Among the myriad of eCommerce platforms available, WordPress stands out as a versatile and powerful choice. When coupled with WooCommerce, it becomes a dynamic duo that caters to businesses of all sizes. In this blog, we'll explore why WooCommerce on WordPress is often considered the best solution for launching and managing your online store. We build a number of these types of stores and can provide a comprehensive service, find out how and why we use Woo and WordPress here...
WordPress powers over 40% of the internet, making it a dominant force in the world of content management systems. The beauty of using WooCommerce lies in its seamless integration with WordPress. With just a few clicks, you can transform your existing WordPress site into a fully functional online store. The familiarity and ease of use that come with the WordPress interface make managing your ecommerce store a breeze.
One of the most compelling reasons to choose WooCommerce is that it's free and open-source. The core plugin is freely available, allowing you to set up a basic store without incurring any upfront costs. This affordability makes WooCommerce an attractive option, especially for small businesses and startups looking to establish an online presence without breaking the bank.
WooCommerce offers a plethora of themes and plugins, allowing you to customize your online store according to your brand's unique identity. Whether you want to modify the appearance, add new features, or enhance functionality, the flexibility of WooCommerce ensures that you can tailor your store to meet your specific requirements. This adaptability is essential for creating a memorable and user-friendly shopping experience for your customers.
Managing an online store can be complex, but WooCommerce simplifies the process. The user-friendly interface empowers even those with limited technical knowledge to navigate through product management, order processing, and inventory tracking effortlessly. This accessibility is a game-changer for small business owners who may not have the resources to hire dedicated technical staff.
Whether you're just starting or looking to expand, WooCommerce scales with your business. From a small boutique store to a large enterprise-level ecommerce site, WooCommerce can handle the growth. The platform supports an extensive range of products, and as your inventory expands, you can seamlessly integrate additional plugins to meet your evolving needs.
The WordPress ecosystem is renowned for its extensive library of plugins, and WooCommerce is no exception. A wide array of plugins allows you to extend the functionality of your online store. From payment gateways to marketing tools, you can integrate various plugins to enhance the performance and capabilities of your ecommerce site.:
The seamless integration, cost-effectiveness, customisation options, user-friendly interface, scalability, and robust plugin ecosystem make WooCommerce on WordPress a powerhouse for businesses of all sizes. As you embark on your eCommerce journey, consider harnessing the unparalleled potential of this dynamic duo to create a successful and thriving online store.
To start your eCommerce journey please check out our website design packages and we can work together to create you something perfect for your business or contact us to book a call
When it comes to your marketing strategy, it's important to understand which attempts at marketing are working and which are not.
Our key message on Social Marketing is to market to where your customers ARE, this might sound a bit 'Art of War' but it's very basic, if your target audience is business to business chances are that your efforts to should be put in to LinkedIn over Snapchat, conversely if your market is Tweens and Teens Snapchat and TikTok are your ideal platforms.
We don't for a moment suggest neglecting the other social networks however when time or budgets are short target your efforts in to the most likely platform for the best return.
Having done some research in to the ideal market and platform for your target audience there is then the case of publishing and scheduling, this can take a big chunk of time out of your day so utilising some scheduling software might well be your solution. Setting your content strategy for the month/ week etc then batch creating your posts.
There are online platforms, such as Hootsuite, Sendable, Agorapulse to name just a few, which will help you manage multiple social media accounts, easily at the same time, without the need to log in and out of various accounts.
These platforms are in place to enable you to share the same content on various accounts at the same time. Let's use Hootsuite as an example, Hootsuite enables you to create your posts and then schedule them at just the right time, ahead of time. One of the most important key functions with this platform is you can view unique analytic options that will provide you with an in-depth view of how well your social media strategy is working.
These tools track clicks and deliver them in an efficient easy-to-read set of charts. Hootsuite then also gives you the option to create professional business reports to analyse. You have the option to receive a complete overview of your key metrics as well as to measure how long it takes your team to respond to customers Tweets, messages, and comments, allowing you to stay on top of the workload
Having a system such as this in place will give you an understanding of whether or not your strategy is working or just needs a bit of a tweak. The digital world is constantly changing, so chances are, you are going to need to change your strategy from time to time. As a business you need to ensure you are moving with the changes and not losing money and time on a strategy that perhaps once worked, but no longer serves your business.
You can waste so much revenue by getting your social media advertising wrong, especially if you are using paid-for advertising, you may well see your CPC (Cost Per Click) increase rapidly, Therefore top tip is to know your target audience and focus on reaching out to them with your marketing efforts. Also focus on developing conversion-driven campaigns, rather than traffic driven campaigns.
Okay, so that's social media strategy sorted. How about going back to basics, somewhat, before social media?
Email Marketing
Utilising email is also a must, even still in this day and age. If you are updating your existing customers with anything new you have to say or to offer is also a must. The more you reach out to the existing or even new email contacts you have obtained, regularly the more trusted you will become in your customer's minds, and let's face it, you are awesome at what you do right?
Whether it be a service or product in which you offer, you know your offering, inside and out. By keeping in touch, you will soon become the go-to for information, products, or services, because you will in your customer's eyes, become more trusted. Especially in small service based businesses people will be buying in to you as not only a business but as an individual, keeping in contact and 'humanising' your business with help build trust.
You can automate your emails, keeping in regular contact, not just for sending newsletters (although definitely do that too!) but for creating emails for all touch points throughout your customer journey. These systems can not only create but also monitor email effectiveness in the same way you would social media analysis, using mailing systems such as Mail Chimp, HubSpot, SendinBlue, ActiveCampaign, etc, there are many more, but some would say these are the leaders in the email marketing industry.
Most of, if not all of these platforms are really easy to use! Even if you don't have the design skills to create an email template from scratch, they have a simple drag and drop functionality that allows you to create a beautiful eye-catching template in no time at all.
Email analytics and reports will help you make data-based decisions as to how effective your campaign has been, based on factors such as open rate, click-through rate (CTR), you can even see which device your customers or prospective customers are using to read the email. This understanding will help you decide on which strategy is best to use for your email marketing campaigns in the future.
You might be reading this blog and thinking "This learning curve is too challenging" or you simply still don't have the time and resources right now. Well, the good news is, we can help you out with this. If you have more questions on this, contact us and one of our team will happily discuss email or social marketing and analytics with you.
Okay, so that's social media and email marketing covered, what's next to improve your bottom line?
Are your SEO & Tags in check?
It's time to make sure your website SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is optimised as best it can be. Getting your website on the first page of search engine listings takes time and patience. You will have to continually tweak your website to fine-tune it over some time, for your website to rise on the listings gradually. Adding new and engaging content regularly in the form of new pages, products, blogs and vlogs.
So, you may be thinking, "Why is SEO so important?" Well SEO is essentially free traffic, it has no media costs associated, and search engines appreciate websites with great SEO, in return search engines reward websites that have relevant content to your potential customers, by ranking your website higher in the listings. Prospective customers have searched for what you are offering after all, therefore focus on optimising for your target audience.
We have two previous blogs about how to to supercharge your onsite SEO yourself and the importance of building high value backlinks. Both aspects of SEO are as important. By putting effort in to your SEO you will improve your search engine results.
Contact us today to discuss your digital marketing strategy, from holistic marketing strategy to specific aspects of your online presence.
So, in business there are recessions, there are booms and there are pandemics, but is there ever a bad time to invest in your Digital Marketing? No. Your brand should be actively marketing throughout the Covid-19 outbreak, economic downturn and eventual restoration of the “new normal”.
Highstreets were referred to as desolate, the use of the word “furlough” hit unprecedented highs, and business diversification has never meant more. It seems the world changed completely overnight.
As 2020, 2.0, unfolds, the true impact on our economy is unravelling, and many businesses are feeling the effects. Redundancies, scaling back, diversification and even closures.
Where digital marketing is concerned, in recent surveys, more than 90% of businesses reported a detrimental impact upon their day to day business and as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak would be cutting back on their marketing spending. And according to recent research only 14% of businesses will go ahead with campaigns as planned.
Cutting back on your marketing spend is not our recommended method to save money however; allocating your marketing resources more efficiently will save money whilst increasing revenue.
Being sensitive to the current pandemic and economic downturn with your marketing strategies is obviously paramount, you don’t want your efforts to be counter-productive! Ensuring your messaging is supportive of charitable organisations, small local businesses, the local and national government efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19, and of course the NHS, while staying true to YOUR brand values is the key.
Taking stock
Now is the time to collect customer data to better target your brand messaging and marketing efforts. Ironically though, media planning, paid search and SEO have been the digital marketing areas that have suffered most.
The resounding importance for the Coronavirus pandemic is without doubt the health of the population, but there are many more people affected in addition to the ill. By acknowledging the issues this situation is having on your client base (both existing and prospective) you’ll be establishing a shared narrative, enhancing the trust in your brand.
Although we may be becoming more cautious with our personal interactions, we haven’t lost interest in the businesses around us. In fact, in many cases, it’s given consumers the opportunity to delve deeper into the values and services of businesses on their doorstep.
With more time comes more intent; individuals are focusing their efforts on the local, independent companies around them, looking to support those in need. On Pinterest alone, there has been a 400% increase in ‘ways to support a small business’ searches, confirming there is a whole new market out there to engage with.
Small businesses across the country have shown their ability to adapt and evolve during the Coronavirus outbreak, and this adaptability has not only kept them going but supported local communities and charities too, in turn increasing the brand awareness. The surge in support for these small businesses, and the focus on their versatility, is creating quite the ‘buzz’ on social media. It’s hard to miss the gratitude and appreciation for those who have adapted to help others the best way they know how.
Coupled with this need to ‘stay local’ has also been the upsurge in eCommerce sales, with Europe seeing an increase of 35% of installations of eCommerce apps during th height of the pandemic and a 25% increase in time spent in app sessions.
Placing your brand in line with these messages and on the right platforms will be the key to survival in the long term.
What’s your brand message?
Whilst being reminded about the virus constantly can create a feeling of bombardment, it is a mistake to avoid the COVID-19 topic altogether. Mentioning it isn’t charging the fear, it’s helping people to feel connected to the brand, demonstrating that you know and understand their situation.
Those brands who can empathise with the consumer during, and after, the pandemic will undoubtedly be more successful. It’s essential that you get the tone and message on point. Effective marketing means always being willing to adapt and change with the circumstances, rolling with the industry punches if you will.
Make your offers relevant to what your target market is going through right here right now. What will they need moving forward, and what are they most likely to want to spend their money on?
It’s also a good idea to remove anything from previous content or website copy that may come across as insensitive.
Social Media Marketing
Our new socially distant way of life means that the country is spending more time within the confines of their own homes, whether furloughed, working from home, home educating, or simply being cautious. Consequently, people have been embracing social media with an unprecedented rise in screen time, an increase of 25% in engagement on Instagram in April 2020 alone.
Work smarter, not harder! If you’ve had to delay a product launch, pause or even recreate your content plan, don’t be afraid to amend and repurpose previous content to continue your online presence. Conjuring up fresh ideas during unchartered waters can be tough at a moments notice. Using what you already have as a starting point is perfectly okay; you’ve invested time, effort and money into your content, gaining value from it time and time again is recommended. Try updating the language and focal points showing its current relevance, implementing a sense of community in your older posts.
Content created before the pandemic may not now be as relevant, but it might come back into focus a few months down the line. So instead of throwing it out entirely, stash it away for later, you’ll thank yourself when the time comes and you can pull it out of the bag with a few tweaks.
Now with the reinstatement of restrictions in pockets of the UK is the ideal time to actively dig into your audience's conversations; spend time as a live user, instead of scheduling in advance? Post within platform, interact with what’s going on in your community right here right now, be present. Using your intuitive social listening skills to then direct your content throughout this fast moving and ever changing situation, enables you to tailor your message to fit that moment in time.
Something to consider for your current social media marketing strategy is relevant timing. Life isn’t as we once knew it; many of us are still not commuting, clocking in at 9am and clocking out at 5pm, our daily routines have been reworked. It’s worth considering that your potential audience is online at different times and for longer periods.
To establish when this is, test out upcoming posts with various times of the day. Traditional posting tools and scheduling algorithms have yet to catch up with this ‘new normal’, so taking the time to listen to the mood of your audience allows you to post when it’s most likely to be seen and be the most interacted with.
Keeping one eye on your competitors is always a good idea, by monitoring which channels they’re pushing their marketing efforts through you can assess how you will push your own. You certainly don’t want to simply copy everyone else, but to some extent you need to be aware of what seems to be performing well and on what platform.
With the enforced isolation we saw during the beginning of the pandemic and the subsequent lack of ‘normalcy’, more people than ever are on the internet, and for longer. Although this could be fantastic for brand awareness, the unpredictable nature of the ongoing situation and post-Corona income led to a reduction in online spending during the first half of 2020 but with, stalwarts of the highstreet and online giants like Next and Amazon predicting and upsurge for the final quarter (especially in online sales) of 2020 a knee jerk reaction and cancelling marketing efforts looks to be a long-term mistake. For those who are continuing with their campaigns, the average Pay Per Click cost has dropped by over 50% across the board, which means they’re enjoying leads at significantly lower costs than before. A tremendous competitive advantage. Big winners in this sector are charity organisations, nonprofits and health and medical businesses.
If you’re an online business, or a business with an online offering, now could be the perfect time to increase your Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.
So, rather than pausing your campaigns altogether, an amended strategy, taking advantage of this lower cost, would be to reduce your spending, yet attain more effective bang for your buck by allocating it wisely.
Generally speaking, this is an excellent opportunity to stand out from your competitors, and spending the time now working on your long-term strategy will pay dividends later.
Utilising the ‘Overview’ section of your Google Ads dashboard, you can see a Day & Hour chart, which you can adjust to see when you tend to get the most conversions. By honing in on the top 2-3 days and times, then either excluding the other days or reducing the bids so you still appear, your campaign spend will be more cost effective giving you a better return on investment.
One of the most valuable pieces of information when considering your Pay Per Click budget is the performance of your keywords. By interrogating how much you have been paying for your clicks, compared to what the market rates are, you can determine where the smart spending lies. Narrow down which keywords/phrases are forming lower cost conversions as opposed to those that are costing you more, then amend accordingly.
Creative Content
With the nation beginning to ramping up their business output once again, the need for fresh, accurate and enticing content is enormous. Although many would have chosen to keep their marketing offerings in-house during the pandemic, now’s the time to invest in what you put out; marketing is why, and how, your customers not only buy from you, but find you in the first place.
In the same way you might do an alright job of cutting your partner’s hair, the chances are a professional will do a far better job. Professionalism is always key.
Content creation can be anything from graphics, adverts, social media posts, blogs, vlogs and website copy. Ensuring these are high quality will boost your search engine rankings. The more Google likes and respects what you do, the more traffic and exposure you’ll receive.
Outsourcing your content creation can significantly increase your financial return, freelancers and specialists are proven to be more productive and innovative. By giving the task to those who know how, you’ll be spending less hours yourself, therefore being able to distribute your time and effort elsewhere in your business.
The pandemic and the inevitable economic recession that has followed continues to be an incredibly difficult time for businesses both large and small, the important thing to take away from this is the changes both you and your customers are facing. If you are to continue marketing your brand effectively, you must demonstrate understanding and empathy whilst maintaining awareness of you and your business. Investing the time to your long-term strategy, website design, copy, brand message, SEO and social media will help to reinforce your business position.
Spending time with your PPC statistics and Google dashboard not your idea of fun? Get in touch for us to tick that box for you: lauren@goldilockscreative.co.uk
Search Engine Optimisation is a constantly evolving process, as is your business, practises and the products/services you offer, therefore you need to ensure your optimisation is up to date, both on the site itself and off the site driving traffic. By following the steps in our recent Onsite SEO Blog , including having a blog, product optimisations, and keywords, you will improve your rankings. But without relevant and targeted off-page SEO efforts too, your website won’t benefit from a vast array of alternative avenues.
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of organically increasing traffic to your website, it’s not keyword placement within your copy alone. Equally important are the tasks you perform off and around your website, a heady mix of link building, social media, influencer marketing (where appropriate), marketing outreach, and paid marketing. For the success of your online business, you will need to have most of these tactics in place and fine tune the messages regularly.
Not sure what we mean? Here are our top tips for giving your SEO the best possible impact.
Simply explained, backlinks are ways in which sites and platforms link content back to you. For example, a customer may review your product on their blog or social media, tagging your profile and inputting a link to your website. These types of engagements are fantastic as they’re genuine; you haven’t paid for the “advertisement”. It’s an organic means of brand awareness and Google loves it.
Backlinks or link building (as it’s often called) is effectively building votes of confidence in your brand. If a site chooses to link to you, they’re vouching for your quality and your business.
There are 3 main ways of building links; natural, manual and self-created.
Natural links are editorially given without any action on the part of the brand, this means that someone has promoted your product simply because they like your site and/or products. These types of links are the hardest to accrue but the most valuable.
Manually-built backlinks are generated through deliberate link-building activities; this can include things like customers leaving reviews and influencer marketing. This is often from blogs and social media sharing.
Self-created links are created by physically adding yourselves to a directory (Yell, Thompson Local, Google My Business and industry specific listings etc), on a forum, a blog comment, signature, or anchor text.
Pages with a large number of backlinks generally have higher organic search engine rankings. It’s important to note here though that occasionally backlinks can damage your sites ranking, so reputable sites and profiles are what you’re aiming for. Well-known, highly thought of sites linking back to you is worth its weight in backlink gold. Ideally, they’d be focusing on your high value content too i.e. your blogs, images and videos, your current and relevant contribution to the online world!
Social media works in a similar way to that of backlinks; directing traffic from your social media platforms to your website, the hub of your brand. Not only do your various platform profiles allow you to engage with your target audience, (we recommend at least utilising the top 5: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest), having this additional presence online increases the amount of Google results associated with your business.
Often your social media profiles will appear above your web listing in search engines as they can be more active and engaged with. Your social indicators, for example Facebook likes and shares, or Twitter retweets and followers, are noticed and counted by the search engine algorithms, in turn boosting your SEO scores. So, detailed information and regular posting of sharable content about your business helps to generate awareness, build trust and an understanding of what you do, provide customer interaction, direct traffic to your chosen place, and boost SEO. Not something to be sniffed at!
A little FYI for you too, always have your keywords and phrases in mind when writing captions and content, and what hashtags do you want to align with? Food for thought.
Influencer Marketing is a bracket within the social media realm; individuals with a certain following promote and endorse certain products and services relevant to them. For example someone who uses their platform to showcase all things arts and crafts might be sent various paint supplies to review and discuss with their fan base.
Your social media marketing strategy is as important as your traditional marketing strategy, having a cohesive amalgamation of the two will pay dividends.
There is an abundance of available index listings out there for you to promote your business; local, regional, national and international ones. An e-replacement if you will for the business directory phone book - remember the Yellow Pages?.
Often they’re free, with options to pay for a more premium listing if desired, but whichever you choose it’s a great idea to invest some time into sourcing and inputting your brand.
Be sure to register the correct address, business details and a keyword enhanced summary of the services you provide in order to get the best possible return from these listings. A few to get you started: Yell, Yelp, and Google My Business.
Sourcing products and services online somewhat limits the interactive nature of “shopping around”; without seeing a person or item face to face it can be difficult to form an opinion of them. Your reviews and customer feedback therefore are crucial to a customer’s first impression of you and your brand. Facilitating reviews on platforms such as Trust Pilot (which has a free starter package), Facebook and Google not only affirms faith in your individual products but also in the business as a whole.
Google reviews also count towards the overall SEO ranking of your site, so well worth entertaining!
If your business has an ecommerce site, there are great opportunities to expand your methods of selling online. You’re no longer limited to optimising your website only, there are many off-site ways to sell your products too.
One of the fastest growing and widely accepted ways of funnelling to your website is with social media. For example, Instagram and Facebook now offer instant shopping by integrating ecommerce websites and platforms like WooCommerce. You’re able to tag your “shopable” products within your posts to boost sales directly and create social network specific offers.
It’s also worth considering where else your customers are likely to instinctively shop; for example, ecommerce giants like eBay, Amazon, Etsy and DePop. You can create seller accounts within these sites to broaden your selling horizons and tap into their massive markets. Start thinking about all the potential places your shop could “pop-up”...
The aim then is to win repeat business directly through your own ecommerce site to cut costs. This is done successfully with follow up offers included in confirmation emails and shipping materials.
Search Engine Optimisation is an on-going and ever-evolving part of running a business; part of your every day. If you’d rather someone who already knew how took the lead and was in control of your online success, get in touch with The Goldilocks Creative via lauren@goldilockscreative.co.uk.
Onsite SEO - Getting Ahead Of Google (And other Search Engines, but basically Google..!)
If this blog has made its way to your screen it’s likely you either have a website (hosted or self-built), or are planning on getting one. You will have heard of the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) but may not have grasped its relevance or implementation fully. You see, without investing in your site’s SEO, you can’t expect to ever appear highly on the all-important Google rankings. Without impactful/purposeful/deliberate SEO efforts, it’s safe to say you’re doing half a job.
There are a multitude of practises, activities, tips and tricks to aid your SEO efforts, both on your website (on-site SEO) and through other channels (off-site SEO). At Goldilocks Creative we offer packages to cover all, or few, of these aspects, but if you’d like to give it a go yourself, here are our top tips for winning at on-site SEO. (See our “Off-site SEO” blog for help there too!)
On average a website has 3 seconds to grab someone's attention, and hold it. It needs to showcase why you are the best of the bunch.
A homepage that is impressive in terms of design and usability goes a long way in converting visitors into customers. A/B testing is advisable to test your homepage design elements; what works with your audience and, more importantly, what doesn’t.
Does your home page load slowly? Have a clunky interface? Is it too busy and hard to follow? If so, you will almost definitely lose prospective customers, no matter how fantastic a product you’re offering.
Keep your product images up to date, and ensuring you have the most recent offers and releases visible from your home page will stand you in good stead for SEO purposes. The new season must-haves, the technological upgrades, and the revolutionary inventions, are all irresistible USP’s to consumers.
Having at least one call to action on your visitors first landing page is essential. Digital shoppers want to be able to shop quickly and easily, being able to buy options from the home screen or get to the section they need right away will increase sales. Potential customers should not have to work to hunt down the option they want.
An effective product page will not only generate more sales revenue, but it will also prevent as many product returns, reducing costs.
Pricing is almost always going to be the deciding factor for someone making a purchase. Contrastly, a common reason online shoppers leave a site without completing their purchase is often down to unclear or misleadingly low pricing. Having exceptionally low prices per item, but ramping up the costs in shipping is a sure-fire way to lose a sale! This type of deceiving pricing breaks shoppers’ trust, and once you have lost that they will not buy from you, fact.
Clearly displayed and fully inclusive prices on your product pages, with shipping costs detailed alongside the listing, will mean your potential customers stay engaged and informed.
One of the biggest challenges for online retailers is the lack of senses available; you may well sell a physical product, but your customers can’t see/touch/smell/taste/hear it prior to them deciding to purchase. As the retailer your product descriptions are how you can provide clarity, aiding your sale. Including short paragraphs and bullet points of specifications allow concise and an easily understood summary.
Your product descriptions need to be detailed and compelling, while also incorporating your brand’s personality, making it unique and relatable. Your product copy should be written to reflect the specific needs of your ideal customers, speaking to them as individuals, from you. Simply taking the manufacturer’s copy and dumping it verbatim alongside a product image will not suffice, in fact it could well damage your SEO ratings as Google will consider it duplicate content.
Providing robust product descriptions (with complete item specifications, dimensions and other technical details) will ensure less returns, as the more informed the customer is the more likely they are to be happy with their purchase.
Return policies are often expensive and rigid. If you can provide a straightforward and free (if possible) returns policy, your visitors will be more inclined to shop from your website, they’ve got nothing to lose!
Similarly, if you offer a ‘price match’ guarantee customers will lean to you rather than your competitors as this enhances their trust. Being able to demonstrate that your store is customer friendly and trustworthy is one of the cornerstones to winning at eCommerce!
Keyword and keyphrase research takes some thought and planning but is the ultimate winning component for making sure your site ranks highly. Search Engines love it when you use the most relevant and frequently searched keywords for your product page’s title, description and headings.
It’s important to note here however, that simply plying your copy with your chosen keywords and phrases does not fly with Google, they can spot manipulative attempts a mile off, so organic, authentic writing is the key.
Not sure how to decipher your keywords? There are a plethora of free, and paid for, tools guiding you in the right direction. These are very helpful, but it’s also a great idea to just sit with a notepad and pen; what are your prospective customers typing in and how could they find you? Geographical locations, product descriptors, business and industry specific terms, etc will all help here.
Now you’re ready to get writing, but what other ways are there to optimise your pages?
You need to stand out from your competitors so your product labels need to be enticing to your viewers. Accurate information, perhaps with character (business specific), will reassure your potential customers that clicking on your link will not be wasting their time!
Within your website there are differing levels of text. We highly recommend ensuring your key phrases are in all levels; Header, Sub Header and Body Text. In addition to this, one of the most overlooked aspects of SEO is with Alt Text, utilise this feature by inputting relevant text to all of your tags - it can count as much as your anchor text!
Ever thought about how your images are labelled? Optimise your alt text by naming your images to include relevant keywords or phrases! Put it like this; how often do you use an image search to find the product you’re after? Exactly!
Optimising your product pages with precise key phrases is one of the best tips of the ecommerce trade. Expanding your keyword database to include ‘long tail’ keywords (product specific phrases with 3 words or more) will help those who search long phrases. These people are your premium audience as they know exactly what they are looking to purchase. The conversion rate from visitor to customer is much higher.
The user experience of your website relies heavily on its structure. If your site is tough to navigate or has complex categories and drop-downs, users will simply look elsewhere for your products. Online consumers want ease, convenience and rapid response.
In 2020, far more items are purchased from a mobile device than a desktop, therefore having a mobile-friendly store is essential. The mobile user experience of your website needs to be equally as good as the laptop version; consumers have a zero-tolerance attitude to anything less. Visitors expect a responsive, easily understood layout, ensuring this will equate to an improved mobile conversion rate.
Your menu items on both mobile and desktop should display the range of product/service categories concisely; not so overwhelming that it’s impossible for shoppers to find what they’re looking for, drowning in a sea of potential purchases.
Blogging; that word you will have heard repeatedly from marketeers and SEO specialists! Not only does it enable fresh content directly from the horse’s mouth, which search engines love, it’ll also keep your consumers engaged with your brand.
Blogs become a touch-point, allowing you to express your business values, processes, releases, promotions and events, all of which consumers may miss otherwise. Use-queries and detailed posts about individual products/services will also give the audience reassurance and support for their purchases.
You can choose to share your blogs and/or vlogs via email or on social networks, this increases the organic reach of your store, directing target audience traffic to your website, without you needing to actively market this content, it’s free!
Vlogging has fast become the new media phenomenon. By including entertaining and engaging video content to your marketing strategy, you are increasing your brand awareness and reach. Consumers want to get behind brands, and when they do, they want the world to know about it.
Little known online fact; YouTube is now the second most utilised search engine, see our offsite SEO blog for details of how having a YouTube channel and using it to power your website blog and social media can really ramp up those click throughs.
As you may have noticed, the digital arena within your local town, industry and/or realm has become highly competitive. Contributing to your very own blog or vlog has become an essential aspect of successful marketing campaigns.
Over 50% of all visitors who abandon their e-basket do so because it’s too complex or too slow a process to get to the finish line and purchase.
If your visitors have managed to find your website through your various SEO and content efforts, you then want the best conversion rate to a sale!
Probably the most simple and straight-forward way to improve your conversions is to simply reduce the steps it takes to buy a product. Here’s a few tips:
Exit pop-ups are a brilliant way to improve sales and to increase sales referrals within your web store, this can be done in one of two ways.
People love what they consider to be a bargain; if you have an exclusive deal for them they’re more likely to continue with their purchase. Presenting this discount when your visitors are navigating away will entice them to stay on and purchase.
The second method follows a purchase. To keep the user actively engaged in your brand, it’s good practise to add promotional offers such as discounts, referral bonuses, freebies and prizes to encourage the user to shop again and/or refer a friend.
Many site designers overlook the ‘Thank You’ page, however, from an optimisation point of view, it’s a gem! Customers love gratitude, especially when they see their purchase as a personalised item, and research indicates that the chances that this customer will buy from you again are doubled.
Gaining loyalty from a customer is one thing, but when that person uses your suggested referral discounts on their social media platforms with friends, your prospective client base widens also.
It’s important to note here, that a “Thank You” page is a fantastic tool where Google Analytics are concerned. You’re able to track your website visitors and therefore their buying journey. This data provides you with information about how and where your customers came from, what they eventually purchased, how long they were on your site, which pages they viewed, the list goes on!
Many shoppers will religiously read consumer reviews before they buy something online; it provides them with faith in the listing, showcasing what peers thought of its quality and instils all-important trust in the brand.
Providing relative reviews alongside product descriptions is one trick that aids Amazon in winning the most sales. A simple quote, a star-rating, or a detailed customer review could do wonders for your sales.
Etsy do all of these fantastically with their image, product descriptions, instant checkout, shipping costs and reviews all displayed within view.
So there you have it, it’s not simply about your keywords! All these elements will boost your ratings bit by bit; it could be the difference between page 1 line 1, and page 3 line 6 on Google. If it all seems a bit overwhelming, and looks a lot like something you don’t really have the time to do, the various website and SEO boosting packages at Goldilocks Creative could take the task off of your hands.
To get in touch and find out more, email me at lauren@goldilockscreative.co.uk or check out our SEO Page for details of our SEO services
Why is blogging so important? There are so many reasons as to why blogging is still important, however, it's important to ensure you are blogging in different ways; including text-based content, image content, video content, & audio content. Ensure you mix it up to keep your blogs interesting when being viewed on different devices, for example, mobile phones or tablets, laptops, even smartwatches are becoming so high tech that some of them can display photos and updates from the news and other articles.
Blogging for SEO, you'll hear SEO experts talk about it all the time and the reason is updated content on your website from the blog helps drive traffic to your website; so by creating frequent blogs, this, in turn, makes your website look interesting and active to the web crawling software of Google (in the interest of neutrality other browsers are available, but frankly is anyone using them?!) simply meaning you will be more likely found high up the SERP - search engine results pages - of Google.
Blogs should include 'SEO' keywords, relevant to the topic in which you are talking about, but, What is SEO you ask?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, it simply refers to ensuring your website is built and optimised in a way that attracts quality traffic - traffic being potential customers that are genuinely interested in the service or products in which you offer.
But SEO isn't just content, you need to ensure your website has the relevant Title Tags and Meta Descriptions, these should be informative and point to the relevant pages, content and media on the website.
A blog can help you build stronger relationships with your existing customers and new potential customers. When they are presented with written words on specific topics regularly, it shows you are knowledgeable and have information of value, you therefore become more trustworthy as a business as do the services which you provide.
You are also more likely to become the go-to business for information and help regularly.
Writing regular blogs, shows others that your business is active and always thinking about new offerings, working on new projects, ideas, and solutions to your prospective customer's problems.
Over time your blog will connect existing and potential customers to your brand, giving them an insight into who you are on a more personal level. Showing others your business standards, business character, vision, and personality and arguably the most important aspect, the services you offer.
Interactive and shareable content within your blogs provides opportunities to get your brand to reach further, this type of organic recommendation from one of your blogs is the embodiment of free marketing at its best!
Interesting and informative blogs also become share-worthy social media posts. It's just as important when writing content that you utilise soundbites and share these blog links on relevant platforms, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and the ever increasing popularity of TikTok. By providing 'tasters' of your blog content you can create your own click throughs from your social networks for followers, and hopefully your existing followers will not only engage but also share this content on if they feel it is valuable enough!
Writing blogs allow you to become an industry leader, writing topical insight on what's changing in your industry. Ensure you keep up to date with changes, allowing you to share this information with others that may find it useful, whilst also showing giving insight as to your perspective on changes in the industry.
Why not say thank you to your clients in which have helped make your business successful? Pay it forward by writing a blog on a particular project in which you have completed work on recently, or perhaps saying a simple thank you to customers and suppliers who contribute to your business, giving them a shout out, also including links back to their services if relevant.
You could also share your content in email marketing campaigns, so rather than it just being an email in which you are sharing on a new product or service updates, it could be a more informative email, sharing free insight.
If you need support with increasing your online exposure, whilst establishing yourself as an expert in your industry, taking advantage of blogging is an absolute must in your marketing strategy.
If you are a small business, blogging is vital, however, it can be a time-consuming task to ensure you are blogging informatively and regularly. You may be thinking I don't have the time, resources, or expertise to keep on top of a regular blog, in which case this is where Goldilocks Creative can help…We specialise in taking care of this for you. We will take the time to understand your business, your values, your offerings and create relevant, appealing, and engaging content for your blog site for you.
