20 resources that'll make you better at ecommerce

Use this list of resources to improve everything from your marketing to your online store's customer experience.

We've even included some of our own articles about choosing the right tech and developers for your project.

If you're short on time, you can jump to the categories of most interest, then come back later for more ideas.

Topic categories we've included are ...

• Customer experience

• Content marketing

• Social media, email & community

• SEO & product pages

• Strategy & metrics

• UX, tech & development

Frequently asked questions or FAQ pages are essential content that can help guide or reassure customers.

Adding a FAQ section to your ecommerce website can help you connect with shoppers by anticipating their needs. FAQs can also help overcome customer objections to buying.

Consider adding FAQs on pricing pages, product pages, or pages that describe your services.

For inspiration, check out Search Engine Journal's list of the most effective FAQ page examples.

Appealing to your customer base with things like new services and products is a big part of successful ecommerce.

Surveys can be an extremely effective research tool for grounding new product ideas in data about customer preferences.

To learn more, read this excellent article about ecommerce surveys on Hotjar.

The article talks about what a survey is and how to use one to grow your business. It also has over fifty examples of commerce survey questions used by experts!

Reading articles, attending webinars, or taking a course from experts are all great ways to stay current with ecommerce trends.

The Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) has done more than two decades' worth of research in UX and provides a wealth of articles and videos on ecommerce UX.

For those interested in deeper study, NNG offers courses about how to create happy and loyal customers with design.

The experience of looking at a blank page and wondering what to write is an almost universal experience for content marketers.

One easy way to jog your creative juices is to use a blog post title generator. According to Storylab, an engaging blog post title can increase traffic to a website by up to 500% or more!

The best part is you can start for free with Storylab's title generator.

A customer's "aha" moment is the point where they're eager and ready to buy. But what specifically convinces shoppers to purchase?

By documenting the buyer's journey you can begin answering that question. Read our article describing one possible approach.

In it, we emphasize understanding your customer and what motivates them, step by step.

One way to create a consistent brand presence in your digital marketing is by creating and using a content style guide.

A content style guide is a document that gives detailed direction on how to maintain a unified "voice" for your brand.

It describes how to ensure uniformity across all marketing strategies and even in other departments, like customer support.

To develop your own guide, grab this free content style guide template from Writer.

Customers who spontaneously review and share about their favorite products and services on social media are creating user-generated content (UGC).

UGC is a simple but powerful way to create awareness, drive sales, and build loyalty for ecommerce businesses. That's because 40% of shoppers are influenced by the people in their social networks.

Need a few tips to learn how to leverage UGC for your store? Check out Neil Patel's guide.

Another powerful way to build a successful ecommerce business is by engaging an influencer to review your products and services.

Influencers, while not necessarily celebrities, enjoy celebrity status due to their engaging social media content and large followings.

Influencer reviews can help a brand sell more because buyers trust persons they identify with and admire.

Buzzsumo provides articles that help you stay up to date with the latest influencer trends.

They also have a tool that can quickly search social media platforms to help you find an influencer that's right for your brand.

Reliable customer insights are gold for ecommerce brands. Understanding your customer removes the guesswork when it comes to targeting ads or developing content.

One of the best ways to "listen in" on customer conversations is on social media. And while most marketers spend time each week engaging on social, it can be a time-consuming activity.

If you need a shortcut, check out Sparktoro's customer insight tool for instant insight into customer interests, motivations, and influences.

According to the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is 70%. Needless to say, incomplete purchases can add up to a significant loss in revenue for online businesses.

To counter this trend, marketers can write emails with appealing subject lines to re-engage these particular shoppers.

But what are the best subject lines to entice these potential buyers back into action?

Thankfully, Klaviyo reviewed over 1,000 abandoned cart emails and has some answers.

Sometimes the perfect place to source your next inspiration or get the insight you need is through vibrant conversation and community.

2PM provides such an opportunity through its paid Member Briefs that cover ecommerce brands, media, technology, trends, and in-person events.

If you prefer to check the community out from the sidelines, 2PM provides a lot of great free content, too.

We've all read stories about brands that used SEO black hat tactics or ignored SEO altogether and got the smackdown from Google.

Thankfully, there are many resources out there that help marketers avoid SEO mistakes. One of our favorite go-to resources is the SEO checklist from SEMrush.

Comprehensive and easy to use, it contains over 40 tips and practices that will keep you in Google's good graces!

One of the most essential pages for an ecommerce store is the product page. Product pages must highlight an item's features and benefits while skillfully overcoming shoppers' objections.

Marketers and website developers that optimize product pages are more likely to see an increase in conversion rates.

Merchant Mastery provides a handy product page checklist to make sure you're covering all the basics.

The good news is, when you optimize a product page for buyers, you will likely have optimized for Google search, too.

How well do you know your brand? Can you describe your brand's personality and say with certainty what sets it apart? Are you able to accurately describe your brand's target audience?

If these questions only bring up more questions, you may benefit from creating a brand style guide.

A brand style guide provides a source of truth for everyone in a business. It describes a brand's unique character, mission, and vision.

This article from 99-Designs shows you how to create this key strategic document.

Having an in-depth understanding of your ideal customer is key to focused marketing efforts.

Using a customer persona template can help you discover essential characteristics of your ideal customer and refresh stale messaging.

In addition to the usual suspects (demographics, interests, and influences), DigitalMarketer's avatar worksheet goes deeper to discover the customer transformation.

Use it to develop clear messaging for your ideal customer about how your products and services stand out from the crowd.

Marketing plans provide a map that describes where you're going as a brand and how you're going to get there.

A good marketing plan is an essential document for a business. That's because it outlines the core strategies, tactics, and tools that need to be in place in order to be successful.

Thankfully, you don't have to create this critical document from scratch. Hubspot offers a free marketing template that will help you get everyone on the same page with your vision.

There are a lot of moving parts in ecommerce marketing. One way to track your success is by using UTM parameters.

A UTM parameter is text at the end of a URL that shows where visitors to your online store are coming from. This in turn allows you to see which of your marketing tactics are converting and which ones aren't.

Fathom Analytics has a UTM generator that will help you construct as many UTM parameters as you need.

Happy tracking!

Learn which ecommerce websites are kicking it when it comes to user experience by checking out Baymard's Benchmark chart.

Backed by analysis and research, the chart allows you to drill down to see the ranked results of specific companies.

Rankings include things like product listings, search, checkout, and order tracking.

They organize the chart according to industry, too, making it easy to use the information to improve your own site's UX.

In today's fast-moving world of ecommerce having a flexible tech stack is a must.

Flexible technology, like headless websites, allows developers to bring many parts together to make a whole website. This makes fixing or replacing broken and outdated systems on a website easier and less risky.

Flexible systems are also advantageous to marketers because it allows them to pivot quickly if needed.

To learn more about how you can make this exciting new development in tech work for you, read our blog post about the benefits of headless builds for ecommerce.

Last but not least in our list of twenty items is another one of our blog posts.

Our list of 55 questions to ask before paying someone to build a website is a guide you can use when choosing new tech or development partners.

Investing in a new website or migrating an existing one is a big undertaking. Our list will prompt you to ask the right questions.

It might even help you think of other questions that are important to your project.

And that's it!

We hope you've found this list useful. Send us a note and let us know what's missing. Or send us some of your favorite ecommerce resources. We'd love to hear from you!