We’re currently working for a client in a really competitive industry that has quite a large daily budget for their Adwords Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. As it’s a competitive industry they also have to bid a very high cost per click (CPC) just to stay on the first page. Consequently any improvements in campaign performance are likely to provide huge financial benefits.
The industry body for global e-retailing has produced their latest report which reveals that ecommerce spending continues to increase. The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index figure shows that there has been a 13% increase in online consumer spending in February 2010 compared to February 2009. To put this into actual figures, it is estimated that £4.1 billion was spent online this February, compared to the previous year.
Ecommerce website owners should continue to market their website and their products to tap into the increasing market. Although the actual numbers of online shoppers is increasing, it is also reported that they are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their shopping habits. Some consumers go straight to a particular website to make a purchase, whereas other shoppers will use increasingly complex search engine queries to find the best products at the best prices.
What does this mean for ecommerce site owners? I would suggest that website owners continue to look for new and emerging methods of promoting their online stores. Some methods have been around for a few years now, but here are some to provide food for thought:
From internet forums to blogs to Twitter the range of online communication methods has never been greater. The Oxford Internet Survey (OxIs) Report 2009 found that 33% of UK Internet users now take part in online communities or post on discussion forums. This has increased from 16% in 2007, and is bound to continue increasing in the near future. Consequently business and website owners should look to embrace the possibilities that these new communication mediums provide.
Specialist discussion forums can not only provide a wealth of information and advice from a variety of viewpoints, but can also be a medium-term online marketing strategy. By responding to questions you can demonstrate your expertise in your field of business, and as you become part of the community you may start to receive requests for business and referrals. Most forums also allow you to add a ‘signature’ to your posts, which in some cases can benefit your search engine marketing strategy.
Participating in forums should be both ‘give’ and ‘take’ – you put effort into helping others, and hopefully in the process you will also be promoting your website and business.
After reading through a web design forum earlier today, one topic caught my interest regarding certain SEO software packages which claim to be able to achieve first page results on Google for customers websites. First of all, they can’t, simple as that. It’s a fact that for the majority of even slightly competitive keyword phrases, no automated tool will be able to cut the mustard when it comes to achieving results…
If you’ve never heard of the term ‘long-tail keywords’, you’d be forgiven for wondering what on earth I’m talking about. It is a search engine optimisation (SEO) term which implies that you shouldn’t just target one or two extremely competitive and searched for terms, but should go for a variety of less popular keywords. It’s better to be on page one of the search engine results for four less popular keywords than it is to be on page four for a highly popular keyword phrase. An example is targeting “Web Design Newcastle” and “Web Design North East” etc instead of just “Web Design”. For the same amount of effort you’ll get much better rankings. Here’s how you can target these long-tail keyword phrases…
Digg is one of the ‘next-generation’ websites that allows a lot more interaction between its users. On a simplistic level, Digg allows you to submit ‘news stories’ which can in fact be anything you think might be useful to other people. Once a story has been submitted to a category it will appear in that category’s “Upcoming” section – which is a quickly revolving display of the most recent news stories. In the brief hour (if you’re lucky) or so that your story will be listed in the ‘upcoming’ section before being superceded by more recent articles, if your title is catchy enough then users will visit your post and if they like it then hopefully they’ll give you a “Digg”, and you know you really shouldn’t have bothered if you get a few “Bury It” ratings. Digg can prove a useful tool for websites looking to gain more exposure and catch more regular readers in the process…
There’s two main factors to finding your website in the search engines, the first is to verify that it is actually included in the search engine index, and the second is that even if it is included in the index, it may not necessarily rank very highly on its own. The purpose of this post is to help you establish if the reason you can’t find your website in the search listings is an indexing, or a ranking issue…
Being in the web design industry myself, I come across a lot of website owners who pay for an all-singing all-dancing website, only to discover one year down the line that a website unfortunately won’t promote itself and are dissatisfied with the lack of visitors. As a business owner, you need to be aware of what strategies you (or your search engine optimisation (SEO) company) need to employ. Just as there are a huge variety of websites, there are also various promotion methods which suit certain website types more than others, and a combination of strategies should be used. Read on to find out what strategies will work for your website…
AeroDesigns is unveiling its new “Web Promotion Guide” aimed at business owners and new website owners who have just had a website designed for them, and are wondering how to begin promoting it in the online world! With the amount of individuals using the internet topping 1 billion in 2007, the Internet can potentially be a lucrative and highly profitable market to tap into. Our Website Promotion Guide will introduce you to the key concepts necessary to get your website to be as popular as it should be, and provide you with lots of hints and tips to increase your bottom line! What’s more, this guide is provided absolutely free to anybody.
Click Here To Access The FREE Web Promotion Guide
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