How to Write Content that Will Boost Sales on Your Ecommerce Site
Posted: February 22, 2012 Filed under: ecommerce sales tips | Tags: Body Copy, Copywriting, Product Descriptions, Sales Copy, Website Content Leave a comment »
Whilst strong imagery, straightforward navigation and competitive pricing are all important for any Ecommerce site, written content is still key. If you can’t convince a visitor to become a customer, then all your efforts will be in vain.
The written word is still the most powerful tool available to online businesses. It helps to inform, develop trust and, most importantly, drive sales. Therefore, treating it as a second class citizen could be a massive mistake.
There are a few common errors that many sites make when producing their on-page content.
1. Keyword-heavy text
We all know that the search engines use your content to determine where you should be ranking and what for. In days gone by, this meant that many websites filled their pages with keywords, often where they shouldn’t be. Inevitably, this led to some pretty awful content.
Whilst people have realised that keyword ‘stuffing’ is now largely ineffective, some still appear determined to employ outdated tactics. You do still need to have your key terms on the page, that much is true, but you don’t need to have them everywhere. A decade ago people would routinely have a keyword density of 10%+, as this got them rankings. Unfortunately, it also ruined the readability of their pages.
Get your keyword in the title, use it at the start and end of your body copy and wherever else that it makes contextual sense. Endlessly repeating the same few words will be enough to make any visitors turn tail and leave.
2. Too Short/Too Long
The way in which you present information is critical. A huge block of text will do little to invite consumers to take a look, whilst a brief snippet is easily ignored. Most visitors won’t read beyond the first paragraph, but that doesn’t mean that your attention should end at the same point.
Provide clear sub-headings and break up the text monotony with bullet points or imagery. Essentially you are looking to convince those with limited attention or time to skim through and still gain all the information they need, whilst also conveying the nuts and bolts in detail to those who need convincing.
3. Avoid basic errors
Whilst copywriters will always talk about the need to create flowing, engaging content, your top priority should always be to ensure that there are no glaring errors. Typos, clunky wording and the occasional grammatical faux pas will always undermine the clarity of your message. They can also cast doubt into the mind of any readers, potentially losing you the sale.
So make sure you get the basics right before worrying about taking your content to the next level.
4. Don’t imitate or duplicate
Originality is essential for any serious ecommerce site. If you’re passionate about your products, take the time to write about each one. If you copy from other pages or sites, your content will be unavoidably generic. Equally, thanks to the recent Panda update from Google, your search engine rankings could suffer as a consequence, making it difficult for you to attract visitors in the first place.
So what should you be doing?
Now we’ve covered the mistakes, let’s take a look at what you can actually do to boost sales:
1. Address customers directly
There’s nothing worse than an ecommerce site that only talks about itself – “we offer exceptional value”, “we are market leaders”, “we offer a huge range…” etc. Your customers should be your primary focus, so make sure you address them.
This is easily done, just flip the focus. Instead of “us” and “we”, use “you” and “your”. This will also eliminate any passive sentences, which can neutralise your content and render it impotent.
2. Remember your call-to-action
A decent piece of sales copy can easily fall flat without a strong call-to-action. This is where passing interest is replaced with an overwhelming desire to buy. Sometimes circumstances will make this much easier. For instance, if you’re having a clearance sale and only have a few products left, this can create a feeling of urgency.
Every page has a purpose; whether you want visitors to buy a product, fill in a contact form or phone your sales team, it’s vital that this is conveyed within the copy. As mentioned earlier, visitors will generally pay more attention to the first and last paragraphs, so your most persuasive argument should be communicated at the beginning or end of your content.
3. Get to the point
Nobody wants to endure trawling through verbose chunks of text that offer little or no clear information. Whilst you should be looking to have upwards of 200 words on each page, endless padding will do your chances of securing a sale no favours at all.
Get the most important details up front and look to avoid repetition. If a reader feels like they are going around in circles, it’s unlikely that they will want to continue. Short, sharp sentences can help to build pace too, so don’t overload every utterance. Sales patter can often seem quite abrupt, but that is simply the nature of the beast.
4. Cater to your audience
When it comes to knowing who your customers are and what they want, you are the expert. So adopt a tone that will resonate with your target audience. For instance, content on an extreme sports ecommerce site should be markedly different from one offering children’s clothing. So always keep your intended readers in mind and avoid adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Enterprise level SEO
Posted: February 15, 2012 Filed under: SEO Leave a comment »
Enterprise level SEO concerns are different from those of smaller companies. Smaller companies worry about building trust, creating enough content, and links. Enterprise level SEO or SEO for large companies is more about keeping everyone involved moving in the same direction and not unintentionally sabotaging the overall SEO effort. Here are some of the most common problems affecting large company SEO. Read the rest of this entry »
How Ecommerce Sites Can Use Video Marketing
Posted: February 7, 2012 Filed under: ecommerce sales tips | Tags: Ecommerce, Video Marketing, YouTube Leave a comment »Marketing your business, brand and products through the medium of video is certainly nothing new. Many companies have been doing this for years, albeit with varying levels of success. However, video marketing still has plenty to offer to businesses, new and old, small or large. In fact, if anything, it is becoming increasingly important.
Leading video sharing site YouTube recently announced that it receives over 4 billion views each and every day. That’s 770 videos being watched simultaneously every second. But what does this actually tell us about marketing your content?
Well, first and foremost, this demonstrates that there is an existing and growing audience for video content. Admittedly, many of the aforementioned views will have been for the latest music videos or ‘epic fail’ viral hits, but that doesn’t mean that ecommerce businesses can’t take advantage too.
The sweeping changes in the way that search engine results pages are presented have also helped to improve the visibility and effectiveness of videos. In the past year or so, greater prominence has been given to multimedia results on the pages of Google, in some cases even helping them to appear above organic results. Therefore, a successful, keyword-targeted video can be just as visible as the top ranked search results.
So what can an ecommerce site do?
There are plenty of online stores and brands that already employ some form of video marketing. Whether this is done in a strictly promotional capacity or as a means of demonstrating products and services, the effect can be much the same. Some potential applications include:
- Branded adverts
- Expert advice
- Informational guides
- Demonstrations
- Celebrity endorsements
Videos can be used to supplement text or to demonstrate things that you would struggle to communicate with the written word. This is why hosting multimedia content on your product pages can be so effective, particularly when it comes to driving sales. However, you can also enjoy the double benefit that comes with publishing your content on video hosting sites.
Real-life Examples
There are plenty of sites that already take advantage of this. For example, Amazon now features previews for a number of games, DVDs and other products. GHD, who manufacture and sell a range of specialist hair care products, most notably ceramic tongs, have also successfully developed a strong identity on-site and on YouTube.
As well as promoting the latest collections, videos also provide practical demonstrations of products in action. In the above image, you can see that as well as a large image of the product, there is also a useful text description and a video, which visitors can view to establish how effective it is in action. For any customers who are undecided, this could prove pivotal in whether or not they make a purchase.
However, it’s not just on their own domain that GHD is able to demonstrate products and help those searching for hair styling tips. Their branded YouTube channel features adverts and video guides, all of which are created and managed by the company. Having achieved over 1.8 million views in the last six years, this has clearly been an extremely effective source of traffic and sales.
Asos, a popular online clothing store, have created a community around their brand. An integral part of this has been the creation and circulation of videos. Their site features catwalk presentations of each product, giving visitors a 360 degree view of the garments on offer. Meanwhile their YouTube channel features dozens of exclusive videos, including the latest discounts and promotions as well as a regular magazine show. Not only does this help push sales, it also creates interest in the brand, helping grow loyalty – as evidenced by the 8.1 million views that their content has received.
When you go off-site with your video marketing, it is imperative that you get your branding right, just like Asos and GHD. After all, if you were to create what is ostensibly just an informative guide without any direct association with your site or business, you are unlikely to reap the full benefit of this – regardless of how popular it proves to be. So don’t leave viewers in any doubt, ensure you have clear branding at the beginning and end of your video to help guide them to your site.
With the introduction of Google Search Plus Your World, content that is entertaining and interesting is going to enjoy even more visibility online. Search results will be tailored for individual users, based on the activity of their wider circle of online friends. So when someone shares a video, news article, blog post or image, this will be shown prominently on the results pages of their followers for related search terms. Consequently, if you can produce excellent content and market it effectively, you can enjoy unparalleled visibility within your target market.
Both the quality and quantity of content will therefore become increasingly important for businesses online. In the competitive world of ecommerce, it is vital that you give yourself every advantage possible. Video marketing can certainly be an effective part of a comprehensive strategy.
So what do you need to do?
- Set up a branded YouTube page and also sign up for other video publishing sites
- Invest in some decent AV equipment
- Create a strategy – what are you looking to promote and how are you going to go about it?
- Start recording
- Publish on-site and off-site, with clear links between the two
The most important thing to remember is that you have to be confident about what you publish. If a video isn’t up to scratch or it doesn’t represent your business as you would choose, don’t set it live. Creating multimedia content can be a little hit and miss. Some things may be exceptional, others, less so. Knowing what to publish and what to rework is part of creating a cohesive and effective video marketing strategy.
Some will fail, some will succeed and some will fade off into obscurity. But videos, as with any published content, can have long-term benefits. Whilst it may initially fail to capture the online community’s imagination, in time it could accumulate significant views and conversions for your site. From the moment it is first published searchers can find, view and share it. Newer alternatives may come along and traffic may slide, but it will remain accessible until the day you decide to remove it.
So make sure you get a slice of the surging video market. The 4 billion views that YouTube now receives could just be the very tip of the iceberg, so there really is no better time to start producing and publishing video content.
Basic eCommerce SEO Checklist
Posted: January 31, 2012 Filed under: SEO Leave a comment »
So you’re looking at eCommerce packages or maybe thinking about having a custom shopping cart written for you. What are the basic SEO items you need to make sure you have?
eCommerce SEO for New Products and Seasonal Products
Posted: January 25, 2012 Filed under: SEO Leave a comment »
When you are running and eCommerce website two of the situations you are likely to encounter are how to do SEO for new products and for seasonal products. In this article we will be taking a look at some best practices for both situations. Read the rest of this entry »
eCommerce SEO for Mobile Websites and Mobile apps
Posted: January 17, 2012 Filed under: SEO 4 Comments »
In late 2011 a report was released showing over 90% of mobile eCommerce purchases came from iPhone and iPad devices. For merchants having a moblie website that performs properly and allows consumers to research, shop and complete transactions is really no longer an option but a necessity. How should merchants go from not having a mobile platform to implementing one, should they choose a subdomain, mobile version, or app, and what are the big pitfalls to watch out for. Read the rest of this entry »
SOPA: What you can do about it
Posted: December 30, 2011 Filed under: ecommerce future, ecommerce news 11 Comments »SOPA. You might not have heard of it yet, but it’s a clear and present danger to the Internet that we love and have built our businesses on.
If you’re not sure what all the fuss is about, check out this video [via BoingBoing]
To show our support for the anti-SOPA movement, we’ve moved all our domains off GoDaddy, who helped to draft SOPA. (If you were wondering, we’ve decided to switch to the quite excellent Gandi.net.)
But that’s not all. We also want to show our support for the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) efforts against SOPA. They’ve done tremendous work in bringing this issue to light and we’d like to help out. So till January 24th, if you sign up for a ReferralCandy account using the link below, we’ll donate 60% of your first month’s bill to the EFF. You’ll also get store credit for the remaining 40% for showing your support.
To take part, simply sign up using this link: http://www.referralcandy.com/pricing/?support=NOSOPA
Some other companies involved in the cause are Zopim and UserVoice. You should go check them out.
If you’d like to get even more involved, it’s not too late. Here are some other things you can do:
- Schedule a call with your house representative (via Tumblr)
- Send an email to your members of Congress
- Donate directly to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
It’s time to act. Protect the ideals that the Internet was founded on and urge everyone you know to do the same.
Can F-commerce Change The Face of Retail?
Posted: December 20, 2011 Filed under: ecommerce future, social media 1 Comment »
There’s been a lot of chatter about how Facebook has an opportunity to change the face of retail. With 1 in every 6 seconds on the Internet spent on Facebook, selling your goods where everyone is hanging out should be a no-brainer right?
And so there’s been bunch of ways you can set up a page or use third-party app to set up your Facebook storefront. Shoppers can check out your wares and pay directly for items via PayPal without ever leaving Facebook.
But it turns out that 89% of people have never bought via Facebook and 44% have no interest in doing so. The truth seems to be that not too many people actually go on Facebook with the goal of buying something online. They just want to hang out with their friends. There’s also the inevitable question of privacy on the platform with 75% of users still being bothered by it.
So if you’re wondering if there’s anything from the marriage of Facebook and commerce, or F-commerce, that you can leverage, all is not lost. The trick is not to bring your store to Facebook but bring Facebook to your store. You want to get your existing customers to spread the word about your store to their friends. And with over 800 million active users, it just happens that Facebook is where you customers are hanging out with their friends. So how to spread the word? Here are a couple of ideas.
Location check-ins via Facebook and other sites like Foursquare allow you to add a social dimension when customers come to your store. You can get the number of check-ins to go up by giving rewards to those who happen to drop by. Last year, popular brand Gap had a promo wherein a shopper could go home with a brand new pair of jeans just by checking in to one of the Gap stores.
Image Source: Gap Free Jeans Giveaway Event
Since check-ins appear as updates on the user’s wall, they act as virtual shout-outs to his or her connections about the brand.
You can even add Facebook Places and Facebook Deals into the mix. This past Valentine’s day, Debenhams gave treats to their “social shoppers”. The first 10 people who checked-in at a Debenham’s boutique got special packages, and the first 1000 got free cosmetics.
Probably one of the most creative in-store executions to date is Macy’s “magic” 72-inch touchscreen mirror. The magic mirror allows customers to virtually fit dresses by super-imposing apparel onto their reflections. Augmented reality meets social media as the experience can be shared on Facebook, giving customers the option to ask friends if the outfits suit them before making the purchase.
So the jury is still out on whether there’s a payoff in setting up a storefront on your Facebook page. But there are a good many ways that Facebook can help you get the word out about your store to your customers’ friends. And with many brands already using Facebook as a way to get closer to their audience, there are a lot of places to look for inspiration. All it takes is a little guts and creativity, and you’re ready to take the plunge.
How to Remove Old Products From Your eCommerce Website
Posted: December 14, 2011 Filed under: SEO Leave a comment »
When you are running an eCommerce website for any length of time one of the problems you will have to deal with is discontinued products, products that change or products that go out of stock. In this article we will be looking at best practices on how to handle each of those situations from an SEO perspective.
How to Deal With Products That Are Out of Stock
Products go out of stock for various reasons, you sell out of them, supply problems from the manufacturer or vendor, or a change in style. If this is a product you will be getting back in stock and selling in the future, the ideal solution is to keep the page in place so it stays in the search engine index still ranks and brings traffic. However you do have to consider the end user experience as well. If you can take orders and ship the products when it comes back in stock, keep the page in the search engine index. If the product is out of stock and is coming back but you can’t take orders, you should show an “out of stock” or similar message on the page. Try to capture an email or other contact information, so you can let the customer know when the item is back in stock. The ultimate goal in this situation is to keep the products in the search engine index, and driving traffic, so you don’t lose your rankings when the product comes back in stock.
How to Deal With Products that Change
In some cases products will change or upgrade, such as the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. How you handle these products from a search engine perspective depends on the search volume for the term, and if you have any old stock to sell. If you have old stock to sell, keep the page as it is currently. To improve the user experience you may want to provide a link directly to the new product for people who are looking for that item. If you don’t have any old stock to sell but the page is still bringing traffic from search engines, you will want to keep the page, provide a link to the new product, and tell the customer the product is no longer available. The goal here is to try and transition customers who are looking for the old product into customers for the new product, without losing any search engine traffic. Eventually the search volume will drop off and you will want to remove the product.
How to Remove Old Products from A Search Engine
When you have a product that is no longer available, you can’t take orders for it, and it doesn’t get any search volume, you will want to remove it from the search engines. In a post panda world you don’t want to have a site that is larger than it needs to be, cluttered with products you no longer sell. These extra pages weaken the website as a whole, spreading link equity and trust to pages that dont convert into customers and sales. If there is a replacement product you want to serve 301 redirect from the old product page to the new product page. If there is no replacement product you want to serve a 301 redirect to the category or department page. If there is no category or department page you want to redirect to the home page.
The last thing you want to do is let the page go to an error page or a page that serves a 404 error/response code. If the page has any inbound links serving a 404 page lets that link value evaporate and doesn’t help you. If you have this condition for a lot of products or even a majority of products it will be seen as a signal of low quality by the search engines. You can check the response code with a header response checker.
What are the takeaways from this post:
- Try to take orders or keep up product pages for products that are coming back in stock.
- For old products where the model has updated, keep up the page while there is stock and search volume. Link this page to the new product.
- For old products with no back stock and/or no search volume, issue a 301 redirect to the most appropriate new page.
- Do not let the expired product pages serve a 404 error code.
- Use a header response tool to check that you are issuing the proper response code.
- Having site with a lot of products you don’t sell, can’t take orders on, or are discontinued can be seen as a signal of low quality by search engines
photo credit: Shutterstock/Andrea Zabiello
Free E-commerce Stock Photos For You!
Posted: December 6, 2011 Filed under: e-commerce photos 1 Comment »
Seasons greetings! We’re happy to announce that we’re releasing some free e-commerce stock photographs for you to use. The photos can be found on our photo gallery and are released under the CC Attribution-ShareAlike License (free to use with the proper attribution).
Why did we do this? Well, Christmas is just around the corner and we wanted to do something nice to celebrate the spirit of giving. At the same time, we wanted to thank our loyal customers for supporting us throughout the year and the folks in the e-commerce industry who helped us along the way. We know how difficult it is to find e-commerce related stock photos and thought we’d do something to help with that.
So do check out our e-commerce stock photos and put them to good use! As a teaser, here are some of the awesome photographs from the set.
How to Get Reviews for your eCommerce Store
Posted: November 29, 2011 Filed under: SEO | Tags: reviews Leave a comment »
Getting reviews for your eCommerce store is one of the ways merchants and online retailers can add value and create a point of differentiation to their online store. In this article we’ll be taking a look at ways to get those reviews, how to use them to your advantage and what are some of the dangers. Read the rest of this entry »
Intermediate eCommerce SEO Tactics
Posted: November 22, 2011 Filed under: SEO Leave a comment »
Once you have eliminated duplicate content and started started link building for your eCommerce site, it’s time to take the next step with intermediate SEO eCommerce tactics. Read the rest of this entry »
Online Shopping Cart Price Comparison Tool
Posted: November 15, 2011 Filed under: ecommerce solutions 4 Comments »
Being involved in the e-commerce industry, we’re often asked by friends and customers for online shopping cart recommendations. If there happened to be a shopping cart that automagically addressed everyone’s needs, we would refer it immediately. But, if you think about it for a moment, you’ll realize that there’s a lot more detail needed before a recommendation can be made.
Which shopping cart you should use depends on the particular situation you’re in. Do you sell products at high volumes and low prices? How much do your customers spend each time they shop at your store? The cost of running an online store can vary largely depending on your answers to these questions and more.
Not being able to resist a good problem, we thought it’d be fun to take a crack at this to see if we could simplify the process of comparing shopping carts. After some in-depth research and late-night pots of coffee, Carty, our shopping cart price comparison tool, was born!
Introducing Carty
Carty is a friendly tool that does the tricky shopping cart platform price calculations for you. It takes in information about your online store, determines the cheapest plan for each platform and spits out a side-by-side breakdown of the costs in each platform.
Carty currently compares 4 platforms (Volusion, Shopify, Bigcommerce and Magento Go). We’ll be adding more platforms when we can, but feel free to contact us if you’d like a specific platform to be included.
Carty also has a helpful FAQ about how it works and a brief rundown of the various fees incurred when running an online store. There are also some links to resources that we thought might be useful.
So go ahead and get your hands dirty with Carty. Find out how much your shopping cart is really charging you and how it affects your margins. And hopefully, it’ll make choosing between shopping cart platforms just that much easier.
The Evolution of Social Networking [Infographic]
Posted: November 8, 2011 Filed under: ecommerce future, social media 1 Comment »Click on the infographic below to view full sized image.
Embed this Infographic using this tag:
<a href="http://blog.referralcandy.com/2011/11/08/the-evolution-of-social-networking-infographic/"><img src="http://images.referralcandy.com/images/the-evolution-of-social-networking-referralcandy-600.jpg" alt="The Evolution of Social Networking" title="The Evolution of Social Networking - Infographic" width="600" height="1987" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.referralcandy.com">ReferralCandy - Customer Referral Programs for Online Stores</a>
