We’re back at it with another Ecommerce roundup. This week had some great articles touching on advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and small business advice. Let’s get started. 

Don’t Forget the Return Policy

It’s easy for merchants to get so focused on merchandising and how their products are presented to shoppers that they neglect other aspects of the sale that the customer cares about. Your shipping policy is a big one, but so is your return policy. Some shoppers will move on to another retailer when a return policy isn’t favorable. You should consider:

• Make sure your return policy is clearly written
• Don’t hold money for lengthy periods during a return cycle
• Cost matters to a customer regarding who is responsible for paying for a return

Check out 7 Elements of a Return Policy That Sells for more great suggestions!

Developing Estimates for Development

If you aren’t technical, working with a web developer can seem like a mystery at times. That can lead to tension, unmet expectations and ultimately an unsavory relationship. This article sheds some light on the process a developer uses to estimate work, so the next time you work with one, it all makes a little more sense.

For instance, when developing a button for reordering for an Ecommerce site, some of these questions will likely be asked:

• Who can see it?
• Do you need to be logged in?
• Who has purchased that product?
• Where does a customer go when pressing the button?

Learn more at the blog post How a Web Developer Estimates Completion Time!

Challenges All Small Businesses Face

Running a small business isn’t easy. You don’t have the financial resources of larger business, or a large team to share the workload. Oftentimes, you’re also learning how to run your business as you go along. Among the problems small businesses face:

• Finding customers
• Lead generation
• Building an email list
• Financial planning
• Selling

The post goes through each problem and recommendations for how to move forward, so this is a great read for any small business owner.

Read more at Hubspot: 9 Business Challenges Every Small Business Struggles With (And How to Fix Them)

Facebook Ads for Online Retailers

If you’re on the fence about implementing Facebook ads, this post might change your mind. Featuring research from social media advertising firm Nanigans, it looks into the economics of advertising on Facebook, where merchants are investing their ad budgets and the ad products that are delivering the best return on investment for merchants. 

Among the insights from the research:

• Return on ad spend increased by more than 3o%
• Ad spend increased by half that, 15%
• Conversion rates and average order value (AOV) were both up

Get to know more about this by reading Facebook Ads Work For Online Retailers.

SEO for Beginners

If you’re new to the world of digital marketing, SEO can be pretty confusing. Especially when you dig into the technical side like meta data, H1 tags and duplicate content. However, it doesn’t have to be that hard. In fact, you can improve your SEO with just a few key actions.  Among the recommendations:

• Keyword groupings help you get organized around how to best organize your site and its content
• Site monitoring tells you how your positions evolve in a search engine
• Competitor research will ensure you can monitor how you’re doing against your direct competition

If you’re ready to get started, check out 5 Must-Dos For SEO Beginners!

More Tips All the Time!

That’s it for this week’s roundup. If you feel like there’s an article we missed, be sure to suggest it to us on Twitter @ZoeyCommerce.