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How To Write SEO Friendly Content for eCommerce

You’ve heard the saying that content is king and it really is true. Content marketing has a number of benefits that include building a brand, increasing sales, and generating new leads, and it continues to be an effective method for not only connecting with readers and turning them into customers but also in building authority with search engines.

Content marketing is a fit for every type of business, but there are certain tactics you should take when writing SEO content for eCommerce. Today, we will review some tips for writing SEO friendly content.

Set Goals – Before you even begin to start writing content, you need to set some goals for yourself and your business. What are you trying to accomplish with your content marketing? You may be more focused on establishing your brand or demonstrating why people should buy your products. You may be targeting a new audience. Maybe you are writing for the purpose of gaining better rankings on search engines. Whatever the reason may be, establish it early and use it as motivation when creating content.

Know Your Audience – As you prepare for writing, you want to identify the audience you are writing for so you can produce content that is specifically for them. You can ask yourself a variety of questions about your audience and determine certain things like the age demographic, the type of work they do, what their interests are, what their needs are and why they may want to buy your product. All of these things can help you determine who you are writing for so you can specifically target your audience.

Content Types – Content comes in all forms and you don’t have to be married to one in particular. You may write a few blog posts or articles that are informative. Videos or infographics can be used for a more visual approach, or you may choose to record an audio podcast for people to listen to. All of these types of content help distribute your content marketing across a variety of platforms so that people can connect with you in different ways.

Quality Writing – Content marketing is not just as simple as writing content. You have to make your content, your articles, videos, podcasts and anything else you produce informative and provide value to the customer. Your content should help answer the customer’s questions and solve their problems. The writing should flow naturally and include the keyword you choose to target in a natural way as well. You do not want to stuff your content with the keyword too many times or force the keyword into your content. You also want to check for any grammar or spelling errors and should keep your writing clean and polished.

Share Content – Once your content is published, it should be shared with any followers you have on social media and any other places where you post regularly. Making an announcement of new content attracts readers and bring back loyal followers. It will also help you get on a schedule as you post new content in the future.

Track Your Progress – As you produce content, check your progress. See what kind of results it has on traffic on your website. See what type of content brings the most visitors. Compare these results to your goals set before you started your content marketing campaign and track what connects with your visitors and what isn’t working and adjust your campaign accordingly.

At Genius eCommerce, SEO and content marketing is who we are and what we do. We help you get the tips you need to achieve success in your SEO campaign. Continue reading the Genius eCommerce blog for more.

July 17, 2019

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Digital Marketing, Ecommerce, eCommerce SEO, Latest eCommerce

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How to Best Utilize Social Media for eCommerce

How’s Your Social Media Presence?

It’s a band-aid that every eCommerce business has to rip off eventually: the painful realization that your sales will be forever stunted if you don’t have any social media focus. What a hassle, right? In some regards, you’re correct. It is annoying. It is hard. It is also, however, absolutely necessary to your success in eCommerce. Don’t let the looming pressure of extra work keep you from starting this important venture!

In reality, it’s all about tactics. You won’t have too much trouble with social media if you do it correctly, and that’s what Genius eCommerce is here to teach you. It can be a pain, sure, but it can also be quite enjoyable! With the right methods, your social media presence will bring you closer to your customers and broaden your online reach. So, let’s talk strategy!

Have Content

I’m sure that headline was met with a groan. “Of course I need content,” You’re thinking. Well, take a moment to consider that most profiles are devoid of any actual content. Clickbait is a prevalent and deadly disease, and if you’re not careful, your social media might do more harm than good. Make sure that your account includes an intricate profile with a detailed explanation of any field that is applicable. You want your bio to show customers who you are and what you stand for. If you’re on Twitter, use your limited space to promote keywords that you’d like to be associated with.

The most important aspect of your feed is content that has value. Don’t post needless articles; always post and share relevant and fresh links that you would read yourself. Most importantly, don’t only post links. You don’t want your audience to assume that you’re a bot.

So, what kind of posts should you rely on? Data, Opinions, and News. Think about it, do you like or trust seeing the same kind of content repeatedly throughout the day? Nope. Not only is it boring, it comes off as insincere and lazy. When you post your own opinions from time to time, you give people insight as to who you are. Backing up these beliefs with data from time to time is necessary to prove that your opinion has a basis. The news keeps people updated on the happenings in your industry, and people will flock to you for that kind of information. Without all three functioning together, you’ll either come off as preachy, bland or simply wrong.

Follow and Like Accounts That Matter

Just like real life, who you associate yourself with matters. That means that, ironically, you aren’t just on social media to socialize as much as you’re on it to gain social capital. You need to be following legitimate accounts that post relevant news, ones that your own audience flocks to. On occasion, these accounts will follow or like you back, and that’s great news. Anything that connects you to those who have a higher social status than you on social media is going to point their own audience in your direction.

Don’t just add people, see who they add. If you follow a brand on Twitter, and you’d like to get to their level on social media, check out the other brands that they associate themselves with. That’s the best way to get a grasp on which accounts are helpful and which are not. Not only this but participate in your community. Get an idea of which groups discuss your industry, and dive into those discussions. Tote your brand like you would your fashion sense on a night out. It’s time to show off!

Consistency

How can one build trust if one isn’t concrete in their ways? Unpredictability is not a quality that people search for in their social media content. If you’re going to present yourself as an authority in your field, you need to be posting adequate content on a constant basis. There shouldn’t be dips in quality; you don’t have the option to slack off. Your followers are one post away from ditching your page, and you always need to give them a reason to stay. Always stay on top of your game in this department!

Listen to Customers

At the end of the day, social media is a tool for communication. That means that your customers should want to communicate with you. If they aren’t, you’re not creating content that warrants engagement. Engagement is exactly the end goal, and you want customers asking questions and contacting you through your posts. If a customer asks a question on your post, see it as a golden opportunity! Every comment is a chance for discussion, and any discussion leads to excess content.

If you actually consider yourself an authority in your industry, you’ll have no problem publicly solving your customer’s problems. This doesn’t mean offering free work, either. You can actually solve their issue with an offer or a promotion. Extend your services as a means to work through the commenter’s issue! If it’s a question that warrants simple advice, offer that advice! If your audience is participating, you’re doing social media correctly.

Your Local eCommerce Guru

Speaking of authority, we’d like to take the time to remind you to continue to follow Genius eCommerce for helpful content. Stay ahead of the game and always up to date on the latest news about the online world of business! You’re always a click away from content that can steer you in the right direction and give you great ideas for your own eCommerce storefront.

April 23, 2018

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Ecommerce, eCommerce University, Latest eCommerce, social media

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Make Sure You’re Ready To Launch Your eCommerce Application With This Checklist

Don’t Miss A Step With Your eCommerce Application Launch With This Checklist

You’ve figured out everything for your eCommerce website from the product you’ll be selling to the template and logo for your website down to every last product description. You are ready to hit the go button and launch your eCommerce application, but you’re nervous you may have missed a step.

This feeling is completely understandable; with so many things to stay on top of with the launch of an eCommerce application, sometimes human error comes into play and mistakes are missed. That’s why this checklist will walk you through everything you need to prepare before setting your website to go live.

Writing

There are few things worse than having a glaring typo on your live website that you didn’t notice before. This is why it’s important to go through any text listed anywhere on your website and make sure that there aren’t any misspellings, grammar errors, or typos. This means checking product descriptions, buttons, navigation, page names, etc. Checking for typos and errors is difficult to do by yourself; you often will miss errors in your own writing. If you don’t already have a staff to help you with your business, recruit someone you trust to help you go through the website’s text.

Next, check that you’ve optimized all of your images. This includes web design checks to make sure they aren’t excessively large (which will cause your website to slow down), but also that their titles and alt-text (including captions and descriptions) are optimized for the website.

Web Design

The first thing to check for eCommerce application is to make sure your website performance is optimized. A slow website is going to dramatically affect the customer’s experience. Google has an online tool that allows you to test your site speed and make recommendations to increase your website performance (keep in mind that a slow site speed can negatively impact your search engine rankings). Next, if you have made your website responsive to mobile devices, make sure that the mobile version of your website is working properly.

Then, check your eCommerce application on a variety of different web browsers (Google Chrome, FireFox, Safari, etc.) to make sure it is compatible across the board. Once you’ve check compatibility, take a fine tooth comb through your website to check fonts. Sometimes font can be affected in a template or font codes can alter how letters look, so make sure the formatting is how you want it. Last but certainly not least, triple check every avenue of your website navigation. Check every possible journey throughout every possible page of your website to make sure that you have equal access to other pages from any page of the website.

Web Development

Go through your website and test each of your URLs; you can do this by navigating throughout each page to ensure that they all work properly, or by using an online tool to test it for you (Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool is a great resource). With a larger site that has more than 500 different URLs, you will most likely have to use a paid resource. An excellent resource to take advantage of to keep your web development in check is the Google Search Console. Google will let you know when anything goes wrong on your site so that you can quickly fix it.

Search Engine Optimization

First, go through all your pages and make sure each one has a unique title tag as well as a unique meta description. If you are using an analytics tool through your eCommerce platform or you have Google Analytics working on your site, it’s critical to make sure either is working prior to launch in order to get accurate data. Next, check the icons that you have to integrate your social media throughout your website; test each one to ensure that each icon goes to the correct social media platform. Lastly, if you are planning to run any PPC campaigns, double check that they are ready to go prior to launch.

Network Settings

The first part of network settings is checking monitoring; utilize a site monitor to regularly check pages to ensure they are readily available for website visitors. Then, check the server’s backup system. It’s vital to make sure that if the server goes down, the backup server is properly set in place. Next, test the traffic loads. You won’t know how your site handles heavy traffic until it happens, but there are tools that will test traffic load on the different pages of your website to make sure they can handle it. Finally, check your security. This means if you have any pages that can only be accessed by login credentials, make sure that only by using the login credentials, the pages can be viewed. You also need to check your security certificate to ensure that eCommerce visitors payment information is properly protected.

That’s it! Now that you are through the checklist and everything is set in place, you are ready to launch your eCommerce application. Have any questions? Leave them in the comments and a professional digital agency will jump in and answer!

May 26, 2017

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How To Start an eCommerce Business

Steps To Take To Start An eCommerce Business

There is a long list of reasons why starting an eCommerce business is a great idea in this day and age. First of all, without needing to build a brick-and-mortar store, it’s much easier, faster, and less expensive to get your store up-and-running. And recently, technology has been catching up with how fast online shopping is increasing, so the tools for building your eCommerce store are better than ever.

The eCommerce market is expected to peak at over 1 trillion by the end of the 2017 fiscal year, and then over 2 billion by the end of 2018, so the time to take advantage of this booming industry is now. So, where do you start? Follow this article to learn how to start an eCommerce business.

Find Your Product

Finding your product is one of the most important steps to take if you want to start an eCommerce business, and can often be the most difficult. It also has a huge impact on the success of your eCommerce business, so there are a few things to keep in mind for this step. First, you need to find products that you’re passionate about. If you are selling something you don’t believe in, this will eventually come through to your customers, even over the internet. Second, you need to determine how much your product is going to cost. Too low and it will affect your ROI, and too high your customers will be unsure of purchasing without additional customer support.

The next step is to determine what your margin of profit will be; this can vary depending on what industry you are planning to go into because some products will be marked up more than others. Generally, eCommerce products have a margin of about 30%, but it’s important to discuss this with a manufacturer or distributor throughout the process of choosing your product. With your product, you should choose something that can’t be easily purchased locally for the customer. What do you do when you know you can’t drive somewhere and buy it? You go online! So, when you want to start an eCommerce business, first think of a product that will attract customers to online shopping rather than a physical storefront.

Always Do Your Research

Always do your research if you plan to start an eCommerce business. The world wide web has an almost infinite amount of products, and you want to know what you are getting yourself into as well as learn about your competition. This stage of starting an eCommerce business is fairly simple, all you need to do is take advantage of your friendly Google search. Start searching variations of your product and the industry you want to break into and see what (and how) your competitors are selling. Check out their social media, their website, and try to determine how the successful ones are advertising to the market niche they’re selling to. This will not only give you ideas for what you want to do with your own business, but it will make you more prepared when starting the development and marketing process for yourself. Other great resources to scope out your competitors are eBay and Amazon.

Set Up Your Business

You have determined what your product is, and you’ve done your research on the industry and the market niche you want to fit into. Now it’s time for the nuts and bolts of building your eCommerce business foundation. First things first, choose your business name. You want to make sure it’s something memorable and concise. When you want to start an eCommerce business, you don’t want a name that is too long or too wordy is too difficult to remember, and a name that isn’t interesting won’t be worth remembering to the customer. A good tip is to come up with a few different names, and then using a corporate name search to see if another company is already using it. Once you have picked your name, register it! When you register, you can determine whether you want to be your business structure to be as a sole proprietor, a partner, an LLC, or a corporation.

Next, comes your EIN, business licensing and permits, and manufacturing vendors. Your EIN or your Employer Identification Number is used for opening business bank accounts as well as filing taxes for your business. The best way to think about your EIN is as your business’s social security number. Business licensing and permits are still necessary even if you don’t have a physical store front; an easy check with your city and state can tell you what sort of home business licenses and permits you will need, and then you can go from there once they’re approved. Once your eCommerce business has been properly set up, it’s time to pick the right vendors to manufacture your products. The best part about shopping online for customers is the hardest part about selling online for eCommerce business owners: there are a lot of options. This means there is a lot of competition, so to keep yourself ahead you want to use the best quality at materials at the best price. This is easier said than done, so take your time shopping for the right vendor.

Technology and eCommerce go hand-in-hand, and there are a plethora of options for eCommerce software that can make your life much easier when you want to start an eCommerce business. Take advantage of free project management software (Kanbanchi, Trello, etc.), social media and email marketing software (MailChimp, Hootsuite, etc.), as well as eCommerce platform software. There are so many different platform options that can help you create your eCommerce website, some of the industry leaders are Volusion, Magento, BigCommerce, and Shopify, while there are also open cart options like osCommerce, and 3D cart. If you aren’t tech savvy or are worried you would be overwhelmed with designing an entire website, there are eCommerce design and developers that can help create it with you, like 1 Digital Agency.

Your Business Is Launched, Now What?

Once your business is set up, licensed, and ready to sell, it’s important to market it so that potential customers can actually find out about it! One of the advantages you can take advantage of when you start an eCommerce business is that there is a lot of different ways to market your online store, and they can flow more seamlessly together than they would for a physical storefront. One way is to target your market by sending out email campaigns advertising your products or specific deals or promotions. You can drive traffic to your website through content creation with a website blog, which can also utilize search engine optimization to make sure your keywords and content throughout your website are being used properly to get more traffic. A design and development agency like 1 Digital Agency can also help you start an eCommerce business with social media, SEO, and content marketing.

Follow these steps for how to start an eCommerce business and you will be all good to go. By building a solid and well-researched foundation for your online store and properly marketing it to your target audience, you will find the recipe for success. Do you need a professional website developer to help you start an eCommerce business? Contact info@geniusecommerce.com and get a professional recommendation!

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How to Start An Ecommerce Business

Learning how to start an eCommerce business can be overwhelming at first. But with a little insight into how the industry works, launching your business doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems. In fact, with today’s technology-driven world eCommerce is the perfect place for first-time business owners to get their foot in the door.

Online retail sales in 2016 increased by 15.1% and totaled an estimated $394.9 billion. The industry is only going to grow as more and more people are making purchases via the internet and smartphone apps. Who needs to drive to a store anymore when you can order whatever you need from the comfort of your couch?

With millions of online shoppers at your fingertips, starting an eCommerce business is a great way to take advantage of an evolving retail market. Whether you create your own products or have a passion for business, selling products online has never been easier. Follow our five simple steps to learn how to start an eCommerce business today.

Learn How to Start an ECommerce Business and Turn Your Passion into a Reality

Decide on an Industry and Product

Deciding on an industry and product can be the most difficult part of getting your eCommerce business off the ground, but it’s also the most essential.

There are millions of products available that you could be selling—picking the right one for you can make or break your business. Here are three things to consider when deciding what Ecommerce industry is right for you.

Passion: You should pick an industry that you have a passion or interest in. This is vital to the success of your eCommerce business because without a true interest in what you’re doing it’s easy to lose motivation and let frustrations get the best of you. If you have a house full of cats you adore, then why not look into selling pet products? Choosing an industry that you’re familiar with will help you in the long run when obstacles and challenges arise.
Availability: If the products you’re selling are going to succeed, there needs to be some kind of demand for them. Whether they are handmade products or something you can’t get anywhere else, creating a niche that will peak customer interest is a great way to help your business succeed. Selling something generic or that can easily be found in a supermarket is not the best strategy when it comes to starting an eCommerce business.
Price: You may have found the perfect product that is unique and fuels your passion, but how much does it cost? When considering a product for Ecommerce you have to think about costs like margins, shipping and handling, and customer service, that all go into running an eCommerce business. If a product’s cost is too high, then it’s not going to make you a lot of money and it’s probably not worth going through all the effort of selling it in the first place.

Figure Out the Logistics of Stocking Your Product

Now that you’ve decided on a niche industry and product you are passionate about, it’s time to think about where you’re going to get your supply. When it comes to suppliers, you generally have three options:

Finding a manufacturer who can create your product from scratch.
Purchasing already existing products from a supplier, wholesaler or distributor.
Using a drop shipper who will supply your products and fill your orders with brands and products that already exist.

Do your research when looking for a supplier and consider things like domestic versus overseas manufacturers. Are you more interested in cost-efficiency and variety, or quality and fast shipping time? Figuring out stocking logistics is an essential part of how to start an eCommerce business and make take some time, so be patient.

Get a Headstart on Your Competition

In the eCommerce world, there are a lot of other budding entrepreneurs just like yourself trying to do exactly what you’re doing. That’s why it’s important to research your competition before you start your business. Look for businesses that are in your industry and make note of the things they’re doing well, and what they could improve on.

Things to look out for include: What are their product and shipping prices? What is their marketing strategy? Do they have a newsletter or an email list? How is their website design? Is their site user-friendly and optimized for mobile? Using this information from your competitors, you can build your own business plan and marketing strategy.

Create Your Brand Identity

You’ve found a product, picked a supplier, and done the research on your competition, is it time to start the business yet? Almost. The next step is coming up with an effective brand identity. This is a crucial step in how to start an eCommerce business process because it’s what will help you stand out in a crowded market.

You want to choose a business name that works well for the web.

This means that it looks good in an URL and the right domain name is available. Your name is how customers are going to identify and talk about you, so it needs to be memorable, creative, and relevant. There are several tools available online to help you choose an effective and optimized domain name.

Once you’ve got your business and domain name, it’s time to start thinking about a logo. Hiring a graphic designer for this may be a good idea because you need a logo that’s professional and eye-catching to use for marketing your business.

Build Your Store & Start Selling

The final step in the process of how to start an eCommerce business is to build your store! When building your store, there are a few things that you should keep in mind.

SEO optimize all of your content. Optimizing your website pages, product descriptions, images, and social media makes it easier for customers to find you and is a great way to increase your sales.
Create a blog for your business. A blog will not only keep the interest of your current customers, but help new customers find you and learn more about your products.
Take product photos. Unlike a physical store, customers are unable to hold your product in their hands. This means that the product photos you put up on your site are the only way your customers can see what they’re buying. A lot of people will make snap judgments on the quality and value of a product based on its photo. High-quality professional photos that use good lighting and are taken from multiple angles are the way to go.
Write amazing product descriptions. Without someone there in person to talk to your customers, the product description is all there is to sell them on the product. Make sure it’s error-free, well-written, and convincing. Here’s a great video by Small Revolution that includes helpful tips on how to write great product descriptions.

Now that you’ve uploaded all your products onto your website, it’s time to officially open your eCommerce store for business! Share your new business with friends, family, and on social media.

A little marketing can go a long way when it comes to getting your first customers through the virtual door, so be sure to use our resource on creating a successful marketing strategy.

With these easy tips on how to start an eCommerce business, turning your passion into a reality is an attainable goal for anyone. If you’re thinking about starting your own eCommerce business, contact Genius eCommerce today to get the ball rolling.

Sources: US Department of Commerce

April 25, 2017

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Ecommerce, ecommerce platforms, eCommerce portal, Latest eCommerce, Website Platforms