Chris Malta will tell you the entire truth about eCommerce—whether you like it or not.
And he has the credibility to back up his advice. Chris is a business owner who has worked in eCommerce and online marketing for over 30 years. He designed the most comprehensive eCommerce education in the world and has been teaching it for over a decade.
Chris has spoken at national internet conventions and worked one-on-one with Amazon, eBay, and UPS executives.
He's even a published author—his books have been read by 7 million people (and counting!).
Chris joined Carl Lewis, host of The Connected Enterprise podcast, to offer practical tips and tricks about eCommerce.
Getting Started With ECommerce
If you feel like your small or midsized business is late to the eCommerce party, you’re wrong—it’s a party that’s impossible to be late to.
“The growth is amazing,” Chris notes. “You just have to know what you’re doing when you get there.”
First, consider what you sell. Focusing on one product works well with search engines because they look for sites that are authoritative on one thing.
“Companies that make everything from purple shoes to green widgets have to focus on paid advertising instead,” Chris explains.
He recommends designating someone who knows or can learn what’s needed to launch an eCommerce site and help it succeed. That could be an internal employee or a consultant, but Chris says to be cautious if you’re considering hiring someone.
“Many people have learned eCommerce from YouTube,” he warns. “That’s like learning how to be a surgeon by watching videos online. This is a profession, not a hobby.”
What Not to Do
Don’t expect your eCommerce site to be an overnight success. As Chris explains, the big platforms promise a free trial website, and companies throw things at the wall and hope they stick.
“What they don’t tell you is that the website is actually the last thing you do,” Chris says. “There’s a lot of research and development to do before your eCommerce site goes live.”
The next thing to learn about is keywords.
Keyword research is discovering how people search for what you sell. And because they’re the words and phrases people use to describe what they’re looking for, keywords vary widely.
Be prepared to learn how to write content for search engines and how to work with search engine optimization (SEO).
But don’t buy tools.
“People make a mistake by buying tools—SEO tools, sales funnel tools, email marketing tools,” Chris says. “Google does not like to be fooled.”
The tools won’t work anyway, because Google has the same ones—and Google can smell artificial intelligence-generated content a mile away.
“Google figures out how these tools work and blocks them in the algorithms,” Chris continues. “They’re a ridiculous waste of time and money.”
Critical Reading
You can get Chris’s latest book, eBiz Scams Revealed: Ultimate Guide to Avoiding Scams for Work at Home eBiz Owners, for free on his website.
“The book is free—no catch. I wrote it because there’s so much bad information roping people into scams. And after 30 years in this business, I’m sick of hearing about people getting cheated, burned, and stolen from,” Chris says. “If nothing else, the book can save people thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands.”
Listen to the Podcast
For more insights from Chris Malta, including the marketing basics your eCommerce business should master, listen to Vision33’s The Connected Enterprise podcast. In each episode, host Carl Lewis interviews bright minds and industry thought leaders about enterprise technology and what’s coming next.
