Standing Out in eCommerce: It’s Not As Easy As You Think!

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |eCommerce|Standing Out in eCommerce: It's Not As Easy As You Think!The last few months have taught us a lot about business. Specifically, they’ve shown us which business models lend themselves well to change, and which do not. At a time when most of the consuming world has had to remain indoors, the retail sector in particular has had to face some particularly hard truths.

Many brick and mortar retailers, especially, have thought twice about embracing eCommerce. A prospect to which they may have been resistant for the longest time. Likewise, many who have long thought about trying their entrepreneurship may use this as the impetus they need to start their own eCommerce brand.

But in an era where the online marketplace is more bustling than ever, how do you stand out among legions of competitors? It’s not as easy as you may think. Here are some tips to get ahead.

Know what you’re selling and who you’re selling to

No matter how awesome your product is, it’s not a case of “if you build it, they will come”. You’ll need to carry out meticulous market research. You’ll need to know who you’re selling to, and why your product is appealing to them. This will inform virtually everything your eCommerce business does. It will inform your branding, your marketing and the product ranges you offer.

Invest in awesome UX

It goes without saying that you need a gorgeous website. A website that’s responsive and looks amazing both on a desktop computer and a mobile device. Your own app will also be a good idea if you expect to engage digitally savvy consumers.

However, looks aren’t everything when it comes with web design. You’ll also need to build in a satisfying and intuitive User Experience (UX) element. UX can drive sales, improve conversion rates and help you target shopping cart abandonment. An ecommerce agency will help you to get the most out of your website’s UX as well as ensuring that you make all the right impressions with the consumers who will be your loyal customers.

Have a great incentives / rewards scheme

In a time of stiff competition, it’s not enough to assume that your products are better than those of your competitors. Heck, depending on the consumer, it might not even matter. You need to provide an incentive for consumers to try your brand at the expense of your competitors. And if you’re targeting value-conscious consumers, your rewards / incentives scheme might just be your USP.

Ideally, it should encourage repeat custom and referrals, providing rewards both for customers who refer their friends, family and colleagues to your business and for the newly referred customer.

Embrace brand storytelling

Finally, it’s not enough to have clever marketing. Your branding needs to tell the audience a story. We human beings love stories. We’ve been using them since time immemorial to make sense of the world around us. Video platforms such as YouTube and, of course, your social channels can be a great way to tell stories that align with your brand, as well as providing a talking point that encourages engagement with your brand.

Ways Monitoring Your Competition Can Drive Your SEO and Business

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Ways Monitoring Your Competition Can Drive Your SEO and Business

What would it feel like to have a competitor beat you to the top of the search engine results page (SERP) after all your effort and hard work in search engine optimisation (SEO)?

What if you’ve applied all the SEO tactics you know, yet a competitor’s web page keeps ranking higher than yours?

You don’t have to hate a website for ranking higher than you or beating you in the SEO game. Hating a competing website is a thing of the past when it comes to the Internet. It’s true that having a higher ranking competitor could lead to not achieving target website traffic, more time, and extra expenses.

However, the online world today has made it possible to use a better ranking site to your advantage. Your SEO drive doesn’t have to dwindle. Instead, you should monitor and analyze your competition to get more benefits from SEO and increase page rank. You should look at their content, keywords, and site optimization. You might wonder, “how can monitoring a competing website help me optimize my site?”

Let’s take a look at a few ways that can happen:

It Helps You Create Better Content

Content is king on the internet. Search engines primarily rank web pages and sites based on content. Google rates websites on E-A-T which means expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This rating guideline concentrates on quality and reputation of the entire website content, including blog posts and landing pages.

When a website is consistently at the top of the SERP, you can be sure the site is creating epic content that meets search engine criteria. You can look at such site’s landing pages and blog posts.

However, don’t copy their work and regurgitate it on your site. That is plagiarism. Instead, put a twist on the topic or find out a recurring question by visitors in the comment and write an article to answer the question. This means you can get content opportunities from this strategy. You’ll always have fresh content in the form of blog posts, articles, ebooks, and press releases.

It Helps You Find and Use Better Ranking Keywords

While analyzing the content of competing websites, you can find out their potential relevant keywords, domains’ link popularity, and page result characteristics. You will also need to use the Google Webmaster Tool to research traffic that your site gets for various search queries.

This will show you the most effective keywords that bring in traffic. Find out how your competitor ranks for those keywords. Then, you can use the keywords to create researched, high-quality content. Once a user types in the keyword in search engines, your web page will have a better chance of appearing in the results.

You Can Improve Your Branding

Your branding is what sets you apart from your competition. It can help drive your site to the top of your niche market and create customer loyalty. SEO helps build brand awareness. A competing website will have its own branding and unique selling point too.

First, you need to research their website content. How do they promote their brand in each post? What is their brand strategy? Then, you can research their online presence, content output, and customer engagement. By doing this, you can identify the competition’s target audience, targeted niches, and customer attraction strategy.

With the information you’ve gotten, you’ll know what to do to strengthen your unique selling proposition. You can also find new methods of creating brand uniqueness and making your site more appealing to a shared audience. Through this, your online brand presence and search visibility can increase.

It Improves Your Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing and site optimization are intertwined. Let’s say your website’s profile has millions of followers, and your article has a hundred thousand shares on social media; if this is the case, your search rank will likely improve. You need to monitor your competitors’ social media activity by noticing how they interact with followers and what is shared the most. You can track their posts with tools like Hootsuite.

One way to take advantage of their social activity is to reach out to their followers with your content. Some of them won’t be following you. They can be interested in your content and visit your website, which can lead to increased traffic for you.

Another way is to analyze their marketing tactics and tweak your social media strategy to accommodate the successful methods they’ve used. You can also find out which content does well on social media. A post that’s successful on social media will rank high on the SERP. Once you identify the competitors’ content, write an article with a similar topic and mirror their content strategy on social media.

You Can Gain More Backlinks

Getting inbound links from authority sites can help your SEO drive. A competing website that is properly optimized will be building links, just like you are. You can reach out to those sites to get them to link to similar content. Also, you should track any new backlink they have and find out if they’ve adopted a new strategy.

The most important thing here is not to copy every detail of the competing websites’ link building strategy. Instead, use their methods to strengthen your SEO techniques. You can build on their strategies and incorporate yours at the same time. That way, you can have a better internet marketing campaign overall.

It Can Help You Improve SEO Activities

By examining a competitor’s SEO strategies, you’ll be able to keep up with industry trends and find out when something new is on the scene. For example, higher ranking websites may change their SEO strategy and style suddenly.

This can mean a few things. There could be a new algorithm update, and they’re adjusting their optimization strategy too. They might have found out a better way to make their web pages rank higher in the SERP. They might be trying to avoid a penalty or might be removing a black hat SEO technique. Whatever it might be, you can quickly learn from it and ensure your website benefits from it or avoids disaster.

It Can Help You Avoid SEO Pitfalls

By watching your competitors’ ranking and optimization strategies, you’ll know what works and what doesn’t. You’ll find out the SEO tactics that are not yielding much result and will likely become obsolete. This takes a lot of effort because you’re recording every detail in terms of their optimization actions. On the other hand, it helps you avoid falling in the SERP ranking because you know what strategies to copy or not.

Final Words 

Winning in SEO means ranking at number one in the SERP, having strategic keywords, and increasing your website’s online visibility. Analyzing a higher ranking website’s SEO style can help you create better content and give you insight into what optimization strategies work best for your industry. You should always research and monitor your competitor from all angles to improve your SEO New Orleans and to stay one step ahead.

6 Tips For Increasing Conversion Rates For Your E-Commerce Business

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Increasing Conversion Rates|6 Tips For Increasing Conversion Rates For Your E-Commerce BusinessOver the past decade, e-commerce has risen to prominence in all industries. The marketplace has taken a swift turn to digital platforms, and it looks certain to continue that way. Worldwide e-commerce sales are set to hit the $4.1 trillion mark by the end of 2020.

Although there are opportunities within the world of online selling, it is an extremely competitive market. It’s vital for companies to carefully adjust their strategies to cater to the digital marketplace.

E-commerce conversion rates are increasing on average. However, a big reason for this is that larger companies are making a concerted effort to push online sales. Many SME’s (small and medium-sized enterprises) are not experiencing a conversion rate spike.
In a rapidly expanding market, here are six essential tips for increasing conversions for your e-commerce business.

Use analytics and be data-driven

In the digital age, it’s vital for businesses to become data-driven. When it comes to e-commerce, this is even more important. Any e-commerce business generates a huge amount of data relating to sales, marketing, and customers. This should be carefully analyzed and used to make decisions and to create future campaigns.

Have a well-designed website

A slick website with a clean look and high functionality is an absolute must for any e-commerce business. The site should be easy to use, customer-focused, and it should have adequate call-to-action.
The buying process needs to be optimized to make the customer journey easy and stress-free.
Consider hiring a website design and development professional to ensure that your site is at the level it needs to be.

Quality content

All website, social media, marketing, communication, and advertising content should be of high quality. This can be achieved through research, SEO, and excellent copywriting.
High quality and authoritative content rank highly on Google search algorithms, maximizing its effectiveness.

Use targeted social media ads

Social media advertising is a cost-effective way of reaching your target market, particularly when you are directing them to your online store. Facebook and Instagram allow you to target specific demographics with your content, giving you the best chance of conversions.
Social media campaigns can be analyzed thoroughly, providing you with valuable data.

Offer excellent customer service

Creating a loyal customer base is arguably the best way to sustain consistent sales figures. Good customer service gives your e-commerce business a familiarity that people can relate to. Customers want to feel valued, so customer service can be a powerful tool to increase conversions.

Some simple ways of establishing excellent customer services are:

  • Install a chatbot on your webpage.
  • Communicate with customers via social media.
  • Allow customer feedback.
  • Have straightforward returns policies and procedures.

Offer free shipping

Free shipping is one of the most important factors for consumers when determining whether or not to purchase online. It could be the difference in making a sale or not. In fact, 90% of shoppers claim that free shipping is the main incentive that would encourage them to purchase more online.

Free shipping costs can be covered, meaning your company doesn’t have to take a big financial hit.

SEO Strategies You Need to Know in 2020

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |SEO Strategies|SEO Strategies You Need to Know in 2020If you own or manage an online business, you will be aware that you need to nail SEO to drive your sales and beat your competition. What you will also know is that SEO is a constantly changing game, one that requires astute oversight of an evolving strategy. Here are some strategies that are vital to know in 2020.

E.A.T Up

Your E.A.T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) are vital when looking to beat the competition on the search engine results page (SERP). All things being equal, the most trustworthy website – with the highest E.A.T – will place the highest every time. There are different ways of approaching upping your E.A.T, but Searchbloom’s A.R.T strategy is a good place to start. It recommends you focus on Authority, Relevancy, and Technology. That means getting backlinks from high-authority sites only and trying to avoid backlinks from untrustworthy sites, optimizing content so search engines can understand what your content is and who will benefit from consuming it, and having great tech – providing users with great experiences facilitated by easy-to-use websites.

BERT Optimization

In 2019, Google launched BERT, a new algorithm that solicited much attention in the SEO world. However, BERT optimization was different from optimizing for the Medic update or previous algorithmic changes. That’s because BERT focused better than ever on intent instead of simply jumping through hoops. Optimizing for BERT means that your content will have to provide actual value to users, instead of just luring users onto a website with clickbait. Keyword research, once the focus of all SEO, might become an afterthought. The agencies that want to perform well in 2020 will be the ones that actually take time to talk with their customers and find out what sort of content they want to consume.

StrategyDriven Online Marketer & Website Developer Magazine

UX

UX stands for user experience. Incorporating UX into your 2020 SEO strategy is essential. You need to think of the user journey, focus on how you might be found on the SERP, how your landing page might impact your users, and what they will keep in their minds after they have visited your site (and how you will remarket to them). Google has been promoting good technical best practices for a while – Martin Splitt at Google has been focusing on technical issues for a long time and how they could potentially impact SEO with his blog ’50 Lines of Code’. It was Splitt who single-handedly reduced the company’s use of the infinite scroll by explaining the JavaScript issues that can lead to index issues.

Chrome has also started to issue “slow warning badges,” suggesting that site and page speeds are going to be more important than ever, so optimizing not just how your users can navigate and interact with your site, but also how quickly they can do so, will be key. It will be a hard balance between clever, minimal code and introducing important features to your site that users will love. If you really want to nail SEO this year, it might be time to get a professional coder on board.

Why Should You Use the Content Writing Services Offered by an SEO Agency?

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Content Writing Services|Why Should You Use the Content Writing Services Offered by an SEO Agency?1. Content Is the Most Important Factor in SEO!

Nowadays, content is one of the most used marketing methods. The effectiveness of content marketing is very big and most online businesses depend on it to acquire leads. It is very hard to have success in online marketing without good content. This is why content writing services became very popular between marketing agencies and professional writes. Unfortunately, not all content has a good quality and the results, it produces, depend largely on the quality of the content used. For this reason, you must find a good content writer or a company that offers high-quality services. The industry in which the use of content is the most well spread is SEO.

In the SEO industry the content used is the most important factor. It is so important that all SEO experts agree that content is the king of SEO. All strategies that do not include content had become redundant. The content produced by the SEO agency must be of high quality. Otherwise, the results brought by the strategies that they use will have unsatisfactory results.

2. An SEO Agency Needs to Have Professional Writers!

There are many good writers in this industry and a good SEO agency must have several professional writers who can provide content writing services. The requirements for the quality of content are very high in the SEO industry. To produce satisfactory results, an agency will need to use high-quality content. For this reason, any good agency needs to collaborate with good writers.

There are 2 methods through which this collaboration can take place. The first one is through contracts. Many writers work as contractors or as freelancers. The second method is through hiring. An agency will choose between these methods or use them simultaneously. The choice is based on the needs of the agency and the resources that it wants to invest in its ability to provide high-quality content.

But to be a writer for an agency is not easy. The amount of content needed by an SEO agency is very high. This is why it is very hard for new writers to keep up with the needs of an agency. Moreover, the quality also needs to reach a certain level. But writers that can accomplish these requirements will gain massive experience at a very fast pace.

3. Content Writing Services Produces High-Quality Content!

If you need high-quality content, then you should not ignore the SEO agencies that offer content writing services. But you still need to pay attention to the results. If you want to collaborate with an agency, then start small and see the results. After you are sure that the agency can provide you with the content that you need, then you can continue with long term collaboration.

As for checking the quality of a piece of content, there are 4 things that you need to check:

  • Informative. In any business, trust is very important. If you do not have the trust of your potential customers then you will not make any sales. Informative content offers the possibility for a business to gain the trust of its potential customers. If you offer information that will help your future clients, then they are more likely to buy your products and services.
  • Engaging. Although it is important to offer informative content, you need to make sure that the reader is willing to read your content. To do that, you need to make your content engaging. The simplest method is through the use of the second person in the content. By writing like speaking to someone, you will be able to keep the reader engaged.
  • Accessible. It does not matter what is the field of your business, there are experts and amateurs. So you need to make your content accessible for everyone. Make sure that every reader will be able to understand it. If you write using specific terminology of your field, then only those that understand it will be able to make use of the information presented in the article. And the rest will not come to your website again.
  • Original. All the content that you are going to use must be original. By using copied content you will lose the trust of your website’s visitors that will discover the issue. Also, every search engine will know about the copied content and they will penalize your website. On the other hand, the original content will showcase your experience and expertise.

4. The Ranks of Your Website Will Rise While Using the Content Writing Services of an SEO Agency!

As mentioned above, the content used in SEO services is very important for the results produced by any agency. So, if you are going to use the content writing services offered by an SEO agency, then you can also expect to get positive results in your search engines’ ranks.

Nowadays, content can be seen and used in more and more marketing methods. With the rise of technology, it is very easy for any company to target a larger market. For this reason, the competition is continuously rising and your potential customers will have a big number of options from which they can choose. This is why all the top companies fight very hard for the trust of their potential customers. They understand that without that trust, they will not be able to sell their products.

The easiest way to gain the trust of a person is to help it solve a problem for free. And the best method to do that is through information and content. The more content you have to will help your potential customers, the more trust you will receive and, in turn, the more sales you will make.

5. When You Should Use the Content from an SEO Agency Carefully?

Content has many uses in today’s market. And in different fields, there are certain changes that you need to know before using content. For example, the content used in SEO strategies is not very suitable for sales emails. Although certain characteristics are the same, the goal is different and there are certain differences as well.

Without making the necessary changes you will not get top-notch results from content made for SEO. This is why you need to make sure that the content that you get from an SEO agency is optimized for your goals. It is not impossible for the expert writers of an SEO agency to adapt their styles, but not every agency has writers that skilled.

So, if you want to use the content for other purposes aside from for marketing, then you should test the writing services of an agency before beginning a big collaboration. But you can use the content offered by an SEO agency for blogs, website content, and content marketing safely.

6. You Can Use Content Writing Services to Rewrite Older Part of Your Website!

A very good way to make sure of the content writing services offered by an SEO agency is to rewrite old content from your website. Of course, if a piece of content is evergreen then you may not need to rewrite it, but otherwise, it is a wise decision to do so.

If some part of the content present on your website is outdated, then you should replace it with a newer version or make upgrades to it. Otherwise, it will drag your website down. In SEO, search engines consider the overall performance of your website. So, if a part of your website is poor, it will drag the rest down.

The solution is simple. You can use so SEO tools and see which pages of your website have a poor performance and use the services of an SEO agency to rewrite the content on these pages. By doing this you will obtain a big boost to your website’s performance.

7. You Can Use Other SEO services at the Same Time!

Why should you limit yourself to writing services? Make use of the opportunity to find a good SEO agency and try the rest of the services that they offer. SEO is a complex field, and even if you have good content, but you do not know how to use it and what other optimizations should you do, then the results that you will obtain will not be the best.

A good way to maximize the potential of content is to let professionals help you use it in the best possible way. A good SEO agency has the required skills to make use of content to propel your website’s ranks to the top.

Even if you do not want to use SEO, but you still can get some insights from the SEO agency through the cooperation with the content writing services. These insights may be able to help you very much in the process of growing your website. In conclusion, one of the best options that you have is to use the services offered by an SEO agency.