Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

Ecommerce merchants have many pages to write copy for. Home and landing pages, category pages, product descriptions, articles, and shopping messages are just a few. This article will describe five ways to improve your web copy, and the concepts here can be applied to all pages on your growing ecommerce website.

1. Establish a Tone That Matches Your Niche

As you write, imagine that you are speaking to your niche group in person. Set a tone with your copy and continue it throughout your online store. Good descriptions establish credibility by demonstrating that you actually know something about the product, other than what the manufacturer provides. Share your personal insights and manager’s notes, or add specific customer testimonials. You can even ask employees to choose their weekly picks.

Create relationships between products and categories with text links and not just with navigation buttons. Create text links using relevant keywords, phrases that link product and article pages. If your customers include multiple sub-niche groups, create a page that allows them to choose specific questions they want answered, rather than trying to answer everything for everyone on one page.

2. Differentiate Your Products and Your Store

Differentiating your online store from the hordes of competition is one of the most critical, profit-producing elements any ecommerce site can accomplish (competing on price alone will typically leave you paddling against a very strong tide). Become a successful and profitable online store by fitting your niche. Compare your site against your three nearest competitors, and make sure people know exactly why they should shop with you over them. Your website cannot replace human contact, but it can work 24 hours a day to show people exactly how your ecommerce store is the better solution for them.

Create charts or checklists to identify ways your product is unique. If the product is not unique, then demonstrate how your company or service is better than the competition. Use concrete examples and customer testimonials whenever possible. If you are relying on your expertise, create links to articles and how-to information on your site that back up your claims. Tout your great customer service by including a phone number, hours of operation, and a contact person on the site.

For those stores carrying unique handcrafted or individually made items, remember that unique in itself is not a clear selling point. Explain how receiving a handmade gift makes someone feel, or describe how your product(s) fill a need for individual expression.

3. Educate and Inform Customers

Educate and inform your customers by making product facts interesting. Tell a story, be specific, and give examples on how to use it, when to use it, and what not to do, if applicable. Use multiple image views or videos to show the product in use. Write product descriptions for both scanners and diggers. (Scanners want bullet points, comparisons and checklists. Diggers want specification sheets, more details, and extensive product descriptions.) You can even add a PDF download for the super diggers. Add multiple image views or a checklist of ways to use the product. Create articles that answer common questions in detail and link to them from product pages.

Copying and pasting the same information on each page is a huge mistake, and it creates massive duplicated content within your site. Instead, write articles to answer similar questions, and link to them. This allows you more room for explanations, and gives every page unique content. If you have multiple products with similar descriptions, try using short video clips with a simple voice over to show how each individual piece is different. Think of any question a customer might have and find a way to include an answer.

4. Create a Clear Buying Path and Help Customers Follow It

Customer confusion hurts e commerce sales because when a customer gets confused they rarely buy. People want to make sure they have the right information before they decide to buy. And, once they decide to make a purchase, customers want to know how to buy and how other factors, like shipping, availability, returns and cost, will affect the sale. Be sure to tell the customer exactly what you want him or her to do, and spell out what will happen next.

Give your customers multiple ways to purchase your products on the same page. Make the buying process simple, but don’t just rely on the “buy it now” button. You can also add text links and image links to lead people to your checkout page. If there is a step before checkout, such as choosing a color, include it in the text. Don’t make people register before they buy. This confuses some and annoys others, and very often you will lose the sale. Make it easy to trust you and even easier to buy.

5. Improve Search Engine Optimization

Use relevant, varied keyword phrases in page titles, headlines and descriptions. To the search engines, “coat hanger,” “coat hangers,” “coats hanger,” and “coats hangers” are separate keyword phrases. Most keyword topics have dozens of versions of search phrases for a particular topic. Parcel your keyword phrases across multiple product pages throughout a category. When you have similar multiple items, spread out the keyword phrases using one or two phrases per product.

Be creative – Don’t be afraid to jump out of the BOX

Look for creative ways to use strange-syntax keyword phrases. Many people search for non-grammatically correct phrases like “coat hanger wide wood” or “hanger clothes plastic.” Optimize your product descriptions for unusual phrases, and do your best to work them into sentences that makes sense. In the example “coat hanger wide wood” you could write “No coat is too big for this coat hanger, wide wood version that keeps even the largest heavy winter coats in shape.”

Summary

Your online store offers you the opportunity to connect with potential buyers and to differentiate your products while establishing credibility and trust. Make the most of this opportunity by diving into your website copy with a clear purpose in mind. Just like any first impression, it’s important to make it count.

Examples of Websites With Good Product Descriptions

These two web pages use creativity, multiple images and video to showcase products:

• Baghaus
• Nappastudio

References

• 5 Tips To Better Product Descriptions
• 73 Ways to Describe a Widget by Marcia Yudkin

Related Articles from Practical Ecommerce

• Ecommerce Know-How: Writing Product Descriptions that Sell
• Product Pages: 6 Tips to Transform Them Into “Sales Magnets”
• Ecommerce Know-How: Six Ways To Improve Your Online Stor

Originally published with Practical Ecommerce in 2009

Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

Stop focusing on just getting tons of traffic to your ecommerce store. Instead, shift to getting the right kind of traffic that will produce visitors who can turn into buyers. Syndication is perhaps the most powerful tool to help produce qualified traffic and potential customers. Syndication means taking one piece of information and using it in multiple ways that also allow other people easily share it.

Just spreading the word about your store is not enough. For syndicated content to be effective, you must know your niche and have something of value to say to it. In doing so, you can create your own viral flood of targeted buyers. Content is king and useful content is the only way you will attract prospective buyers to your store. So, create a viral breadcrumb trail leading back to your store with some juicy insider tidbits, how-to tips or expert insights.

Choose a Niche Within Your Niche

It’s best to start with a very narrow focus, so choose a niche within your niche. If you sell nutritional supplements, focus on one demographic group or health symptom. For example, one group might want a natural supplement to aid with indigestion, so get a clear picture of who these people are and how they want to hear your message.

Create a niche board.

Take a blank piece of paper and draw a stick figure in the center. Add words, pictures, phrases that describe this group and only this group so as to create a picture of this profile as completely as you can. Ask yourself, “How is this group unique?” Don’t stop until you have a clear mental image of this sub group and feel as though you could pick the members out of a line up.

Say Something Helpful (Or Don’t Say Anything)

Find out what this group’s biggest issue, question or problem is. Make it your goal to answer all questions surrounding this topic and provide the information they need to resolve this problem. Make sure you are not just hawking your product (even if it does solve the problem) by including references to authority sites and independent reviews. When you write, think about speaking directly to the person you identified with the niche board; be specific and personable.

Don’t be afraid of mentioning your competition because people can already find them online and look at their information, too. Just be honest, ethical and informative.

5 Ways to Syndicate Your Content

1. Post a how-to video. How-to videos are always popular. So if your group has a common problem, create a how-to fix-it video. It can be a simple slideshow voice over or a how-to video through TubeMogul, which allows you to syndicate your video to multiple video sharing sites with one click. This gets it in front of more people with less effort. TubeMogul has a free version and an upgraded version, which provides more tracking information.
2. Schmooze with the experts. Interviews have always been powerful leveraging points for any business. Many experts love to get interviewed (I know I do), and the interviews can easily be done over the phone or via a webcam. Interview an expert, and then syndicate it. Create a webinar, an audio download, make a video short and transcribe the interview. Promote the interview to your newsletter list as well as the expert’s newsletter. Leverage the content so as many people as possible can get to it and share it.
3. Become an informational hub. Create HubPages or Squidoo lenses. Both of these sites have massive traffic and search capabilities within their sites. Each allows you to cluster together articles and topics for more authority. You can add links, audio, video, and images and create professional entries on just about any subject. These sites make it very easy to create a content page loaded with extras.You can link directly to your store, but make sure you only do this once per post and also link to other articles or sites as well. If you do link, go directly to a relevant product page or category. Both of these sites make their money with Google AdWords, so expect some visual competition.
4. Blog somewhere else. There are dozens of niche social sites where you can start your own blog. These social media centers can be great places to connect with your niche group. Start a group, and join a group. Make sure you interact with people before you start sending them copious marketing messages. Remember these places exist because people want to connect with people over relevant information, not sales pitches. If you aren’t polite here, it can really backfire on you and your brand.
5. Post bookmarks and tags. There are new social bookmarking sites popping up everyday; staying on top of them all is seemingly a full-time job, so just choose a dozen and sign up. There are other sites that help speed up the process of tagging a single page to multiple social sites. I recommend SocialMarker.com because it speeds up multiple submissions significantly. It will take some time to set this up because you must already be signed up to the individual bookmarking sites. Don’t let this set up process scare you away. I have had articles, videos and product pages show up in 4-5 on the first page of Google as a sole result of tagging.

Some of my favorites are Reddit.com, Propeller.com, Faves.com, Del.icio.us, and Jumptags.com. But there are dozens more, with some appealing to specific groups of their own. Visit each of them and see what is being tagged, if it matches your group then join and start bookmarking.

Make sure you bookmark more than just your pages so you will not get banned; bookmark at least two other pages for every one page of your own. In fact, why not start right now by heading over to Reddit. And tagging this article (tags: viral traffic for e commerce, free online store marketing tips, promote web store) just to see how easy it is.

Encourage Sharing

All of these content pieces, from articles to videos, can be shared across wide networks of interested parties; syndication makes it easy. A Profitable e commerce store can capitalize on this trend by being information leaders rather than followers. Encourage your visitors to bookmark your online store pages with an Add This widget. Ask people to share the information and show them how, and add a call to action request at the end of your video, audio or article.

Taking the time to syndicate helpful information is one way you can leverage the power of the web and bring your online store more qualified customers.

Lists of Niche Social Media Sites

• Leadmasters USA
• Squareoak
• Internet Service Deals
• 10e20 Blog

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Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

This is IMPORTANT folks!

How to optimize your Google listing great Results

Seriously this is BY FAR most effective way to improve your local search ability. Just remember that this info gets indexed by other search engines and spread all over the place so check spelling, address and phone numbers. You want your information to be up to date and correct! Thanks GM Simmons for this great tutorial.

Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

Discover how small businesses are using the internet to bring in new clients, make online profits and compete with the big boys online. Your small business can capture the mindshare of your industry better than corperate america!

Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

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Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

Publishing how-to articles on your growing ecommerce website can be an effective way to boost sales. How-to articles can attract traffic, improve your search position, engage visitors, increase time visitors spend on-site, and help to establish your brand and expertise.

Turn Visitors Into Customers

Writing effective how-to articles can be as simple as creating a series about your product line. People like to compare features before they buy, and they are often searching for timely information on installing, assembling, and using a product.

Some valuable how-to topics would include:

• What kind of product should I buy?
• How to choose between product A and product B.
• Which version is best for me?
• Why use product X versus other products?
• How to install and/or assemble product X.
• How to use product X.
• Five ways to use product X to create __.
• Ideas for using product X in your home office, school, and car.
• How not to use product X.
• Achieving a certain effect with product X.
• How to achieve _?
• Accessories guide for products.
• Reference and comparison charts for products.

Articles Boost Customer Confidence

Online shoppers are also looking for indications that your store will have the expertise and willingness to help them if there are any questions after the sale. How-to articles can boost consumer confidence because they demonstrate that you know real-world facts about your products.

Articles can also help reduce phone support expenses when you provide answers for the most commonly asked questions. A good article directory makes it easy for potential customers to surf your online store for answers, rather than clicking away in search of answers and into the arms of your competitor’s store.

Articles and Social Media

Social media is the newest ecommerce buzzword, and with all the talk about blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, articles have lost some of their prominence in favor of newer content distribution methods. But, article publication should remain a large part of any social media and marketing plan because articles are still an effective way to attract targeted traffic and engage visitors once they arrive on your site. People still like to read articles, especially how-to articles that are designed to help them better understand your products.

Is your successful online store willing to let potential customers click away in order to find out “how to” do something?

Summary

The simple act of sharing relevant information in the form of a how-to does more than just present facts. It demonstrates that you are interested in your customers’ questions, even before they ask. It shows that you understand their needs and are willing to address them. It also gives you a chance to gently guide potential customers into buying the right product for their needs, leading to fewer returns and more happy customers. And, that is what we are all looking for.

Examples of Effective Article Use

• B & H Photo Video
• Photo.net
• Lowes
• Whirlpool Bathtub Store

Related Articles

• Link Article Marketing to Purchase-Related Keywords
• Ecommerce Know-How: Writing Product Descriptions that Sell
• 5 Ways to Improve Website Copy and Grow Sales

Originally published in Practical ecommerce Aug 09

Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta

Although search marketing is not known as being an extremely expensive marketing endeavor, it still takes some monetary resources. Not every small mom-n-pop business has the budget to fund these efforts. Matt Van Wagner of Find Me Faster explains that, in spite of these circumstances, the Web offers every business an opportunity to be found, even with a small budget.

Although search marketing is not known as being an extremely expensive marketing endeavor, it still takes some monetary resources. Not every small mom-n-pop business has the budget to fund these efforts. There are some small businesses that even have to make a choice between paying utility bills and investing in search marketing strategies.

Matt Van Wagner of Find Me Faster explains that, in spite of these circumstances, the Web offers every business an opportunity to be found, even with a small budget. First and foremost, a business needs to have an online presence with a website. The site does not need to be elaborate, but needs to be able to operate and provide basic functions.

He recommends utilizing David Mihm’s site called GetListed.org. This site gives actionable tips and information for small businesses and the best part is, it is free. If you are going to do paid search, Van Wagner suggest being conservative and local in what you do.

Note: This is a great video from Matt Van Wagner of Find Me Faster – Thanks Matt! And if you are not on the Webpronews letter list – do yourself a favor and get on it now! I have been on this list for years and it is really one of the few I read every time it lands in my in box.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO

(the process sfor getting found on Google and other search engines) can be overwhelming. We offer 1 hour consultaions t help you prioritize and manage your small business website SEO. give us a call at 678 318 7515

Discover how to get : #1 Google Placement for Local Search! Atlanta