The Ultimate Checklist for your ECommerce Website

ecommerce website, shopping cart, ecommerce website design

Before you go in for an eCommerce website, you need you need to make sure that you make a shopping cart checklist which incorporates all your present and requirements. That way, you can be sure that nothing is left out, and your eCommerce website design is perfect.

Register your business

To start off with your eCommerce website, you need to register yourself in one of the below business structures

Sole Trader
Partnership or
Company

The next step is to choose a business name, following which you need to register with Inland Revenue for tax purposes. For more details click here.

Get a website / domain name

Once your business name is registered, you may choose a domain name to go with it. Suppose your business is registered as ‘Glen Tailoring’, and glentailoring.com is not available, then you may opt for TailorGlen.com. The idea is to have a domain similar to your business name. However, do not use Glen-tailoring.com, as your audience may omit the ‘hyphen’ while typing and perhaps get re-directed to some other site or get an error along the lines of “the page doesn’t exist”.

Look and Feel

The look and feel of your eCommerce website design is most important to retain a first time visitor. If your website is difficult to navigate, then your visitors will click away. Apart from the navigation part, there are also other important factors which do matter:

A great looking logo
Multi-browser compatibility
Promotional graphics and hyperlinks to your products
Call to action (CTA) to your important website pages
Search box to help customers search for required information or product on the website
News Updates
Promo banners, to attract audience clicks.
Links to popular products, recent purchases, and suggested products.

All the above points are the essential for making your website look pleasing and easy to navigate.

Managing the overall eCommerce Site

ecommerce website, shopping cart, ecommerce website design

Product Pages

Your product page is like the heart of your shopping cart website. Your products are the reason why you have a website in the first place. So it must be kept in order. Below are a few suggestions.

Each of the products should have a proper description.
Their specs and sizes must be made available.
The product page must contain photographs of the specific item taken from different angles.
If it is available in different colours, then, customers must be given the option to display product pictures of the chosen colour only.
Social media sharing buttons must be made available so that people may share their favourite product with friends who may be interested too!
There must be an option to comment as well as view others’ comments about the product.
The page must have “Add to cart” option so that the customers go ahead and buy what they want, without much delay.
A “Wishlist” option may be provided, in order to help them plan future purchases on your site.
The availability of your products, as well as the quantity currently available, must also be visible on the product page.
Keywords must be used on individual product pages to increase the search engine visibility of each product.

Blogs to Add Value

ecommerce website, shopping cart, ecommerce website design

Your company needs to stand out from competitors. A blog page is therefore very essential to help your website get organic traffic. Your blog articles can help you get a better SEO rank, because of the valuable information you provide to your website visitors. Your blog postings may include the following.

Field specific articles
Company updates or events.
Latest industry developments.

Checkout, Shopping Cart and Wishlist

A Shopping Cart is the most important part of an eCommerce website and the one which ensures bread on the dinner table. So make sure that the process seems like a piece of cake to your online shoppers. Ensure clear display of the price or discounted rate (if the customer adds more items to the shopping cart). Make provision for the promo code, which may be used if applicable.

Once the items are chosen, and the shopping cart is ready, the calculations must incorporate the taxes and shipping charges according to the chosen destination.

The payment section must accept all payment methods and cards. Make sure that the security seal is visible, during the payment process.

If you are dealing with online downloads, then specify the downloading instructions on the product page, as well as your follow up email with the actual download link.

Following up with Customers

Once a customer purchases a product from your eCommerce store, you may follow the below checklist:

Send a ‘thank you’ email with a picture of the product and receipt.

Ask them if they are satisfied with the product; follow it up with a request for a review of your product.

You may email them your offers for their abandoned shopping carts.

There are many finer points which go into making a successful eCommerce website. Have we missed any? Do let us know your suggestions in the comments below.

Tips to Maximise Conversions through Facebook Ads

Your Facebook ads need to generate the kind of income that will justify all the spending which goes with it. However, not many businesses are doing it the right way. So here are some Facebook advertising tips.

Choose the right audience

For e.g., if you are responsible for advertising a much awaited boxing re-match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquio on Facebook, you need to target the right people. During the course of setting up your Facebook Ad, suppose you choose the target audience as “Moms of pre-school kids”, then you will probably be doing it wrong. That’s because, neither the pre-school kids nor their moms care much about boxing. You may even hire the best designer and copywriter, but your advertising campaign will nevertheless fall flat on its face.

So you need to select your Facebook audiences based on their interests. If you are promoting a boxing event, then you may choose people who are interested in sports rather than selecting those who are interested in real estate, parenting, meditation, pets or fashion.

Facebook Ad Sizes

Optimise the images and text for your audience

Make sure that your ad looks professional. It must be interesting enough to attract attention and force people to click through them. Make sure your ad text sounds interesting! Make sure it has an emotional appeal, after all people respond to emotion rather than logic!

Rather than speak of your product, tell them how their lives will change for the better because of it. By doing this, you connect with them at an emotional level! Tell them how they will be able to achieve what they want, thanks to your product.

You also need to use a good colour theme; after all colours attract certain emotions. Red is usually associated with passion, while blue is a calm colour which generates trust. So go with the colour theme that suits your particular product.

Have an attractive lead magnet

Have a lead magnet (or freebie) to attract e-mail signups; giveaway something of value. If you are a restaurant, you may give away FREE food coupons. If you own a gym, aerobics or martial arts centre, you may offer FREE training video or perhaps a demo class. Other business can give away their own products as giveaways, in order to attract signups and build their email list.

There are many other things which are perfect giveaways, like free PDF or e-books, audio downloads or even FREE tools. People are obsessed with the word FREE, however they also love another word ‘Quality’. So make sure that your give-aways radiate quality as it is a reflection of your brand image.

Get a Facebook Web Design Package for only $350

Have a great landing page

Having a great ad can generate likes; however the sales depend on your landing page. If your landing page is not as good as your Facebook Ads, then people will just take the freebie and move on. They won’t be impressed with your landing page and therefore, will not take your product or services seriously. Your landing page needs to consist of the below 4 characteristics:

Great Headlines: Make sure that your headlines are enticing enough to attract audience clicks.

A pleasing design layout: Looks are definitely skin-deep. However, good looks are never out of fashion, and people fall for looks. The same applies to your online ad and landing pages. Make sure they are attractive enough for people to stop over and click on them.

Interesting ad text: The ad text must be interesting, and tell the audience how they stand to benefit by using your product. It must not be a routine text bragging about your brand. Make sure it is different, but relevant to your business at the same time.

Genuine User Reviews: User reviews generate trust. People usually give a lot of importance to the opinions of your previous customers. So make sure you have plenty of good reviews from genuine people, to back you up.

Tracking

You need to add tracking pixels to each of your landing pages. This will give you crucial information about the ads which are generating results and the landing pages which are getting the most conversions.

You may then experiment with different types of ad copies, landing page designs, and different types of text content. This will give you an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

Thus, you can derive your own magical formula for Facebook Ad success. It may not be evident overnight; but over a span of time you can develop your own success formula by using the above Facebook advertising tips. Once you do that, sky is the limit, with regards to your sales and earning potential.

How to write catchy headlines for your blogs

When you a write a blog, most of the people don’t get to see it. That sounds a bit harsh right? Okay, let me put it this way, “Your Blog title will be read 5 times more than the actual blog, and 4 times out of 5 they will decide not to read it anyway”. That’s how important your titles are, when it comes to get people read your blog.

blog2
A headline must not be the last thing on your list. It is good to spend at least 30 minutes to get a catchy headline before you settle down for one. It should be done before you begin writing your article, which in fact must be woven around the headline.

Usage of numbers:

If you notice, most of the viral articles online contain a number. The posts written across reputed blogs also contain numbers in their headlines. Even if there is no scientific theory, to prove the necessity of numbers in blog titles, the fact is that they work.

For Eg: “5 Best tools for Instagram Marketing”, sounds better than “Instagram Marketing Tools for your Business”.

It is best to have an odd number like 3, 5, 7, 9,and so on. Double digits also work well, like 19, 37, 43; basically they must be vague numbers.

E.g (2): “19 Tips to write more interesting blog posts” or “The 43 Most Catchy Headlines of All Time”

Use these Magic Words:

There are some adjectives which work magic like:

Powerful: “9 Powerful Steps to become an Effective Public Speaker”

Effective: “7 Effective Self Defense Techniques to Fight any Attacker”

Fun: “5 Fun Ways to Eliminate your Writers’ Block”

Complete: “A Complete Guide to Instagram Marketing”

Shocking: “A Shocking Revelation about Mobile Marketing Campaigns”

Use How, Which, Why, What?

These words generate interest; audience will get interested to know more and be tempted to read your article. These are also known as ‘Trigger Words’., and it is a good idea to begin your title with any of these.

How: “How mobile marketing can help reinvigorate your business”

Which: “Which social media channels generate best ROI for paid marketing?”

Why: “Why traditional advertising is dying”

What: “What I would do differently if I were starting my career over”

However, you may notice that I am not using a number with these words, as it’s not advisable to use them with trigger words.

Be Bold, Make a Wild Claim, and Deliver

Your readers must be challenged and dared to read your blog. Throw down the gauntlet, be outrageous, and see your spirited readers jump on the bandwagon and read the blog in its entirety. “Make a bold claim and Deliver”!

For Eg: “Why Internet Marketing isn’t your cup of tea”. Simple as it may sound, it is an outright challenge, and only the spirited ones will accept and read it – to uncover the mystery.

E.g (2): “6 Reasons why you should give up doing business, and go back to your day job”. Now this is again something unheard of. People are accustomed to ‘Give up your day job, and be your own boss’ kind of titles. So this will hit them like a bolt of lightning, stop them in their tracks and ‘click’ on your link to find out.
These are the many ways to attract a bigger audience to your blog. Great headlines are definitely one of easiest!

5 Benefits of Promotional Products for Small Businesses

There are many promotional products available in the market, which can be gifted to your customers. However, at the end of the day, all of that comes down to the basic questions, “Do these kinds of advertising techniques help small business marketing? What about the returns? What kind of promo products fit the bill?”

Let’s look at the following inferences:

Recall or Remembrance: It is a proven fact that promotional items have a lasting impact on people’s memory; they will obviously remember the product, and the associated brand. Research statistics say that, given the opportunity, more than 85% of them will go back to buy or do business with the same company in future.

Positivity: About 60% of the people regard the company which gives them a promotional products, more positively.
Lasting Impact: The product which carries a message has a lasting impact. It could even be the company motto or byline that goes with the product.
Usability: People love to have items which they can carry for daily use, like coffee mug, pen, keychain, watch and the like. About 80% of the people keep them safely as long as they are usable. Their staying power makes them an effective advertising medium. More than 50% of them use these products at least once a week.
Repeated Exposure: Of all the forms of advertising, promotional items result in a repeated exposure of the product logo and message, obviously resulting in a very low cost per impression to the company.

What kind of promotional products do we choose?

There are a variety of items to choose from, hundreds of thousands – to be more precise. Many of these promotional items are available locally and can be shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order. So there’s no dearth of products, you just need to choose the right ones based on the above discussed criteria.

Where do we get Promotional Products?

There are a variety of websites which offer corporate promotional products in New Zealand like

Thus we can infer how promotional products leave customers with an everlasting and sweet memory of your company. If business is ‘all about relationships’, then promotional products keep them in good shape. And yes, giving away promotional goodies, can definitely be considered as one of the best advertising techniques for small business marketing.