Three ways Social Media can Boost Awareness & Sales for your Retail Site.
Posted on | August 27, 2010 | No Comments
Creating a social atmosphere on your site that engages your customers is important for a successful social media program. Remember you do not need to be on every social site; just concentrate on a few or even one to start and build up from there. (Go fishing where the fish are.) Here are some ideas of ways to enabling your customers to be more social with you and your e-commerce site.
Product Reviews
You do not have to start off by gathering lots of product reviews from your customers. Feel free to tap into review services for products that are sold on many sites (even Amazon). One of the most effective ways to encourage the interaction from your customers is by making it as easy as possible for someone to leave a review. At Filltek we have done this for a number of clients that helps turn the internet shopper into an internet buyer. 
Product Sharing
If your customers spend time on Facebook, or any other number of social sites you can let them show off their latest purchase to friends with a Like or share button. Obviously this isn’t right for everyone but it can be a new source of traffic especially if you already have a following through a group or fan page on the social networks.
Forums
In today’s social media world people love to talk to each other and help each other. If there are popular forums for your industry or niche already then you should register and participate. Remember that being social is about interacting and having two-way communications with other people, so if you start stick with it. The conversation will commonly fall in places outside of your store (i.e. other websites) so you want to be an active participant at these gatherings. For example, a Fashion retailer may search for things such as “Fashion forums”; it is usually better to start a general search for the largest forums. Keep in mind that a small following may indicate there is not a demand for a social forum for your niche. Adding forums to your site will require you to maintain the forums with some degree of moderation so they stay appealing to visitors since keeping out spam is necessary for any forum to thrive.
These are just a few of the ways we at Filltek help retailers worldwide gain that advantage on an ever grown e-commerce market.
Kevin Chamberlin is a Certified Web Master and Seo Guru and Social Media nut, and is the e-commerce social media specialist for Filltek Fulfillment Technologies.
Web site Development, What’s the plan?
Posted on | July 16, 2010 | No Comments
This is such a broad question but the most important one when Designing or Re-designing your web site. When designing and developing in today’s industry a web site gets more complex due to new technologies and Social Media tactics your site must support, as well as having the right relationship to your off-line business. The only way a web site can be developed and promoted effectively is with effective Project Management and Planning.
The number one thing you must do when developing or re-designing is ask the question. What does your site need to do? Deciding how you want your web site to support your business activities online is a must in your building process. This means;
• Clearly defining objectives. These will be top priorities in building the program without these you are just swimming upstream.
• Set a realistic budget. Consider all the areas you will need to build and develop the site. Put together a team to help discover additional resources and opportunities. Once you have completed this step you should have a clearer estimate for your budget.
• Set the project time frame. Define the projects time line. This will help ensure that you are not wasting money and resources. Think of using a project management tool. This will make the handover from one developer to the next on time and keep all team members aware of their responsibilities. Because meeting deadlines and identifying tasks requires a solid project schedule. This is also a great way not only in developing your site but for ongoing promotions like SEO, SEM and PPC marketing. Just make sure you set a realistic schedule for measuring and achieving your business goals.
Before you complete your budget and team, there are other issues to consider.
• Market competitiveness. Think of how competitive of a niche is your business, and what you want to achieve will play a big part in your web strategy.
• Decide what platform / content management system will be needed?
• Content development plan. This will be the foundation on getting your message across. Think of where it will come from? Staff and management? Outside sources, also think of other content sources. Can you go to outside sources like article submission or industry news sites?
• Benchmarking must be done to measure progress. Using analytics from the old site or benchmarking a few of your competitors will help you to see trends from you our perspective.
There are even more that one must complete in the early stages of any web site design. There are Developers, Graphic Artists, Social Media and Search Professionals. Each will have his or her own priorities and needs. To make it happen takes investigation and planning from the outset of the project.
Kevin Chamberlin is a Certified Web Master and Seo Guru and Social Media nut, and is the e-commerce social media specialist for Filltek Fulfillment Technologies.
Do you really know if your SEO Strategy is working?
Posted on | June 2, 2010 | No Comments
Many of my clients ask for help with their SEO strategy. They explain that they are ranked on the first page for 3 or 4 words, but aren’t receiving the volume of calls or sales they anticipated. Or that they engaged the services of a company to do some SEO work, but they aren’t sure what services they actually received.
The first step is to help them define the expected results and how to measure them. Being ranked for certain keywords or keyword phrases does not tell the whole story nor does it equate to increased sales. It’s not uncommon to discover the keywords that were chosen are not the best terms for the clients they want to target. Nor do they have a true goal to achieve the results they need and want.
Analytics Goals are Great Online Performance Indicators…
Rankings, traffic and CTR, are all great performance indicators, but they are just that, they indicate if things are going well and in the right direction. Rankings may be improving and traffic may be rising, but how does that really affect what you’re doing and how you justify your spend?
These types of KPIs don’t tell you that you spent XYZ on AdWords last month, generating PDQ in revenue and ABC in profits. They don’t look at buying cycles or average customer lifetime values. They do how ever leave you with a huge amount of guesswork when trying to work out important things, such as the returns you’d generate if you doubled your budget.
KPIs Need to Come From Your Own Performance Figures
In terms of online performance, KPIs need to reflect the goals and ambitions of your business, not those online goals outlined to you in your web analytics package.
Sometimes traffic is up but your ranking for the wrong keywords and conversions are down; other times you’re paying too much for visitors and you’re not converting them into buyers.
There are so many ways that widely accepted indicators such as ranking and CTR can be misleading without intelligently looking at businesses-specific KPI.
Plus You Need to Measure Them Over Time
If you want to see how your campaign is working, you can’t simply look at one instance of data. You have to watch it over time. Otherwise, it’s meaningless.
The changes to this data are what show you how successful your efforts are and whether you’re continuing to drive it forward.
A good SEO strategy will continue to grow visitor numbers and conversions, because a good SEO strategy is constantly being worked and re-worked with the use of deep analysis. So you have to watch your data over time so that you can really see the success of a campaign, and whether it’s dying or living strong.
It’s Worth Bringing in an Expert
If your budget is limited, you’re better off spending it on expert help and using the free analytics tools than investing in the latest and high-priced tools that you aren’t equipped to use.
Although there are plenty of useful online resources and guides, few things are as beneficial as working with an expert who has experience in really digging into your website’s performance and finding the real money savers within your site.
Going it alone will probably get you results, but you’ll waste time while you learn through trial and error. If no one in your company has the relevant experience then bring in outside help, at least as a guide while you build up your own analytics expert.
Kevin Chamberlin is a Certified Web Master and Seo Guru and Social Media nut, and is the e-commerce social media specialist for Filltek Fulfillment Technologies.
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