Recently, I was featured in an article published on AllAnalytics.com discussing how analytics has improved our online business. While the article was well received, I ended up getting a good amount of questions asking for more specifics on exactly how and what we track for our web store. So, the purpose of this blog post is to point out a few important metrics that we analyze and look at on a regular basis.

First off, I just want to emphasize that analytics is more than just looking at the number of visits or the number of pageviews that your website gets.

Don’t get me wrong, checking your traffic levels is both fun and rewarding but ultimately Analytics is about tracking specific metrics that will allow you to improve both the engagement and conversion rate of your website.
Make Sure You Set Up Ecommerce Tracking
Google Analytics has many ecommerce specific features which …

Every time I publish an article on entrepreneurship that encourages my readers to start their own business, I find myself tiptoeing across a very fine line. On one hand, starting an online business is simple, relatively risk free and doesn’t require a lot of start up capital. But on the other hand, running a successful business requires a ton of hard work, perseverance and a little bit of luck.

Photo By Mary Anne Thygesen

The problem is that when I emphasize the enormous amount of work that is required to launch a company, I tend to turn people away from starting a business.

However when I emphasize the simplicity, people tend to harbor unrealistic expectations and expect a quick path to riches.

It’s unfortunate, but many would be entrepreneurs choose what business model to pursue based on how “easy” it is to start as opposed to considering the actual probability of success. …

This is a guest post from Sunil. Sunil owns over a dozen profitable niche websites and is the author of “How to Go from $0 to $1,000 a month in Passive and Residual Income in Under 180 Days All in Your Spare Time”, a FREE report you can download instantly from his Extra Money Blog, where he discusses how to create multiple streams of passive and residual income, entrepreneurship, internet marketing, blogging and personal finance.

In 2007, he sold his ecommerce website for $250,000 to a top Ebay Power Seller and since then has sold several niche sites for five figures each. You can read more about him and his work on his blog.

I first heard of Steve and his wife’s project through a webinar link that was relayed to me by a fellow blogger. I was immediately interested because this is a road that I have been on before. …

Ever since I posted my article on Why Etsy Stores Are At A Disadvantage Compared To Online Stores That Own Their Domain, I’ve been meaning to show everyone how easy it is to install a free open source shopping cart.

These days, there are many open source shopping carts out there that are completely free and very feature rich.

You simply have to sign up for a web host, download and install the free shopping cart and you are almost ready to go.

So today, I thought that I’d give a mini tutorial on how to install Open Cart which is one of the open source shopping carts I recommend in my free 6 day mini course on how to create a niche online store.

Open Cart is an incredible shopping cart that is easy to use and has an elegant back end interface with which to manage your orders and products. Did …

When I first started my online store, I had a master search engine optimization plan that I believed was fundamentally sound. The plan was to buy my search engine traffic using Google Adwords for my main keyword terms while simultaneously improving my organic search rankings through link building.

Then, once I managed to organically rank on the front page of search, I would gradually cut back on my Adwords spend and eventually rely solely on organic search to bring customers in the door. Not a bad strategy right?

While my plan sounded great on paper, when I looked at my Google Analytics statistics coupled with my search results, I knew this strategy wasn’t going to cut it if I wanted to maximize the profits of my online store. Please allow me to explain.

The photo below is a search for a keyword term that my store currently ranks …

As part of my weekly regimen, I like to read and participate in various small business forums and one of my favorites is the Etsy forum. For all of you who have never heard of Etsy, Etsy is a marketplace for do it yourself and handmade goods. Similar to Ebay, Etsy provides an easy way for talented crafters and artists to sell the fruits of their labor.

The reason I like reading the Etsy forums is because most if not all Etsy users are casual shopowners who have a strong desire to make some extra money on the side.

Many Etsy users would eventually like to quit their day jobs. Many Etsy users have the desire to launch their own full blown online stores but are afraid of the technical and marketing challenges in doing so.

Anyways, I was reading the forums the other day and noticed more complaints …

This is a guest post by James McLaughlin. James is a New Jersey based ecommerce marketing expert that helps small businesses achieve big results online. James has worked at Fortune 500 companies developing ecommerce marketing strategies that drive well above average growth. You can contact James at James@SupremeROI.com or find him on Linkedin by clicking here.

One of the biggest challenges in starting your online store is advancing through the ever-evolving landscape of building a website that converts sales and attracts visitors to the site to purchase.

Knowledge is power in this sense, but testing your knowledge in the real world and learning from others who have done it are much more valuable. You need the mind-set to learn it, and follow through with blind enthusiasm.

Luckily we have resources like Steve at MyWifeQuitHerJob.com to share his experience and insight on how to create a profitable online store that supports a family …

Every year, my wife and I hire a professional photographer to take pictures of the kids and the family. While this is not cheap, it’s something we like to do because the kids are growing up so fast and we want to have photos for every stage of their development.

What’s funny is that hiring a photographer is only a small portion of the overall cost. Buying all new matching outfits for the kids and my wife is what tears a hole in my pocketbook and gives me heartburn.

For all of you who know me well, I’m pretty cheap and seeing the clothing costs for these photo shoots makes me want to faint. In fact, I don’t even bother checking the credit card bills during this time because I’m that terrified.

The other day, my wife was shopping online at a kids clothing “boutique” and probably spent a …

My wife just closed the books on our mid year numbers(January – June) and profits are up in the double digits again. I say this every year but my wife and I are constantly amazed by how our little business continues to grow and expand.

Seriously folks, there’s nothing particularly exciting about our online store on the surface. We sell wedding hankies and linen napkins primarily to the wedding and event planning industry. Nothing big! Our niche is very small but it happens to be a part of a very large and lucrative market that is insensitive to price.

Part of the reason why my wife and I are always surprised with our numbers is because these yearly increases are compounded annually.

If we have a great year like last year where we grew 44%, then it’s that much harder the following year to show similar growth.

At …

Last week, I received an email from Amazon.com informing me that they just cancelled their affiliate program in California effective immediately. They provided very little notice and in just one day, my Amazon affiliate account became worthless. Now I make a decent amount money with affiliate marketing for various business services, but what if I relied entirely on Amazon.com as my primary income source? I’d be screwed.

After running MyWifeQuitHerJob.com for several years now, I’ve fielded many questions about how to open an online store and how to put up niche affiliate sites. And whenever someone asks me for advice, I almost always advocate creating an online store as opposed to going down the path of making a pure affiliate website.

The problem is that most people are attracted to the prospect of creating a niche affiliate site due to the passive nature of the …

To be honest, I’m a little bit late to the Facebook and Twitter game when it comes to using social media with my online store. And the reason I’ve waited such a long time before applying these services to my business is because I was never fully convinced that it was a good use of my time.

After all, I have many tasks on my plate and very limited resources so I have to prioritize my time accordingly. But lately, I’ve been hearing way too many success stories with Twitter and Facebook to ignore them any longer.

For example according to Search Engine Land, many ecommerce companies have seen huge increases in sales and traffic after implementing Facebook Likes for their websites. Here are a few examples.

Levi’s jeans found that referral traffic increased 40X after implementing the Like button
Giantnerd.com’s revenues increased over 100% after implementing the Like button
American …

This is a guest post from Jeremy Day. Jeremy writes about local business news, and gives out free business listings for what he thinks are the best local businesses in the neighborhood.

So you have started an online store. You have all your products listed. Everything looks pretty and yet, not a lot is happening. I know this is the case for a lot of people starting out.

It does take awhile for a brand new site to get some traction, become trusted by search engines like Google, and just plain getting found.

And you are probably doing a lot of things like trying to get backlinks to your site for your keywords, and all the other fun things online business owners get to do.

But how much are you treating your online business like an offline business? In other words, how much are you treating your online business like a “real” business?

What …

Even though we’ve been running our online store with the same basic layout for a few years now, I’m continually amazed by how often I find problems with our website and how often I have to make subtle tweaks to improve conversions. I’ve also come to the realization that I’m pretty lousy at predicting human behavior and anticipating how customers will interact with our user interface.

Photo By javYliz

In any case, the issues that I’m about to describe aren’t necessarily “bugs” per se but website usability issues that we discovered from talking to our customers directly.

9 times out of 10, a customer gets confused navigating through our online store because I’ve made certain assumptions about the way a user should interact with our site. I’ve made certain assumptions about how clear the instructions are written and how tech savvy the internet user is.

And you know what? I’ve found …

This past month, I’ve been asked to critique several online store websites (click here to read some of my past online store writeups). These days, I rarely have time to take a look at random reader’s websites simply because I’m swamped with other things and taking care of little people aged 3 and below. Also, since I run an ecommerce course, I reserve most of my non-family time for my students.

Photo By KateMonkey

But I felt compelled to respond to these review requests because all of them had the same or similar mistakes.

And when 4 consecutive websites have the same problem, I feel compelled to write about it. Here were the problems that I found with the stores I looked at this past month.
No Value Proposition
Whenever I land on an unknown store while surfing the web, especially a site where I might be spending some …

My daughter is now 3 years old and as she continues to grow and mature, it’s becoming much easier for the two of us to communicate with one other. Finally, she can put together simple sentences and convey what she wants and needs using words instead of grunting or crying.

The problem is that she’s also getting smarter and harder to negotiate with. Once she wants something, she’s tends to have a one track mind.

Daughter: Daddy, can I play with your phone?
Me: Not right now my love
Daughter: Can I see your phone? Can I see your phone? Can I see your phone?
Me: I said not right now
Daughter: I picked up my toys off the floor…
Me: Mommy made you do that so that doesn’t count
Daughter: Can I see your phone? Can I see your phone? Can I see your phone? Please Daddy?
Me: AHHH!!! …

I don’t know what’s been going on lately, but I’ve been receiving an unusually large number of depressing emails this past month. People have been asking me questions like…

How do I know when to shut down my business?
It’s been over 8 months now and I’m not still not making that much with my website yet. Should I change my niche?
Why is my site not getting any traffic? Should I start over?

After taking a closer look at a few of these websites, I noticed one glaring commonality between all of these online businesses. They’ve all been around for less than a year!!!

While my wife and I were able to make a six figure salary in a short period of time, making significant money with your business can often take longer depending on your niche and your ability to adapt to the market. In …

After starting several businesses on the side, helping others with their own online stores and running this blog for a couple of years now, I’ve come to recognize certain patterns and character traits that define success and failure. Running a successful business isn’t just about luck. It’s not just about taking the leap of faith. It’s not about having the perfect plan or finding the perfect niche. It’s about how you deal with problems as they arise. It’s about how you adapt to certain situations when things don’t go your way.

Photo By Toffehoff

The problem most new entrepreneurs face is that it’s hard to distinguish between good and bad investments of your time. It’s difficult to know when to go cheap and when to splurge. And for control freaks like myself, it’s overwhelming when you first realize that there are a bunch of …

Over this past weekend, I was chatting with a friend of mine about the many benefits of using Skype for video conferencing. And after talking with her at length, she seemed genuinely excited so I recommended a webcam for her to buy so she could chat online with her parents in India.

Now this friend of mine is not exactly the most tech savvy person in the world. In fact, she barely knows how to use a computer let alone shop online. So, I did most of the research for her, found a great deal on the Logitech Webcam Pro and forwarded the information to her on where to buy it. I even emailed her a direct link to the product page thinking that was good enough.

However, the next day I got another call from her because she couldn’t figure out how to make the purchase online. …

This past weekend, I was casually glancing at my Google Analytics numbers when I noticed a statistic that surprised me. Almost 3 percent of our revenues last month came from customers making purchases on their mobile devices. While 3 percent doesn’t sound like a huge percentage, this is pretty shocking to me on several fronts.

First of all, I never used to imagine anyone shopping or making purchases on such a tiny screen. Second, up until this point in time I hadn’t given mobile shopping a second thought because of my personal biases. Personally, I would never use my phone to buy anything online and I had assumed no one else would either given today’s technology.

Photo By Generation X-Ray

While mobile users only represent about 5% of the overall traffic to my store, this number is clearly trending higher. In fact at this exact same point …

My wife and I put it off for as long as we could. Our friends teased us about it. We had visions of the both of us crouched over on our hands and knees scrubbing the floors all day. Potty training was the one aspect of parenthood that my wife and I absolutely dreaded. Unfortunately, we had to bite the bullet sooner than we wanted to because our preschool forced us to take action. In order for our daughter to advance to the next class level, she had to be potty trained or be held back with the younger kids. And to make things worse, we recently had brand new carpets installed. (Bad timing. I know)

Photo By SpaceNinja

Yet in many ways, what instigated my wife and I to start our business and to potty train our daughter were very similar. Some …