We have all heard the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ and it is well established that if you add images to your product pages, your conversion rate will significantly increase. However, today’s savvier online merchants are adding rich media to their sites— to both differentiate themselves from their competitors AND to present their products more effectively to site visitors.

In order to provide GoECart merchants with the best-in-class solution for visual merchandising, we haves partnered with the leader in online rich media, Adobe® Scene7®. Integration with Scene7 enables our online retailers to provide a more rich, immersive online experience that includes dynamic imaging, high-definition video streaming, online catalogs, , targeted email & print, dynamic asset management, and web-to-print capabilities.

Using Scene7 integration with GoECart, you can cost-effectively add zoom and colorizing capabilities to your entire site, even across tens of thousands of products. You also get dynamic image re-sizing capabilities to help streamline internal web production processes.

Dynamic Imaging

For online shoppers, ‘zooming in’ on product images is the equivalent of a physical store shopper picking up an item to take a closer look. You can accomplish a very similar scenario on your website by adding zoom targets to your product’s images and incorporating text tips as well. Online shoppers want to be provided with as much visual information in as large a viewing format as possible—including interactive zoom that enables shoppers to dynamically pan and zoom to deeper levels of details. Offering fly-over, click-driven browsing, combined with full-screen interactive zoom is the ideal best practice. Key features:

• Rather than manually creating several images­—for example, a thumbnail and an enlarged-view image—you can take a single master image, and have all modified images generated as you request them, on the fly.
• Easily scale rich media viewing across entire product line using a dynamic fully-configurable, integrated viewer – either embedded or in a pop-up.
• Dynamic content sizing, editing, formatting and rich media viewing of content across all Web pages:
• Single asset type viewers including single image zoom, image set zoom (alternative images and color ways), rollover driven zoom, 360-degree spin.
• Mixed media viewing with combinations of asset types (images, videos, SWFs, spin, audio, etc.)
• Easily configurable image hotspots for data-driven, formatted rollover panels with both text and image content for all eCatalog viewers
• Integrate to any webpage using a simple data-driven URL.

Online Video

The single most effective method of selling products online is through video. Online video is the next best thing to being there— it comes as close as possible to bringing the retail shopping experience online. In a brick-and-mortar store setting, if a customer wants more information on a product, they ask a sales associate. Video is the online equivalent of an in-store sales associate; you can upload product demonstrations, point out key features, and basically help guide the shopping experience.

Scene7’s eVideo Streaming is an end-to-end, hosted web video publishing and streaming service that enables anyone to easily upload final videos in any format. You can convert to Flash format; manage, edit, create hot spots and video templates; and publish and stream into configurable video viewers—simplifying overall video workflows. Video sets and new ‘clickable video hotspots’ can augment the customer-facing experience—upping the time consumers spend online and consequently spiking conversion.

Key features:

• Ability to upload all popular video and audio file formats.
• Capability to add ‘clickable’ video hotspots to any Recut clip/caption/graphic to provide call-to-action links to purchase or for more relevant information.
• A publishing model that is ideal for non-technical video publishers and eliminates multiple third-party solutions for same video workflow.
• Standardizes on Flash for delivery to any channel.

Centralized interface

Scene7 features a centralized interface where you upload and store all your media files online in one, central password-protected interface. You can even give your vendors or distributors access so they can upload and download media directly.

GoECart merchants have seen both increased conversion rates and reductions in product returns through rich media integration. As an added bonus, GoECart merchants can integrate your rich media using the GoECart Scene7 integration into your Social Media Sites, Email Campaigns, YouTube Channels, and other digital assets your company has on the web. GoECart version 8.0 was designed to help merchants to Sell more™ on the web and compete in ecommerce markets that are rapidly maturing. We invite you to contact your GoECart account representative to get more information on how to take advantage of GoECart’s Scene7 integration.

Listen To This Article

Since your ecommerce site visitors are using their eyes and ears as they arrive on your storefront, podcasting offers some fresh opportunities to deliver your message. From articulating a message with audio, to enhancing an article with the addition of sound, podcasting can offer some extra benefits for the average site visitor.

Consider Podcasting for Increased Profit, Credibility, and Reach

On-demand broadcasting on the web has grown steadily over the past five years, bringing forward a unique presentation of today’s most valuable content. According to 2006 Forrester® Research studies, podcast uptakes are expected to reach almost 12 million US households by 2010. This increase in multimedia downloads will make even more content readily available on the web; so, the challenge for podcast broadcasters is having files and content easily searchable and found.

After creating and implementing your latest podcast, an essential step is optimization. You’re probably already aware of strategies and initiatives for optimizing your web content; using appropriate keywords, tagging, and setting up your articles and layout to be search-engine friendly are parts of successful online marketing.

In order for your podcasts to gain the same recognition, you’ll want to create an effective optimization strategy. This will help your podcast reach the high ranks of audio search engines, making it easy and simple for potential visitors to find your essential material. Besides submitting your piece to various podcast directories and feeds, you’ll want to take advantage of the additional optimization tactics below.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #1: Make the file attractive

Optimize your audio files. You’ll need to make sure all the tracks are accurate and working; search engines cannot locate broken files, and you’ll have a hard time tracking it down yourself. Remember that most people are going to download the file to an MP3 player or other media playing device, and you want this process to be straightforward and the file to easily downloadable. You’ll find quality tools available for download online; Audacity is free, and can help with encoding and compressing your files. Other programs can help you streamline your file to make it easy to download and share.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #2: Less is more

You’ll need to make your podcast easy to find. Many podcast publishers make the mistake of creating excessive feeds in hopes of reaching higher search engine placement. This strategy can backfire, since search engines like Google™ are now being programmed to find relevant and appropriate content. If your podcast is being distributed through too many articles, networks, or websites, it may have a lower chance of being recognized.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #3: The power of tags

Keep in mind that podcast search engines work in a very similar style as traditional search engines. Web crawlers are designed to trace all rich media content files with specific features; tagging can help tremendously, and will give you the added leverage you need for higher search engine rankings.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #4: Build value through appropriate feeds

Each type of feed you select to share your file can be distributed in a unique way. Remember that you need to create a new one for each mode of distribution; iTunes will require it’s own unique channel, and you might need to do some research on creating appropriate RSS-friendly content.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #5: Build a landing page for each submission

If you can create an individual landing page for each file, you can increase your search engine rankings in two ways: through both the audio search, and regular text search. Adding the title of your podcast file into the landing page URL will also help you reach the higher rankings on most standard search engines. Including a player on this landing page, or link to download one, can improve visitor interest and site visibility as well.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #6: Embed content with metadata

This is especially significant if you are creating a landing page for the file; metadata can help increase your chances of pickup from major search engines, and a simple list of keywords and phrases inserted into the file is all it takes. iTunes® has its own format for publishing this information, and most platforms will require that you include a descriptive title, notes, and other keywords.

Podcast Optimization Strategy #7: Transcribe your podcast

If possible, script out the podcast itself and include this on your landing page. Not only will the keyword counts be increased dramatically, but you’ll have a dual opportunity for search engine crawlers: content-related searches, and audio search. A summary works well also, if you’d rather not include the entire piece.

Get Found!

The ever-changing web offers more dynamic content, day after day. Podcasting has created a new segment in website publishing, incorporating the power of audio. Now that MP3 owners and other media outlets give us new opportunities to publish and share, quality content, distribution is a high priority. Making podcast files findable on the web is possible with the right tools and optimization strategy in place.

For more information about audio podcasting, along with links to podcasts of articles in this newsletter, see http://goecart.com/support/Free-Ecommerce-Podcasts-Downloads.aspx

Listen To This Article