As of March 31, 2012, the first quarter (Q1) of 2012 sees more than 2 billion total Internet users (approximately 2,279,709,629) all over the world, according to statistics.
Imagine making your business visible to even just a half of this population; you would surely rake in a
big income.But how can you cater to a global market?
Well, you can use traditional advertising tools such as billboards, banner displays, flyers, and brochures.
Slight Drawbacks
The only problem is that it may not be an ideal strategy, especially if you are managing a small business, due to the following reasons:
- The cost may take a huge chunk out of your capital.
- Despite investing in a big budget, there is no guarantee that you can draw the attention of several potential customers.
- It may be difficult to track the effectiveness of your campaign.
Local + Internet Advertising
Then again, it does not mean that you should avoid it completely. Instead, you can combine it with online marketing tactics, so you can reap these benefits.
- You can promote to millions of buyers or to a specific demography, depending on your methods.
- You can monitor your marketing campaign’s effectiveness and business performance using various tools.
- You can cater to your customers’ needs 24/7 no matter their location. This is highly applicable if you offer international shipping services.
- You can provide complete information about your company and offers in an organized manner.
- You can obtain all these without requiring huge investment.
But before you can make all these possible, you need to apply the first big step…
Yes, you must have an online storefront, where you can display your products or services and relay your sales pitch. It is where you can elaborate on your business goals, visions, and missions.
As you are developing and designing your website, you must not forget these key elements.
- Call to action – urges potential customers to take advantage of your offers
- Menu/ breadcrumb trail – directs the users where to go/ their previous and current webpage location
- Easy navigation – allows convenient use among buyers who know little about browsing the Web
- Images and description – gives consumers a quick look into your goods or services
- Newsletter – lets you update regular shoppers about your latest offerings
- Quick loading time – helps keep the interest of possible customers
- Interaction – permits the users to feedback or express their satisfaction
Throughout the development and design process, you need to apply
search engine optimization (SEO) too. While there are plenty of
SEO tactics available, the following are among the most important.
Top 5 E-Commerce Optimization Techniques
1. Consider both search engines and your target audience
If you wish to rank high in
SERPs, you must keep in mind essential factors such as unique and quality content, traffic diversity, user experience, bounce rate, webpage layout. Now, if you want to avoid making mistakes, you have to learn more about Google’s algorithm updates – the Panda and Penguin.
Of course, you must also take into account the users’ convenience. Hence, you need to come up with valuable and interesting information to make them want to stay longer on your site.
Additionally, you can add your website with more content by encouraging your existing customers to give reviews and comments or upload views and photos.
2. Use the right tools and applications
There is no denying that many site owners want to rank on Google, you might want to ensure high ranking too, given that it is the
top search engine and that many people depend on its results for insight.
With that said, you can take advantage of its products such as AdWords, Insights for Search, Webmaster Tools, and E-Commerce Tracking to help manage your website and business.
Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Reddit – these are some of the leading social platforms. In fact, each of these portals has billions of active users. To start interacting with your target audience, you can create profile pages and boost these through post updates, video and photo uploads, and links. Finally, do not forget to incorporate relevant keywords to your bio, so your social pages come up in results.
4. Sign up for Google Places
Do you own a brick-and-mortar store? Then, you must claim a business listing through Google’s local search feature. Through it, you can upload images (related to your trade or offers) and videos. You can also provide details regarding your latest sales or promotional deals. To top it off, your company will rank for location-based queries, especially if you already have several reviews from authority sites and satisfied customers.
5. Remember that quality is better than quantity
You must ensure more than high traffic. You should also be able to convert the users to clients. This is possible by targeting the right key phrases.
If, for instance, you are selling chocolate cupcakes, rank for “chocolate cupcakes” rather than just “cupcakes”. If you use the latter, there is a huge likely that many individuals looking for strawberry-filled cupcakes may click on your site hoping to find what they need but instead sees chocolate treats. While you have been able to draw visits, you were not able to make a sale.
Given this scenario, you know where long-tailed or targeted keywords come in handy.
So, there you have it. These are the top five fundamental SEO strategies for your e-commerce website. Now, if you think that the tips on this article are beyond your expertise, you can always hire Web professionals.
