Showing posts with label eCommerce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eCommerce. Show all posts

Monday 10 April 2023

Website as Storefronts


A customer walks into the store, browses through products and shelves, picks up items, inspects, considers the prices, chooses a product and takes it to the cash register to pay. Now if you want to sell your products online, then your site must be enabled for e-commerce, where you must have the following features:

 

  • You need to provide plenty of content and product description like sizes, dimensions, colors and comparisons with other similar products. It must allow the customer to choose a product, get a clear pricing and shipping costs on the product, complete the transaction and get an order number, and/or invoice confirmation via email. Allow your customer to choose a shipping method.
  • You must tell the customer if the item is in stock or delivered against order. Ideally, you should have an email contact or live help if the customer has a question. Most importantly you must respond immediately! If you want to provide your own live chat and help desk services on your website, specialized software are available for purchase. 
  • Be sure your customer service links are large and clearly marked, so your client does not have to dig around to find information.
  • Provide an ‘about us’ section or a section about your policies. If you have privacy statements and customer satisfaction policies, your customer will feel better about shopping in your store.
  • You probably want to have customer quotes and references on the storefront page, as well, to let your prospective client know that others are happy with your service.
  • Provide an FAQ with information about your return-back policies, guarantees, shipping prices and insurance charges if any.
  • If you are so inclined, you can offer a print catalogue if the customer prefers to order one from your storefront and shop in the privacy of their homes.
  • Do not annoy your customers by presenting products that are marked ‘sold’ or pages that say ‘under construction’ or ‘coming soon’.
  • Do add new content frequently, so your returning customers will not be bored by seeing the same products they saw four months ago.
  • If your site has got a date tag or has current references, be careful to change these references frequently so you don’t give the perception that nobody is attending or reading your site.

 


What Is Search Engine Optimization


Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. 


The most popular search engines are Google and Bing. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carry may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. 


New sites need not be "submitted" to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well-established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

 

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

 

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.



Monday 30 January 2023

An Introduction to the Three Biggest PPC Platforms


PPC has completely transformed the way that people advertise on the web. This is a new form of advertising for what is a very different medium – a very more interactive medium – than television or magazine.

 

PPC stands for ‘Pay Per Click’. What this means for advertisers is that they are only paying for each click. If their ad isn’t successful and no one clicks on it, then you don’t pay anything at all. That can mean free exposure sometimes! A bidding system comes into play whenever an advert is shown and that means that the cost of each click will depend on the amount of competition – again this is good news because it means that some advertisers will be getting nearly free visitors when there isn’t much competition.

 

At the same time though, because they can set their own ‘maximum bid’ for each click, this means that advertisers can decide precisely how much they are willing to pay for any new visitor. By keeping this lower than the amount they earn per visitor, they can nearly guarantee they will make a profit from those efforts.

 

Also, important though is targeting and this is where the differences between the different PPC platforms start to come into effect. Read on and we’ll take a look at the three big choices when it comes to starting a new PPC campaign.

 

Google AdWords

 

By far the biggest PPC network is Google AdWords. When you pay for adverts on Google AdWords, they will appear on the ‘SERPs’ or the ‘Search Engine Results Pages.’ Thus, you need to start by first choosing a keyword that you want to target. If you are selling hats for example then, you might choose to target the keyword ‘Buy Hats Online’. Of course, it’s important to think carefully about your keywords to ensure they don’t have too much competition.

 

Google is the biggest search engine means that you’ll gain access to the most visitors – but you’ll also pay the most due to the other advertisers.

 

Bing Ads

 

Bing Ads is a very similar system but for Bing instead of Google. Bing is of course the big search engine from Microsoft which accounts for 20% of the market share and an additional 10% through Yahoo!. This is not a small amount.

 

More importantly, Bing has less competition, meaning that you’ll end up paying less. Specifically, you’ll pay 33.5% less, which is again a big deal. Bing also has a lot of powerful tools for targeting the right users.

 

Facebook Ads

 

Finally, Facebook Ads work the same but appear on Facebook based on the information that users give Facebook about them. This can include age, sex, and location but also things like hobbies and interests or even job title!

 

Another big benefit of Facebook Ads is that you can create more media-rich options that have images or even short videos. Likewise, you have the option to choose ‘CPA’ which means ‘Cost Per Action’, and only charges if someone signs up to your mailing list.

 

Learn from one of the best Microsoft Ads courses!

 

Microsoft Ads Training Kit: Step-by-Step Tutorial Videos To Start Using Microsoft Ads For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/microsoft-ads-training

 


How to Find the Best Keywords for Your PPC Campaign?


What makes a great PPC campaign? What makes the difference between a waste of cash that you never get back and a campaign that you can use to continuously keep growing and scaling your organization?

 

While there are a lot of factors, you could certainly make the argument that one of the most important of these is the keywords. Your keywords are of course the search terms that you’re going to target. With both Google AdWords and Bing Ads, you’re going to be advertising in such a way that your ads end up showing on search engine results pages for specific searches. You can then choose precisely which searches bring up your adverts and this is going to impact how sees the ads and what difference this makes for your success.

 

So, the question is: how do you go about picking the right keywords? What is the difference between a good keyword and a bad one?

 

Let’s take a closer look…

 

The Basics

 

The basic idea behind your keyword choice is that you’re going to try and ensure that the phrase you pick is one that the right people are going to be looking for. Who are the right people? Of course, they’re the ones who are most likely to buy your product.

 

This is also how Facebook Ads work – it lets you choose the type of person you want to target by looking at the details they fill out such as their age, sex, location, and even hobbies and interests. The difference with a search term is that it is also time-sensitive. In other words, a search term will have a bigger impact on your eventual profits because you are showing ads to someone at the precise time that someone is actually looking for your site.

 

For example, if you’re trying to sell hats, then your search term would be ‘buy hats online.’ That means you’re not only targeting people who want hats but you’re also targeting people who want hats now.

 

So, when picking keywords, think about who and when.

 

Negative Keywords

 

One way you can make this a little more precise is to try and avoid certain search terms from showing your ads. This is what is known as a ‘negative keyword’ and a good example of this might be the word ‘free’. You don’t want people to click on your ad if they’re searching for free things, because they won’t be likely to want to buy anything off you – and that means they’re costing you money without earning you anything back.

 

Keyword Research

 

More important still is to do your research.

 

That means looking to find out just how often certain keywords get searched for, rather than assuming. For instance, some phrases that might at the first sound popular end up being surprisingly unpopular. This meaning of course that no one ever searches for them and thus they won’t bring any visitors.

 

Likewise, you also need to research the amount of competition for each keyword and aim for the terms that aren’t saturated!

 

Learn from one of the best Microsoft Ads courses!

 

Microsoft Ads Training Kit: Step-by-Step Tutorial Videos To Start Using Microsoft Ads For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/microsoft-ads-training

 


How to Fit Bing Into Your Internet Marketing Campaign?


A great internet marketing campaign should be a campaign that is fought on many fronts. That means you need to have your fingers in lots of pies and you need to find lots of ways to reach the widest audience possible.

 

If you rely on just one method to build your brand and gain customers – whether that be PPC or SEO – then you’re going to end up too reliant on that single source of traffic and you’re going to greatly limit the number of visitors you can appeal to.

 

This is why it’s important to make sure that Bing fits into your campaign. But it’s also why Bing should only be one part of a much larger and multi-faceted assault. Read on to learn more about the different aspects of internet marketing and how they should all coalesce into one single strategy.

 

Content Marketing

 

One thing that every business can benefit from these days is a blog. Having a blog allows you to create content on your site and this will then give people a reason to come to your site.

 

The key to understanding here is that no one likes being sold to. If all your site is, is essentially one big advert, then you’re not giving people any reason to keep visiting. You’re not building loyal fans, trust, or a relationship. If the visitors don’t want to buy then and there, then they will simply leave.

 

By creating great content, you give people a reason to want to find you and this will gain you regular traffic.

 

Email Marketing

 

If you can’t capture sales, then capturing emails is the next best thing. This converts cold leads into warm leads and it gives you a huge list of people you can potentially sell to.

 

Social Media

 

Social media has a similar end goal to email marketing. This gives you a way to reach the people who have proclaimed themselves your fans and it allows them to share your content and to help more people find you. It also lets you build a closer relationship with your potential customers.

 

SEO

 

One part of this is creating lots of great content, which you should already be doing. The other part of this is having lots of inbound links to your site and lots of people sharing what you do. You can encourage this by writing great content and being active on social media. This will help you to reach the top of Google and Bing for different ‘search terms’.

 

PPC

 

Now let’s talk about PPC. This is a tool you can use to pay to reach the top of the search engines right away for your chosen keywords. That means you need to be making money back from these searches, so normally it will be used as means to send targeted visitors right to your sales page or eCommerce store. You can also use this as a way to ‘test’ the organic keywords to try and rank for with SEO though.

 

Using Google and Bing makes sure you gain 100% of this audience and it also helps you to avoid direct competition in some cases. Bing is more affordable and has fewer advertisers competing for the same few spots!

 

Learn from one of the best Microsoft Ads courses!

 

Microsoft Ads Training Kit: Step-by-Step Tutorial Videos To Start Using Microsoft Ads For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/microsoft-ads-training

 


How to Identify Your Buyer Persona?


If you’re going to have a successful PPC campaign, then one of the single most important things to have in mind is your target demographic. In other words, you need to be sure that you’re showing your adverts to the right people to ensure that those viewers are going to convert and become buyers. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your money.

 

By properly profiling who your buyer is, you can that way create a better advertising campaign that will result in more sales. So how do you do that?

 

The Basic Demographics

 

To start with, you need to consider the most basic factors that makeup demographics. That means categorizing your potential buyers in terms of their age, their sex, and their location.

 

Who buys the products that you sell? Are they young or old? Do they have a big income or a small one?

 

To a large extent, this will be obvious – for instance, if you’re selling wedding dresses, then you can safely assume that your target demographic is female. In other cases though, the demographic might be both or it might not easily fall into one category.

 

So, what can you do in this case to make sure that you’re targeting the right person?

 

One way to do this is with a little market research. You can look at the metrics of who has bought from you so far for example, or you can simply survey your visitors. Who is it that buys from you? Likewise, you might be able to find information about other products or brands that are similar to yours.

 

You can also ascertain a fair amount by looking at your web stats. If you have Google Analytics set up, or you have web stats on WordPress, then you can see what people are searching but also the location they’re coming from and even how long each person stays on your site!

 

The Persona

 

But this does not yet give you your full buyer ‘persona’. That’s because a person is more than just a collection of statistics; a persona is an entire fictional biography based on what a person likes, what their hobbies are, and more. You need to try and get inside the mind of that person to better understand what they might want to spend their money on, where they will be at any given time and what they will be likely to search for. 

 

To do this, it can help to have an idea of the ‘why’ behind what you do. Make sure your brand has a mission statement and think about what it is you want to achieve as a company. When you do this, you’ll then be able to find people who believe what you believe and who are like-minded. These are going to be your long-term customers with longer ‘lifetime customer value. That means they’re the ones you want to advertise to get the very best ROI in the long term!

 

Learn from one of the best Microsoft Ads courses!

 

Microsoft Ads Training Kit: Step-by-Step Tutorial Videos To Start Using Microsoft Ads For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/microsoft-ads-training

 


How to Increase Your Conversions?


Want to increase the success of your PPC campaign? Then it might pay to look elsewhere, other than the actual PPC campaign itself. 

 

For example, you might want to look at your website itself. If you can increase the conversion rate on your website, which means that more people will buy products from you. If more people buy products from you for the same number of visitors, then that means that you’ll be able to earn more money from your site, which in turn means that you can spend more per click on each visitor. That, in turn, means your ad will be seen more, bringing in more customers and scaling up your profits even higher. It’s a ‘virtuous circle’. 

 

So how do you go about increasing your conversion rate? There are a few things you can do…

Sales Copy

 

The main thing that will help you to sell more from your site is good sales copy. This is the persuasive writing you’ll add to your website that will convince people that your products are worth buying and that they should make a purchase.

 

So, what can you do to increase that sales cop? A whole lot!

 

First of all, you need to make sure that your sales copy is gripping and that it is holding the attention of your visitors. People have very short attention spans these days and if they have to wait more than a minute to find out what your site is about then they’ll often just leave without waiting.

 

To grab them right away, one thing you can try is to use a narrative structure. That means phrasing your sales pitch like a story – perhaps telling the tale of how the product helped you. We are naturally inclined to pay attention to stories, so if you do this right, then it will be hard for people to turn away.

 

Another thing you can do is to make sure that your readers can skim through your content if they want to. These days, most people do not thoroughly read content and instead just briefly skim over it. That’s why you need to make sure that you are including all of the relevant information in each headline: so that people can read through quickly and still be sold to.

 

You also need to make sure you build trust, remove risk and remove ‘buyers’ guilt’. To do the first part, you can allude to stats and statistics and use ‘social proof’ (like reviews). To remove risk, you need to make sure that you are offering a comprehensive money-back guarantee. And to remove guilt, you need to demonstrate how your product is of good value. Ideally, it should even be an investment!

 

The Value Proposition

 

Most important of all though is to have a ‘value proposition’, which will help you to sell the lifestyle and the emotion that your product is promising to deliver. How does your product make life better? What’s the dream? Make sure your readers can feel the emotion of being fitter, healthier, wealthier, or happier!

 

Learn from one of the best Microsoft Ads courses!

 

Microsoft Ads Training Kit: Step-by-Step Tutorial Videos To Start Using Microsoft Ads For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/microsoft-ads-training

 


Monday 16 January 2023

Why WordPress Is A Great Platform For Blogs


Starting your first blog is an exciting idea. You’re going to make your presence known to the world, and you’ll have an avenue for expressing your thoughts and your opinions. There are plenty of platforms for you to build your blog on, however, in this article, you’re going to find out why you should consider a self-hosted WordPress blog.

 

Before we begin, however, let me just clarify that WordPress.org and WordPress.com are not the same. 

 

WordPress.com is a blog hosting service which gives you very limited options. WordPress.org, on the other hand, is where you can download the WordPress software which you then need to install on your own web hosting. While this may sound intimidating, it’s really not. Many commercial web hosts offer 1-click install for WordPress which means you can get your blog up in just a few minutes!

 

Running your blog on the self-hosted version of WordPress means you have full control over your website. You own it, you can design it any way you want, you can publish any kind of content you want, and so much more. 

 

The core WordPress software is already powerful on its own, and it even comes pre-installed with a few themes and plugins. With themes, you have thousands of free and premium themes to choose from, and you can make your site look as unique as you want. And when you add plugins, you can totally change your website’s functionality! 

 

Even if you just want to blog for now, if you ever decide you want to add an online store to your blog later on, you can do that with WordPress. You can create landing pages on WordPress, you can add a forum to your site, you can even sell memberships or courses on it! In short, WordPress plugins are awesome. 

 

Other platforms don’t come near the number of themes and plugins available on WordPress which is why it’s such a popular choice for bloggers and website owners alike. 

 

As with most platforms, however, WordPress does come with a bit of a learning curve. However, once you understand the basics, then it will be easy for you to build different kinds of sites. WordPress has an active global community behind it, so you’ll never run out of tips and ideas to customize your website.

 

Learn from one of the best WordPress courses!

 

Advance WordPress Mastery Kit: Step-by-Step WP Tutorial Videos To Start Using WordPress For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/advance-wordpress-mastery-kit

 


The Best Web Hosting For Your Brand New WordPress Website


The WordPress platform needs two things to work. It needs a domain name and web hosting. Think of it this way, if your website is your house, then your domain name is the street address and your web hosting is the piece of land your house sits on. And just like your house, you want to build it on a good piece of land. This is why choosing a good web hosting company is a must if you want your WordPress website to succeed.

 

Web hosting companies number by the thousands and most can support a WordPress installation on their servers. However, WordPress itself recommends 3 web hosting companies. These are:

 

1)    Bluehost

2)    DreamHost

3)    SiteGround

 

You can’t go wrong with any of these companies. All three offer 1-click WordPress installation, so you can quickly have a WordPress website without any hassle or headache involved. They also offer 24/7 support so if you have questions about web hosting or you need help setting up your site, then you can contact them anytime through a variety of communication channels. 

 

However, they do have some differences in the services they bundle up with their hosting plans. For instance, Bluehost and DreamHost both offer free domain names for their plans, but SiteGround does not. If you’re going to buy a domain name from SiteGround, you’d need to spend an extra $15.95/yr, so you may want to buy your domain name elsewhere. 

 

When it comes to pricing, Bluehost offers the lowest price. If you lock yourself in a 3-year contract, then you’d only need to pay $2.95/mo for the basic plan. DreamHost offers the most expensive plan at $6.95/mo, and that’s if you get a 3-year contract!

 

If you want to try out which web host is best for your website, then you can sign up for each one. Both Bluehost and SiteGround offer a 30-day money back guarantee while DreamHost offers 97 days. If you’re unhappy with the service, simply cancel it within their money back period, and you’ll get a refund. Plus, they will automatically cancel your 12-month, 24-month or 36-month contract. 

 

While these 3 companies come highly recommended by WordPress.org itself, there are many more web hosting companies you can choose from. Just be sure to ask them first if they offer WordPress support, and if they do, then feel free to sign up for their hosting plans. 

 

Learn from one of the best WordPress courses!

 

Advance WordPress Mastery Kit: Step-by-Step WP Tutorial Videos To Start Using WordPress For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/advance-wordpress-mastery-kit

 


The Benefits Of Using Premium WordPress Themes Over Free Themes


One of the major benefits of using WordPress for your website is you can choose from thousands of free and premium themes to give your site the look you want it to have. 


While it’s true there are plenty of stylish, free WordPress themes you can download from the WordPress.org Theme Directory, premium themes help make your site stand out from the crowd of lookalike WordPress sites. 

 

Here are some of the biggest reasons why you should consider switching to a premium theme:

 

1.    Better quality themes

 

Most free themes are generally well-coded, however, these are often not SEO-optimized. Premium themes, on the other hand, are usually up-to-date and adhere to standard coding practices. 

 

Better theme code reflects on your website’s page load speed. And because of this, websites with premium themes generally rank higher on search engines than those using free themes.  

 

2.    Better support

 

Most free theme developers have no incentive to provide support to their users. More often than not, support can be found in WordPress forums with the developer answering questions when they feel like it. 

 

With premium themes, however, you get priority support from developers. You have access to them via chat, email, forum or ticket support, and you can expect to receive a response in a timely manner.

 

3.    Extensive documentation

 

Having a well-documented theme is important. Free themes rarely include documentation, and you’re usually left on your own to figure out how to use a theme. 

 

With premium themes, however, most developers and theme shops include extensive documentation. This makes it easier for them to support their customers as they can easily direct them to the knowledgebase article or tutorial that will help solve their specific problems. This means less time answering support questions and more time developing even better themes.

 

4.    Customization options

 

While you can customize free themes, your options are very limited especially if you don’t know how to code. Even if you do, it will still take you hours editing code just to change a few elements on your web page. 

 

With premium themes, you often have a range of options to choose from. You can easily design your site to make it look unique by using different layouts, fonts, colors, images, etc. And it won’t take you hours to do all these on a premium theme – with just a few clicks, you’ll have a gorgeous website at your fingertips! 

 

Learn from one of the best WordPress courses!

 

Advance WordPress Mastery Kit: Step-by-Step WP Tutorial Videos To Start Using WordPress For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/advance-wordpress-mastery-kit

 


How To Skyrocket Your Email Subscribers Using Your WordPress Website


You’ll often hear profitable website owners say that the money is in the list. They aren’t joking. The money really is in the list. If you have an email list, you can easily market to your subscribers, and get them to visit your website again and again. If they weren’t on your list, these people probably would never have visited your website ever again.

 

So you see, building an email list should be one of your website’s top priorities. You don’t even have to think about what you’re going to sell to your list yet. Just focus on building it, and when you get to a large enough size, then you can worry about monetizing your list then.

 

Here are a few ways you can skyrocket your email subscribers using your WordPress website:

 

1. Create audience-specific landing pages

 

Ideally, you should be segmenting your email list. If you have a marketing funnel in place, then you should know where a particular customer is in their journey. 

 

If they’re just at the top of the funnel, you could use a different landing page with a different lead magnet for them. If they’ve already interacted with your business before, then they would be somewhere mid-funnel and probably ready to buy from you. 

 

With audience-specific landing pages, you get to make your content relevant. The good thing with WordPress is it’s easy to create these pages from your WordPress admin!

 

2. Write compelling copy

 

Your landing page copy is very important. You can have the most eye-catching photos on your website, but if your sales copy doesn’t speak to your customers, then chances are they’re not going to buy from you. If you don’t know how to write copy, then invest in a good copywriter. The expense will more than pay off when you get people subscribing to your list in droves!

 

3. Use beautiful imagery

 

You know the saying, a picture paints a thousand words. When enticing people to sign up to your list, make it easy for them to do so. Use images that perfectly portray what they’re going to get if they sign up to your list!

 

4. Promote your landing page like there’s no tomorrow

 

There’s really no point creating an opt-in landing page if people don’t visit it. Make a point of promoting your link on many different platforms. If people find your offer attractive, they’ll be more than happy to sign up for your list!

 

Learn from one of the best WordPress courses!

 

Advance WordPress Mastery Kit: Step-by-Step WP Tutorial Videos To Start Using WordPress For Your Business & Boost Profits!

https://tankwanhong.xyz/courses/advance-wordpress-mastery-kit