iWeb

For when they can’t face logging in, there’s Magento Facebook Login

Rich — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:40:25 +0000

We’ve all been there. You’re interested in buying an item online and are all ready to complete the transaction. Then the site demands that you register and fill in a tedious form. Not surprisingly, many impatient, potential customers click away at that point and your e-commerce web site has lost a sale. You do need their details, so what’s the solution? The answer is Magento Facebook Login. With this handy facility Facebook users (and most people are nowadays) can simply allow their account to supply information and skip the form-filling. It can also allow the online seller access to useful data on ‘likes’ and interests.

Customers use their Facebook account to sign up - no other information is required.
If visitors have already signed into their Facebook account, the sign up process is completed after they enter their username and password.
If not, there will be a pop-up to log in to Facebook.
After customers sign up via Facebook, you can release a new password for them to use as a separate account for your site.

Speeds up registration With Magento Facebook Login, it’s possible to access a person’s details with just one click. A web form can pre-populate form fields from Facebook data - like name, birthdate, gender and city to speed up the process. Fewer problems with forgotten passwords Customers have a choice: they can try and remember different passwords for umpteen sites or they could compromise their own security by re-using the same few. Logging in with social credentials eliminates the need to recollect which password was used - especially helpful for returning customers. Helps you meet your market better by analysing profile data Knowing ‘likes’ and interests can help you tailor your home page content and improve your product range. It’s particularly useful for birthday reminders and gift suggestions. You can also assess whether they’ve liked, reviewed or added a product to a wish list. Customers supply only the data you need from them When a customer uses Facebook to populate a form, they can see what information they’re sharing with you. It would be sensible to ask for just the basics at this stage - otherwise it may be seen as a breach of privacy and you can scare them off. Magento Facebook Login requests permission to pull the vital details and you should be upfront about what you’re asking for in order to reassure the more wary. Too much prying can be counter-productive, no matter how tempting. Ideal for the mobile market Many customers using mobile to access your e-commerce web site will already be logged in to Facebook automatically. This essential Magento plug-in makes it easier and more appealing for buyers who are out and about. Magento Facebook Login gets the thumbs up from iWeb The No.1 turn-off for potential customers keen to complete a sale is needless form filling. Magento Facebook Login eliminates this drawback and can also supply you with priceless customer information into the bargain. What’s not to like? To find out more, talk to our expert Magento team at iWeb.

Magento hits the right note for classic music specialists

Dave Redfern — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:55:15 +0000

Selling music recordings in the current climate is strictly a job for the specialist. There is still a market in supplying discerning listeners with high quality material – whether on CD or vinyl. But to make a success of it, the retailer must really know and understand their audience. One company that’s done just that is Not Now Music. Having released their first CD six years ago, the music wholesale and export business now has an ever growing catalogue of around 500 titles aimed at the music enthusiast. They recognised the need to move their business online and so came to the e-commerce experts, iWeb to design a new web site. At iWeb, we have extensive experience in providing online music marketing solutions. To get Not Now Music up and running online, we supplied an e-commerce web site based on the highly popular Magento platform. As Magento is open source, most of the development work has already been carried out by a dedicated global community. That results in an endlessly customisable platform that’s affordable for e-commerce businesses of any size. The Not Now Music web site splits its large catalogue by genre, artist and label, making it easy for customers to find their choice. The retailer specialises in classic artists and so it’s confident enough to allow customers to search with just a picture of each one. As with any mail order business, customer data integration is crucial for smooth running. The Magento web site makes collects customer information to ensure a smooth transaction and also enhance the database. Payment is quick and simple with secure Sage Pay transactions. An advanced postage matrix also means that items can easily be mailed all over the world at the appropriate rate. Thanks to iWeb’s Magento expertise, Not Now Music is ready to take its business to the next level and enter the huge global marketplace. We can do the same for your project too. If that sounds like music to your ears, why not get in touch?

For global e-commerce, Magento offers tools you can trust

Heddwyn Coombs — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:50:31 +0000

The Ox brand of top quality tools and machinery originated in Australia in 1974 and established an unrivalled reputation for toughness and reliability. Since then, the brand has been launched in other territories too – including the UK last year. To help strengthen their online presence, the company came to iWeb to take advantage of our expertise in designing e-commerce web sites. The challenge for iWeb was to develop web sites for various countries – each with varying catalogues of Ox Tools. These included Canada, New Zealand and the USA, as well as non-English speaking countries like France, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. To achieve this, we chose Magento ecommerce – easily the most popular e-commerce platform in the world today. Because it’s open source, all the expensive development time has already been carried out by a dedicated global community. This means that it’s not only more affordable for our clients, but highly customisable too. One of the key Magento features used was its international multi-store. This allows for management of multiple websites and stores within one installation – extremely useful when dealing with various territories that have different catalogues in other languages. All sites are also hosted on a global Content Delivery Network (CDN) of multiple servers. This means that rather than being slowed down by having to access the UK site alone, users are instead directed to a server closer to their own location. This speeds up data transfer and makes everything run much more smoothly. Other useful global features which will soon be implemented are a dealer locator so that visitors can find their nearest stockist, no matter where they are in the world. An advanced Solr search facility also allows users to find the appropriate item in their local Ox tools catalogue with specific criteria – including plurals (trowels, shovels, etc.). The new Ox Tools e-commerce web site is a major project for iWeb for a brand set to really make its mark. Thanks to our expertise, they’ve been able to successfully expand into the online marketplace and reach customers around the world. If you’d like our experienced team to do the same for your project, why not get in touch?

Magento more than measures up for quality shirt retailer

Dave Redfern — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:37:48 +0000

Botti Shirts of London tailor make shirts for discerning gentlemen who want something different from the norm. So when they needed a tailor-made e-commerce web site, iWeb proved to be the perfect fit. We delivered an eye-catching solution based on the highly popular Magento e-commerce platform, which combines ‘off-the-peg’ convenience with a high degree of customisation. As Magento is open source, most of the expensive web development process has already been carried out by a huge global network of developers – which means we can pass the savings on costs to our clients. One of Botti’s main selling points is that they make shirts that fit customers to a tee – no more tight collars or straining buttons. That requires more detail than just choosing from S/M/L. So we included clear video instructions demonstrating how customers can take all their size measurements, as well as a module where these could be input for the shirt of their choice. Having done so, those measurements are stored on the customer’s account so that repeat ordering is quick and easy. Botti are also proud to be bold and colourful - so they wanted their web site to reflect the choice and quality available in the range. Every shirt is clearly displayed with zoom functions so that the exquisite detail can be examined. A convenient Sage Pay facility makes checking out easy, once customers have specified a shirt that’s as close to perfection as possible. And should wives and partners want to improve their man’s dress sense, a gift certificate redeeming facility is also available. The Botti Shirts of London web site demonstrates that the iWeb team has an impressive eye for quality. We can supply a Magento solution made to measure for your business too. So why not get in touch?

Magento ticks all the right boxes for storage solutions specialist

Laura — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:33:28 +0000

Magento’s blend of ‘off-the-shelf’ accessibility and tailor-made customisation is a potent combination. So when storage solutions company, Shop4Shelves came to iWeb for their new web site design, the affordable, open source e-commerce platform was a natural choice. Shop4Shelves is one of the UK’s leading online suppliers of shelving, racking, lockers and related storage solutions, selling its products directly to businesses and consumers. With such a wide and varied product range, a challenge for the iWeb team was to offer a means of making the site easy to browse - enabling customers to find the exact product they need. One of our solutions was using the Grouped Configurable Products facility. Shop4Shelves have products of many different sizes, colours and other variables. Grouped options allows for products to be grouped and displayed with configurable custom options. So customers can select shelving in their desired Size, colour, style, material, etc. - all from the same page. It all makes for a more enjoyable shopping experience and, of course, leads to more sales conversions. Other useful features we added to the Shop4Shelves e-commerce web site include a postcode finder, so that customers can automatically fill in delivery address details and we have also included the ProNav Mega Dropdown. This menu system provides the ability to dynamically pull in categories from Shop4Shelves product catalogue and output them within a drop down menu. Featured products, promotional imagery, forms, and even video can all be displayed within the menu itself. Shop4Shelves are delighted with their new tailor-made Magento e-commerce web site. The iWeb team of web design experts can work wonders for your online business too. So why not get in touch and see what the future might have in store for you?

Why Google Shopping needs checking out right now

Greg — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:28:35 +0000

Last year, Google replaced Google Product Search with a new service – Google Shopping. By July, the changeover will be complete in the UK. The most significant difference is that merchants that could previously list with Google for free will now have to pay to be included. So it’s important that everybody in the e-commerce marketplace understands Google Shopping. As ever, the experts at iWeb are here to help with a quick rundown of the changes and their implications for your business. PLA to win At the core of Google Shopping are Product Listing Ads (PLAs). Understanding this new fee-based model is crucial for e-commerce sellers. PLAs will offer greater control over where ads appear and can potentially generate higher web site traffic. So what are they and how do they differ from the old Product Search? A Product Listing Ad is a unique format that allows you to include specific product information – an image, title, price, plus your store or business name. They are highlighted in Google search results by appearing in a separate box away from the standard text listings. The advantage is that they are more visual and naturally invite more clicks. It allows retailers to promote their entire product line and offers the customer more instant information – thus improving conversions. It’s important that every e-commerce seller becomes familiar with PLAs – or alternatively, you can always rely on iWeb knowhow. But here’s a little advice for free: The early bird catches the conversions If you want to steal a march on your e-commerce competitors, get started with Google Shopping early. This will allow you to learn how PLAs work best and refine them for your specific business needs. Optimising your feeds now will pay dividends in the long run. As a further incentive Google are offering a promotional credit to early adopters who make the transition https://services.google.com/fb/forms/shoppingcouponuk/ Build it into your budget The changes may catch plenty in the e-commerce marketplace unawares. Don’t be one of them. Make sure your market plans for 2013 include a budget provision for the extra cost of Google Shopping – thus ensuring you benefit from increased exposure on this important new channel. If you’d like help with this, you can always call iWeb. Shoppers want freshness and so does Google It’s crucial that your product data isn’t past its sell-by date. Provide fresh, accurate data consistently and Google Shopping will love you for it. Optimise your content towards better quality. Identify product target queries and integrate them into the titles and descriptions of your product feed. Stay on top of data changes and it will increase your exposure, offer your customers a better shopping experience and, above all, increase conversions. Have a strategy for hitting Product Targets Google Shopping has a central element called Product Targets. These identify which products from data feeds will trigger Product Listing Ads for related searches. Using a Target field, e-commerce sellers can group products together based on key characteristics – like brand name, product genre, price, etc. These can be grouped together to allow retailers to control bids across multiple products based on those characteristics. It pays for the smart e-commerce business to consider how Product Targets can benefit your business. Should your target be based upon specific brands, types of products, margin or price? Giving some thought to this and having a strategy in place is only sensible. Again, if you’d like help and advice in this area, the experienced heads at iWeb are always available. Don’t shop around - call iWeb first The advent of Google Shopping represents a big change in the way your products will be listed online. The move to a fee-based system will have financial implications for your business too. That’s why you need iWeb expertise on your side. We have years of experience in e-commerce and our team can help you navigate the tricky switchover to Google Shopping. So don’t be left behind – contact iWeb today and give your business the online advantage.

Magento proves to be the natural choice for Wildcare

Greg — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:32:35 +0000

Wildcare offer specialised products for the wildlife and ecology industry – helping to make our environment a better place for both humans and animals. When they needed a new e-commerce web site that wouldn’t cost the Earth, they trusted to the experienced team at iWeb. Where cost is a consideration, the No.1 platform to choose is always going to be Magento. As it’s designed to be open source, the majority of potentially expensive development work has already been carried out by an extensive global community. That means there is already a vast choice of options and plug-ins to choose from – allowing for full customisation of any e-commerce web site. It also means that iWeb can pass the cost saving in development time on to our customers. The new Wildcare web site takes advantage of Magento’s multi-site capability – allowing the creation of multiple websites with unique domain names that share the same product catalogue. This is particularly useful for expanding into other territories that speak a different language. As Wildcare’s product range is so specialist, iWeb has also included product demonstration videos so that customers can be sure of what they’re buying. Full integration and secure transactions through Paypal and Sagepay make paying for it simple and safe too. To keep visitors to the Wildcare web site updated with the latest news and stories on ecological matters, iWeb has also included a blog facility based on the hugely popular Wordpress platform. This allows site owners to easily update editorial content and video links - with the added benefit of making the web site more attractive to search engines. With the new Wildcare e-commerce web site, iWeb has demonstrated that ecology and economy can work hand in hand. If you’d like to know how our talented team can do the world of good for your business too, why not get in touch?

Developing a Better SEO Content Strategy for E-Commerce Web Sites

Greg — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:05:00 +0000

It’s no longer enough to simply rely on keyword repetition to ensure a favourable SEO performance. Times have changed and now content is king. The success of any e-commerce web site depends on search engines being attracted to the quality content it features. But if your site has hundreds of product pages (affected by all sorts of other factors), how do you ensure great content and thus improved search rankings? At iWeb, we’re experts in building an effective e-commerce content strategy that will enhance SEO performance. We’d like to share that expertise with you – so here are a few areas where an e-commerce web site can often introduce improvements.

OFFER ANSWERS with a Q&A Facility

Slightly different to the standard FAQ section, a Q&A facility introduces customer interaction and helps build relationships, which in turn lead to sales conversions. Providing a service where customers can ask questions and receive expert advice in a timely manner is a great way to add user generated content to your pages. From the point of view of visiting customers, it offers the reassurance of a helpful company willing to engage. Plus, by publishing answers to previous customers’ questions, it can address any similar queries too. Some even encourage customers to provide the answer for other customers – enabling a sense of community. Companies that have offered this facility have seen a large increase in conversion rates. Here are a few ‘dos and don’ts’ that may help you benefit too:

Ensure all content is placed on your product pages
Make sure helpful, expert members of staff are constantly on hand to answer questions and influence the buying decision
Respond to queries quickly - don’t leave it for more than an hour or two
Offer an e-mail notification of the answer you provide
Encourage other customers to answer questions – possibly by offering rewards
Offer users the facility to share their Q&A via social media
Anticipate common questions with input from your call centre or sales team
Improve your product description if you find you’re frequently asked the same questions

PROVIDE ADVICE with informational content

Quality content shouldn’t just be confined to product pages, but spread throughout your e-commerce web site. This is important for attracting users, no matter what stage they’re at in the buying cycle. Offering user guides, forums, generic Q&A, instructional videos or animations, etc. help to build trust in your brand. Studies have shown that visitors who engage with informational site content are 5 times more likely to become paying customers than those that arrive directly on the product page. What’s more, they’ll do so 24 hours after first visiting your site. These users also have a greater tendency to make repeat purchases in the future. Almost half of e-commerce revenue comes from customers who have enjoyed a good buying experience, remember the site and return when they’re in the market for what you offer once more.

ENCOURAGE OPINIONS with user reviews

Nothing engenders confidence like a good user review. Even a negative review (and let’s face it, there are people that are very hard to please) can offer balance and demonstrate that you are an honest seller. You may even find that loyal customers post positive comments to balance and counteract it. There are two main types of user review:

Reviews of products purchased
Reviews of your company & service levels

Product reviews

These are proven to improve conversion rates and have become a standard feature on e-commerce web sites. Not only that, some major retailers use them to determine what inventory to stock and what they should perhaps be discarding. However, whilst implementing product reviews is relatively straightforward, they can be problematic in execution. So here are a few iWeb tips to help you make user reviews work better for your business:

Encourage feedback by e-mailing customers shortly after their purchase to ask for their thoughts on products and service received
Make sure the e-mail is well designed with a strong call to action
Offer rewards and incentives to customers for leaving a review
Make it easy to leave a review with a direct link from the e-mail. Don’t slow down the process by requiring a log-in
Allow for multiple purchases to be reviewed at one time
Split the review by value, price, service, etc. and calculate an aggregate rating
Use rich snippet markup on your product pages
It pays to employ your own system with original data. Be careful of duplication with when using any third party content
Encourage users to share their review via social media
Ensure reviews are placed on the product page, not on a separate URL

Reviews of your business

The main aim of business reviews is to encourage traffic to your site – so often appear on third party review sites, such as Trust Pilot or Feefo. These services will integrate with your system and email your customers asking for reviews themselves. Your service is often given a star rating or awarded an eye-catching badge, which can appear alongside your PPC ads or in Google Product Search. Care should be taken in the timing of e-mails asking for a review. Make sure the product has arrived and there are no outstanding delivery issues. This review email should be sent before the one asking for a review of the product; you want customers to review your business and not the product.

ADD PERSONALITY with better product descriptions

Quality content won’t be delivered by a bland list of features. Neither is it okay to just cut and paste a description from the manufacturer. Every effort should be made to inject personality into the copy and encourage the customer to buy. However, it isn’t always easy and depends on the nature of the product too. It pays to use the services of good copywriter to create a unique description of at least 250 words when the product is uploaded. Also consider adding expert opinions or third party reviews to make it stand out from competing products. Here are iWeb’s tips for making product descriptions more enticing:

Write informative & descriptive copy in a consistent tone of voice with bags of personality
Bear in mind who your target audience is and write to please them
Make sure the copy sells the product - covering all features and benefits
Forget about SEO and keywords – it just leads to boring repetition
Try to inject fun into the descriptions, where appropriate
Less is more, but don’t make it too short – 250 words at least
Add a secondary expert’s opinion to explain why the product is better
Try to pre-empt any objections, questions and barriers to making a sale – reassure people
Consider how you’d explain the product if you were describing it to a friend in the pub. What would you say first? What features are important to know about? What do you think would convince them?

LINK IT ALL TOGETHER with product categories

Often a large e-commerce retailer will have many categories and sub-categories of products. Specialist stores can concentrate on a smaller inventory, so tend to enjoy a better SEO showing. That’s why category and sub-category pages can be quite a challenge. For example, a specialist wine seller can concentrate on a smaller product range, whereas Sainsbury’s sell wine as part of a much larger offering of food and drink. So to the latter company, wine is merely a sub-category of their alcohol section. So how does the more general retailer attract the same attention as the specialist? The key to creating an effective category page is to think of it as a hub which links to all the important information about the products in that category. To continue our wine example, our category page could link to reviews from wine experts, buying guides, articles on the region the wine is from and perhaps ideas for food with which it could be enjoyed. This content should be useful to potential customers – whether they’re wine buffs or don’t know their Chardonnay from their Chablis. It should also encourage them to try something they hadn’t considered. Users should want to read your category page content before they go on to browse your products. The idea is to fire the imagination. This is just a brief taste of iWeb’s expertise in content strategy. For the full picture, our specialist team are always on hand to provide advice. Get in touch today and you’ll find that the contents of our experienced heads are at your disposal.

Personalised iWeb service is the badge of e-commerce success

Rich — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:05:10 +0000

With 20 years of experience, Simoney Badges are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of badges, personalised gifts, lanyards, stickers, and other promotional items. Its customers range from Fortune 500 companies to individuals. So when they needed a new e-commerce web site design to take the business forward, it was clearly a job with iWeb’s name on it. The company has a large product range that can be used for fun, corporate, educational or commercial purposes. It was important that that breadth be conveyed, as well as making the right choice easy to find. So iWeb based the new Simoney Badges web site on the market-leading Magento e-commerce platform. It’s already being used for thousands of e-commerce web sites all over the world and remains the most popular option by far. As it’s an open source platform, it’s free and requires no additional licence – that means lower development costs for our clients. The new Simoney Badges web site makes extensive use of Magento’s tier pricing facility. It’s a promotional tool that allows items to be priced differently for higher quantities. This is an effective way to move more merchandise – especially when customers will be buying in bulk. Payment is also simple and secure with full Sagepay integration – one of the UK’s safest payment gateways providers. To help Simoney Badges keep their customers up to date with the latest news and events, iWeb also included a blog facility based on the highly popular and user-friendly Wordpress platform. This allows for the site to be easily and regularly updated with fresh content – thus making it more attractive to search engines. Thanks to iWeb’s skilled design team, Simoney Badges’ already successful business is now performing even better online. So if you’d like more people to know your name too, why not get in touch?

IT solution providers delighted to have iWeb in their network

Chloe — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:04:30 +0000

When IT company, Nviron wanted their web site to stand out from the crowd, they found iWeb’s outstanding design expertise to be fully compatible. Nviron is an established provider of IT infrastructure, networking and security solutions to organisations that demand availability, integrity and security. The challenge for iWeb was to develop a web site that was appealing to users whilst maintaining a professional approach in the content. We supplied a clean and uncluttered design that’s attractive, informative and easy to use. The new Nviron web site is based on the highly popular Wordpress platform. WordPress is an open source, web-based software program that allows anybody to maintain a website. With thousands of plug-ins available, it also saves money on bespoke development – allowing iWeb to pass on that cost benefit to our clients. The solution we provided for Nviron features dynamic content on the home page in the form of news blogs and events. There’s also a separate section where visitors can register their interest in attending IT-themed events. To highlight the respected reputation and professionalism of Nviron, we’ve also included a section detailing full case studies of past projects. And to allow any content to be found at any time, we’ve included a full site search facility. Nviron are delighted with the clean, unfussy design and easy navigability of their new Wordpress-based web site. If you’d like our experienced team to enhance your project too, just do a spot of networking – contact iWeb today. Visit the Nviron website