We are very excited to announce that following on from our successful certification in Landing Page Optimization, we are now also certified in Email Optimization too. We are now proud holders of an Email Messaging Optimization Professional Certificate given to companies/individuals after completing a comprehensive training program. This certificate is issued by MarkertingExperiments™, one of the most respected professional email optimization certification program company based in U.S. A key learning in this certification program has been how to optimize email capture, email messages and design envelope fields (body and subject line) that improve deliverability and increase open rates.

I am delighted to wish all of our readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2010! Personally I am very excited about all the opportunities this coming year has in store.  Last year we launched ProImpact7.com and have worked hard to build a solid foundation for our business and provide our readers with a source of useful information as you also look to increase your business.  And our year finished on a high with our successful certification in Landing Page Optimization. We are now proud holders of a Landing Page Optimization Professional Certificate given to companies/individuals after completing a comprehensive training program. This certificate is issued by MarketingExperiments™, one of the most respected professional landing page optimization certification program company based in U.S. This means professional standards and best practices are being followed in order to create a testing process that is useful, practical and predictive to gain the best possible conversion improvement results […]

In this post you will learn about velocity credit card hacks and how to protect you online storefront from online hackers who test stolen credit cards. What is velocity credit card hack?A velocity hack is when someone is using your online storefront to test stolen multiple credit cards to see if they are good, and then later resell them on the black market. How can you protect your online store and your business? Read the full article…

Econsultancy has published this very interesting post “are retailers really this bad at delivery“. Basically the post is about a survey conducted by Which? on deliveries by online retailers, which found that nearly 7% of  customers were unhappy with their delivery. One of the most shocking revelations was a customer experience when the delivery service threw a laptop over their 6 foot wall, another was thrown in the delivery package via the open window or the package was left on the doorstep visible to any by-passers, thus open to stealing. As delivery of the product is a very important part of consumer experience, what  can you as a retailer do to improve it to please your consumer and to protect your business from the goods being stolen thus facing a charge back and loss of revenue? 1. check with your delivery company how they deal with packages which can’t be delivered […]

What is colour swatching? Colour swatching is very popular in fashion, sport, furniture website or anywhere else where you offer a product in different colours. It enables customers to visualize all texture, material, color, pattern and surface options, generated from a single master image and swatches. Users can see all options to gain purchase confidence. This examples is from landsend.com. How does it work? You need only one master image of a particular product when using Scene7 product from Adobe. Scene7 then allows you to select areas of a product you would like to change to different colours. You assign different colours options and you are done. Obviously this all needs to be implemented into your store. What’s are the benefits? you need only one master image reduces photography and creative production costs by up to 50% amount of image to manage is cut by up to 80% increases conversions […]

As of July 1st 2010 merchants (website owners) and visa processors must ensure that they are PCI compliant. Many shopping carts (like Magento’s free open source version etc) aren’t PCI compliant. So if they don’t comply, you won’t be able to process online payments! What does it mean to be PCI complaint or PCI DSS? PCI DSS protects cardholders and minimises the risk to your business. If your shopping cart isn’t PCI complaint you have these options: find a shopping cart which is PCI compliant. Here is a list of PCI compliant shopping carts. If you can’t see your shopping cart listed it’s possible that your provider is currently working on PCI compliance of its product. But you should check as this process is costly, and some of the shopping carts providers could stay behind. use PayPal or Google Checkout for payment processing if you can’t afford to get a new shopping cart. When using PayPal […]

As you all know, Aaron Patzer sold his mint.com website for $170 million just after 3.5 years post its launch. In this video Aaron Patzer talks about how he started,  funding etc. The reason I have posted this into our blog is because it’s highly relevant for anyone planning to launch his own website as there is so much useful information. Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups from Techcrunch on Vimeo.

Call tracking is as important as click tracking. At proimpact7.com we are currently working on a client website where we are improving calls to actions, sale message and website usability. As most of the business for this particular client happens via the phone, how will we and the client know if the proposed changes bring more business?  In other words, how can we measure the impact of these changes? The answer is to use call tracking solution. Phone call tracking  from your website helps you to figure out which keywords, websites, or pay-per-click campaigns generate the most phone calls. Or in the case of doing A/B testing, which of those tested pages generates the most calls. Call tracking solution comes with dynamic phone number insertion, to help you to track which referral sources lead to the most phone calls, by displaying unique phone numbers on your site depending on the referral source […]

Would you like to be able to have your online store on Facebook? Then by using a widget from Alvenda.com it can be done. Alvenda developed a widget which allows you to place that widget into your Facebook account, blog or anywhere else. Alvenda is basically an advertising network which allows advertisers (merchants) to advertise their store and publishers to promote the store via their blogs etc. Another similar advertising network I came across using widgets to display products in your store, is from NextWidget.com. NOTE: I was trying to use the 1-800-Flowers.com store on Facebook, but didn’t manage to as it requires Adobe Flash 10 plugin to run, but for some reason after the installation the store still wasn’t functioning. So make sure your store widget is functioning because what’s the point of having it otherwise? I found these widgets for ecommerce stores interesting but only time will show […]

This webinar, hosted by elasticpath.com, is focused at manufacturers selling online or planning to sell online. According to Forrester Research in 2007, consumers see manufacturer sites as important when doing research with more than 58% of consumers starting research at manufacturer websites. Below you can see an example from samsung.com which allows customers to research products on their website, and then allows them to find an online or local retailer if they would like to purchase one of their products. This webinar will open in a new window

How to Use SEO, Blogs, and Social Media to Get Found Online Free Live Webinar – September 10, 2009, 1pm EDT Reserve Your Spot for the Free Webinar Learn how to get found online and generate leads efficiently and effectively by leveraging search engine optimization, blogging, and social media marketing. This webinar will provide all the basics of how to use these inbound marketing techniques to attract more qualified prospects to your business. This free live webinar will cover: * How to create and promote content to attract more qualified prospects to your website * How to optimize your content for search engines and social media * How SEO, blogging, and social media work together for exponential results * How to measure and evaluate the ROI of your marketing efforts Reserve Your Spot for the Webinar Now

A recent Vovici study revealed that only 24% of organizations surveying customers had built a customer panel. Failure to create a customer panel makes it almost impossible to turn customers into confidants. With a panel, you can conduct more customer research, collecting the information you need to understand your customers on a deeper level, gathering insight about issues great and small. In this free webinar, you’ll learn: What is a panel and how can you use it Panel management made easy: the three essential elements of a panel solution How panel management removes a cause of customer dissatisfaction Panel-management practices from companies with highly loyal customers How random sampling can allow you to do more surveys while bothering customers less How to grow your panel in size and functionality Date: Wednesday, September 9th Time: 2:00 PM ET/11:00 AM PT

Join us on Wednesday, September 2nd. Register for this webinar today. Business processes depend on their underlying applications and services. The need to offer a global, internationalized ecommerce solution drove a multi-level marketing enterprise to re-evaluate their architectural approach. They selected Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Web Center, the Elastic Path ecommerce platform, and the Exadel team for the integration work. Join us for a one-hour webinar on September 2nd. Get an in-depth look at this ecommerce project: High level architecture Main integration points Customization work

Many of you have not heard of Tumblr even though it’s gaining in popularity, but could Tumblr be the next Twitter? Tumblr is somewhere between blogging and Twitter. The difference is that Tumblr offers the quick-posting abilities present in Twitter, but also allows you to include pictures, audio, and video in addition to text. Plus URLs are search engine friendly as opposed to on Twitter, where URL shortening kills any search engine optimization efforts. 5 reasons why Tumblr could be the next Twitter you can post anything – pictures, text, video, audio, slide shows, links… URLs are search engine friendly you can automatically update Tumbrl anytime you post to another site or profile on the internet automatically tweets whenever you post it’s free Get proimpact7.com updates on Tumblr…

If for whatever reason you decide to move a domain, here is the seo guide how to move domain. Moving a domain can have a very negative impact on search engine rankings. When you decide to switch to a new domain name, you are resetting your domain metrics to zero, thus starting from very beginning. Luckily, there are measures you can take to minimize, and in many cases completely negate, the affects of a domain move. Read more….

Pre-launch pages can work wonders for almost any type of business if marketed properly. In this post I will show you 2 pre-launch pages, from typekit.com and kissmetrics.com, which in June 2009 attracted 39,000 and 20,000 unique visitors respectively. Why a pre-launch page is important? With a pre-launch page you can start promoting your upcoming website via PR, blogging, Twitter etc. and create buzz around your business, service or product right away, because you already have a mini website. Many times the launch of your new website can take longer than anticipated for various reasons like money issues or development of your product (service, software etc). For example kissmetrics.com launched their pre-launch page in July 2008, which is more than a year ago. But since then they have attracted over 288,395 visitors to their site. That’s 288,395 visitors aware of their product before they even launched it! Guidelines for successful pre-launch page: allow people to get […]

You have probably heard of the deal between Yahoo! and Bing that will help the two companies to take on Google. This deal seems to make Yahoo and Bing worth your optimization effort. So if you don’t have an account with Bing Webmasters Tools, now is the time. Bing webmasters tool isn’t that as robust as Google webmaster tools, but Bing is planning to catch up. Also submit your site with Yahoo Site Explorer. More on this issue how Micsrosoft/Yahoo Deal Change SEO…

Are you burdened by sales tax compliance?  Are you searching for ways to reduce your exposure to sales tax audits? If so, than stop spending valuable time on sales tax processes and join a FREE 30 minute webinar and you’ll learn to remove the hassles from sales and use tax compliance within QuickBooks. This webinar is a ‘must see’ if you are experiencing challenges related to sales tax compliance.  Don’t waste additional time on manual compliance efforts; instead learn how your business resources can focus on revenue generating activities. Join this webinar and learn to: Create a new revenue stream for your business Save time by automating sales tax calculations on transactions Expand the sales and use tax knowledge and capabilities of your business Reduce your exposure to costly audits

Do share buttons works and do people really used them? I personally believe share buttons are very useful and every blog would hugely benefit from having them. For example proimpact7.com currently receives more than 35% of traffic from different social networking sites thanks to displaying sharing buttons in each post visibly. And some of you reading this post right now arrived to our site via social networks, just because one single person has posted it somewhere. After you start using them, I can guarantee you that your traffic level will increase by minimum of 20% if your content is of any value to anybody out there. Highly recommend! Bellow you can see a chart from AddToAny, a company that provides web publishing buttons, about how people used their AddToAny sharing tool.  NOTE: This chart only represents websites using AddToAny sharing tool and unfortunately doesn’t tell us what the percentage of […]

This is a follow up from the webinar “How to Improve Your SEO Clicks and Conversions” where SEO lift after six months of optimization – agencies vs. in-house has shown better results for companies using SEO agencies. SEO agencies out performed in house SEO services 110% to 38% as shown in the graph below. Source: MarketingSherpa This finding is very significant, especially in the current economic climate where competition is very tough so such a difference in SEO performance can mean a huge difference in your revenue. At proimpact7.com we offer SEO pay per result service starting from £70 per keyword, so if you would like to find out more then call us on our free number +44 (0).800.756.6761.