Thousands of online retailers will discount their stock for Cyber Monday, the online version of Black Friday, now in its sixth year.
Last year, Cyber Monday sales topped $1 billion in the United States, making it the biggest day for online retail to date. Yet many businesses are increasingly discounting their goods on Black Friday as well, and consumers are responding. Online sales this past Friday were up 24.3% compared to last year, according to an IBM survey of 500 retailers.
For a look at Cyber Monday’s inception and how the movement has grown during the past half decade, click on the infographic in this post to view an expanded view.
Are you offering any sort of retail discount to your customers today?
Thanksgiving Day was last Thursday and traditionally a time for giving thanks. As busy as small business owners are, I hope you have time to stop and think about what you’re thankful for this year.
While the pundits and experts will tell us the recession ended back in 2009, 2010 was still a tough year for most entrepreneurs. If you are having trouble finding things to feel thankful for, here are some ideas:
- Be thankful you’ve made it through. Though it may not feel like the recession is over, I think most of us would agree that things are (finally) looking up and that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer—and brighter. If your business has survived the past two years, you’ve got something to be proud of.
- Be thankful for your employees. No business can survive without its employees—especially in the past few years. If your employees are like most, they’ve risen to the occasion, pulled together and done everything they can to help sustain your business in tough times.
- Be thankful for your customers. Customers have more options than ever in this constantly connected world. It’s easy for them to seek out new solutions when you’re no longer meeting their needs. Don’t ever take them for granted.
- Be thankful for the Internet. Innovations like cloud computing, social media, myriad free online tools to help start and grow businesses, content marketing platforms and the rise of virtual employees and remote workers—all powered by the Internet–have helped small businesses do more with less.
- Be thankful for your support system. Whether it’s your family, your friends, your colleagues or some combination of all three, no small business owner can go it alone. Today, more than ever, we’re relying on each other for moral support, ideas and encouragement.
- Be thankful for the lessons you’ve learned. You don’t make it through an economic landscape like today’s without being smart and savvy. Tough times teach us things, and the lessons we’ve learned in the past few years will help us run better, smarter, more profitable businesses in any economy.
We at Preation are extremely thankful for all of the items mentioned above and we’re looking forward to another successful year in 2012. What are you thankful for as a small business?
Redesigning your Eden website is a critical decision as it can have a strong impact on your visitors. Therefore, it is critical to evaluate the factors involved in website redesign and carefully plan it.
Before you redesign your Eden website, ensure that you really need it. Avoid redesigning your site just for the sake of it. You should consider redoing your website design only in case of the following situations:
An Unprofessional Look or Outdate Design
If your site has an unprofessional look, it can be safely said that the visitors will not give it a second glance. In such a situation, depending on your business, opting for a stylish design can be a great idea. Consider inclusion of high quality imagery to make your site more reputable.
Redesigning your site is also important when your site possesses an outdated look. The factors that make a design outdated can include distorted text, widgets, and broken images. In most cases, a design is considered outdated when it fails to support enhanced versions of plug-ins.
Remember that visitors avoid exploring a site that possesses an outdated design.
High Bounce Rate
Many sites get loads of traffic, but have a high bounce rate. The visitors explore the site for a short period and exit quickly. A poor website design could be responsible for the high bounce rate.
Consider the fact that a good website design highlights the main purposes of the site and the content. Additionally, it offers clear instructions, thus allowing visitors to navigate through it smoothly. If your site is experiencing a high bounce rate, you can consider revamping its overall look.
Low Traffic
A poor web design can be partly responsible for low traffic. If you find that people hardly visit your site, you should consider redesigning it. Pay attention to content and SEO issues as well; the reason for low traffic could be uninformative content or lack of proper Meta tags to attract search engines.
Considering these factors, and evaluating your current situation will help you to decide about website redesigning.
So what are your options?
- Bring in your own web designer that you’ve worked with before. It could be a relative or a friend if you like. Just make sure they are familiar with XHTML and CSS. We have designer documentation we can provide along with phone/email support.
- Hire one of Preation’s authorized design partners. Our designers are professional and competitively priced.
- Do the design work yourself. Once again, if you’re familiarity with XHTML and CSS is strong, we will support you with the redesign endeavor.
Make sure that you are tracking your visitors and conversions before and after a redesign to make sure that you didn’t mess anything up! Remember, conversions are the reason for having a marketing site on Eden!
Contact us today for more information on redesigning your Eden site.
After Q3 2011 brought a 13 percent increase in e-commerce sales, independent technology and market research company, Forrester, is estimating that U.S. online holiday sales will grow 15 percent this year to nearly $60 billion. The study reports that this increase will take place because of the increase in consumer-use of tablet computers for shopping combined with a growth in online holiday deals.
You can take advantage of this increase by preparing your content marketing/e-commerce website for the ‘price-savvy’ shopper and present more lucrative deals for online shopping and free shipping, especially on high-volume shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. One key way to take advantage of this up-tick as an Eden Platform user is by optimizing the middle to bottom of your online sales funnel through the use of SEO and Offers. Check out this article to learn more.
The report shows that 58 percent of Americans say they are more price-conscious today than they were a year ago and nearly half believe they find better values online. With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday only weeks away, we’ll see soon if shoppers flock online for deals and savings, as is predicted.
Sign up for your free trial of Eden today and prepare for the holiday masses!
Today, Google announced a change to its search algorithm that the company says will impact 35% of Web searches. The change builds on top of its previous “Caffeine” update in order to deliver more up-to-date and relevant search results, specifically those in areas where freshness matters. This includes things like recent events, hot topics, current reviews and breaking news items.
Google says that the new algorithm knows that different types of searches have different freshness needs, and weighs them accordingly. For example, a search for a favorite recipe posted a few years ago may still be popular enough to rank highly, but searches for an unfolding news story or the latest review of the iPhone 4S should bring the newer, fresher content first, followed by older results.
How does this change impact Eden users?
This is certainly great news for Eden users. We’ve been preaching for over 8 months to create a content schedule and stick to it by adding and optimizing at least one page to your site a week. Google is now going to reward websites that have fresh content by pushing them up higher in the search results. Be sure to take advantage of this update! Thank you Google!
Are you relying on a “professional” search engine optimization (SEO) consultant to optimize your website? Are you tired of paying expensive monthly retainer costs just to show up higher in the search engine results? Are you being kept in the dark when it comes to knowing what’s going on with the day to day operations of your site? Are you being nickled-and-dimed for every little change that needs to be made on your site?
We at The Eden Platform believe that SEO and content management should be easily accessible and understood by everyday small business professionals. SEO is not some sort of rocket science only reserved for the super-techy. It’s actually a somewhat simple concept that once grasped, can propel your website to the top of the search results, and in turn grow your revenue!
What is your web company doing to help you with your marketing efforts and SEO? Do they provide you with step by step instructions on how to properly optimize your pages? Do they suggest implementing strategies to generate more leads? Do they know the current optimization trends and techniques used to boost results? Do they teach and consult you so that you learn the SEO process and understand why you’re doing what you’re doing? If you’ve answered no to any of these questions, it’s time that you give Eden a try.
We are dedicated to the online success of our clients. Our goal is to empower small business owners with the tools necessary to take their online marketing efforts into their own hands and teach them along the way so they can be self-reliant and self-sufficient in the future. The holidays are almost here! Don’t waste another minute being held hostage by your web firm and paying too much for results! Grab the reins and take control of your marketing destiny!
Thousands of online retailers will discount their stock for Cyber Monday, the online version of Black Friday, now in its sixth year.
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