7 Best Link Shorteners to Shorten that URL

Trying to convince people to click on a long, jumbled link is almost as bad as a door-to-door salesman trying to sell people financial services.

If your audience sees a link they perceive to be spammy in one of your social media posts, they’ll do the digital equivalent of slamming the door in your face -- scroll past it.

To avoid being perceived as spammy or sloppy when you have a legitimate link to share, check out our list of the seven best link shorteners that’ll clip your links into clean, consistent, and clickable URLs.

What are the benefits of using link shorteners?

Using link shorteners can benefit your brand in three main ways:

1. When you post long links on social media, it can look like spam or deter users from clicking on something they don't recognize. In particular, adding tracking parameters to your links can result in URLs that look long and confusing to someone who's unfamiliar with typical link tracking practices. Link shorteners can prune spammy-looking links into clear and concise links.
2. Many link shorteners also let you track each of your link’s performance and analytics, which can help you understand which pieces of content perform best on specific platforms.
3. Every social media network limits the amount of characters you can include in your posts. Twitter and LinkedIn have the shortest character limits at 280 and 700 characters, respectively, so if you need to squeeze a link or an extra hashtag in one of your posts, link shorteners can help you stay within the limit.

1. Bit.ly

Image Source

Bit.ly is a link shortener platform that features a comprehensive dashboard displaying your links’ performance metrics, such as click-through rates, channel stats, and geographic information of the people clicking on your links.

They also offer branded links and have integrations with social media management software, like Sprinklr, Sprout Social, Buffer, Hootsuite, and HubSpot to help you seamlessly distribute your shortened links through your social media profiles.

Bit.ly’s free account offers up to 1,000 unbranded links and link reporting for 30 days, which is ideal for small businesses. Their enterprise plan lets you brand 3,000+ links a month and provides all the data and metrics mentioned above, which is best for large businesses who want to brand and track every link in their marketing campaigns.

2. Bl.ink

Image Source

As one of the more robust link shorteners out there, Bl.ink offers smart branded links that allow you to create custom links that contain relevant words and not just a random string of characters.

They also provide analytic reports that can track clicks by date, time, language, referrers, device, and location and integrate with web analytic tools like Google Analytics and Adobe.

Bl.ink offers six subscriptions tiers from a free to an enterprise plan. Starting at $12 per month, they price their plans based off the amount of links you’d like create and track.

3. Rebrand.ly

Image Source

Trusted by over 250,000 customers, Rebrand.ly is a link shortener platform that can brand your links, track their performance metrics, or integrate with over 50 other platforms to seamlessly distribute your links.

With three plans for individuals and two plans for teams, Rebrand.ly offers link shortening solutions for both small business and enterprise companies. For instance, their free plan offers 5,000 tracked clicks, 500 branded links, and 5 custom domain names, while their premium plan offers 1,500,000 tracked clicks, 150,000 branded links, and 20 custom domain names for $499 per month.

4. Ow.ly

Image Source

Developed by the social media management platform, Hootsuite, Ow.ly is a link shortener that’s included in every free Hootsuite account. With Ow.ly, you can distribute your links and track their performance metrics directly in the Hootsuite platform, which allows you to shorten every single link you post to all your social media profiles. Ow.ly is a great option for anyone who already uses Hootsuite as their social media management platform.

5. Buff.ly

Image Source

Similar to Hootsuite’s link shortener tool, Buff.ly is integrated in Buffer, another social media management platform. With Buff.ly, you can shorten your links, customize them, distribute them to all your social media profiles, and track their performance metrics right in the Buffer platform. Buff.ly is perfect for anyone who uses Buffer as their social media management platform.

6. TinyURL

TinyURL is a free link shortening platform that's perfect for users who have one-off links they want to shorten.

Using TinyURL is simple. All you have to do is go to TinyURL.com and follow the instructions. You can quickly fill in the link you want a short URL for, as well as a custom alias. If no one uses your alias, the link you will get will look something like "tinyurl.com/alias."

Once you fill in the URL information and press submit, you'll be shown three types of URLs: the long link, a generated short link, and a third that can serve as a web page's preview link. Here's an example:

7. Tiny.CC

Tiny.CC is another free link shortener that allows you to create temporary short links by simply pasting your long link into a text box and pressing Shorten. Like TinyURL, you can also customize these links.

If you register or become a paid subscriber, you can have non-expiring links and edit URLs later. If you're a free user, the link will eventually expire and you cannot edit them once they're generated.

Navigating Link Shorteners

If you have to share a few ginormous links, there's no harm in shortening them because the process is quick and simple. Aside from being easier to look at, shortened links can also be helpful for print ads, physical signage, or places where you can't link to another site.

There are a handful of free or affordable link shortening websites out there. But you might be wondering which to choose. To help you, we'll leave you with two quick tips:

• If you don't use an analytics software, like Google, you might want to use a link-shortener that includes basic stats, like page views.
• On the other hand, if you want to customize your link, you'll also want a shortener that allows you to do that.

After you master shortening your URLs, you might also want to look into a similar process of creating QR codes. If so, check out this guide for tips and tricks.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

 

 

7 Best Link Shorteners to Shorten that URL was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Google Cache: How to View Cached Pages

Cached pages is an undeniably useful tool when you come across a web page that is performing poorly, or temporarily down for some reason.

At its most basic, Google crawls web pages and then makes raw HTML copies of them -- a cached page. This can enable you to view a website that is slow or not responding, and it can also help SEO experts figure out indexation issues with a site.

What is a cached page?

A cached page is a backup of the raw HTML and content of a page taken at a single point in time to be stored on a server and retrieved later. 

For example, when Google crawls a web page, it will take a screenshot of that page and index the content for future reference. Additionally, Google will provide the date of the last time the page was indexed on the cache page, i.e. "This page is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Feb 20, 2020".

If you've come across a page that isn't responding, or if you want to make sure your site is being properly indexed, keep reading to figure out how cached pages can help you solve both.

How to View Cached Pages

1. In Google's search box, type the website or page you're trying to see.
2. Beside the URL, click the down arrow.
3. Select "Cached".
4. You are now viewing the cached page.
5. Alternatively, type the word "cache" in front of the web page's URL. i.e. "cache:https://examplesite.com".

1. In Google's search box, type the website or page you're trying to see. Beside the URL, click the down arrow. Select "Cached".

2. You are now viewing the cached page.

2. Alternatively, type the word "cache" in front of the web page's URL. i.e. "cache:https://examplesite.com".

 

It's important to note, the cache is the part of the website written in plain HTML -- it doesn't also save JavaScript. Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, John Mueller, verifies this, stating on his Twitter:

JavaScript content is typically inaccessible from the cache, but that doesn't mean it wasn't indexed -- to check how a Google bot views your website, try using the Fetch and Render tool in Google Search Console instead.

Next, let's explore how you can use Google Cache for website optimization.

How to Use Google Cache

1. Use Google Cache if you're on a web page that is slow or unresponsive.
2. Use Google Cache to check when a particular page was last visited by a Googlebot.
3. Check how your website is indexed online.

1. Use Google Cache if you're on a web page that is slow or unresponsive.

If you're trying to find information on a website but it seems the page is down (or just slow), you might try alternating to the Google Cache version. Of course, the page might not look aesthetically identical, but you'll be able to see the HTML from the last time a Googlebot crawled the page.

2. Use Google Cache to check when a particular page was last visited by a Googlebot.

If you want to know the last time a Googlebot visited a certain page, but don't have access to server logs, you can now see when the page was last visited by checking out the Cache version of the page. It can be helpful to see the last time the page was successfully fetched by a bot -- if you've made changes that make the page unresponsive, you might need to know which changes you need to un-do.

3. Check how your website is indexed online.

You might be curious to see whether your website is cached online. If it's not cached, there are a few potential reasons -- first, you'll want to check there is no content="noarchive" attribute in the source code of the page. If the page is non-indexable or blocked from crawling, it won't be cached. Alternatively, if a page is new, it might take a little while for the cache to become available.

If it's not able to be cached, it's still visible online. But if you want your site viewers to have the option of viewing it in a cache-version if your site is slow or unresponsive, you might consider digging deeper to figure out what the problem is.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Google Cache: How to View Cached Pages was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

9 Quick Ways to Reduce Page Loading Speed

When it comes to your site's performance, page speed is of the utmost importance.

However, unless you understand how this metric works — and, more specifically, the factors that influence it — you may find it difficult to improve.

To reduce your bounce rate and increase visitor engagement, it's essential that your web pages load quickly and seamlessly.

A site that is optimized for speed not only enhances the user experience (UX) but can also help to boost your search engine rankings.

In this article, we'll explain what page speed is, why it's important, and how to measure it. Then we'll provide you with nine quick solutions you can use to reduce page loading speed.

Let's get started!

What is page speed?

In a nutshell, page speed refers to how quickly your content loads when someone visits a page on your site. Not to be confused with website speed, page speed represents the loading time of a specific page.

There are a variety of factors that can influence page speed. Some of the most important include:

• How many images, videos, and other media files are contained on the page
• What themes and plugins are installed on your site
• Your site's (and the specific page's) coding and server-side scripts

All of these elements affect your page loading speed and in turn your website's UX. After all, visitors dislike slow-loading pages and are more likely to click away from them.

Why is page speed important?

When it comes to page loading speed, every second counts. In fact, Google research shows that when loading times increase from one to three seconds, the probability of a bounce (the visitor leaving right away) increases by 32 percent.

If the page takes five seconds to load, the probability of a bounce rises by 90 percent:

 

Image Source

In other words, if your pages don't load within a few seconds, it significantly increases the chance that visitors will leave your site. Additionally, if your web pages are sluggish, that can hurt your ability to drive engagement and conversions.

Page speed also plays a pivotal role in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Google takes a wide variety of factors into consideration when deciding how to rank web pages.

However, speed is an important ranking signal for both desktop and mobile searches.

Another reason page speed matters is because it can influence consumers' perception of your brand. If your web pages take too long to load or anything goes wrong during the process, it can make you look unprofessional, and your website unreliable.

If you want to run a highly-effective website, therefore, it's necessary to focus on optimizing page speed. The first step in doing that is figuring out how your pages are currently performing.

How to Measure Page Speed

Before making any changes to your site, you'll need to gauge your web pages' performance. There are various tools you can use to test and measure page speed. Two popular solutions are Pingdom Website Speed Test and GTmetrix, which are both beginner-friendly options.

However, we recommend starting with Google PageSpeed Insights. This is an easy-to-use tool that enables you to measure and test the speed of your web pages on both desktop and mobile devices.

Plus, as a Google-supported tool, it can help you make sure you're hitting the performance benchmarks required for high search result placements.

To use PageSpeed Insights, simply enter the URL of the web page you want to test into the text field, and select the Analyze button:

Google PageSpeed Insights.

PageSpeed Insights will then analyze the content on your page, and score it on a scale of 0 to 100. Below your score, you'll find a list of suggestions on ways you can reduce page loading speed:

Suggestions for improving performance.

It's worth noting that you'll get a separate score and list of suggestions for both the desktop and mobile versions of your site.

This information gives you a solid starting point for gauging how fast your web pages are, and offers tangible actions you can take to improve page loading speeds.

9 Quick Ways to Reduce Page Loading Speed

Now that you understand the importance of page speed and how to test your site's performance, it's time to work on improving this key metric.

With that in mind, let's take a look at nine easy ways to make your pages load faster.

1. Choose a performance-optimized hosting solution.

The hosting provider you use plays a major role in your website's management and performance. That includes its page speeds.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is settling for mediocre hosting in order to get a lower monthly rate.

Cheap hosting often translates to poor performance. It can mean sharing resources between multiple websites on an overloaded server, which can end up straining your page loading times.

On the other hand, there are a handful of performance-focused hosting solutions you can use that provide a powerful platform designed for speed. Usually, these providers don't offer shared hosting, which means you'll never have to worry about other websites draining your pool of potential resources.

2. Compress and optimize your images.

Images help enhance the appearance of your web pages and increase the quality of your content. However, large images can also delay loading times.

Therefore, one of the easiest ways to reduce page loading speeds is to compress and optimize your images. This can include changing their file formats, enabling lazy loading, and compressing images through lossy or lossless compression.

By reducing your images' file sizes, you can reduce their ‘weight', ultimately helping your pages load more quickly. There are a variety of image optimization plugins you can use for this purpose, such as WP Smush.

After you install and activate this plugin, it will automatically resize and compress your images without affecting their quality. It includes features for lossless compression, lazy loading, and even optimizing images in bulk.

If you're not using WordPress as your CMS, you might want to try with tinypng.com, which can reduce your image sizes anywhere from 25% to 80%, and a free website app called Squoosh.

3. Reduce your redirects.

Too many redirects on your website can really hurt loading times. Every time a page redirects somewhere else, it prolongs the HTTP request and response process.

Of course, in some cases redirects may be necessary, such as when you're moving to a new domain. However, eliminating unnecessary redirects on your site can result in significantly lower page loading times.

There are a few different ways to reduce redirects in WordPress. One is to avoid creating unnecessary ones when building internal links and menus. Another is making sure your Top-Level Domain (TLD) resolves with a maximum of one redirection.

If you need help identifying redirects that are incorrectly set up on your site, you can use the Patrick Sexton Redirect mapper tool:

The Patrick Sexton Redirect mapper tool.

This will uncover any duplicate redirects. You can also use a tool such as Screaming Frog to identify all the redirects on your site and where they lead to. This should make it easier to identify redirects that aren't serving a purpose. Then you can delete the ones you don't need via your site's .htaccess file.

4. Cache your web pages.

Caching is one of the most effective ways to speed up your web pages. Caching stores copies of your site's files, minimizing the work needed for the server to generate and serve a web page to a visitor's browser.

Caching your web pages can help with lowering Time to First Byte (TTFB), by requiring the server to use fewer resources to load a page.

There are various ways to cache your web pages. You can do this at the server level, meaning that your host handles it for you.

Another option is to use a caching plugin such as W3 Total Cache, which is a free WordPress plugin that makes caching your web pages quick and easy. After you install and activate it, simply navigate to General Settings > Page Cache and select the Enable option.

5. Enable browser caching.

Browser caching is another form of caching you can leverage to reduce page loading speeds. This technique enables the browser to store a variety of information, including stylesheets, images, and JavaScript files, so it doesn't have to reload the entire page every time a user visits it.

Similar to W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket is a powerful caching plugin you can use on your WordPress site. It employs page caching and cache pre-loading to optimize the speed of your pages, and create lightning-fast loading times. WP Rocket is a premium plugin, with a variety of pricing plans to choose from.

6. Use asynchronous and defer loading for your CSS and JavaScript files.

Your site is made up of CSS and JavaScript files. These scripts can load either synchronously or asynchronously.

Synchronously means that the files load one at a time, in the order in which they appear on your web page.

With this method, when the browser encounters a script, it will stop loading other elements on the page until that file has been fully loaded first.

Conversely, asynchronous loading enables multiple files to load at the same time, which can speed up the page's performance. Setting this up involves eliminating render-blocking resources.

If you're using WordPress, you could either use a combination of the Autoptimize and Async JavaScript plugins to take care of this task easily.

7. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.

Optimizing the way your files load can help reduce page loading speed. Similarly, so can minifying your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML code. This means removing unnecessary spaces, characters, comments, and other unneeded elements to reduce the size of the files.

Decreasing your files' sizes also makes it easier to combine them. The result is cleaner code, and leaner web pages that load faster.

Of course, combing through every line of code for each of your site's files isn't exactly efficient.

Instead, you can minify your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML with a free plugin: Autoptimize instead. This popular plugin makes it easy to aggregate and minify your scripts and styles automatically:

The Autoptimize WordPress plugin's settings.

Considering the wide variety of features and settings it offers, configuring this plugin can be a bit overwhelming at first. To make your job easier, feel free to check out this guide on how to set up Autoptimize on your website.

8. Leverage a content delivery network (CDN).

A Content Delivery Network (CDN), also referred to as a ‘content distribution network', is a network of servers that can help reduce page loading speed. It does this by hosting and delivering copies of your site's static content from servers located across the globe.

A CDN works with, rather than in place of, your host. In addition to the server that hosts your primary website, you can leverage a CDN to distribute copies of your site's files among strategically-chosen data centers.

This can maximize performance, by reducing the distance data requests have to travel between browsers and your host's servers. By loading the content for a web page from a server close to each visitor, a CDN helps reduce network latency and produce lower TTFBs.

You have a variety of CDN options to choose from, one of which is opting for a host that provides a CDN you can enable it directly from your own dashboard.

9. Eliminate unnecessary plugins.

Not all plugins are created equal. Having too many plugins on your site can cause unnecessary bloat that slows it down.

Additionally, plugins that are outdated or aren't well maintained can pose a security threat, and even introduce compatibility issues that hamper performance.

Therefore, it's a smart idea to minimize the number of plugins you use on your WordPress site. Of course, one of the easiest ways to do this is by disabling and deleting any plugins you don't currently use.

We also recommend reviewing the plugins you have installed, to evaluate whether they're actually necessary. There might be some tools that have overlapping functionalities and features, and others that are simply no longer relevant to your needs.

Finally, certain plugins may slow your site down more than others. To identify any plugins that are reducing your page speeds, you can try testing them individually.

First, deactivate all of your plugins (it's safest to do this on a staging site):

Deactivating WordPress plugins.

Then turn them back on one by one. Each time you activate a plugin, use a speed testing tool such as PageSpeed Insights to see if your score and timings have been affected.

Many plugins might increase your page speeds by a small margin. However, if you see a sudden large increase, it may be time to find an alternative tool that serves the same purpose (but is better optimized).

Ultimately, reducing page loading speed improves not only the overall performance and UX of your website but its SEO as well. Luckily for you, there are a variety of methods you can use to decrease your loading times.

In addition to leveraging a CDN and caching your pages, you can use plugins to optimize your images, defer loading scripts, and minify your site's files.

Using a hosting solution optimized for performance can also have a major influence on your site's speed.

Remember, though — every second your web pages take to load drastically increases the chance your visitors will leave. How long will you able to run your business while losing leads?

9 Quick Ways to Reduce Page Loading Speed was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Get the Most out of Your Ecommerce Marketing Strategy

What do a Hand Forged 1060 High Carbon Black Steel Blade Full Tang Samurai Katana Sword and a 7,541-Piece Lego Millennium Falcon™ Replica have in common?

First and foremost, they're both awesome.

Second, if you have kids under the age of three, you probably don't want them playing with either — one is a choking hazard and one is a katana.

Third, you can buy both through the magic of something called ecommerce — a.k.a. the sale of products or services online. Ecommerce is a business staple for companies across virtually every industry.

Here, we'll examine some ecommerce marketing strategies your business can employ to land and retain as many customers as possible.

Ecommerce Marketing Plan

Your ecommerce marketing plan is essentially the sum of the ecommerce strategies and tactics you choose to implement. The most effective plans aren't randomly cobbled together — they're designed with intention. They're often guided by a general marketing philosophy or underlying structure.

For instance, the inbound methodology can be applied to an overarching ecommerce marketing plan. In this case, you would tailor your ecommerce marketing efforts to attract visitors, convert those visitors into leads, close deals and turn them into customers, and delight them once they've purchased your products or services to turn them into promoters.

There are a number of different strategies to consider when constructing your plan. Here are some of the most effective options worth exploring.

1. Blog.

Maintaining a blog is one of the better ways to attract potential customers to your site organically. By creating quality content relevant to your industry, you can project a sense of legitimacy and trustworthiness to prospects.

If you give strangers an incentive to visit your site through your content — beyond material specific to your product or service — you generate interest that might ultimately turn into action. Regardless of what you're selling, maintaining a blog for your site is a cost-effective way to prove that your business is an authority in its space

2. Contribute guest posts to other websites.

Guest posts have the potential to expand your online visibility. Not only can it better establish you as an authority within your industry, contributing guest posts affords you more domain authority for your ecommerce site — leading search engines to believe your site is more reliable and worth ranking higher.

You can accomplish this by identifying sites with keywords relevant to your products and reaching out to the people behind them. Sometimes, you won't even need to create a post of your own. You might be able to just expand upon one of a site's current posts with relevant context or an infographic that links back to your site.

3. Try referral marketing programs.

Referral marketing combines two of the most powerful underlying assets to any ecommerce marketing strategy — word of mouth and incentives. A solid ecommerce referral program allows customers to relay your messaging to prospects who trust their judgment.

Research indicates that word of mouth is directly responsible for 19% of all purchases and influences as much as 90% of them. So a significant part of your ecommerce marketing strategy has to be tapping into that trend. Referral marketing is one way to do that.

By offering some sort of incentive — like a discount or small gift — to your customers in exchange for their referral of new prospects, you're putting yourself in a position to retain current customers while expanding your base.

Here's an example of a referral program from Stitchfix.

Source

For more information on referral marketing, check out this article.

4. Leverage social media.

A well-maintained social media presence is an invaluable component to a successful ecommerce marketing strategy. That being said, ecommerce marketing over social media might not look like marketing for a conventional business, brand, contractor, or publisher. And not every social media platform is optimal for ecommerce.

Ecommerce is an inherently visual medium. Very few consumers are willing to buy a product based solely on text. The success of your social media efforts often hinges your use of imagery to capture attention and generate traffic to your product pages. That makes Instagram one of the better platforms to complement your ecommerce marketing strategy.

If possible, you should consider incorporating shoppable content — interactive content that allows your visitors to buy immediately — into your ecommerce marketing strategy. That can mean anything from strategically placing display ads within a social feed to adding additional tags that take users directly to a shopping cart.

Source

5. Drive user-generated content.

Driving user-generated content is the practice of finding and fostering ways for your customers to promote your business. It's an excellent way to facilitate word of mouth for your company. It drives traffic to your ecommerce site while building an authentic following of interested customers.

User-generated content can come in many forms. One of the most effective ways to encourage it is through competitions — offering prizes to customers that promote your product in some form. You could also use promotional hashtags on social media or maintain review platforms where customers can share feedback about your product.

One way or another, getting your customers to actively promote your product on their own provides a new degree of trustworthiness and a relatively inexpensive source of potential traffic to your site.

For instance, Starbucks launched its #WhiteCupContest campaign in 2014. Customers were encouraged to draw whatever they felt like on the chain's white cups. The winners' designs would be used as limited edition templates for Starbucks' cup design. In just three weeks, the company received over 4,000 submissions — generating plenty of buzz and free promotion.

Source

If your business has any sort of ecommerce presence, you stand to gain a lot by exploring and employing different ecommerce marketing strategies. Many of the available options can be as cost-effective as they are valuable.

No matter how you choose to structure your ecommerce marketing plan, make sure it's dynamic, multifaceted, and well-maintained. Putting one of these plans in motion will take some effort, but if done correctly, that effort will pay off in spades.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Get the Most out of Your Ecommerce Marketing Strategy was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Design Your Ecommerce Site for More Conversions

To increase conversion rates on your ecommerce website, no part of the customer journey can be overlooked. From your landing page to your checkout page, every aspect of your ecommerce website needs to be carefully designed.

But cultivating a user journey that successfully balances an enjoyable shopping experience with a clear path to conversion is easier said than done.

To help you design a more delightful and intentional conversion path on your ecommerce website, we've put together a list of some best practices to follow. 

10 Ways to Design Your Ecommerce Website for More Conversions

When designing your ecommerce website, consider the following tips to enhance its user experience for your visitors and customers. 

1. Add clear CTAs.

Having a clear call-to-action (CTA) is essential to convert website traffic into sales.

Ecommerce website CTAs are often "Buy Now" or "Add to Basket" buttons that stand out on a web page to grab the attention of visitors and encourage them to click. This is typically done by using contrasting colors and unique design elements, among other tactics. And like the examples mentioned above, the wording in the CTA should be kept short and sweet.

In addition, make sure your CTA is aligned with the intent of the web page it's located on. For example, the CTA on your product page may read "Buy Now" whereas the CTA on a content page may be"Read More."

2. Create a sense of urgency.

Consider creating a sense of urgency on your ecommerce site. One CXL study found that, by creating a sense of urgency on an ecommerce site, conversation rates were increased by over 330%.

This can be done simply by changing the way you word your CTAs — for example, changing the CTA from "Shop Here" to "Shop Now" may give your visitor the nudge they need to convert.

3. Offer simple, one-click checkout for all customers.

By adopting a one-click checkout process, customers can skip the "add to cart" step and check out quickly and efficiently while still on the product page. In fact, by doing this, one-click checkout can shorten the checkout process by 90%.

This is important because by eliminating extra steps required in a traditional checkout process, cart abandonment is less likely due to the streamlined and simple process.

Even if you choose not to implement a one-click checkout, streamline your site's checkout process as much as possible to boost conversions and lower cart abandonment. You may do this by requiring the very minimum data input from your customers to make the process efficient for them. 

4. Add green-bar SSL.

It has been found that shopping cart abandonment may decrease if you display the green-bar SSL on your website. Here is what this looks like on different search engines:

The greenbar SSL helps convey a trustworthy and reputable website — it's not only a visual cue to customers but it also plays an important role in the security of your site as well.

Having a greenbar SSL encrypts the visitor’s payment information, which makes it harder for hackers and scam artists to steal their information. Simply put, users do not want to purchase from an unsecure website.

In a test, two forms were created for customers to complete — one without a Verisign seal and the another with it.

There was a 42% increase in conversions on the form containing the Verisign seal, demonstrating that visitors are more inclined to share personal data and convert when they are confident that it is secure.

5. Offer different payment methods.

There are hundreds of different ways to pay online that aren't reliant on a card, including direct debit, bank transfers, digital wallets, e-invoices, digital currencies (like Bitcoin), and many more.

Although it is impossible to offer 100+ payment methods on your website, it is important that you understand your target market and are able to offer payment methods best suited for them.

For example, a website where the average spend is $50 may benefit from offering mainly credit and debit card-style payments, whereas a website such as overclockers.co.uk may want to push a financing option as the value of the products being sold is significantly higher.

Try to provide the top three payment methods in your sector — doing so has resulted in an increase in conversion rates of 30% for businesses.

Overclockers does a great job of this by showing all their available options to buy in the product description, and near the CTA.

6. Incorporate product or company reviews.

Reviews are one of the most powerful tools to convert any interest in your product to a sale — potential customers want to hear from other buyers like them.

Add customer reviews directly next to or below your products to demonstrate your trustworthiness. Customer recommendations drive purchasing decisions as customers tend to believe the reviews from customers they relate to. To do this, give customers opportunities to provide instant feedback on the quality of your product or service.

Amazon manages their customer reviews well — in fact, one of the first things you see when searching for any product is a list of customer reviews.

7. Add well-selected imagery.

Excellent imagery of the product or service you are selling is pivotal when trying to boost conversions online — as the old saying goes, "a picture is worth a 1000 words." 

Ensure you have high-quality photos of your product, covering all angles and details. This gives the buyer confidence in what the product is, its quality, and what they are to expect when they receive it.

On the other hand, if you have low-quality pictures without a zoom function and a lack of detail, you'll leave your potential customers feeling anxious and wondering what you have to hide. 

Truthfully, only a fraction of your site visitors actually go through the entire page and read it word for word — meaning your images can make an impact on a customer's understanding of your brand and product.

8. Optimize your website for mobile. 

Mobile accounts for approximately half of web traffic worldwide. With this in mind, it's essential that your ecommerce site is mobile-friendly.

Having a simple checkout process is even more important on mobile than it is on desktop. Users are working with a significantly smaller screen, so the less distractions the better. Keep it simple.

It's also important to remember the unreliable nature of phone data. With phone signal dropping in a split second, reducing a user's download speed (to a snail’s pace!), it's imperative that your site is mobile-optimized. This will allow for fast load times, even when on a slow internet connection. Simple steps like this can make the difference between a customer converting on mobile or visiting a competitor's site.

9. Write concise and effective product descriptions.

Product descriptions are a key tool in your ecommerce selling arsenal. Without effective product descriptions, you're bound to miss out on clicks and purchases.

Focus on your ideal buyer and target them with words and descriptions of your products that relate to them, their goals, and their challenges. This will give customers the feeling that you understand who they are and what they need from you — which, ultimately, makes them feel more confident in choosing to do business with you.

Above all, the most important factor to consider when writing your product descriptions is to keep them concise. As we mentioned earlier, users will skim anything longer than a few lines. If you do have a large amount of information that you need to convey to your customer, you might consider hiding it behind a "read more" button or cutting it down in easy-to-digest bullet points or even incorporating an infographic.

10. Design a simplistic layout.

Creating an easy-to-follow and cohesive journey from homepage to checkout is one of the most important factors when lowering your bounce rate and boosting conversion rate.

A study shows that websites that have a clean look (meaning, more white space, bigger images, and less text) see significantly higher user engagement rates than websites that do not.

While it might seem daunting to think about redesigning your ecommerce site to be more minimalistic, it is actually relatively straightforward if you follow a few simple rules:

1. Focus on product imagery with fewer design elements and distractions on product pages.
2. Direct your customers to your CTA buttons and make sure they stand out.
3. Test your website on different devices to ensure the shopping and checkout processes are streamlined no matter how customers are visiting your site. 
4. Stay away from creating any distractions on your site — less is more. Typically, if the page works without something, then you can lose it. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Design Your Ecommerce Site for More Conversions was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The 7 Best Leadpages Alternatives in 2020

It doesn't matter how awesome your e-book is if no one can download it.

And you might have the perfect agenda for your webinar, but if it isn't easy for your customers to sign up, it'll all be for nothing.

That's why you need an effective landing page builder.

Landing pages allow you to turn the traffic generated by your marketing campaigns into leads for your business. They're simple pages — often with just a few lines of text and a form — to drive conversions and turn visitors into leads.

When done correctly, landing pages are an essential tool to help you generate leads and pass off those qualified leads to your sales team.

And one of the most popular tools for creating landing pages is Leadpages.

Leadpages offers a variety of tools that can help you create compelling landing pages — including pop-ups, a drag-and-drop page editor with a seemingly endless list of pre-made templates, and more.

But Leadpages doesn't have a free version to help you get started, and doesn't offer many marketing tools beyond landing pages.

If you're looking for an alternative to Leadpages, there are a number of different tools that you can explore.

Let's take a look at the seven best Leadpages alternatives.

The 7 Best Leadpages Alternatives

1. HubSpot's Landing Page Builder

HubSpot's landing page builder helps you build beautiful landing pages that fit seamlessly into your marketing campaigns.

The drag-and-drop page editor is easy to use, and comes with a variety of templates for a number of different content offer types.

It includes all of the modules you'd expect, like a rich text module and a forms module, but it also has a video module and a meetings module, so your prospects can book meetings with your sales team directly on your landing pages.

Best of all, HubSpot's landing page builder is available for free, and comes with the HubSpot CRM included.

With the CRM, you can track every interaction your prospects have with your brand, allowing you to create marketing campaigns that focus on the end-to-end customer experience. And with HubSpot Academy, you'll be able to learn how to effectively run a marketing campaign and easily apply those learnings to the next campaign you run.

Additionally, as you grow your business, HubSpot's landing page builder grows with you. You'll be able to run machine-learning powered tests on your landing pages to ensure you're constantly optimizing your pages for conversions, aand revenue attribution reporting shows you exactly which offers are impacting your bottom line.

2. Unbounce

Unbounce is one of the most popular landing page builders on the market today.

They provide landing pages and pop-ups geared at turning traffic into revenue for your business. Unbounce comes with over 100 templates that you can easily customize in their drag-and-drop editor. All their templates also work with WordPress.

Image Source

Although powerful, Unbounce starts at $80 per month, and charges you based on the number of conversions you receive on your pages. For growing companies, this can add up quickly as you generate more leads off your content offers.

3. Instapage

Like the other landing page builders on this list, Instapage offers an easy-to-use content editor, and a number of templates to create your pages.

Instapage also includes a feature called AdMap. With AdMap, you'll be able to visualize how your ads match your landing pages, and report on the effectiveness of your ad campaigns personalization.

Their landing page solution also lets you leave comments on different elements of a landing page and @mention team members of yours, making it easy to collaborate on your marketing campaigns.

Image Source

While powerful, Instapages starts at $149 per month and still limits the number of pages you can create, how many users you have, and the number of unique visitors to your pages.

4. Mailchimp

Mailchimp now does so much more than email.

They've built out a full suite of marketing tools that helps small businesses get up and running with their digital marketing efforts. Their landing page builder works alongside their ads, email, and social media tools.

Additionally, their drag-and-drop editor is easy to use and lets you create beautiful landing pages that match your brand.

You can get started with Mailchimp's landing page tool for free, and upgrade to their paid tier to start collaborating with your teammates, get access to more templates, or start optimizing your campaigns.

Image Source

5. Clickfunnels

Clickfunnels is a landing page builder and marketing automation tool focused on the sales audience.

Clickfunnels believes that your content should produce results just like your best sales reps would, and it's a solution aimed at moving prospects through a sales funnel into becoming customers.

Clickfunnels has a number of templates to choose from based on intent — such as up-sell or webinar event pages. To edit these templates, you can use their drag-and-drop page editor to create a page that works for you and your business.

Best of all, they have pre-built "funnels" that you can use to visualize your customer's journey with your brand — including follow up funnels that will help you cultivate relationships with users who've converted on your content.

Image Source

6. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a simple marketing automation tool that features a number of different tools that SMBs need.

From email marketing, SMS, Facebook Messenger, and a CRM, you get a suite of tools that can help you communicate effectively with your customers.

Their suite of tools includes an intuitive and straightforward landing page builder with a number of pre-built templates you can choose from.

Image Source

Although intuitive, their landing page builder is not included in their free product offering, and starts at $65 per month for five landing pages. However, other free offerings like their email marketing and SMS features are a great way to see if Sendinblue is right for you.

7. GetResponse

Like other landing page builders on this list, GetResponse comes with a number of other tools that can help you build amazing marketing campaigns.

With email marketing and pre-built sales funnels you can quickly begin marketing to the leads that you generate on your landing pages. What sets GetResponse apart are some of the features they include to help you fully design your pages.

They have built-in integrations with Shutterstock and Giphy to help you add compelling visuals to your landing pages, and they also include a mobile-first editor, in case there are a few tweaks you want to make to enhance your mobile-visitors experience.

Image Source

Choosing the Best LeadPages Alternative

Ultimately, deciding what landing page builder you go with will depend on your business' needs.

For instance, if you're looking for a point solution, tools like Unbounce or Instapage will be great for you — alternatively, if you're looking for a platform that you can use across all your marketing efforts, other tools like Mailchimp or GetResponse will be better-suited for your needs.

And, for growing teams looking to align their marketing efforts around the customer experience, HubSpot's landing page builder is a powerful choice for you. You can get started for free, and track your customers' journey with your brand through the HubSpot CRM.

Plus, as you grow, you not only avoid having to rip out other tools, but you gain access to more advanced solutions that will help you unlock even more insights on your customers' experience.

The 7 Best Leadpages Alternatives in 2020 was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Beginner's Guide to Rich Media Ads

Recently, I was scrolling online and I came across an ad for Narcos. While I can easily ignore most banner ads online, this one stood out. It included interesting videos and animation.

This was a prime example of rich media ads. A rich media ad is an excellent, modern ad format for marketers to consider.

In fact, rich media ads outperform standard banner ads by 267%.

With statistics like that, it's time to consider bringing your ads into the 21st century.

Below, let's discuss what rich media ads are and how they're different from other ad formats. Then, we'll review how to create one for your company and look at some examples to inspire your own ad campaigns.

Rich media ads usually take much more time, effort, and capital to create. So, why do people use rich media ads?

Well, rich media ads are engaging and dynamic in a way that other ad types aren't. They usually lead to more interaction, increased conversions, and a higher clickthrough rate.

Since many people have banner blindness like me, creating an ad that your audience wants to interact with isn't easy. Rich media ads are a great way to create a better user experience.

So, how are these different from other ad formats?

Now, you might be wondering, "How do I go about creating a rich media ad?" Below, let's discuss how you can get started with rich media ads.

1. Decide on the strategy.

Before you can create a rich media ad, it's important to strategize. Decide what you're advertising, how you want to reach audiences and the best way to engage them.

During this first step, you'll determine what type of creative assets you want. For example, will you use video? If so, what will the video include?

Additionally, you might think about how to make the ad interactive. Will users be able to click through to another slide on your ad? What happens if they click on the ad? It's important to discuss and plan these elements out before you create your ad.

2. Plan the creative assets.

Once you know more about your strategy, it's time to list the creative assets you'll need to get it done.

Then, you'll want to either film or look through stock footage if you aren't using your own imagery. This step will include either hiring actors, filming videos, taking photos, and writing text.

3. Use online tools.

At this point, you'll have your strategy and assets all done. So, how do you actually build the ad?

If you don't have a graphic designer on your team, you can use online tools to help you create a rich media ad.

For example, there's Google's Rich Media Gallery. On this site, you can create sophisticated rich media ads for free. While there are ready-to-use templates, you can also customize them by using your own creative assets.

However, if you have a graphic designer, you'll want to meet with them at the beginning of your process so they know what you have in mind and can tell you if it's doable.

4. Track and measure success.

When your ad is created, it's time to start running it. You can use rich media ads on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. You can include them on search engines, as well.

Once you've started to run your ads, don't forget to track and measure your success. Hopefully, you'll see better results than your static display ads.

Now, you might be wondering, "What will this look like?" Let's review some examples of rich media ads in action below.

Examples of Rich Media Ads

1. Lincoln Aviator

Image Source

When Lincoln decided to create an ad for the new Aviator car, they wanted it to be interactive. When you click on this ad, you'll be brought to a separate slide. This image is an interactive guide to the features of the car. You can click on different areas of the car to learn more about it.

This is a great example of how rich media ads are engaging and interactive. The audience can click on the ad and learn more about the car without being brought to a new webpage.

2. Jessica London

Image Source

This Jessica London ad is another rich media ad that takes advantage of moving images. Moving images are a great way to make a static ad more dynamic and engaging.

Additionally, moving ads are eye-catching in a way that static images aren't. This is a great example of a simple way to take your ads to the next level.

3. Netflix's Narcos

Image Source

This is the rich media ad by Netflix that I was talking about before. This ad includes a unique video from the actors and is presented almost like a trailer.

Then, if you hover over the image, the audience will see moving images that rotate. Additionally, if you click the ad, you can watch the actual trailer for the Netflix show. This is a great rich media ad that includes several media formats to engage the viewer.

Rich media ads are an amazing way to engage and interact with your audience. In an age where audiences have banner blindness, rich media ads are a great way to get your audience's attention.

The Beginner's Guide to Rich Media Ads was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Ultimate List of Ecommerce Tools For 2020

The ecommerce industry is booming.

These trends are showing no signs of slowing down in the foreseeable future. In fact, the global ecommerce market is expected to eclipse $6.54 trillion in sales by 2022. That’s up from $3.53 trillion in 2019.

Whether you’re interested in starting a new ecommerce business from scratch or looking to expand your retail operation to an online store, you can use an ecommerce tool to achieve your goal.

Not all ecommerce solutions are created equally. Some tools are all-in-one website builders, while others are plug-ins, add-ons, or shopping cart software.

So what’s the best ecommerce tool for 2020? The answer depends on your unique situation. Use this guide to find the best ecommerce solution for you and your business.

In a market saturated with dozens, if not hundreds, of different ecommerce tools, there are the top ten that I’d recommend. I’ll give you an in-depth overview of the features, benefits, pricing, and use cases for each one of these tools as we continue through this guide.

1. Shopify

Shopify has everything you need and more to start an ecommerce website from scratch. It’s an all-in-one ecommerce solution for website creation and shopping cart software.

Regardless of your technical skill level, Shopify is easy for anyone to set up and use right out of the box.

Shopify makes it possible for you to sell from anywhere. In addition to your own ecommerce store, Shopify supports third-party marketplaces, social media selling, and in-person sales with Shopify POS (point of sale) software.

Source

Every Shopify theme is optimized for mobile devices. Additionally, with tools like BuildFire, you could always build a Shopify mobile app to take your mobile sales strategy to the next level.

One of the most significant standouts of Shopify is its versatility. From startups to small businesses and large-scale operations, this ecommerce tool can fit the needs of any organization.

Pricing: Shopify has three different plans — Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify. These plans start at $29, $79, and $299 per month, respectively. You can try Shopify for free with a 14-day trial.

2. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is unique compared to some of the other ecommerce tools on our list. That’s because it’s not an all-in-one ecommerce solution.

If you already have a WordPress website, you can add ecommerce functionality by installing the WooCommerce plugin.

Source

From selling products to subscriptions and memberships, WooCommerce has everything you need to add ecommerce capabilities to WordPress.

The tool is fully customizable. It integrates with popular payment platforms like Stripe, Square, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and more. WooCommerce has other extensions for things like printing shipping labels and integrating with your email marketing platform.

For those of you who have an existing WordPress site, WooCommerce is the best way to start selling online without doing a complete rebuild. Simply install the plugin, and customize your settings from there.

Pricing: WooCommerce is free to install on your WordPress site. But other extensions to customize the WooCommerce plugin do cost money. Tons of extensions are free like the HubSpot for WooCommerce integration, while others range up to $300 per installation.

3. BigCommerce

Since launching back in 2009, BigCommerce has processed more than $25 billion in merchant sales. It’s used by businesses in 120+ countries worldwide.

As another full-service ecommerce platform provider, BigCommerce offers everything you need to start selling online.

Source

Compared to other ecommerce tools on the market today, BigCommerce comes pre-loaded with the most native features.

BigCommerce has exceptional tools for inventory management, SEO, and conversions. You’ll also benefit from 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat. So you can rest assured knowing that you’ll have access to assistance if you ever have any questions.

In addition to traditional online sales, BigCommerce supports B2B wholesale websites and provides enterprise-grade ecommerce solutions as well.

BigCommerce is an industry leader in ecommerce performance. When it comes to page loading speed, uptime, and security, this tool is second to none.

Pricing: The Standard plan starts at $29.95 per month. BigCommerce Plus starts at $79.95 per month, and Pro starts at $299.95 per month. You’ll need to contact the sales team for a custom quote on Enterprise solutions.

4. Wix

Wix is arguably the world’s simplest website builder. The platform is the easiest way for anyone to build a new website from scratch without any technical knowledge or coding experience.

Using the intuitive drag-and-drop builder, you can design a high-quality website with text, images, videos, and other media types in minutes. Adding new pages or starting a blog with Wix is just as easy.

Wix has 500+ templates for you to choose from. Your website will automatically be optimized for SEO and mobile web browsers. If you build a site with Wix, you’ll have access to the Wix App Market. This resource is filled with powerful web apps to customize your site.

You can also create an online store with your Wix website.

Source

Wix offers a fully customizable storefront and shopping cart. Add features like a shopping wishlist, related product galleries, a quick add-to-cart button, mini-carts, and more.

For those of you who want to start selling new products online but don’t know where to start, Wix’s platform supports dropshipping. Browse from thousands of products that you can sell, with no inventory costs. Products ship in 5-7 business days.

Wix allows you to set up custom shipping rules as well. Manage international orders, choose your carrier preferences, and give customers real-time delivery estimates.

Pricing: Wix has plans starting at $13 per month. But not every Wix subscription supports online selling. The ecommerce plans with the ability to accept online payments range from $23 to $49 per month. Enterprise solutions start at $500 per month.

5. Magento

Magento is an ecommerce tool offered by Adobe. It’s an all-in-one ecommerce solution that processes more than $100 billion in gross merchandise sales each year.

With Magento, you can create an ecommerce store no matter how big or small your website is. This platform supports small businesses, mid-market and enterprise, and B2B online sales as well.

Source

Magento stands out from other platforms with its efficiency, automation, and access to crucial data. You’ll benefit from inventory management, business intelligence, shipping solutions, and order management.

This ecommerce tool has specific features for customer segmentation and personalization.

Your store will automatically display products, promotions, content, and prices based on factors like customer location, order history, customer gender, LTV, and wish list items. You can even improve the shopping experience for unknown website visitors based on their shopping cart or products viewed.

Pricing: Contact the Magento sales team for a custom quote on a Magento Commerce license. You can request a free demo to try it out before you commit.

6. Squarespace

Squarespace is another well-known website builder. Unlike Wix, Squarespace has integrated ecommerce capabilities built-in to all of its business plans.

This ecommerce tool is popular for businesses and individuals in creative industries. The Squarespace designs are known for being both beautiful and modern. These award-winning templates are perfect for fashion designers, artists, musicians, and photographers.

If you want to showcase your work and sell it online, Squarespace is the place to do it.

Source

You can also Squarespace to sell subscriptions and digital content.

If you’re selling physical products, Squarespace offers automatic inventory management, shipping calculator tools, and a rich product display. Use this ecommerce tool to showcase videos of your products as well.

Squarespace integrates with other popular online selling tools such as PayPal, Stripe, USPS, FedEx, and Apple Pay. It also integrates with popular accounting solutions like Xero.

For those of you who want to create a portfolio website and monetize it with ecommerce capabilities, Squarespace is the best choice for you.

Pricing: Squarespace Personal costs $12 per month. But you can’t sell online with this option. The $18 business plan has a fully integrated ecommerce store with the ability to sell unlimited products, although it does have some limitations.

To take full advantage of Squarespace as an ecommerce tool, consider the Basic Commerce or Advanced Commerce plan. These start at $26 and $40 per month, respectively.

7. 3DCart

3DCart is one of the oldest ecommerce tools on our list. The platform was founded back in 1997. More than 25,000 merchants use this tool to power their ecommerce website.

To be clear, 3DCart is not for everyone. It’s ecommerce software that’s designed for advanced ecommerce stores. The platform doesn’t offer a drag-and-drop site builder like Wix. Instead, you’ll need to have some knowledge related to development and coding to fully customize your templates and themes.

Just install 3DCart into your existing website to turn it into an ecommerce shop. If you aren’t comfortable editing your site’s code, you’ll likely need to hire a developer to do this.

Source

Once installed, you’ll have access to more than 200 built-in ecommerce features. 3DCart has 50 free themes and supports 100+ payment processors.

Integrate 3DCart with platforms like MailChimp, Stripe, Facebook, Amazon, PayPal, QuickBooks, and more.

For those of you who don’t want the restrictions associated with an all-in-one ecommerce website builder, 3DCart offers full customization. You’ll just need to handle the coding on your own.

Pricing: 3DCart has five different plans ranging from $19 per month to $229 per month. You can try the software for free with a 15-day trial. All plans are backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

8. Easy Digital Downloads

Just as its name implies, Easy Digital Downloads is an ecommerce tool designed for selling digital products. Similar to WooCommerce, it’s a plugin for WordPress websites.

More than 2.44 million users have downloaded EDD.

Source

This ecommerce tool makes it easy for you to create discount codes, track download activity, and restrict file access. It comes with a fully integrated shopping cart that allows customers to purchase multiple downloads simultaneously.

There are no limitations on how many digital products you can sell with the Easy Digital Downloads plugin.

The tool integrates with other popular tools and extensions that you’re already using. Some examples include PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, Slack, Zapier, AWeber, Dropbox, and Amazon Web Services.

Pricing: There are four different plans for the EDD plugin license. All of them are billed on an annual basis until canceled. The Personal Pass is $99, Extended Pass is $199, Professional Pass is $299, and All Access Pass is $499.

9. Ecwid

Ecwid is a free commerce extension that’s compatible with WordPress and other popular CMS platforms. You can add the Ecwid tool to Weebly, Joomla, Tumblr, Squarespace, Wix, Blogger, and Adobe Muse.

You’ll also be able to sell online from marketplaces like Amazon and eBay or sell on social media via Facebook and Instagram.

 

Source

Unlike 3DCart, you can install Ecwid to your website without any development or coding experience. The Ecwid software can integrate with in-person selling at your brick and mortar retail stores as well.

If you’re currently using WordPress but don’t want to use WooCommerce as an ecommerce tool, Ecwid is a viable alternative.

Ecwid has a free forever plan, but it’s extremely limited. You’ll only be able to sell up to ten products and won’t have access to sales channels outside of your website.

Pricing: The entry-level Venture plan starts at $15 per month. Business and Unlimited plans start at $35 per month and $99 per month, respectively. You can save money on all of these if you commit to an annual contract.

10. OpenCart

Last but certainly not least on our list is OpenCart. Unlike some of the other tools listed above, this is not a website builder. OpenCart is a free and open-source platform that adds ecommerce functionality to existing websites.

Over 342,000 ecommerce websites across the world use OpenCart for selling online.

Source

The most significant standout feature of this ecommerce tool is the OpenCart marketplace. You’ll have access to 13,000+ modules and themes. You can integrate OpenCart with an extensive list of payment gateways and shipping providers.

As an open-source platform, OpenCart has an outstanding community support forum with more than 550,000 posts from 110,000+ registered members.

For a one-time fee or ongoing monthly service, you can have access to OpenCart’s dedicated support staff.

Pricing: As I mentioned earlier, OpenCart is free to download and install. But extensions and dedicated support will cost extra.

What’s the best ecommerce tool to use in 2020? It depends on your unique situation.

An ecommerce startup won’t have the same needs as a small business retailer that wants to expand online. There are ecommerce tools that are better for selling wholesale B2B products and other tools made for digital downloads.

Do you want to create a new website from scratch? Or are you adding ecommerce functionality to your existing site? All of these scenarios will impact how you choose an ecommerce solution.

Since I included something for everyone in this guide, I’m confident that you can find what you’re looking for in one of the options listed above.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Ultimate List of Ecommerce Tools For 2020 was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns