Newsletter Archive from March 9, 2007

Tips for Online Store Owners

This issue focuses on the three things you need to do to make your online store more successful.

PART 1: GET NOTICED

The first step is to get people to come to your store. You'll note that the basic theme of this section is the opposite of "if you build it, they will come." What I mean is, you're gonna have to work some.

These ideas are listed in no particular order. Not all of these will be applicable to every online store, but why not pick the two or three you think would be easiest and/or effective and get going?

Make sure you're listed in niche directories.
Advertise in niche print magazines.
Run classified ads.
Put out a regular newsletter.
Get your products listed in Froogle (it's free to get listed, but time-consuming to prepare your product data sheet).
Maintain a blog.
Maintain an eBay store.
Link to your store from other websites you may own.
Get lots of other websites to link to your store. Bonus points if those other websites are thematically related to what you sell.
Postcard mailings.
Run a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign.
Do public speaking appearances and/or radio shows and mention your store at least three times.
Include lots of helpful articles within your store that are related to what you sell. This is especially helpful in snagging web surfers who might not otherwise know about your website. Try to write a new article every week, maybe even one for each product.

Of course, getting great rankings in search engines is always desirable. You can either pay for these (see no. 11 above), or you can try to get good organic listings. You get these by having lots of unique, useful content on your website. That's why blogs are such a big deal. If you have a newsletter, keeping a newsletter archive on your site is helpful. Just keep writing!

One thing to consider with all of these points, try to target your efforts to your audience. What's the point of having a million random visitors a month to your website if none of them has any desire to buy your products? I'd rather have 100 targeted visitors a month than a million random people.

PART 2: MAKE THE SALE

Once you've got people to come to your store, it's time to "convert" them into buyers. This boils down to two things: inspire trust, and make it easy to buy. Here are some suggestions:

Join the Better Business Bureau and slap their logo on your website. Note that you need to have been in business for at least a year already.
Make sure any pages of your website that accept sensitive data through forms (like names, addresses, credit cards) are secured with a SSL certificate. Slap the SSL logo on your website.
Consider HackerSafe, though this is overkill for smaller sites since they charge about $2000 a year. Again, slap their logo on your site.
Make sure you have a privacy policy, and/or terms of use page on your site.
Promise to be good with your customers' data.
Thoroughly test your site's shopping cart and checkout process as if you were a customer.

PART 3: IMPROVE

Once your store is launched and more or less working, it's time to start looking for ways to improve the ordering process.

You might consider making two versions of your web page / classified ad / logo / color scheme / whatever, and comparing the two to see which one makes more sales after a month. Then take that winning version and make two versions of it, and repeat. After four or five iterations, you should have a truly stellar web page / classified ad / logo / color scheme / whatever.

All these things take time. If you've got the resources to hire a full-time marketer, great! If not, try to devote at least an hour every day to marketing.

Thanks to all my clients who contributed their insights.

Request a free estimate today, and work can start within a few days.