A Recap of Magento's Imagine Conference, Part 1
Monday, April 8 Breakout Session
SEO for Magento Merchants by Kevin Eichelberger from Blue Acorn
Major points covered in this session include the following:
1. Google rankings are broadly determined by three factors:
- On-page content, including video. This accounts for approximately 30 percent of your organic search ranking.
- Sitewide factors such as response and load time, site architecture, age of site/domain, and keyphrases in domain/URL. This accounts for approximately 10 percent of your organic search ranking.
- Offsite factors such as quantity and quality of links, brand mentions, social influence. This accounts for approximately 60 percent of your organic search ranking.
2. SEO challenges facing retailers include the following:
- content duplication — each URL on your site should have unique content and keyphrase focus;
- nonunique product data (i.e., using manufacturer information with no alterations); and
- insufficient use of friendly URLs.
Tuesday, April 9 General Session
John Donahoe, CEO, eBay
Donahoe's keynote presentation focused on how technology is "obliterating" the lines between online and offline retailing, calling it all "connected commerce." He identified the three biggest movements as:
- omnichannel commerce;
- unprecedented mobile commerce growth; and
- price competition.
Donahoe stated that consumers are in charge and that retailers must reach out to them, not vice versa. He believes this sea change, triggered by technology, is nothing less than revolutionary in scale. We're witnessing the growth of a collaborative, sharing economy that's using technology, which is going to continue to evolve exponentially, Donahoe said.
Donahoe highlighted four key areas of focus for eBay — mobile, local, global and data. Merchants who have truly conquered mobile see up to 50 percent of their sales through non-PC devices. This doesn't mean you can ignore the rise of emerging markets that are easily accessible now by international payment and shipping providers, even to the smallest of merchants, Donahoe cautioned.
Other Magento speakers emphasized that there are still huge opportunities for evolving e-commerce technologies, which will crush archaic processes such as the checkout process and associated web pages.
Tuesday, April 9 Breakout Sessions
Traffic Jam: Going Beyond Search Engines
Josh Kaplan, True Action (moderator); Kyle Faino, Super Supplements; Corey Frons, Bulb America; Ross Kramer, Listrak; and Tomer Tagrin, Yotpo.
Ross Kramer from Listrak emphasized that retailers should be driving 20 percent of their revenue from email marketing. One way to do this is by building your list with a modal acquisition sign-up form (i.e., a pop-up). This can be done nonobtrusively, but definitely don't do it on your mobile app, Kramer warned.
Faino of Super Supplements said that his company uses a series of "welcome" emails once a visitor signs up, not just a generic "thank you for signing up" confirmation.
The panelists also emphasized that the vast majority of online retailers aren't using cart abandonment emails. Cart abandonment emails should be sent 24 hours (at most) after abandonment, three days after if there's still no purchase, then five days after the initial abandonment with an offer.
Tomer Tagrin from Yotpo highlighted his company's unique product review platform that integrates the social component to a much higher degree. Its platform is called "Social Reviews," and it has a very high conversion rate for review responses.
Corey Frons from Bulb America discussed his company's successful loyalty rewards program. Consumers earn loyalty points for signing up to the program, recommending the Bulbs America site to others via social media, making a purchase, writing a product review — essentially any actionable item.
Part two of my recap will appear in tomorrow's issue of ROI Report.
Richard Sexton is the founder and president of Carolina Rustica, a cross-channel retailer of high-end furniture and lighting. Richard can be reached at richard@carolinarustica.com.
