Venturing into the world of business and donning the cap of an entrepreneur is a dream of highly motivated and driven youngsters today. Marketing, which in a layman’s term literally means to buy and sell, has acquired an online face and existence compared to offline stores that still depends on organic growth.
Due to better internet connectivity and advancement in technology, the urge to shift businesses to an electronic platform and join the e-commerce strategy has become the norm for new and existing firms.
People are getting accustomed to online shopping and prefer browsing through products of various brands endlessly on their phones and tablets, as e-commerce gets them everything they are looking for readily on the table. The best way to survive this cut-throat online competition is to have a strong, compelling presence on the web platform.
Why bother about online presence?
You might ponder about why you should care to build a website or app for customers, when they can easily come down to your store to buy what they need. But how would customers know that you have included some latest products and are also offering discounts on them? For this very reason, one has to have an online presence, since marketing is also about brand promotion, where you sell your products as well as your brand. Businesses today attract customers based on the ease of identifying them online.
A good website and social media platform play a crucial role in convincing a casual browser to stop by your site and check out your products. A question that looms large on every entrepreneur’s mind is how to attract online customers, and how to receive more web traffic to their website. This is where the search engine optimization (SEO) strategy comes into play.
In fact, SEO is the main reason why countless businesses have a wider footprint on the World Wide Web today. SEO is a method to optimize a website and make it fully functional by including relevant keywords that are frequently searched by customers. This way, for every search related to your business, your website ranks higher than others on the internet and entices customers to click on it.
SEO as a business strategy for your website
Designing an e-commerce website should not be restricted to display of products and their prices alone. Good product description using appropriate keywords helps your website to get noticed because whenever a customer searches for a particular product, your website always ranks on the top. Search engine optimization helps to organize the content of a website and include only what is relevant to the business. It also helps to identify the target audience, understand their preferences, and present results accordingly.
Although SEO technique by far helps to improve the page ranking in the search engine, another strategy applied to bring more traffic to a website is search engine marketing (SEM) method. This technique is used to improve the visibility of a website in the search engine results pages through paid advertisements.
SEM helps to create a website that sells and bring in prospective customers to purchase from your site. Of course, no customer would search for your business or website if they are not aware of it and for this reason, it is important to have a strong presence on the internet. With many similar businesses adding up to the web each day, the chances of your website ranking in the top 10 is difficult without paid advertisements.
Convert potential customers into paying customers
Online marketing is not restricted to optimized websites or user-friendly apps alone doing rounds on the internet. One has to implement some complex marketing techniques to convert a potential customer into a paying customer. Take note of the following points to enhance your business:
- Analyze customer preferences through their keyword searches and display similar results
- Track currently trending products relevant to your business and include the same on your website
- Having multiple transaction methods such as debit/credit cards, e-wallets, cash on delivery, etc., helps create a good customer base
- Social media marketing, SMS, email marketing and push notifications to update customers
If you need help to create a marketing strategy, check out the free guide compiled by industry experts – https://straydigital.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-ecommerce-conversion-funnel-optimization/
Do you need social media for business?
Well if you think that social media pages like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. are only for discussing and sharing your social life, you are completely wrong there. A large number of customers opt for your business or check out your website if you make your brand popular on this platform.
Having separate landing pages or great pictures displaying new products, discounts, and services and products leaves a strong imprint on a visitor’s mind since they often visit social media pages. Thus, social media marketing helps to draw customers to your website or app when they come looking for new products and offers.
Things to ponder
As easy as it may seem to start an online business, sustaining and surviving in the market depends on your skills to sell your brand and your products. With a million options available online, it takes time and effort to connect with customers and gain their trust so that they frequently visit your page.
Email marketing, SMS, and push notifications play a huge role in expanding your business since they update the customers about the products and services. The existing e-commerce giants ardently follow these strategies because of which they become the go-to site for customers.
Analytics is another approach followed by established online businesses to predict the customer preferences. This technique helps them to remain one step ahead in the market as customers like visiting only those websites that display what they require. On the one hand, it saves a lot of time and effort for the customers, and on the other, it helps expand the customer base for the company.
Therefore, SEO, SEM, brand marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and analytics are essential to enjoy a strong online foothold and keep your business growth-focused to attract a large number of customers.
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