How to increase Ecommerce Sales and Traffic

Do you want more online sales?

Are you  thinking of setting up an ecommerce store for your business or do you already have one that is not delivering to its potential?

Are you wondering how you should set up your ecommerce site so it can maximise every website visitor, every sales opportunity?

Is your site ready to sell, you just don’t have the traffic you should?

1. Use your Facebook profile to share a link or image back to your online store.
But be creative about how you use it. Link to a tweet from a happy customer. It is proven that sharing images on Facebook outperforms any other type of post. Try to add some sort of text overlay to the image which will get people interacting with the image – “Which Spring trends do you prefer” or some question about the images/products.

3. When you’re selling your products try and let the customer visualise themselves with your product. So if you are selling bikes you could have a couple of people cycling on the bikes through a park or if you are selling mirrors you could use a picture of your mirror on a wall in a house surrounded by a warm family atmosphere.

4. Just like all conventional retail stores try placing similar selling items together so that your potential customer can get an overall feel for your product. Try to recommend related products and upsells. Getting your customers to buy additional products is always a plus.

5. Consumer research has shown that over 40% of Facebook users will like or share something in order to get a discount. So try encouraging your current fans to share your special offers or seasonal promotions by running competitions as this will bring back new potential customers to your page. Running time sensitive offers or limits on the amount of a certain product that will be sold at a discounted price can also work to increase shares and sales. Facebook advertising targeting your current group of fans is also the lowest way of advertising on Facebook.

6. Another great way of increasing shares and likes can be running a caption contest. Simply include a post on Facebook and ask people to come up with a caption that best fits the picture. Including a link back to your online store within this post can also increase visits to your website. You could also offer free shipping to your customers with a time sensitive offer as well.

7. Make sure your product descriptions are descriptive and engaging. It is important to write your own descriptions, as this gives Google a reason to index your site and choosing the right keywords can help you get found in Google search.

8. Did you know the most frequent page people exit on ecommerce sites is the checkout? In order to keep your potential customers at this vital stage, make sure you have your checkout process down to a fine art. Have the cheapest shipping option at default, make it easy for returning customers to sign in, and be honest about shipping costs. Include a handy search feature. Be sure it works to deliver accurate / relevant results. Monitor search queries to ensure you use popular terms to target other potential customers.

Make sure it takes as few clicks as possible to complete a purchase. If visitors do leave, you can use remarketing to target those people who do abandon your checkout.

Carry out regular analytics by closely monitoring user behaviour and navigation paths on your site, and use the results of such analytics to constantly improve the purchase process.

9. Is your site optimised for tablets and mobile?

10. Consider using PPC advertising for your ecommerce site and set up ecommerce conversion tracking.  You can incorporate lead generation conversions to ensure your keywords are working if there is a gap between people who are searching and then purchasing.

11. Be sure landing pages from any campaigns are relevant, compelling and match whatever offer that was promised from the advertising copy or link.

Follow some of the tips above to increase your online sales and share your experiences with us.

At Webresults.ie we identify the best digital marketing strategy for your business, in order to achieve maximum results.

If you would like to grow your business through the web in 2014 contact WebResults.ie now for a Free audit of your website. We will identify any weaknesses that exist and offer some pointers on how you can drive your business to its full potential on the web.

What is your Social Media Strategy this Christmas?

Maximise your social media strategy this Christmas and take advantage of the business opportunities in your market. Some tips that might help:

• Write relevant, compelling content
• Don’t just post for the sake of it. Provide information that will offer value to your clients.
• Teach them something new, that is relevant and that will help them gain something.
• Be sure that you use your social media activity to help you search engine rankings.
• Include search terms in your posts that contain the keywords that you are targeting as a business.

Engage with your customers

 No matter which platform you are using it is important to interact with your customers. Make sure you connect with your customers by providing feedback, promoting conversation and encouraging debate. Talk about something that is novel or new. Post images, questions. This will also get people sharing with their connections. This is how great companies ensure social media success for Christmas.

Create Value

Christmas is a busy time for everyone but it is also an expensive time. Providing value for your customers is so important. This could be anything from helpful blogs posts that are related to your product or providing discounts and vouchers online. Customers will be thankful as Christmas can be an expensive time for everyone.

Which Platform to use?

There are many platforms to choose from when planning your social media Christmas campaign. If your budget is tight try picking one platform first and see how it goes. It is better to have one good social media campaign on one platform rather than covering all social media angles and not doing well at all. Last year, Facebook was responsible for 4% of all Christmas visits to retail websites. Make sure your website is one of these this year!

Tip: Wish your fans a Happy Christmas around 23rd and make them aware of your post Christmas sales. Did you know Christmas Day 2012 was the 5^th biggest shopping day of the year last year with over 107 million visits to retail websites. Do not miss out!

Paid Advertising on Social Media

• Run targeted pay per click campaigns using Twitter
• Target people who are connected to people who like your page on Facebook. Run a competition and use PPC advertising to get beyond your friends and family – find new prospects.
• Target relevant people using their email addresses through Facebook and remind them of your offering.
• Get on front of people who visited your website using ‘remarketing’activities.
• Understand what worked before. Analyse behaviour using analytics.

At Webresults.ie, we identify the right social media strategy for your business in order to achieve maximum results. We work with your business to build an effective social media campaign that produces results. Get in gear now and maximise your businesses potential. Contact us at Webresults.ie to get started today.

What Bitly can do for Your Business

Bitly For Business:

 

Twitter is a great tool for any business with an effective digital marketing strategy. However with only 140 characters available to you, it is important that you make every character count when conveying your message. This restriction the amount of characters available becomes particularly problematic when including links in your posts. Bitly is a great tool for shortening these links as to not take up as many characters in your post. All that needs to be done is to post Link A into the Bitly Tool and the result will be Link B.

Link A:

• https://webresultsblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/why-businesses-need-to-listen-to-what-is-said-on-social-media/

Link B:

• http://bit.ly/1951omo

This isn’t the only function Bitly has to offer, with a range of stats, apps and shortcuts available for free.

Monitor Your Stats:

When you shorten a link through Bitly, each link is automatically saved to your personal account, these are called bitmarks. Within your account the stats tab enables you to view each bitmark’s popularity and performance. With this you can see how many clicks each link received and from which source. You can also breakdown the time of each click and view the country from where each click was received.

Purchase Personal Bitmarks:

If you wish to purchase a short domain you can have your bitmarks start with a personal beginning. Ellen DeGeneres has her bitmarks start with ellen.tv/ rather than bit.ly/.

You can also change the arrangement of letters at the end of a bitmark to be more relevant to the subject. This can be done for free by clicking on the pencil icon situated next to the bitly link. The difference in each link can be seen below.

• http://bit.ly/1951omo

• http://bit.ly/social-listening-wr

Bundle Your Links:

The option to bundle your links is a way of categorising your links and having them grouped together. This can form an easy to use archive of bitmarks for future use. People can also view these bundles so it is a good way for people to browse similar links that you have to offer.

App and Plugins:

Bitly has a free app for Iphone where you can create links and check your stats on the go. There is a helpful plugin available for chrome which is very handy for creating links quickly and another available for WordPress which can automatically create a bitmark for each blog you post.

Where your business is focused on inbound marketing activities, Bitly is a useful tool for tasks associated with content creation and link building.

If you have any questions about using Bitly or any other digital marketing tools and applications, then please contact us.

Why Businesses need to Listen to What is said on Social Media

The Importance of Social Listening:

 

Social media provides businesses with a great opportunity to connect with customers and hear what they have to say about your brand. This is all well and good; however some companies fail to actually listen to what their customers have to say. If you are going to give your customers an open forum for them to express their thoughts on your brand, then you need to monitor the conversation.

 

 

Listening to Complaints:

If people are voicing their dislike for a current product, or their dissatisfaction with the customer service they received, then you need to address this and resolve the situation quickly. There is no point in merely deleting negative posts, this angers customers and only adds fuel to the flame. Think of who posted the negative comment as an angry customer causing a fuss in a shop, however this time they can be heard by potentially thousands of people.

Negative posts on social media have a distinct way of gaining traction online. One negative post can have a domino effect, causing a string of negative posts based on previous incidents. A customer who has poor previous experience with a brand may see a post criticising this brand and this may entice them to post about their bad experience with the brand. To stop this effect it is important to respond to complaints quickly and respectively, but don’t aggravate the situation!

Listening to What Your Customers Want:

 When making changes to products or services, it is good to keep the customer in mind. Social media can be a great tool for testing some new ideas. This can be done in a friendly and casual way like ‘any suggestions for what flavour our new ice cream should be?’ Posts like this can start the conversation with your customers whilst giving you an insight as to what they actually want in comparison to what you think they want.

A great example of a company who listened to their social media fans is Cadbury. In 2003 they took their much loved Wispa bar of the shelves. However by 2007 the bar had gained quite a cult status by those who remembered the bar fondly. This brought about various social media campaigns including a Facebook campaign entitled ‘Bring Back Wispa’. This group gained a large following and eventually Cadbury listened and jumped on the band wagon, which led to a hugely successful re-launch.

Conclusion:

Listening to what your customers have to say is vital to developing strong relationships with your customers. Through social media customers can be heard by many, so it is important that you hear them also.

Listening to what your customers have to say is not only an action which is of benefit to them, more importantly it is a benefit to your business. Through listening to what they have to say, your business can gain great insights as to what your customers think about your products and services. Listening to your customers through social media can also lead to product innovation as no one knows what your customer wants more than your actual customer.

At Webresults we offer a wide range of digital marketing services including the management of social media pages. For more information on how we can help your business get the most out of social media please contact us.

How Facebook’s Edgerank Algorithm can Help Your Business

Facebook’s Updated Edgerank formula:

 

Facebook have been using variations of the Edgerank algorithm to determine what posts each of its users want to see at any given time. Facebook have been improving their Edgerank formula for quite some time now. The old formula used to involve three variables;

• Affinity Score
• Weight
• Time

Affinity Score: The affinity score of a post is measured by looking at explicit actions that users take, such as the strength of the action, how close the person who took the action was to you and how long ago they took the action.

Weight: Every action carried out on Facebook creates an edge, where each edge creates a potential story. Each category of edges has a pre-determined weight. (However. clicks do not create an edge).

Time: As a story gets older, it loses relevancy and drops points on Edgerank’s running score.

When a user logs into Facebook, their newsfeed is filled with posts that have the highest Edgerank score at that moment in time.

Facebook’s new formula however claims to take in over 100,000 different factors when determining the rank of a post. However, all these factors will still come through the 3 core categories of Affinity, Weight and Time.

Facebook have recently announced their “story bumping” update which will raise stories they feel are of major relevance to a particular user, despite its time decay.

In updating this new formula, Facebook surveyed their users to get a better understanding of what they want to see. They showed examples of posts to users accompanied by questions such as;

• Is this timely and relevant content?
• Is this content from a source you would trust?
• Would you share it with friends or recommend it to others?
• Is the content genuinely interesting to you or is it trying to gain News Feed distribution? (e.g. asking for people to like the content)
• Would you call this a low quality post or meme?
• Would you complain about seeing this content in your News Feed?

With a basic understanding of how Edgerank works, businesses can better plan what kind of content to post and when to post it.

Taking the example of a small café, looking to get your message across through Facebook. You need to consider these Edgerank factors when creating your post. Affinity score and time are the two factors which you can have an impact on and are somewhat easier to manipulate.

Consider your Affinity score by acknowledging those who frequently interact with your posts. Write posts that would appeal to them as they are the people most likely to like and share your post. Having your post liked and shared boosts the amount of people who see the post.

Take the timing of your post into consideration when posting an item on Facebook. If your small cafe is posting a status about how your delicious double espresso is the ideal way to start your day, then don’t post it at 8pm when nobody is thinking about coffee and the long morning that awaits them! Post statuses when people are open to your brand (In this case; the morning), this will gain more likes and shares to boost your post’s viewers.

If you have any questions regarding Edgerank or any other Facebook function, please contact us.

Inbound Marketing Essentials

 

Inbound Marketing is seen by many in the industry, as an essential tool for naturally attracting a wide range of potential customers. Inbound Marketing is a non aggressive approach to making your business known to new customers and forming a bond with current ones. When it comes to good Inbound Marketing practice, here are some of the essentials.

 

Know Your Customers:

A huge factor of Inbound Marketing is providing relevant and useful content / information for your target market. To do this you need to know who your customers are and what they are interested in. A breakdown of customer demographics and interests would be ideal.

 

Research Keywords Relevant to you:

Carry out a keyword analysis for words and terms associated with your business. The objective is to target keywords with a high search rate. Have your keywords as specific as possible to approach your target market rather than approach a broad and unreliable market.

 

Have a Strategy for your Content: (Know your Objectives)

Be sure to speak to your customers about content relevant to your industry. Your aim is to speak to each customer type at each level of the “sales funnel” (Leads – Opportunities – Proposals – New Customers).

 

Create Content Frequently:

Your aim is to now create educational, thought provoking content related to your business area. Think of what you would be more likely to share or comment on, don’t focus on sales and talking about what you do.  You need to be doing this at least once a week to keep your site fresh.

 

Insert Links:

Having both internal and external links throughout your content can both help with user experience and encourage inbound links from those external websites. Try to fit in maybe 1 or 2 links in your content.

 

Include Images:

Images help break up the content for the reader making the content more presentable when done correctly. Include an image title and alt text so that search engines can pick them up.

 

Incorporate Calls to Action:

After reading your piece of content, give the reader something to do or somewhere to go, ideally back to your website!

 

Share on Social Media:

Social Media sites provide a great platform for you to get your content out there and shared. It is a great opportunity for creating more inbound links to your site.

Why use Inbound Marketing for Your Business?

Build Your Business Profile:

Present your business as the experts in your field offering relevant, helpful information, updates, tips and advice. Generally information that is helpful to your clients and prospects when they are in the market for your products/services.

Give Personality to Your Brand:

Inbound marketing enables companies to express themselves in an informal manner. They can show what their company is passionate about and what motivates them.

Build Your Business Profile on the Web:

By offering interesting, engaging content, your contacts and followers will share your information with their contacts, building your community and getting your business in front of new prospects.

Engage With Customers:                 

Inbound marketing enables your company to engage with your customers on personal level

and build strong relationships. It makes your company more approachable to the public.

Improve Your SEO:                           

Effective inbound marketing will improve your SEO. The search engines are placing more and more priority on social media activities and links when presenting search engine results. By focussing on the terms that are most relevant and building content around them on both social networks and your site, you will build up your rankings on the search engines for terms most relevant to your business. At Webresults.ie we can help you create a successful content strategy that will maximise your SEO and social media activity to drive sales for your business.

If you would like to find out how to devise and implement a successful inbound marketing strategy for your business that will build your profile and drive more high quality customers to your business, please contact Webresults.

How to use Facebook to build customer loyalty

45% of internet users regularly consult pages of businesses on social media. 54% of people under 35 admit to being attached to brand content on social media. Using Facebook for business is a great way to be more visible and bond with your customers. Facebook can help you increase your customers’ loyalty by generating interaction.

How can you get more likes, shares and comments ? There are certain techniques and formats that will make your business Facebook page more effective. This will allow your business to grow, as your content will be more relevant and encourage people to share.

Here a few examples of how you can use Facebook for business.

• Post at the right time. When are your targets on Facebook?
• Be compelling and straight to the point. Don’t waffle or use language that will confuse the reader.
• Add pictures, they generate more interactions than other formats.
• Ask questions to get more comments. Make them even more prominent by putting them at the end of your post.
• Put strong calls to action. The most efficient ones are : like, share, caption this, yes or no, thumbs up.
• Don’t post too frequently. Brands that publish once or twice a day get 19% higher interactions on their posts than those who publish more than three times a day. Post 7 times per week or less and you will get 25% higher interactions.

Find out how to manage Facebook effectively for your business or how to set up an effective social media campaign for your business through the our customised training programmes or through our Web Mentor Programme at WebResults.ie. Call our team now on (01) 207 1872 or email us at info@webresults.ie.

Facebook Starts Removing Likes

Do you buy your “likes”?  Facebook is clamping down on this kind of behaviour, read our article for more information on how to avoid getting hit.

To read the full article, visit Facebook Starts Removing Likes.

For more information on social media marketing and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.

Facebook Update Targeting Tips

Are you targeting your business page updates on Facebook? Here are some great tips for business Facebook pages, read them and let us know what you think!

To read the full article, visit Facebook Update Targeting Tips.

For assistance and information about social media marketing and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.

Is Your Social Media Marketing Targeting Your Facebook Audience Correctly?

Are you sure that the content and information you are sharing on Facebook is targeting the correct audience?  For info on Facebook’s new audience targeting tool, read our article!

To read the full article, visit Is Your Social Media Marketing Targeting Your Facebook Audience Correctly?

For more information on Social Media Marketing and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.