|
View the web version
Hi there, hope you're having a great Friday!
This is Colm and Simon from CommerceGurus, with a handpicked weekly roundup of eCommerce articles.
Maria is back with an excellent post on our CommerceGurus blog about Core Web Vitals. If you don't know what these are, they are going to be one of the important changes Google have made in years and will be implemented in under 6 months.
Google will roll out its Page Experience update algorithm in 2021 that will factor in page experience as a ranking signal.
As of now, Google uses more traditional and objective signals like on-page targeting and PageRank. However, the upcoming change will include page user experience in the SERPs.
To stay on top of these upcoming changes, you need to understand the different aspects of page experience and take measures to optimize your website for them.
Learn about Core Web Vitals
I came across an interesting business this week called The Better Packaging Company from New Zealand.
Having seen firsthand the amount of plastic waste generated by the eCommerce industry the company’s founders – Rebecca and Kate, decided to change things.
They design sustainable, customised, compostable packaging solutions for the new economy, and seem to deliver to nearly every country in the world.
You can buy compostable bags of various sizes to use when shipping your own products.
With people thinking about the environment this is one area where you could differentiate yourself as an eCommerce business. Promoting sustainable, environmental friendly packaging seems like a win win.
Check out the Better Packaging Co
I've written previously in this newsletter about Fast, a startup backed by Stripe. They have just added WooCommerce support to its new "Fast Checkout" experience.
Online shopping almost always involves a lengthy checkout form where customers have to enter passwords, addresses, and payment information nearly every time.
Fast’s founders have set out to solve this problem with products aimed at modernizing the checkout experience to enable one-click purchasing.
WooCommerce's default checkout falls well behind the experience offered by the likes of Shopify.
It's something that they haven't addressed in any meaningful sense and would probably make the single biggest difference to conversions.
Until then, expect to see more services like Fast or CheckoutWC filling the gap.
Learn about Fast for WooCommerce
I enjoyed this article from Cory Zue about running a Black Friday sale which worked. Once he got over the "icky-ness" factor he took some great learnings in marketing it from other successful creators.
They were genuine, they put the reader first, and they weren’t too pushy. It was “hey, here’s a great deal in case you’re interested, if not, sorry to bug you.”
Also, the key thing was not lowering the price, but instead adding value.
He summed up his experiment:
"Ultimately the snap decision to spend a few hours of time doing a Black Friday deal had a larger impact on my business than any other single thing I’ve done in the last year."
Read about how to Run a Very Profitable Sale Campaign
If you're running a WooCommerce store you should install the official app for iOS and Android devices. It's a useful way to be alerted when you've made a sale and to look at your sales over the day/week/month.
The WooCommerce app team has launched a new update this week. For the first time, you can create simple, grouped, and external products directly in the Woo Mobile App. Have an idea? Turn it into a product as quickly as you can name it, photograph it, and price it. Publish with the tap of a button, or save it as a draft for later.
They have some big plans for the app in 2021 and it's good to see some energy put into this from WooCommerce.
Read about the new WooCommerce app
This is an interesting article from Hugo Amsellem about the new creator economy which has sprung up in the past few years.
Individuals are making money on the internet in all kinds of ways, including courses, videos, and digital downloads.
These companies are building stand-alone tools to help creators create more and better content.
But some of the most interesting tools are the ones designed to help monetize this content. I've been following the progress of Gumroad for a while but this article includes lots of other examples in various categories.
There are some excellent tools in this post and it would be well worth bookmarking and coming back to if you're planning to launch something new in 2021.
Discover the Tools of the Creator Economy
Finally, if you are using the popular Contact Form 7 plugin on any website you should update it immediately.
You can see more details about the critical vulnerability over on WP Tavern.
Learn why you need to update Contact Form 7
That's it for this edition. Simply reply to this email if you have any questions or suggestions, we read every message. Have a great week and best of luck with your projects!
Colm and Simon from CommerceGurus
|