Strategies To Make Your E-commerce Business Wildly Successful
In the light of present-day realities, every business should have a website and online community in order to survive and increase its profits. Everything is on the Internet these days; being online is the way to find customers from all over the world and expand your business.
It is not the easiest thing to do – you need to make an effort to stand out from your online competitors. Thanks to the internet, your market has grown, but so has your competition!
As an owner of an e-commerce business, you should fight on two fronts: with your competitors and with Google updates. To increase your chances to win, apply specific SEO, user experience and data-mining strategies.
Let’s explore in-depth the techniques that can make your e-commerce business wildly successful:
Data Mining
To keep track of your business and develop it, you need to use all the data that you can get. Data is a gold mine that can help you get to know your customers, increase their loyalty and own profits. It also allows you to make better strategic decisions, improve control of operational processes and target advertising.
Why? Because you’re basing your actions on real-time facts.
To determine the preferences of your customers, keep track of products they buy, their shopping timing, geolocation, and age. This information will help you to offer your customers other products that align with their interests.
To personalize your customers’ experience and provide excellent customer service, conduct surveys and analyze responses.
Besides your customers, you need to track your competitors’ pricing and offers. Consider investing in big data tools in order to get real-time data. It will help you to predict trends, turn visitors into buyers and leave your competitors behind.
User experience
There are plenty of fish in the sea, so if something doesn’t work on your website or isn’t transparent enough, your potential customers will find another company. People don’t have time on figuring out how to complete the payment on your website. That’s why you need to test every page and optimize user experience (UX).
Hire a professional UX developer who can guide users with personalized product recommendations (that’s where you can apply in practice your collected data), improve page speed, and create calls to actions on your website.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) helps to survive in today’s competitive market. It is a long-term investment that is aimed at increasing your website’s search traffic and monthly revenue.
SEO experts can make your website visible so that every time people google certain products, your site will show up on the first page. Let’s be honest, your potential customers will not be looking for your company on the third page of Google search.
Also, SEO experts will be able to help you in case you have a steady or sharp drop in search traffic or if your website has been penalized by Google.
To get started with SEO on your own, you can use tools like Google Adwords Keyword Planner. However, applying search engine optimization strategies without professional feedback can be a waste of time, so consider hiring a professional team.
Customer Engagement
If you want your customers to recommend your company to their friends and family members, build trust and become their friend. To do so, you can offer something for free (e.g. newsletter, a book) from time to time, ask for their opinion, keep up and maintain excellent customer service. Also, learn how to speak your customer’s language by using big data. Determine where your customers are from, what is their age and favourite social media platforms.
If your customers are mostly millennials, it would be weird to write very formal posts on your blog. If your customers are seniors, you might want to avoid using a lot of slang. Consider hiring a social media manager who will speak with your customers on a daily basis, in their language.
Branding
How can people recognize you among thousands if not millions online stores? One word – branding. It is your company’s face and identity. Before launching an e-commerce store, create a catchy name and a logo, choose the colours of your brand, and apply marketing strategies.
It is crucial to identify your brand’s target audience and outline the key benefits of your online shop. In order to show people the way, you have to be holding a map.
Transparency
To improve your sales, you need to be upfront about the products you are selling, payment methods and additional fees (e.g. shipping).
There is nothing worse than surprises at checkout.
To give your customers a better understanding of your products, add a detailed description of it. Also, consider adding videos that will show the product in detail, and creating a space for reviews, where your customers can describe their experience.
Your clients should be able to get in touch with you when they have questions. Encourage them to contact you via email, phone, Skype, or an online chat.
Conclusion
In order to stay on the market, you need to increase your customer’s loyalty and establish a good relationship with Google since your business is at his mercy at this point.
It’s best to think about your business as a physical store that caters to real people, instead of an impersonal facade that processes anonymous orders. Create a community around yourself, and become an authority that people come to not only for products, but for valuable niche information.
Work on every detail and test your website weekly. Don’t hide from your customers if they don’t like your products or website navigation. Be thankful when people leave comments since every feedback can help you improve your online store, even if it’s negative feedback.
Be humble and respond in a non-defensive manner, and people will appreciate your honesty. In many studies, people have been found to ignore negative feedback if there is a friendly explanation behind it.
Find experts who will help you with branding, SEO, user experience development, and data mining. Every improvement brings you closer to success.
