When you visit a bookstore, what do you see in the showcase at the front of the bookstore? You see the latest releases or the most popular books that the store has, right? You should use the same analogy when creating your online store as well. You should showcase the latest products that you are selling or products that you know are “winners” & have generated a lot of sales for you in the past. Before you read this be sure to also check out my other post on how to optimize your web/online store for the right keywords and my other post on what to sell online.
Just for a moment, imagine how it would be if the same bookstore that we talked about in the first paragraph, had a big sheet of paper with a list of the latest books written with very beautiful handwriting. Even if the bookstore had some excellent books, do you think it would generate a lot of sales? Other than the odd person who is interested in reading the list in detail, no one else would even pay a visit to the store. The same applies with your ecommerce store as well. The homepage should contain your bestsellers & should immediately attract the attention of your customers like saying, “This is why you are here at my online store, I want you to check out the following products”.
In brief, what I am telling you is that your homepage should not have a lot of content with lot of text even though it may be relevant. Put a lot of images. Make it aesthetically pleasing. The easy way to do this is to to choose a prewritten template from one of the established web store creators which is listed here.
The best example for this Google. One reason why Google is so popular, experts say, is because of the simplicity of its home page. There is nothing but white space with a big search toolbar in the middle of the page. Google wants you to search for content from its homepage because that’s what Google is, a search engine. The links that you see at the top of the page such as gmail, maps, photos etc. is all secondary.
I am not saying that your store should also be built in exactly the same way. But what I am suggesting is that it should be similar in that it should be nice & simple with images & a couple of boldly written links leading to other important parts of your website. Overall, try to keep the information as simple as possible.
Let’s go back to the bookstore for a moment again. Suppose there are 2 bookstores standing side-by-side. One has magnificent lighting with very attractive colours & lights used in the showcase. The other bookstore also, let’s assume, has the same books as the first one but has duller lighting with not much importance being given to lighting & appearance.
Which of the two shops would you go to first?
As long as you are not an abnormal person, you would go to the one with attractive lighting. The same applies to your store as well. You will have to “outshine your competitors”. Use attractive colours & attractive text size & font especially for your homepage. The best option that I would recommend is to check out the stores that have been prebuilt complete with templates & attractive fonts rather than building your online store from scratch.
There is one point that I would like to make clear. In the past, when I have share the same advice listed above, people have told me that despite using attractive colors & building an aesthetically pleasing website, they are not having much success with regard to traffic.
The solution to this is the amount of text that you put in. Make sure you put a lot of content in the different pages of your web store. Yes, I told you before not to put a lot of text & to only put images. But I was talking about the homepage of your web store. In the other pages of your online store, spread out all the content that you create.
Do not put all the written stuff that you have created in a single webpage on your website. Spread it out. Put a little information over here, a little information over there & build on those little pieces of information.
Don’t make the customer think twice about whether to trust your store or not. You have to help him make up his/her mind by sharing your expertise. In order to achieve this you will need a lot of text. So text does play an extremely important role in the success of your online store. Just don’t overdo it.
Another important thing that most beginners have with their websites is that they are unable to drive targeted traffic to their stores. The trick to achieve this is to research the market properly. Use keyword research software like SEO elite for this.
Summarizing what I said above, the homepage is the most important page of your website. Dress it up properly & your ecommerce store will be a big winner.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Setting up Your Online Store
Now that you know what you have to do before starting your own online store, it is time to start building it. In order to achieve this, you would have to picture yourself when you are about to start a shop in the “real” world. This is important since the whole set up of your online store will be based on which customers you are targeting. An important thing that you could do would be to implement the right SEO techniques for your ecommerce store. Here are some points that you may consider in order to help you with the whole process:·
What subjects do you have a lot of knowledge about?
This is extremely important since you would have to convert the customers that you are getting from just “interested people” to “buyers”. You will have to convince them to buy from your store & in order to do that you will need to have solid knowledge about what you are selling.
How enthusiastic are you?
Can you transfer the energy, the passion, the enthusiasm in you to your visitors as well? This is a really important step in setting up your ecommerce store because people won’t stay watching your store for long. Whatever your sales letter or sales pitch is will have to be delivered to them within a few seconds after they visit your web store. Once you have their attention, you will need to impress them with your enthusiasm & knowledge about the products. This will impress them a great deal & will probably even convert them from just visitors to buyers.
What is your budget?
This is an extremely important question as, like in real life, there will be some initial investments that you will make to set up your store properly. This may include advertising costs, shipping costs etc. Just like in real life, you will have to carefully plan your budget. The returns can be higher with an online store than a “real life” store because people like to sit at their homes & do everything. This includes shopping as well which is good news for your ecommerce store. I am telling you about this because I want you to fully understand that ecommerce stores are gaining huge amounts of popularity every day. If you have done any kind of shopping online, you may have done it through an online store without realizing it because they look just like any other website. So, you are going to have to calculate the profits that you are going to make per item sold & spend accordingly.
Are you targeting your customers geographically?
Before you start you will have to decide if the products you are selling on your online store will attract people only from certain areas in the world. For example, if you are selling a book on “Chinese food” & promoting it on the internet all over the world & not specifically in China, then you may end up losing a lot of money. Chinese food may not be good example here as people from other countries may be interested in trying out Chinese food.
But you get what I am staying, right?
Trust me; it always pays if you promote your online business in a particular area. If you are saying that it is not possible to promote something in a particular area on the internet as people from all over the world can view your content, think again. If you are in Canada & search for something on Google, priority will be given to those websites that have been advertised specifically in Canada.
There are many other factors that are extremely important & have to be used for setting up your online store & I will address those points in one of my future posts. There is one fundamental difference between doing business online & doing business in “real life”. Research has shown that good businesses in real life have succeeded not only because of the quality of their products but also because of advertising. Now in real life, verbal skills are extremely important as that is the primary mode of communication between the customers & the visitors. But in the case of your websites, your writing skills are more important.
Everyone is faceless on the Internet. You don’t know your customers & your customers don’t know you. It is your job to “connect” to your customers by writing effectively. So, writing good sales pitches & sales letters that have a personal factor in them is important in the overall set up of your online store. This will not only generate sales from the customers that do visit your web store, but also you can continue to keep in touch with them about the products that you are planning to sell in the future.
Having read the above, you may have generated some ideas for . More interesting posts on which e-commerce software to use & more tips on "making your store a success" coming up. Watch out for them.
What subjects do you have a lot of knowledge about?
This is extremely important since you would have to convert the customers that you are getting from just “interested people” to “buyers”. You will have to convince them to buy from your store & in order to do that you will need to have solid knowledge about what you are selling.
How enthusiastic are you?
Can you transfer the energy, the passion, the enthusiasm in you to your visitors as well? This is a really important step in setting up your ecommerce store because people won’t stay watching your store for long. Whatever your sales letter or sales pitch is will have to be delivered to them within a few seconds after they visit your web store. Once you have their attention, you will need to impress them with your enthusiasm & knowledge about the products. This will impress them a great deal & will probably even convert them from just visitors to buyers.
What is your budget?
This is an extremely important question as, like in real life, there will be some initial investments that you will make to set up your store properly. This may include advertising costs, shipping costs etc. Just like in real life, you will have to carefully plan your budget. The returns can be higher with an online store than a “real life” store because people like to sit at their homes & do everything. This includes shopping as well which is good news for your ecommerce store. I am telling you about this because I want you to fully understand that ecommerce stores are gaining huge amounts of popularity every day. If you have done any kind of shopping online, you may have done it through an online store without realizing it because they look just like any other website. So, you are going to have to calculate the profits that you are going to make per item sold & spend accordingly.
Are you targeting your customers geographically?
Before you start you will have to decide if the products you are selling on your online store will attract people only from certain areas in the world. For example, if you are selling a book on “Chinese food” & promoting it on the internet all over the world & not specifically in China, then you may end up losing a lot of money. Chinese food may not be good example here as people from other countries may be interested in trying out Chinese food.
But you get what I am staying, right?
Trust me; it always pays if you promote your online business in a particular area. If you are saying that it is not possible to promote something in a particular area on the internet as people from all over the world can view your content, think again. If you are in Canada & search for something on Google, priority will be given to those websites that have been advertised specifically in Canada.
There are many other factors that are extremely important & have to be used for setting up your online store & I will address those points in one of my future posts. There is one fundamental difference between doing business online & doing business in “real life”. Research has shown that good businesses in real life have succeeded not only because of the quality of their products but also because of advertising. Now in real life, verbal skills are extremely important as that is the primary mode of communication between the customers & the visitors. But in the case of your websites, your writing skills are more important.
Everyone is faceless on the Internet. You don’t know your customers & your customers don’t know you. It is your job to “connect” to your customers by writing effectively. So, writing good sales pitches & sales letters that have a personal factor in them is important in the overall set up of your online store. This will not only generate sales from the customers that do visit your web store, but also you can continue to keep in touch with them about the products that you are planning to sell in the future.
Having read the above, you may have generated some ideas for . More interesting posts on which e-commerce software to use & more tips on "making your store a success" coming up. Watch out for them.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Before starting your own Online Store
There are some important things that you need to know before you start your own online store.
1. You need to first make a list of the products that you are planning to sell. Take care to use a concentrated theme for the product that you are planning to sell. Using broader themes may not prove to be very useful for a new store. However, once your online store is up and running for a few months, you can choose to delve into the broader themes as well depending on how well your store is converting visitors into buyers.
2. Next comes choosing the right platform for starting your own online store. There are many websites that you can choose from on the internet but only some of them are found to be effective on the search engines. Remember that Google is your best friend right now. You will be getting majority of your traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. So you have to make sure that they like your website a lot. Don’t worry too much about that part. I’ll let you know exactly what steps you have to take in order to achieve the best results.
Remember that all it takes is dedication, creativity and patience. You have to advertise about products that you know about. Always remind yourself of the motive. You are not just entering information about a certain product and asking visitors to buy them. You are giving them your expert knowledge about the products that you are advertising & also giving them reasons for buying that particular product at your online store. And this can happen only when you have a good combination of both passion and knowledge. If you have all qualities that I just described above, then I can guarantee you that your online store will be a success.
1. You need to first make a list of the products that you are planning to sell. Take care to use a concentrated theme for the product that you are planning to sell. Using broader themes may not prove to be very useful for a new store. However, once your online store is up and running for a few months, you can choose to delve into the broader themes as well depending on how well your store is converting visitors into buyers.
2. Next comes choosing the right platform for starting your own online store. There are many websites that you can choose from on the internet but only some of them are found to be effective on the search engines. Remember that Google is your best friend right now. You will be getting majority of your traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. So you have to make sure that they like your website a lot. Don’t worry too much about that part. I’ll let you know exactly what steps you have to take in order to achieve the best results.
Remember that all it takes is dedication, creativity and patience. You have to advertise about products that you know about. Always remind yourself of the motive. You are not just entering information about a certain product and asking visitors to buy them. You are giving them your expert knowledge about the products that you are advertising & also giving them reasons for buying that particular product at your online store. And this can happen only when you have a good combination of both passion and knowledge. If you have all qualities that I just described above, then I can guarantee you that your online store will be a success.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Basics
You have seen the success of many online stores on the Internet & you have finally decided that it is time that you too started one & reek in all the profits of this yet-to-be-explored idea. But you have no idea where and how to start. If this is you or if you already have the products that you want to sell,stay tuned to this blog to learn more about starting your own online store & market it in order to make it a success. Since this is still an emerging idea on the internet, it has potential for big money. So stay tuned for updates!!!
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