The online marketplace has grown rapidly over the last few years with numerous small companies and startups getting their own website. This has been greatly accelerated by schemes such as the GBBO. In the US it is common place for all businesses and companies to have an online presence, and the majority are looking at developing their online presence and treat it like their physical high street presence. This means a lot more budget is being allocated for website design, functionality and promotion.
However in the UK we are a little behind...at the moment getting businesses online is the top priority. These schemes are great for creating more websites online and gives users a better selection between competition. However...can you ensure you do not get left behind?
This is a problem we are getting more and more often...'Why is no one visiting my new website?' or 'Why do people not buy anything on my new website?'
First you need to find out where you are getting your traffic from. There are 2 main sources - direct traffic, and search engines.
Now the majority will be receiving traffic from search engines...and thats where there is great room for improvement.
Say you have launched your electricians website, and you want to target the phrase 'electrician somerset'.
1. You are already behind the competitors
2. You are fairly new and therefore recognition is low
3. You do not show up when searching for your keywords
4. Your visitors do not buy anything / contact you
This is a typical scenario I encounter on a daily basis...having a website online is not the final answer to success. We will try and tackle the obstacles which are currently giving your competitors an advantage. For example...when searching for your keyword (3) the results are just your competitors. If anyone else carries out this same search, they are going to automatically visit the top 3 results (statistics show that 50% of traffic hits the first listing). How can you get amongst the top?
The answer - SEO
SEO can be as important as marketing for your high street shop...without it no one will visit the website. Have a look in your local area for an SEO company or SEO consultant, best way is to carry out a search such as 'SEO Somerset' or 'SEO Bristol'. By doing this you are proving to yourself that the top companies are able to perform...if they can get 1st position for their own website then surely they can achieve this for your site too. I really can't be more of an advocate for SEO, I recently spoke to someone in my area about it and they are currently doing a very small amount of work for me but have given me such useful advice on how to improve my current rankings myself as well as hopw to improve other tasks in my company. Contact someone good and they will help your business to no end!
After getting visitors to your site, all you need then is for them to make a purchase. This can be a little easier said than done to get it right. No doubt if you have a healthy stream of traffic to your site then you will get the occasional order come through, but this can be improved greatly with a very little amount of effort.
A partner once asked us about his statistics which he was quite content with, currently getting around 1 order for every 200 visitors. A conversion rate of 0.5% is actually quite good when compared to competitors in his industry.
After speaking with the site owner, he was looking into an SEO company which we recommended, however he also wanted something which would get more immediate results. As he was already getting around 1000 visits a month, we thought there was definite room for improvement. Looking at his site, it was fairly obvious he was not providing enough pictures or enough information on his products. The products only had a select few distributors, so information wasn't freely available. This would obvious cause indecision in the customer, and lead them to another site looking for answers.
The answer - Photography & Content
Within 1 month we had worked with him and produced a more in-depth and visually appealing product catalogue. We enlisted Atomic Smash to carry out some of the product photography for the site, and our content writer Nina Edwards to review the product descriptions. The results were astonishing!
Visits during the month shot to 1,300 - a 30% increase!
Bounce rate went down, meaning visitors stayed longer
Orders sky rocketed, within the month he received 17 orders so an increase of over 150%
Just make sure you address any problems with your site, and dont forget about the user experience and never underestimate the aesthetics and the power of good product photography!
However in the UK we are a little behind...at the moment getting businesses online is the top priority. These schemes are great for creating more websites online and gives users a better selection between competition. However...can you ensure you do not get left behind?
This is a problem we are getting more and more often...'Why is no one visiting my new website?' or 'Why do people not buy anything on my new website?'
First you need to find out where you are getting your traffic from. There are 2 main sources - direct traffic, and search engines.
Now the majority will be receiving traffic from search engines...and thats where there is great room for improvement.
Say you have launched your electricians website, and you want to target the phrase 'electrician somerset'.
1. You are already behind the competitors
2. You are fairly new and therefore recognition is low
3. You do not show up when searching for your keywords
4. Your visitors do not buy anything / contact you
This is a typical scenario I encounter on a daily basis...having a website online is not the final answer to success. We will try and tackle the obstacles which are currently giving your competitors an advantage. For example...when searching for your keyword (3) the results are just your competitors. If anyone else carries out this same search, they are going to automatically visit the top 3 results (statistics show that 50% of traffic hits the first listing). How can you get amongst the top?
The answer - SEO
SEO can be as important as marketing for your high street shop...without it no one will visit the website. Have a look in your local area for an SEO company or SEO consultant, best way is to carry out a search such as 'SEO Somerset' or 'SEO Bristol'. By doing this you are proving to yourself that the top companies are able to perform...if they can get 1st position for their own website then surely they can achieve this for your site too. I really can't be more of an advocate for SEO, I recently spoke to someone in my area about it and they are currently doing a very small amount of work for me but have given me such useful advice on how to improve my current rankings myself as well as hopw to improve other tasks in my company. Contact someone good and they will help your business to no end!
After getting visitors to your site, all you need then is for them to make a purchase. This can be a little easier said than done to get it right. No doubt if you have a healthy stream of traffic to your site then you will get the occasional order come through, but this can be improved greatly with a very little amount of effort.
A partner once asked us about his statistics which he was quite content with, currently getting around 1 order for every 200 visitors. A conversion rate of 0.5% is actually quite good when compared to competitors in his industry.
After speaking with the site owner, he was looking into an SEO company which we recommended, however he also wanted something which would get more immediate results. As he was already getting around 1000 visits a month, we thought there was definite room for improvement. Looking at his site, it was fairly obvious he was not providing enough pictures or enough information on his products. The products only had a select few distributors, so information wasn't freely available. This would obvious cause indecision in the customer, and lead them to another site looking for answers.
The answer - Photography & Content
Within 1 month we had worked with him and produced a more in-depth and visually appealing product catalogue. We enlisted Atomic Smash to carry out some of the product photography for the site, and our content writer Nina Edwards to review the product descriptions. The results were astonishing!
Visits during the month shot to 1,300 - a 30% increase!
Bounce rate went down, meaning visitors stayed longer
Orders sky rocketed, within the month he received 17 orders so an increase of over 150%
Just make sure you address any problems with your site, and dont forget about the user experience and never underestimate the aesthetics and the power of good product photography!
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