It could be said to be a basic mantra for conversion – The simpler the path to conversion the more likely a conversion is to happen. This is fine for lead generation sites and single product offerings but for your average ecommerce website the proposition is more problematic. As the number of different products in product categories increases streamlining the path to conversion becomes increasingly difficult. Recently Alkemi attended the first Conversion Conference held in San Jose California and have brought back some tips for frustrated ecommerce website owners trying to make their customer’s lives easier.

Email marketing has long been a popular form of customer communication online for years now and many online businesses are making strong returns from investing in this particular form of marketing.  As with all forms of marketing, the complexities of getting the most out of your email campaigns are many and varied. Unfortunately that means that many businesses spend too much time worrying about the minutia of email marketing and miss the big picture, limiting their chances of success before they’ve even begun.  So to help you get started on the right foot here are five tips for successful email marketing.

One of the biggest benefits of internet marketing is its accountability. In most cases, if you spend money on driving traffic to your website it is possible to work out what return that expenditure actually gave you be it in terms of sales, leads or whatever your own particular KPIs are. Despite this major benefit of online marketing it is surprising how many people don’t actually track specific campaign performance. That is why this week we’ll be looking at Campaign tracking in Google Analytics and how you can set it up.

Keyword Research – no one is going to argue that it is an incredibly important part of Seach Engine Marketing but how seriously do you really take it? Do you regularly check your keyword strategy against current demand? Do you analyse the keyword data to determine what positions you can realistically obtain and still maintain a good ROI for your efforts? This week we’re going to go back to basics and address the subject of keyword research with particular relation to your SEO strategy.

The unfortunate thing about most online marketing channels is that for every person you see using it correctly there will be ten that aren’t. Twitter is no exception and Twitter spam is becoming distressingly common with numerous hopefuls hoping to make a quick buck for minimum effort and outlay.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I referred to an experience I had where I was contact by a follower to inform me of a product I might be interested in. It was an exercise in how to effectively use Twitter to create touch-points with your potential customer base. Today I’d like to take a different approach and speak about ways not to use Twitter – or at least one way in particular – serial following.

The Google Toolbar has long been a trusted tool in the SEO campaigner’s tool kit. Easy access to PageRank figures while you browse along with numerous options that act as shortcuts to Google functions such as tracking backlinks, cached content and more. The only downside is that as a tool it was less a swiss army knife and more a screwdriver. Useful but often not the only tool you needed. Today’s post is a short but valuable one. It is to introduce you to the tool that may finally see you consign Google’s tool to the recycle bin of life.

It’s been no secret that Microsoft has long had its eyes on Google in the search engine space. The company has various attempts over the years to usurp the company whose name has become so synonymous with search it has become a verb. The latest salvo in this battle is Bing; Microsoft’s new search engine. Now that the engine has been live for some time we’re now starting to see some usage data roll in and the results are worth your attention.

With Twitter being the latest hot web application for savvy net consumers it is easy to go overboard in the early stages and rapidly lose control of who is adding you, who you are following and what on earth your original goal for the tool was in the first place. For something of a change of pace we examine a fantastic little web application for managing your Twitter account – Tweepi.

In a world of Blackberries, iPhones and smartphones there is no doubt the mobile internet revolution is upon us. Smart online content providers have already seized the opportunity this represents by producing websites mirroring their main content but formatted for mobile use. This a brilliant means of capturing the attention of this new and rapidly expanding market but don’t fall prey to the following simple pitfall.

If would say that you have something of a head for web statistics it is hard not to be impressed by the near constant barrage of new features and updates Google has been hitting its popular analytics service with. One of the newer features to be incorporated is Advanced Segmentation. For those used to web analytics segmentation and its usefulness will already be well known. If, on the other hand, you are only just delving into the intoxicating world of web analytics (well to some of us at least) then this post is for you. Read on to discover how to use Advanced Segmentation and why it is such a powerful analytical tool.

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