Category: Online Business

Thanks to advancement in technology merchants can now balance the need to be at their customers’ disposal, with the challenge of promoting their brand while building loyalty. Since up to 40% of online users begin their product searches on Amazon, staying glued to your branded storefront is not the best approach.

However, if you try competing in markets like eBay and Amazon, you run the risk of losing control over your original brand and going through a tough time managing logistics over numerous channels. With Amazon and other social settings experiencing exponential growth merchants are now forced to maximize on Omni-channel selling to remain competitive, which also comes with its challenges.

When branching into several channels, offering discounts, managing records, and handling shipping at the same time becomes overpowering. The novelties in ecommerce seek to assist merchants in solving this problem, and the foremost concern is to answer the merchants’ main question: how do I sell across several channels while maintaining my brand without experiencing logistical challenges?

Better Marketing tools

Ecommerce thinks about modernization as providing unswerving, incremental improvements to assist you to sell better- always tweaking, optimizing and experimenting to maximize conversion and in turn, increase returns. Take the case of a brand’s homepage. Consumers navigating to your brand site have expectations, if the page is slow, or looks like an artifact, the prospect is likely to navigate back to the search engine and visit the next site. Conversely, a striking, exceptional storefront will attract the customer.

What you choose to show on-site matters because your site is a direct representation of your brand. This year we expect to see more advances in tools that assist marketers use the appropriate channels to offer the right products and discounts, to ensure higher conversion rates.

Make the most of the increase in Mobile spending

Another field where ecommerce needs to up its game is Mobile Commerce, which has also proven to be a good way to increase conversion. It’s like consumers are spending more cash when they purchase and make payments on impulse and with minimum friction. While browsing online shops with smartphones is common among users, there are setbacks when it comes to buying goods.

The hassle of typing a 16-digit card number along with other details of a credit card prevents most customers from carrying out mobile purchases. However, digital wallets like PayPal have stepped in to ease the conversion, and we expect a rise in the number of mobile purchases. If you are looking to make the most of the mobile spending habits of consumers you need an ecommerce platform that supports digital wallets and also provides an outstanding mobile experience for on-the-move shoppers.

Managing logistics made easier

Making sales across multiple channels is not as easy as it sounds if carelessly done it can result in a logistical nightmare. One slip-up in record management could lead to a damaged customer relationship. To avoid such mistakes, ecommerce should work on a tool that will help you manage all inventories from a central location and updates all channels where you make sales in real-time.

Businesses looking to create a potent online presence need to have a wealth of content at their disposal, and more often than not, that takes the form of blogs. Indeed, just about every established business has a blog of some form these days, and many companies have been blogging consistently for years now. However, as any experienced copywriter can tell you, writing for an already developed blog presents as many challenges as forming a brand new blog from scratch. The good news is, you can also use your wealth of pre-existing blogs to enhance your current marketing efforts. To that end, here are four tips for optimizing old blog posts –– as well as the benefits they provide your company:

Update and Revise

The simplest way to breathe new life into an old blog is to go back and rework it. Adding more content onto an existing blog is a great way to demonstrate how something within your industry –– or company –– has changed over the years. Additionally, updating an old blog post enables you to correct any embarrassing writing mistakes you may have made. Remember: just because a blog post has aged, doesn’t necessarily mean it has aged well.

Write a Sequel

Just like Hollywood movie producers, small businesses should look to expand on their most compelling ideas. So don’t hesitate to add another chapter or segment to an already successful blog post. (This is especially true if you’ve explored broad topics, but want to zero in on highly-targeted traffic.) There’s nothing wrong with giving the people what they want –– after all, that’s what you’re in business for!

Consolidate with a Pillar Page

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as any surprise, but bringing multiple blogs together to form a larger “pillar page,” can often prove more effective than simply leaving them to exist on their own. There is strength in unity, and that logic applies to blog-writing as well. When you decide to create a pillar page, make sure to select a topic that’s specific –– yet has enough content to support it. You want an information-dense page that will provide you with opportunities to rank for multiple keywords, but you don’t want such a broad subject matter that it doesn’t offer a valuable resource to your customers.

Link and Backlink

Ideally, your blog should be an interconnected web of pages across the internet that direct your leads and visitors to other areas on your site (like landing pages!). Thus, by going back to old blogs and adding links and backlinks, you can work to create a closed-loop style blog network. Remember, the more your readers engage with your work, the likelier they are to do business with you.

The Bottom Line

Always keep in mind that specificity is the greatest friend of the small-business blogger. Modern shoppers are sophisticated and tend to look for refined results from their search queries. So whether your blog addresses where to get a doctor mortgage loan, or how to learn business phrases in Spanish in less than a week –– don’t be afraid to highlight what makes your product or service special. Keep that in mind the next time you start writing a new blog –– or the next time you optimize an old one!

Website traffic is not a problem. Getting it to visit YOUR website is!

There are an abundance of your ideal clients out there all searching for the solutions that your services offer.  But the problem is they don’t know about you … yet!

As a solopreneur, one ingredient you need for a successful online business is traffic… and lots of it!  But there are so many websites out there, all competing for the same traffic, that it can be difficult to attract visitors to YOUR website!

Today, I’d like to share with you my top five strategies for attracting highly targeted visitors:

1. Create a Free Taste

Your free taste is something that you give to someone in exchange for them giving you their name and email address, and signing up to your list.  Your free taste is also your chance to show off your expertise, and give your new subscriber a sampling of what it is you offer.

It must be something of value to your subscriber, without giving away the whole shop!

Then you simply promote your free taste on your website, in your email signature, in your Resource Bio, and any other place you can think of!  Place a call to action and people will read it, and click through to your website to get what it is you’re offering.

2.  Get Others To Promote Your website For You

If you have products and programs for sale then you can easily get other people to promote them for you by offering an affiliate program.   People will sign up to your affiliate program and promote your products and programs through their website, newsletter, and/or blog.  In exchange you offer them a percentage commission for each sale that your affiliate makes – and make it a generous commission so that they have a real incentive to promote you.

If you’re currently using a shopping cart service, check out everything they have to offer – they may have an affiliate program included as part of their service.  Mine does!

3.  Participate in a Joint Venture (JV)

This is an excellent way to drive highly targeted traffic back to your website, and very easy for you to organize.  Gather together some of you colleagues who offer complementary products and services to you and agree to promote each other’s products and services to your list.

I participated in a joint venture earlier this year where the organizer created a dedicated web page for this promotion.  Everyone’s promotional ‘blurb’ was listed on the website, and each ‘joint venturee’ sent an announcement out to their list during a specified period directing their subscribers to this webpage.  I got a TON of new subscribers as a result!

4.  Content Marketing

Several years ago, think around 2008-09, one of the most successful and cost effective online marketing strategies that you could do is to submit your articles to various online article submission websites. But now, with the onslaught of social media and video, this strategy has now expanded and you have to think in terms of a complete content marketing strategy.

Content marketing involves taking your written article and making it available on:

• Your blog
• Article directories
• Social media
• Recording as an audio file (podcast)
• Recording as a video

Whilst this may sound like a lot of work, it really isn’t once you get a system going for it, and this is a great way to:

• promote your services;
• elevate you to ‘expert’ status within your chosen niche; and
• grow your subscriber list.

Remember … your content marketing strategy has one purpose, and that is to drive traffic back to your website.  The search engines love it when you have lots of different links coming back to your website, so content marketing is also great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)!  With each piece of content you submit, you need to include some kind of call to action (and if you’re using Twitter, you don’t have many characters to play around with) that contains information about you, your business, and an active hyperlink back to your website.  For example, my calls to action always direct readers back to a blog post which, in turn, directs them to sign up for my free taste.

5.  Host a Free Teleclass

Hosting a free teleclass is a great way for you to get out in front of your target audience. They actually get to listen to you presenting your information, and have the opportunity to ask you questions on the call – all of which can’t be achieved just by writing articles!

And it also gives you to chance to interact with your target market, and find out valuable information about their struggles and pains. It all goes towards building the like, know, and trust factor that is so important when building a solo service business.

All of these strategies work well on their own, and I’ve had a huge amount of success with each one of them!  You can choose to implement just one strategy, or use a combination.  Whichever you choose, they all achieve the same goal… to drive highly targeted traffic to your website!

Ecommerce businesses are easy to set up and less expensive. It has 80% failure rate in running the successful online store. The less relevant traffic is one the important reasons why ecommerce companies fail to achieve their target and become the successful online brand. The Blogging is the content marketing strategy that helps you to drive tons of traffic in very less time. Ecommerce blogging helps you to drive traffic to the store and build brand awareness both offline and online. The blogging platform helps to increase the customer engagement that plays the crucial role in generating sales and earn more profits. The proper strategy can engage your online businesses with customers.

Here are top 5 ecommerce blogging tips that will help you to generate high traffic, brand engagement and loyal customers for your ecommerce online store:

1. Understand the Need of the Customers

The primary aim of the ecommerce blogging is to grab the attention of the customers and set the target audience. So it is necessary to know what’s your audience wants to read before you start blogging. There are two different types of audiences which include potential customers and existing customers.

Mostly the potential customers are targeted by online search as Google search rankings and different social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The customers are enjoying your post but they haven’t found them compelling to buy your products. So you need to find many other ways while writing to the potential customers.

Existing customers are the one who has already purchased the products from your site. You can also share the post related to your products. Based on the target audience, you can determine where to focus your blogging efforts.

2. Share Creative Topic Ideas

As you know blogging is the most powerful marketing tool for online businesses. You have to come up with the new fresh ideas for the ecommerce blogging. Do Research on the latest topics that can provide valuable information to use your product and services. Following the current events and industry trends is the great way to bring fresh new ideas.

Product description can also provide detailed information about the particular item but it fails to attract customers to buy your product. So if you share the scene stories like product spotlights of your product then your customer can feel encouraged to buy that item. Adding the discount coupon to the end of the post encourage the customer engagement.

3. Use Attractive Heading Title

According to the research, most of the readers will move away from your products & post when your title and headline is not intriguing enough. It means your title and headline makes the potential buyers share, read and comment on your blog posts. While writing the heading the following points you must focus on:

• The title should describe the blog post title clearly
• The title should be short with maximum character count is 65.
• Use interesting adjectives and numbers to grab the user attention.

4. Focus on Visual Content

As per the research, the Visual Content generates better engagement as compared to the written content. The blog post content with the images gets 98% more views. So it is necessary to include the visuals in your blog articles. You can incorporate GIF, images and infographics in your post. You should use high-quality visuals that must go with your content.

5. Create Subscriber List

As you know Email Marketing is one of the best ways to generate sales and online stores. Stats show that email marketing is more effective to attract customers than the social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Your ecommerce blog is used for building the dedicated subscriber list. It allows building the strong personal relationship with potential customers. To build your email list focuses on following points:

• Offer specific posts such as free e-course, video, eBook and printable, downloadable version of infographics etc.
• Use content locker plug-in to hide some part of the post and ask users to sign up and read the full post.
• Place sign up form at the end of the blog post. As Shopify urges its potential and existing customers to join more than 4 thousand entrepreneurs.

Blogging is the effective content marketing tool for ecommerce businesses. It gives the opportunity to generate customer base that builds your email list. It also creates brand awareness so it is necessary to polish your writing skills and understand the needs of your potential customers.

About Author

Mike Coulson work with Ficode ecommerce development company London and managed projects for web design, mobile app development and ecommerce development. His write-ups are knowledgeable and helpful.

It’s 2018, and by now you have heard that mobile is big. In fact, it’s the bigger than desktop. Mobile is here to stay. With technology getting better and smartphones becoming more accessible, this trend will only get bigger. That means you need your website optimised for mobile. So, why is it must?

We all have a mobile

It’s now at the stage where a significant portion of the world has a smartphone. Access to mobile phones is easier than ever. Statista claim that the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019. That means the majority of people who are online are on mobile. These numbers are only going to grow.

Mobile drives more traffic 

If you have a website, you want more traffic. Similarweb suggest that mobile now drives 56% of all traffic. Yes, mobile drives more traffic than desktop. It has been that way for many years now. Over half of the traffic on the web is via mobile. You can improve the experience for the majority of your audience just by optimising your site for mobile. Why can’t users just interact with my desktop site via their phones? Mobile users are different to desktop users, leading us to the next point.

Different behaviour

While it’s the same people behind the various devices, people tend to behave differently when using desktop and mobile. It’s common for mobile users to consumer a disproportionally higher amount of visual media. There is a significant focus on images and short videos. Social media sites like Instagram, and formerly vine, gained huge success offering only video and images. Getting this traffic requires a different design that aids these types of media and engages the users.

Different strategy for different landing pages

Your landing page is critical for conversion. Generating online revenue starts with landing pages. Did you know that what works for a desktop landing page may not work for a mobile landing page? There are a set of principles that remain the same, but mobile screens can’t handle the same style of presentation you find on desktop.

If you want your business to take advantage of the small, frequent purchasing behaviour of mobile users; you must create a landing page specific for mobile. There are a few things you need to include on your landing page, five-word headlines, minimalist design, bright button CTA and a quick page-load speed. To bolster your knowledge of IT and strategic management head over to Upskilled for flexible online courses.

Google supports mobile responsiveness

Google like mobile responsiveness. For that reason, they favour a site that is mobile friendly when it comes to rankings. Google is continually updating their algorithms, and now sites that don’t meet their standard for mobile friendliness will incur significant penalties. If you want to improve your mobile traffic, or not lose it, you must optimise for mobile.

Social media referrals are on mobile

Social media continues to grow and evolve, and its place is on mobile. A substantial majority of mobile internet access is used for social media and other social activities. Your business most likely participates in social media marketing; chances are, all the incoming traffic from that social media marketing is on mobile.  Not offering a good user experience can negate your marketing efforts and waste your money. Take full advantage of your marketing budget and create a seamless browsing experience.

Who buys more?

Mobile users spend more compared to desktop users. Mobile users make small but frequent purchases. Smartphone users account for the lowest dollar amount per transaction.  Finally, tablet users have the highest average transaction value of any device.

Mobile users switch screens

It’s thought that almost 90 percent of users will switch device throughout the sales process. Even if a person prefers desktop, at some point throughout the process, they will switch to mobile. Typically, people will function in the reverse order. Start browsing on their mobile device, then move over to the desktop to complete the purchase once they decide on something.  Your site needs to be able to handle everything.

Remember, mobile is the present and future.