Get Content Rich to Increase Online Sales

Web doesn’t really seem that difficult, that’s why heaps of people’s nephews do it, and why Phil from accounts often does it. The only issue is that often people get fairly average results out of their site. They end up saying things like (and I’ve heard this sooo many times) ‘the web doesn’t really work for our target market’ and ‘we tried that, and it just didn’t give us the return’.
Sorry, you’re wrong. You just didn’t do it properly.
Everyone is on the internet now. Shopping online is only going to get more and more popular, you just have to position you business and brand right to get it working, and deliver it SO well that people enjoy it and never get confused.

What you need to take your site from doing ok to doing really quite well is lots. See, your lots create the ‘spend twice as much without realising it’ factor. The basic lots required are:

Lots: of products
You want people to come to your shop and buy something. That is the whole idea of having a shop. If you only have the very latest and greatest on there, and your customer isn’t into it for whatever reason, they aren’t going to buy it. Now don’t take this the wrong way: This does not mean that you should t fill your site up with off-cuts and rubbish no-one buys. What it’s more about is making sure you have your entire range online. That’s right, all of it. Yes it’s a pain, yes it might take ages, but the more things you put in front of an online customer the more chance they will buy something, and while you’re at it, put your sale stock on their too. Smaller ticket items can provide you with the up-sell stock you need to turn your $60 average sale to $100.

Lots: of changes
Some of my customers like Overland & Barkers load new products almost every week. This gives their customers a reason to keep coming back to the site (and purchase more frequently). I reckon you get about 2-3 shots after a new range goes up to get the consistent repeat visits happening. There are sites I go to every week religiously, because the products are always changing and I don’t want to miss out.  That’s how you want your customers to feel. If i go back a couple of times and nothing is different, unless I’ve changed my mind about a specific product i won’t bother going back.

Lots: of photos
I am always going on about this, even I’m sick of talking about it but until i see every site with 3 images per product I will keep preaching. Thing to remember on this is that you are trying to replace all that tactile feedback you get with a bricks and mortar shop. You can’t pick it up, or feel it, or sniff it or whatever you do to make a buying decision. So as much of that needs to be replaced as possible. And they have to be sharp, decent photos.

Lots: of boring text
Ok, here is something that will probably annoy you (especially if you have just spent days writing website copy). It is most likely, that no one but Google will ever read your website content. People scan sites, especially fashion shopping sites (I’m not there to read a novel about autumn leaves inspiring the intense reds for this season, I’m there to shop for clothes) but we all have to remember that Google will provide on average about 60% of your traffic, so it’s important to get some content in there which is going to make Google see your website as relevant to your kind of customer and what they would be searching for. You want to be ranking as high as possible for those words that really define what your product range is about.

Have a think about where you could grow your online offering. You might have 3 out of 4 happening here, and that last one will really tip you over the edge to online success. If you don’t have your lots happening, what you’re potentially doing is giving lots of $$ to your competitors.  We don’t want that now do we?