Sales is the lifeblood of any company. Using SEO for sales online is no longer a fad or add-on but a core requirement for any company, especially those engaged in e-commerce.
The Caribbean may not be on the cutting edge of e-commerce as the majority of companies are still investing in websites that are online brochures rather than revenue generating platforms which differentiate a brand significantly from its competition. Here are seven tactics, however, that you can do to get your website functioning as a sales tool.
Use Keywords to Attract Visitors
Do you rank for specific keywords that your customers are searching for? It is very difficult to rank for the most popular keywords such as ‘insurance’ or ‘sneakers’ due to heavy competition from brands with literally millions in marketing budgets. Using long-tail keywords is one way to maximise your marketing spend by reaching customers that are seeking a solution to a specific problem.
So instead of just using ‘insurance’ as a keyword try a long-tail keyword phrase such as ‘what is the right age for life insurance’ or in the case of ‘sneakers’ use ‘best store for sneakers in Bridgetown.’ Try using keywords the same way your prospective customer will use them to get the syntax as close as possible to real-life search.
Blog
Great blogging creates a compelling reason for customers and even non-customers to visit your website regularly. Becoming an authority figure in your industry or niche will build trust in your brand and make visitors much more likely to use your product or service. Create blogs around your products/services and highlight pain points that customers may have and how you can help solve them. Visitors don’t want to be sold to — they want to be educated preferably with content that is super fun and easy to digest.
Make Your Product/Service Descriptions Unique
There is nothing worse than realising all the descriptions of a product or service are super generic and likely copied and pasted from some other source. Take some time to create original copy for your online store or website. If you don’t have the in-house talent, invest in agencies (such as PRMR Inc.) who can create copy that speaks directly to your customer.
Keywords for Your Photos
Many websites forget about having relevant keywords for their photos and multimedia content. Yes, you may have done fantastic SEO for the text on your site, but what about the other forms of content? Having relevant keywords throughout your site and especially on your product/service, store and blog pages ensures that customers are more likely to come across your website when searching on Google, Bing, etc.
Be Cognizant of Load Time
According to a study by Kissmetrics, 73% of mobile internet users state that they have encountered a website that takes too long to load and an even more surprising 38% said that they have encountered a website that wasn’t available at all. Visitors do not stick around to wait for a slow loading site.
The sweet spot in terms of load time for your website on mobiles is around 6-10 seconds. Any more time than that and you will suffer a lot from potential customers leaving your website and possibly never returning. What’s the point after all of having fantastic content if no one can get to see it?
Make Buying More Social for Your Customers
Are you making buying more social for your customers? Chances are if you are not, you are missing out on the easiest referral traffic you will ever find. People are social creatures and there is nothing more convincing than a friend recommending your company’s product or service. Allowing visitors to share with their friends that they purchased something from your online store will help provide social proof that you are a company in demand that others should check out. Increased social sharing on specific products in your store or your blog content will help in ranking your website higher on search engines.
Use Video
Search engines love multimedia content and video is one of the best there is for getting your point over to a customer quickly. Testimonials from customers who have done business with you and are excited to share their experiences of using your product or service are worth their weight in gold.
All these tactics combined will give you a solid online presence.
Source: Small Business Forum
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