One of the best ways to increase visitor conversions, and potentially sales, is to offer a safe and secure environment for customers to enter in payment information for their purchases Online. If your customers feel safe buying from you there’s a better chance they will buy more and more often. eCommerce security has been an important factor among both shoppers and merchants for many years and possibly since Internet users first began entering in payment information over electronic networks.

Alternative Product Search Engines Overview:

In the past, most average merchant sellers have had to rely solely on main stream search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, in order to get the kind of high-end exposure needed to drive large amounts of targeted traffic to an eCommerce enabled site. The recent buzz and overwhelming success surrounding eCommerce and selling online has led to many new merchant faces within major online niches and continues to grow with each passing day. The amount of small to mid-sized eTailers has tripled compared to past years and industry analysts don’t expect to see a change in that trend any time soon. Many of the larger, fortune 500 sellers will not be affected as much as the mom and pop sellers since the fortune 500’s tend to rely more on brand recognition and existing customers to continue growing their companies.

The extreme saturation within traditional search engines has made it difficult for many eCommerce start-ups to compete fairly within a given niche. These results are evident, especially if you are one of those merchants who are finding it more difficult to increase sales now than in past years, despite making few changes within your marketing strategy. This continuous growth contributes to an already over saturated, highly competitive marketplace to list the products you hope to be found by potential buyers who shop using traditional search engines. The chances that large amounts of buyers will find new eCommerce stores right away in saturated search results is slim and that’s why merchants shouldn’t rely solely on listing their stores in traditional search engines, expecting that one tactic to propel their business to the next level (although it can and I have seen it happen on many different occasions, just don’t count on it right away). Instead, post your catalog on alternative product search engines such as Google Product Search, Yahoo Shopping, Pricegrabber, Shopping.com, Shopzilla and many more.

Northwest Airlines announced today that they will now be accepting PayPal payments for ticket purchases off their website NWA.com. This is a great move on PayPal’s part, especially if Northwest notices an increase in website airline ticket sales. An increase in ticket sales just for taking a step that simple would certainly attract the attention of other competing airlines and could mean more business from those other airlines for PayPal in the future. I would really like to see some numbers, facts and statistics about this so hopefully they release some data about the expansion of their accepted payments.

The birth of social media communities such as YouTube and other streaming video or media uploading sites has brought on a whole new way for Merchants and marketing professional to share tips, tricks and secrets with other users in an entertaining and informative way. Recently, I have been watching some eCommerce videos on a couple of different sites and I liked what I saw so much that I decided to write up a little blurb about each of them. This article is a little different than most on eCommerce Optimization in that it covers videos that actually teach you something and videos that are more for fun and entertainment than anything. I will comment on the learning videos first, then move along to the fun ones. Hope you like.

Several authoritative sites have recently implemented the ability for users to post their own reviews, including Google Maps for local businesses. There has been quite a lot of blog talk lately about how user reviews and ratings affect online store sales and site conversions over a period of time. A few questions that our readers have asked relate somewhat to this topic, however we have never really seen revealing reports about the affects of user generated rating and reviews until recently (or there have been and it’s being revived due to user response lately). The overwhelming success of Wikipedia has shed a lot more light on this subject and shows us that people are now looking for authoritative information generated by other users online, not in books or encyclopedias.

User reviews are good for eCommerce enabled sites for many reasons but mostly due to the fact that a large majority of online shoppers are beginning to trust what other consumers think about the products and services they buy and the customer experience they had with the merchants who sell those items. In the past, online buyers have sought out more traditional ways of conducting product research and weren’t as likely to search online for user reviews before actually buying.

I had a payment to process on PayPal today and when I visited their main page to login I noticed a tiny message bar at the top center of the page asking me if I wanted to “Preview the new PayPal Homepage.” The message got the best of my curiosity so I decided to check out their new look. I don’t use PayPal all that often, but I do know they have had the same look and feel in their design for quite a few years now. Past updates to their site design seemed to be minor changes in look, new graphics and rarely have we seen any new usability features. Well, the future is here and PayPal wants your feedback to help them build the best homepage/site that they possibly can.

I read an interesting statistic yesterday regarding the payment processing battle going on between Google with their Checkout Program and Paypal with their Express Program. It seems Internet Retailer has taken it upon themselves to ask the top 200 Online retailers which Payment Processing Programs they like best and why. The results are quite surprising to say the least.

I recently WON a free premium membership from the team over at SEOmoz and it motivated me to write up this quick rating and review of the services and tools that are offered through their premium membership program. If you are interested in giving them your feedback feel free to comment on this article or fill out the survey form at SEOmoz (you must be logged in as a premium member to access the premium members survey).

SEOmoz Premium Membership Overview:

Premium membership at SEOmoz gives you 24/7 access to unique industry guides, tools, tips, tricks, answers, videos and exclusive events. The membership features provide Internet professionals of all skill levels with a suite of beneficial educational resources designed to improve the processes needed to properly analyze, setup and market sites of all sizes.

Quite simply, these features and tools make it easier to understand the inner workings of web sites, search engines and other forms of Online marketing that Webmasters constantly use within their business advertising and branding strategies.

I happened across an interesting article Sunday in NYT called Online Sales Loose Steam which reports that overall Internet sales over the last year have been slowing down compared to past years where we have seen annual eCommerce sales increase as much as 25%. Experts and analysts reported that the Online sales growth is expected to continue slowing possibly through the next decade. Here’s a snippet from the article over at New York Times:

The slowdown is a result of several forces. Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales, making it harder to maintain the same high growth rates. At the same time, consumers seem to be experiencing Internet fatigue and are changing their buying habits.

I got an email yesterday congratulating me on a complimentary membership to SEOmoz’s premium content. It was such a nice surprise and a great end to my Friday afternoon at work. This was really unexpected and I appreciate the gesture so much that I wrote this post as kind of a thank you to them for being so generous. Here’s what the email said …

Once a month we look at the SEOmoz members who earned more than 150
mozpoints in the past 30 days and we reward those that we consider the
most generous and participatory with a free month of premium
membership. It’s our way of giving back to those who help build the
SEOmoz community. Your account has been updated and you now have access
to all our premium content. Your premium membership will last until July 9, 2007.
If this is your second(third?) time receiving a free premium membership,
congrats x2!