eCommerce Websites

You might not think it but creating an online business is quicker, more cost effective and more straight forward than ever before. The overwhelm often comes from the wealth of information that is already out there but don’t despair, research is your first port of call. 

Research, research, research! Spending a dedicated amount of time at the very beginning will prevent you from having to invest a greater amount of time further down the line trying to correct errors that could have been avoided at the start. 

Who is your target audience? What products do they want and need? If you already have products or services to sell, what aspect of these are they interested in? Carrying out best seller searches on popular retail websites will provide you with some solid information on the most popular items already out there. By exploring popular online listings you’ll have a great idea from the outset whether what you have to offer will be in demand. You’ll be able to see what people are doing, and where there are potential gaps. For example, if you want to sell online yoga classes, what can you do that’s different from every other online yoga class? By reading up on what people want from yoga, you can start to differentiate yourself. 

You want your online store to reflect your ethos, brand and values. You want to create a feeling when browsing your online shop that mirrors the great experience your customers would have if they were to shop with you in person. 

The experience should be a pleasant, user friendly and mobile optimised dream. Your online store needs to feel easy to navigate - from browsing to checkout should be a seamless transaction. 

You’ll want to consider incorporating features such as user-generated reviews and FAQs, both of which encourage interaction with existing customers when you have them, as well as helping your potential customers to gather the information they need, and encourage them to make their purchase. If one picture says a thousand words, then several pictures will do more than a whole heap of text that is only padding. Providing your target audience with high quality visuals could be a game-changer for you. 

You want to tell you audience succinctly what they want to know, and help them to make decisions. You need to talk on your website using words that people will be searching for, so that the search engines can put those people in touch with you. 

It’s a good idea to write plenty of content that tells as well as sells. Give your audience content that teaches them about what you are selling. 

This can be seductive text; if you are selling pairs of lovely shoes, or wine, or golf clubs, wax lyrical about them. If it’s Pilates classes, you can encourage them with the benefits they will gain when they learn with you, and give them plenty of evidence for what they will gain if they practice consistently both with you and between sessions. 

If you are a great writer, and are setting up on a shoe-string, do this yourself, or find a friend or student to help. 

Otherwise, we urge you to employ a professional and experienced web copywriter. 

Have video content on your site if at all possible; again, make this educational so it helps people to gain information, and host it on You Tube or another video hosting platform and have a link to it on your site, as there are many other benefits to this too. 

When it comes to your eCommerce platform, you’ll find your choices will fall into one of two categories...hosted and self-hosted. Now this is much more straight forward than you might think and can be broken down into the following: 

Hosted eCommerce platforms are easier to set up and should you have any problems there will be a customer support team ready to help you out of any sticky situation. In a nutshell they host your online store and will take care of any server maintenance woes you might have whilst also ensuring payment integration and security measures are adhered to.

Where hosted eCommerce platforms might hold your hand and show you the way, self-hosted eCommerce platforms let you spread your wings and gives you complete control. This option will require more time investment but give you the benefit of creating your ultimate vision from scratch.  

There are pros and cons of choosing either option and you really want to take your time here to figure out the best eCommerce platform for you and your online store. You’ll want to consider elements such as the features they offer, design (you will be limited to design templates offered on hosted platforms), payment integration options and cost. 

You have arrived, you look great and you are ready to take on the world. Marketing is where you will need to focus your efforts. Consider how to drive customers to your online store and how to stand out amongst the crowd. 

Marketing your online store can take on several different forms and wear many different hats. 

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is probably the quickest way of getting business; Google AdWords and remarketing, as well as those of the other search engines are a great place to start. 

Organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is your new best friend and when optimised to its full potential will see traffic being generated to your online store from search engines. Read our blogs on this subject to give you more information. 

Content marketing strategies will ensure the information that you are putting out there is valuable, focused and relevant and will sit hand in hand with SEO. 

Social Media is at your fingertips and when utilised correctly will help to market your online store to your ideal customers. 

Then, there is email marketing, once set up and you have your tailored list of customers you can keep them up to date with offers, product launches and relevant content that will be of interest to them. 

Consider also traditional PR, and gain mentions in online and offline publications that your audience is reading. A well-placed, super-interesting article can transform your business overnight. 

To find out more and discover how we can help you, call 01489 891 870 or email info@lcm.co.uk.

We would love to hear from you!