A popular online marketing tactic is SEO (search engine optimisation) because it’s a way of gaining free search engine traffic. There seems to be a large fan base of SEO companies spruiking the benefits of it because you can get ‘free’ traffic if your site ranks on the first page of the search results in Google. While it is true that it doesn’t cost anything for Google to display your listing, there is nothing free about the time and money spent making your site findable via particular keywords entered into a Google search. Read more...
How many products do you hear of which sound like a no-brainer but don’t work? And vice versa, products which you think will never fly only to become a runaway success?
The reason is that no one person or organisation or focus group knows exactly what will happen when a new product or service is launched into the marketplace. Read more...
You’ve got your website set up because you know that you need to have one. And your phone number is on your website in case potential customers want to call you. You’d rather that they did because that’s what you’re used to and that’s what your business is setup to handle.
You’ve put up a ‘contact us’ form and maybe even a ‘request a quote’ form because you’ve been told that you need to have it. And other websites, maybe even your competitors have it, so you figure it’s easy enough to get your web guy to add to your site too. However, you’re not getting many leads that way so you’re not sure why everyone insists you need one. Read more...
Asos has now launched an Australian version of their online retail website. It’s not massively different to their UK version with the main differences being that prices are now all in Australian dollars and returns are to a Sydney address not the UK.
Any clothing retailers that knew Asos would be launching should have been studying their site to see why they were popular and what changes they needed to make to their own site in order to remain competitive. It seems that hasn’t happened. Not yet anyway. Read more...
You’re an online retailer. What do you do when you have run out of stock of an item that you stock in your online store? Do you keep the details on your site to show what you are capable of doing? Or to show how popular your products are to encourage cutomers to get in and order quicky?
Or do you remove it straight away and not risk your customer’s frustration at being unable to purchase it?
Or perhaps you don’t update your site that often and taking it down is a chore that happens rarely? Read more...
For many companies a website is an online brochure. They have it because everyone has one these days and it’s expected of them. While this maybe true, viewing a website in this way is a simplistic way to go and doesn’t really make the most of having online real estate.
Your website is an asset, one that can work for you or can be left idling and not maximised to it’s potential. Just like the name of your business is part of your branding, your website, and in particular your website design, can be a key part of your customer experience. Read more...
Some sites seem to inherently understand what customers want to see and have great images on their site. Others provide the minimum and then probably wonder why they don’t get as many orders as they’d hoped. Can you provide too many images? How many is enough?
When it comes to clothes, each item should be individually photographed front and back and there should also be a photo of it on a model so the potential customer can see the exact shape and detail of the item but also how it hangs when it’s being worn. There should also be a zoom button and the images should be able to be enlarged. Read more...
Watched an interview with Lorenzo Coppa of Estore the other day which was interesting. I loved his 5 points for business sucess.
I hadn’t heard of Estore so went and checked out their site. Lots to like about the site – full tech specs for products, lots of products to choose from, mostly good images, clear ‘call to action’ buttons, free shipping, detailed product descriptions – but a few not so great things. Read more...
If you need a website created quickly that you can easily edit and update yourself and you don’t want to make it a transactional site then setting up a ‘blog’ with WordPress is a great choice. People assume that installing a blog will mean that they need to constantly add new posts but that isn’t the case. It’s really just another web design template. Read more...
It seems that each day there is more bad news for Australian retailers. Some people like to blame retailers’ woes on the rising percentage of shoppers turning to the internet to shop (add in the high Australian dollar and that overseas retailers are GST exempt and it becomes a compelling argument), others on consumer optimism being low and the country turning into a nation of savers (gasp!), others high rents and rising wages.
But for all the bad news stories for retailers (Colorado anyone? Borders?), there are positive stories like Spanish retailer Zara which launched in Sydney and Melbourne in a fanfare of free publicity. Read more...