your greatest assets. You've already done a lot of the hard work with your preliminary marketing campaigns. Ensure that everything from your website to your email newsletter to your packing slips are effectively branded with your website details and always uphold the highest level of customer service and communication. If you can get your site visitors more involved in your site then you stand to profit even more from customer loyalty.
About the Author
Omaro Ailoch is a senior software engineer, an entrepreneur and the founder of OC IT Services a highly skilled California based web development, design, and search engine optimization firm.
Wednesday, September 26
How Important is Alexa Ranking?
By Adriana Iordan
Alexa Ranking - A Web Site Monetization Strategy?
All businesses that employ online marketing, strive to improve their conversion rate. Now, there are different ways of attracting targeted traffíc. Some try to achieve a good ranking in the SERPs, while others are satisfied with heavier traffic. Either way, everybody has the goal of achieving financial success.
But, while scoring high with Google may seem to certain business people the only way to make themselves known and thus reach their goal, there are others that think that a good position in the Alexa ranking system might benefit them just as well.
What is Alexa Ranking?
This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com ) that basically audits and makes public the frequency of visits to various Web sites. The algorithm by which Alexa traffíc ranking is calculated, is simple. It is based on the amount of traffic recorded over a period of three months from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed.
This traffíc is based on such parameters as reach and page views. The reach refers to the number of Alexa users who visit a particular site in one day. Page view, as the name indicates, is the number of times a particular page (URL) is viewed by Alexa users. Alexa.com makes it clear though that, if a particular user visits the same URL multiple times on the same day, all those visits will be counted as one.
The first step of the ranking process is calculating the reach and number of page views for all the sites on the Web on a daily basis. Alexa ranking is obtained by performing the geometric mean of reach and page views, averaged over a predefined period of time (three months).
How Alexa Ranking Works
It's quite easy to get started. All you have to do is visit the alexa.com site and download (and install) the Alexa toolbar. This toolbar offers a search function, but it mainly displays the rank (at a global level) of the visited site, as well as the sites that have been visited by Web surfers that are linked in some way to the site being visited.
The Alexa toolbar not only displays information, but it also sends data to the central server. Thus, each time you visit a Web page via a Web browser (be it Internet Explorer or Firefox) that has the toolbar installed, information is sent to the server indicating your IP and the page you are visiting. Such data is gathered from all the Web users who have the Alexa toolbar.
With Alexa, the smaller the numerical ranking, the better. Most people say that if you manage to make it in the top 100,000, it is a sign that your site enjoys quite heavy traffíc.
Is Alexa Ranking Worth Anything?
Benefits
Alexa Traffic can be used as a competitive intelligence tool, but you should take into consideration the fact that the audience sample size is fairly small. Just enter your competitor's site in the "Compare Sites" section and measure the results of your web marketing efforts in comparison with your competitors'.
As opposed to Google's PageRank, the lower your ranking number, the better.
It helps Webmasters and advertisers see the real marketing potential of your Web site. The better your Alexa rank, the higher they may be willing to bid to buy advertising space on your Web site.
Personal pages or blogs are also ranked in the same way as ordinary Web sites. They will even get a distinctive mark (*)
Because Alexa ranking helps you with information about your Web site, it is a good instrument for search engine optimization.
Disadvantages
Not everybody has the Alexa toolbar installed, so there might be millíons of Web sites that, even if they have a lot of traffíc, will not be ranked (or not high enough) by Alexa. It is rather relative.
Many people say that it is inaccurate and that Alexa traffíc can be greatly influenced (or "gamed", as some prefer to call it).
Subdomains are not ranked separately, and neither are subpages within a domain. The overall traffic is calculated for the top-level domain only.
Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking
If you want to boost your Alexa traffíc ranking, you just have to follow some quite simple rules, such as:
Download and install the Alexa toolbar and then surf your own site.
Place the Alexa widget on your Web site. It will entice visitors to use it and, you know, each click counts.
Write useful, quality content, mostly webmaster-related. Promote it on webmaster forums and on social networking sites. The idea is to get as many computer and Internet savvy people as possible to visit your site, since the probability that they will have the Alexa toolbar installed is high.
Write blogs and articles about Alexa. You will get links to your pages that will help improve your ranking.
Try to get your articles on such blog sites as digg.com, del.icio.us, or www.stumbleupon.com
Optimize your site (or relevant pages of it) for Alexa related keywords.
Tell your friends about the Alexa toolbar, have them download and install it on their computers, and then tell them to visit your site.
Use an Alexa redirect. This means placing http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect? in front of your Web site's URL. Alexa will then take into consideration clicks on redirected links even if the visitor does not have the Alexa toolbar.
Apparently, Asian people are huge fans of Alexa. Therefore, many people suggest posting in Asian social networking forums.
Whenever you post on webmaster forums, include your site's URL in your signature. It is very likely that most webmasters have the toolbar installed, and there's a great probability that they'll visit your site.
Conclusion
As we have seen, there are pros and cons to Alexa ranking. The bottom line is that most people consider it valuable only for direct advertising. Given the fact that Alexa ranking for a site is calculated on the basis of how many visitors with the Alexa toolbar installed have visited that particular site, the results can be inaccurate.
Nevertheless, it may prove useful for sites with very good traffíc that attract highly targetëd leads, since Alexa focuses more on the traffic that Web sites receive rather than on links to it. As a Web site monetization strategy, we can safely say that Alexa ranking might be the right solution.
About The Author
Adriana Iordan is a Web Marketing Specialist at Avangate B.V..She has in depth knowledge of internet marketing services and website analysis applied to the software industry and e-commerce development. Avangate is an eCommerce platform for electronic software distribution incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional marketing and sales tools.
Monday, June 11
Good Credit Management Skills Are More Important Than Ever
Consumers have many options when it comes to selecting a credit card that best fits their needs. For instance, some people may use credit cards strictly for big-ticket items, while others may use them for all their everyday purchases; some may carry a balance while others pay it off every month. Even though people use credit in different ways, one fact remains the same: good credit card management is important to everyone.
“Consumers who focus on good credit management are likely to have greater control of their finances overall,” says Margo Georgiadis, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Discover Financial Services. “Today, more than ever, consumers are actively looking for straightforward ways to increase their financial confidence.”
To hone their credit management skills, Georgiadis recommends people consider the following steps:
1. Develop a consistent payment routine
Years ago, it was possible to tackle household bills on a certain day each month. But today's billing cycles rarely match up, which can mean several different due dates throughout the month.
People can more easily manage their monthly credit card payments by choosing a card that enables them to set their own payment due date based upon what works best. Developing a consistent payment routine can really pay off.
Sometimes even literally. The Discover Motiva Card provides cardmembers who make on-time monthly payments six times in a row their next month’s interest back -- twice a year, every year when they pay on-time each month.
2. Pick a convenient time and way to pay your bill
For many, checkbooks are a thing of the past. In today’s wired world, there are more payment options than ever making it easier and faster to pay bills.
Do your homework on what options are available and pick the method that's most convenient to your lifestyle or when you get paid each month. For example, some credit card companies allow cardholders to set up automatic direct payments online or by phone for recurring monthly bills. Others allow cardholders to schedule their payments in advance to align with their pay periods or let them pay their bill for free by phone or online -- even on the payment due date.
3. Use account management tools to save time and money
Many credit card companies offer account customization tools that enable cardholders to keep close tabs on their account and budget. To avoid fees, some companies allow cardholders to set up reminders to let them know that their payment due date is approaching, or if they’re close to exceeding their credit limit. E-mail reminders can also be set to alert them when a large purchase has been made or help track when a return, credit or balance transfer is posted. In addition, cardholders are able to access their account summary information online to help them track spending, create a budget, and sort transactions by date, amount, description or category which can be helpful for tax preparation.
4. Use your credit card rewards to help pay down your balance or reduce expenses
Some credit card companies allow you to redeem cash rewards in the form of a statement credit, which helps you pay down your balance faster, or you can have the money deposited directly to your bank account. You also can take advantage of other redemption options such as the ability to double their rewards when redeeming for places where they already shop.
For more tips on good credit management and other information, visit www.discovercard.com.
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