Taking your business online: Peter Switzer explains the value of a
website, how to drive traffic to the site and how to set-up an online shop.
Building your site
Remember that a website is a virtual shop front for your business. It must
be simple to navigate and look professional (people are unlikely to part with
their money if it does not look like a professional business).
We can help you set up shop with eVolve
iSHOP a simple, fast and professional solution for creating your own
online store. It’s a fully hosted site with secure payments to accept all major
credit cards.
Getting noticed
Marketing online means you will need to have a marketing plan specifically
for your website. One of the most vital components to your marketing strategy
will be ‘search’, the way by which most customers will find you.
Optimising your site for search
The video covers Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which is how you make
your website easy to find in all the major search engines such as Google, MSN
and Yahoo. To optimise you need to:
- Content: Your text, videos, images and audio needs to be unique and
relevant content. It’s a good idea to use multiple types of digital content
like videos, throughout the website and on important landing pages.
- Structure: How the website is built is important including your home page,
the url you choose, links within the site, hosting location, server set-up and
domain strategy.
- On-page factors: On each page in your site you should consider keyword
density, keyword frequency, layout, meta tags, heading tags, image alt tags,
the page template, code structure and quality.
- Off-site factors: Linking from other, credible sites to your site will
improve your ranking. Consider contributing in social media (like facebook) and
linking back to your own site.
Buying search
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is when you pay for certain keywords your
customers are typing into Google. You simply select those keywords through the
Google, Bing or Yahoo websites, say how much you’re willing to ‘bid’ for each
click (you only pay when someone clicks on your ad), set your budget, &
away you go! The more you’re willing to bid for a click, the higher your ad
will appear in the sponsored search results.
Fulfilling orders
When you open an online shop front, you are opening yourself up to more
customers. You need to be prepared for an increase in sales. Make sure you have
enough stock and resources to keep your customers satisfied. You could look at
investing in an online system that connects to your existing inventory control
so you and your customers know if you’re out of stock.
Postage and handling
If you will be delivering stock to the customer, remember that there will be
a cost incurred. You will need to decide how to charge for this so you do not
end up carrying the cost.
Payment and security
Think about how you will accept payment. Will payments be processed
automatically online? Security must not be neglected if you are dealing with
customers’ personal details. You can consult your IT partners to ensure you
have the right level of security or alternatively, you could consider a third
party payment site if you don’t have a secure payment facility.
