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11 May

What is PPC? An Introduction to Paid Advertising

Posted by Emma Stewart

“What is PPC?” If only we had a pound for every time we’ve been asked this question! Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising - sometimes referred to as ‘Online Advertising’ and ‘Search Engine Marketing (SEM)’ – does exactly what it says on the tin. Advertisers, such as Google, Bing and Facebook, auction off ad placements and you pay for every click your advert receives. So rather than waiting to ‘earn’ visits organically, which can be a somewhat lengthy process, you can pay for high quality visitors to your site. Paid advertising helps you get your brand noticed by potential customers. You can beat your competitors to the top of the search results on Google and Bing, or even have your advert appear on your target audience’s Facebook feed. The best news of all - you ...

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09 May

Beginners SEO: 5 Easy Ways to Boost your Website Ranking

Posted by Emma Stewart

The world of SEO (search engine optimisation) can seem complex and mysterious to the everyday human. I mean, apart from us digital geeks, who really has the time to learn each one of Google’s 200+ factors that influence search rankings in its algorithm? But for small businesses, boosting your website ranking to the top of search is necessary to compete in today’s digital landscape. Research shows that the top 5 search results receive 75% of clicks and only 25% of people will click past the first page – crazy, right? However, there’s things every online business owner can do to increase their chances of getting their website to the top. We’ve put together 5 easy things you can do today, to boost your website ranking. 1. Discover Your Industry’s Niche Keywords P...

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04 May

ERP System: Scale Your Shopify Plus Business today

Posted by Emma Stewart

Do you need an ERP system? Shopify Plus is the leading omni-channel commerce platform for small and medium-sized businesses, powering over 377,500 online shops across 175 countries. As brands grow in popularity and their sales increase, many businesses have taken that all important step of implementing an ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) that drives greater efficiencies in-house. So, before we get into the nitty-gritty of ERP systems, ask yourself these questions; Are you having trouble keeping up with your site’s order volumes and as a result your customer satisfaction scores are beginning to dwindle? Are you struggling to keep up with inventory levels in your warehouse? Is your finance department taking longer to consolidate and reconcile financial informatio...

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03 May

Upgrade to Magento 2 – A guide for merchants

Posted by Roger Martin

When thinking about an upgrade to Magento 2 it is important to understand what is involved and what advantages upgrading to Magento 2 actually offers. The expected landrush to upgrade to Magento 2 through 2016 and early 2017 has not materialised. The current thinking is that it will happen through Q3 of 2017, as the platform reaches full stability and the developer community has enough experience to manage the upgrades successfully and in an economically viable manner. The Magento platform has always been promoted as the most flexible ecommerce platform in the world, accessible to all due to its foundations as an open source project. Whilst this has been a major strength, the process of moving towards Magento 2 and the focus by the new owners to grow the Enterprise channel and ac...

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28 Apr

SendGrid vs IBM Marketing Cloud: Which is the best Email Marketing Software?

Posted by Emma Stewart

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective tactics for driving customer engagement, sales and retention. It’s also the preferred communication channel for consumers, with 77% of consumers saying that they prefer to receive permission-based marketing communication via the channel, according to a study by ExactTarget. Here at Star Digital, we’re constantly being asked what is the best email marketing software. While there’s no single solution that fits all requirements, there are some great email marketing solutions that allow you to manage and segment your contacts, create custom email templates and view a suite of insightful reporting that you can use to optimise campaigns. Our resident email expert, Hannah, put SendGrid to the test against IBM Marketing Cloud, to see...

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21 Apr

A guide to adding goal tracking to Magento websites.

Posted by Ella Garfield

Goal tracking on Google Analytics is a vital element for any online commerce business. Through measuring the effectiveness of your site in gaining conversions, marketing teams can see what content converts and what elements need improving. For Magento websites, this goal tracking process is relatively easy to complete. All you need is a google Analytics account, access to your Magento admin area and access to either the html code or a developer. Here’s our simple 3 step guide to setting up Goal Tracking on a Magento site: 1. Add Google Analytics Tracking code to your site The first step in implementing any goal tracking on your site is to add the Google Analytics tracking code generated for your Google Analytics profile. All you need to do is add your Analytics account ID ...

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18 Apr

Move from Magento to Shopify with Star Digital

Posted by Ella Garfield

Upgrade from Magento Enterprise now and get 6 months FREE Shopify Plus licensing. With Magento 1.x end of life scheduled in 2018, customers on Magento 1.x will be forced to decide whether to upgrade to 2.x over the next 12 months. After 2018, Magento 1.x Community and Enterprise customers will no longer receive support, patches or upgrades, so now is the perfect time to consider Shopify Plus. Until the end of June, Shopify Plus is offering 6 months FREE on a two-year contract and help with data migration up to 500k SKUs and 1 million customers*. There is no doubt that Magento is the king of on-premise eCommerce.  Built specifically for developers, it offers tremendous flexibility and extensibility. But SaaS is changing the world, and eCommerce is no exception. Many retailers a...

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30 Mar

From Apprentice to Lead Developer in three years

Posted by Ella Garfield

Star Digital, a Northampton-based digital commerce agency have a proud history of supporting the development of young people in the workplace through apprenticeships and internships. Many apprentices who start with Star Digital move into permanent positions having spent a year learning relevant skills actually working on client projects. For one of our past apprentices, Callum Roper, this route has proved highly successful in a short space of time. Callum is now Star Digital’s Lead Developer, supervising a team of eight web developers. Callum’s journey with Star Digital started back in October 2012, when he joined as an apprentice from 3AAA in Bedford. Initially, Callum began his apprenticeship building emails and Pageflip brochures whilst learning the intricacies and ap...

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23 Mar

Shopify Plus Ecommerce – Focus on Delivering ROI

Posted by Ella Garfield

Shopify Plus is an extended enterprise level commerce application that has been designed to make it simpler to sell online and in person. In February of 2017 Star Digital became one of the first Shopify Plus partners in the UK and we are looking forward to developing our Connector Plus agnostic systems integration software to open up this platform to larger and more complex merchant requirements. Whether you are looking to sell a million a year or a million a day, Shopify Plus is built to make delivery of those goals as low maintenance and cost efficient as possible. With over 2,500 clients using the Shopify Plus, Shopify  is focussed on high growth, high volume merchants who don't want the added complexity of ongoing hosting and maintenance charges - particularly software patching...

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22 Mar

Shopify Plus Launches B2B ecommerce Solution – Wholesale Channel

Posted by Shelley Wood

Shopify Plus, today 9th March 2017, launched their B2B commerce solution for the Shopify Plus channel called 'Wholesale Channel'. This all new channel can easily be added to Shopify Plus builds in the admin section at no extra cost and takes the Shopify Plus omni-channel commerce solution to new heights for enterprise level merchants. The software is designed to sync with an online store's customers, products, and collections to allow Shopify Plus merchants to easily sell to their wholesale customers. Once installed, Wholesale Channel creates a password protected wholesale store. Merchants can then invite buyers to purchase their products at their assigned wholesale price. Merchants can customise prices offered to wholesale/trade buyers by: Setting percentage-based disco...

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20 Mar

Shopify Plus Partner – Star Digital

Posted by Roger Martin

Star Digital have been named as the latest digital commerce agency in the UK to achieve Shopify Plus Partner status. Star Digital decided to join the fast growing platform after a lengthy period of due diligence and research involving their design and developer teams. Star Digital were very impressed with the Shopify Plus platform, the partner channel and support, alongside the rapid growth of the platform. The ease of use and speed at which the team could set up fully functioning stores was impressive when compared to other platforms. Shopify Plus is now a credible alternative to Magento Roger Martin, CEO at Star Digital said "We have been partners to Magento since 2009, but for the last 12 months we have had to look at alternative offerings as the Magento 2 product launch has not...

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