Search engines are the gold mine of driving traffic to any website. So everyone with an e-commerce site needs to stay on, top of marketing trends that will ensure their website is in proper positioning for search engine results.

Catherin Seda, internet marketing strategist form DriveTrafficToday.com notes that some trends in e-marketing do well to help websites get naturally higher rankings. She indicates that these are easy to use, but they are also powerful tools that attract search engine spiders once you supply them with the content they want. Here are some of the most effective tools you can use to get the spiders to note your website.

1. Blogging

Blogging will give your website a boost in search engine rankings. It also provides you with a lot of exposure to traffic that is highly targeted. You can create your blog as well as you can post helpful information tips on blogs that will help your demographic. In the latter, you can gain excellent backlinks to your website driving traffic there.

You can start slowly by using websites like IceRocket.com and BlogPulse.com where you can search for blogs in your niche market. Then you can post comments that users will find useful and link them back to your website.

2. Social Networking

With the use of social networking websites, you can share information in a community environment. For example, Flickr is a photo sharing website while YouTube allows you to share videos. Each site or app will have a significant consumer base giving you a chance to reach a vast consumer base.

With these communities, you can make use of viral marketing which can get you even more exposure and more traffic. When you post something, and one user sees it. They can like and share it with their friends providing you with even more exposure than your initial post itself.

Social Media should be a big part of your marketing and does affect your ranking in the search engines. Each profile you have online is a standalone page to each community. Each of these pages will rank in search engines, and you can link back to your website from each of these.

3. Article Distribution and Press Releases

Writing articles and press releases and submitting to websites such as newsforce.com or prweb.com can strengthen your position on the web. If you are new to writing, you will be happy to find that both of these websites offer tools to help you achieving search engine optimised pieces.
The more content you can get on the internet the more attractive you will be to the spiders. For less than $100 you can send out a press release that can get picked up by some blogs and websites.

You can get statistical reports with many PR services that will measure your advertising dollars so you can stay abreast of your success.
Gaining a good position in search engine rankings doesn’t have to be hard. You just need to put the things you do already into regular practice. These resources are at your disposal, and with simple techniques, you can get your presence noticed and increased your profits.

You can use RSS feeds yourself to keep you up to date with blogs, news and more. In March 2006 notes Technorati there were an available 30 million RSS feeds. Most major websites and news streams publish RSS feeds. RSS feeds not only help to increase knowledge, but they also help to increase productivity and can be used for crisis communications, brand monitoring, competitive intelligence and internal/executive communications.
Content and information providers, as well as media companies, can offer their customers and visitors a convenient way to access the information they share. When you incorporate an RSS feed into a website, you will also give your users a more personalised experience and will strengthen your brand while providing more opportunities for maximising your revenues.

RSS feeds require the use of an aggregator or RSS reader, but there are some free ones available as well as affordable ones that can be used with outlook, cell phones, desktops and even online ones as well. If you are leveraging RSS for a high amount of users within a company, then you will need to utilise an RSS server. Using an RSS server will allow you to manage groups and users centrally and deal with scalability and security issues. If you want to aggregate RSS into an external website, you will need a server-based solution as well. This can be customer premise-based or hosted.

RSS and E-COMMERCE

Online retailers are making the most of RSS feeds; using them to ensure their customers do come back. Websites like NewEgg.com make use of RSS, and you can find the icons easily on their website. Users have the opportunity to get regular updates on the products they want to follow. Users can indicate their preferences, and by clicking the icon, the companies know what exact alerts to send to the customer. The company can now send this user an email whenever there is a new product in that category or a proper promotion.

Customers often don’t have the time and energy to search through all the merchandise a website offers to ensure that they are getting best and with an RSS option the company can help them to find what meets their needs without either party having to do too much work.

Retailers get the opportunity to present customers with products and services that they are highly interested in and potential buyers don’t have to exert themselves over to get what they need. The arrangement is quite reasonable, and a win-win for each party involved.

You too can give your company the boost it by implementing RSS feeds for your audience.

The future of e-commerce websites is very bright. You will always have customers if you recognise the needs of people and when you do that you will find that it is straightforward to make money online selling products and services that people need.

Competition on the web For E-commerce Websites

The number of online shoppers is increasing each day. Therefore there is a need for additional e-commerce websites. As such businesses have responded by creating several e-commerce websites making the market highly competitive. If you have something to offer chances are there are already many other e-commerce websites selling just what you have.

Consider the health and beauty category. There are hundreds of websites offering these types of products online, and they may even provide the same products and services that you are looking to extend. One customer often has hundreds of options to choose from when they go searching for their needed product online. So how do you make your e-commerce website more attractive and more successful than the many others selling the same products online?

Market Your E-commerce Website in the Most Efficient Way

As an e-commerce website owner, you must understand the importance of planning and ensure that marketing your e-commerce website is efficient. You put up your site, but you cant merely stop there. You have to get your website into the faces of the customers that are looking for your products and services. Getting sales by just making your site live may have been useful before but not right now. There is a lot of competition out there, and the best way to set your business apart is to ensure that you have a beneficial marketing campaign.

There are two things you must consider; these are planning and marketing. Even before you set up your website, you have to plan thoroughly first. You want to prepare for your target market; you design options and a budget for your website creation and marketing methods as well. All the above three factors will have a tremendous impact on the performance of your e-commerce website.

Once you have gone through the planning stages your next step is to market your website. You will need to work on a campaign to sell your site. Marketing will help make your website more visible to your target market. There are some options you have available to help you with marketing your website. The one you choose will all be dependent on the needs of your site.

Remember, to have a successful e-commerce website you cant merely set it up and forget about it. The sales will come when you continue to work on your site and continually market it to your target audience.

To prevent this happening and to ensure you’re always pumping out fresh content to your social media followers – have a social media content schedule.

What do I mean by this?

Ok start with a goal. Examples include:

• Post once a day on all forms of social media for an entire month
• Run a promotion on Facebook to encourage people to share and like page
• 500 Facebook likes by the end of the month
• Respond to all responses/interaction from people

Pick whichever you want, something regular and achievable. Do something simple to begin with and if you carry it out then build on it for the following month.

Say you pick the first one. Experiment with 20-30 words (keep it short and sweet). Print out a month-view calendar if you like writing or use excel if you love spreadsheets. Write one topic or idea on each day of the month (i.e. days 1-30)

Think about the month ahead (e.g. November). What public holidays or events take place in this month? Doesn’t have to be restricted to the country you are in.

Make a list of topic ideas for tweets and Facebook posts; two-three words which you can expand upon. For example: Spring Carnival; Start of Summer; Christmas; Thanksgiving. Brainstorm different content which is themed and appropriate for the season.

• It makes sense that you wouldn’t talk about bikinis and summer weather in May or June; a better idea would be to promote that great new scarf you got and how it has a really cool pattern – “visit our website to get your own”.

Don’t just spam people with promoting your business; share interesting thoughts, a funny joke, a cool picture or a thoughtful quote. Build a relationship and online network with your followers. Don’t just try and sell them stuff all the time. Of course let them know when you’re having a sale or when you get in new products or when you’re featured in the media. Mix it up so that it appeals to more people (keeping your target market in mind).

Once you have your month of content prepared, set a reminder so that you release the content required for each day. Do it as you drink your morning coffee (or tea). Also try releasing tweets at different times during the day to test responses. See when the ‘peak’ time is for your followers and post then.

Remember to integrate hash tags and keywords so that your tweets are searchable by your audience. Research what the current hot topics are and target these.

After the month has finished analyse the results. What response did you get? Did you achieve your goal? Ask your followers what they thought of your content – could you tailor it better to suit their needs?

Keep doing what you did well for the next month (draw up another month schedule) and brainstorm new ways to reach your audience. It doesn’t take long, especially if you nut it out on the first day of the month – the rest of the time you can just cruise (I mean complete other business tasks!).

Our crew at Brown Paper can help you do this and can also set up an eCommerce store for you. We have packages for all budgets and provide a range of services. 

Lately I’ve come across a bunch of new websites which are lacking in content, especially the ‘About’ page. I find this strange considering that businesses should want to let their customers know who they are, what they stand for, and why their product is awesome!

Hence I was confused when I came across multiple sites which lacked these elements. A couple of them didn’t even have an ‘About’ page, and it took me ages to find the prices for their products.

Don’t. Do. This.

If you want your website to rank higher in Google you need to have good content. Even just having content helps, but don’t make the mistake of having nothing at all. That won’t do any good at all and you’ll lose people soon after they land on your site.

Here are some tips for you to boost your SEO (search engine optimisation) and help customers stay on your site. YES – it is possible to have loads of content without bombarding your customers with information or screwing up your site design/navigation. Know who you are talking to.

Here is what TO do:

1. Have an interesting ‘About Me’ page with a touch of humour.
   • Maybe around 300 words
   • Have short paragraphs and sentences for easy reading
   • Could have different tabs available for a timeline of your business.
2. Have your own separate blog linked to the website (for those blog addicts)
3. Write interesting descriptions for products
   • Also writing a brief background about the designer (if fashion products) and maybe about their latest collection
4. Behind the scenes videos
   • Short, sweet, interesting – not trying to sell
5. Product descriptions
   • Sizing charts
   • Product information (i.e. what is it made of, where was it made etc.)
6. Weekly email update available for reading on the site (as well as for e-newsletter) – like a ‘hot topic’ – “Q & A interview with …”

Categorise your content.

Don’t just have it all cluttered on the homepage or it’ll look like a mess of words and people won’t be able to focus or even read it.

But say upon clicking the tab for “About Me” there is a short, clear description of who you are, what your brand does, and why you love waking up in the morning, or what you can do for these wonderful customers. And below this you might have a few links for ‘behind the scenes’ or ‘see inside our shop’, or ‘how we started’ and so if people are researching about you or are browsing your site, the information is there for them to easily find.

This will not only help to boost your SEO and ranking in Google but it will help foster a connection between you and your customers as they get to know you and your products.