E-book The Secrets to Success on the Web - Instalment 2/4

This is the second in a series of four instalments publishing Dorset Business Mentor Mark Snare’s e-book on The Secrets to Success on the Web. To read Instalment 1 covering ‘Choosing your Speciality’ and ‘Choosing your platform’ please click here

In this instalment we publish Chapters 3 & 4 entitled ‘Making data based decisions from the start’ and ‘Launching Microsites, blogs and videos’.

Forthcoming Chapters cover ‘Links’ ‘SEO’ ‘Paying for Traffic’ ‘Going multi-channel’ and ‘Free Things you should do’ with two Chapters published weekly.

CHAPTER 3

Making data based decisions from the start

There is no need to guess at things any more, there is so much high quality free information available that you can go straight to the source to further fine tune your efforts. Before you do anything else, here are a few tools to link up with, all you need is an email address and you can start.

Google webmaster tools (now google search console)

Google AdWords keyword planner

Bing webmaster tools

Google analytics

 In the start-up phase it is incredibly useful to put your most obvious high money search terms into the google AdWords keywords planner, this amazing tool will then give you estimated monthly searches for that search word or term THEN make suggestions for alternatives. This has been a really powerful tool for me, directing me towards high traffic, low competition search terms that would never occurred to me without this tool. For example when researching a website for a friend who runs a hair salon I was surprised to see that “hairdresser” and “hairdresser online” generated more traffic than “hair salon” with a local business like hair dressing it is then easy to combine the search terms with the locality to pull in high-quality business-generating traffic.

Finding out where the traffic is and also what the competition is like for certain keywords and phrases then helps you write more relevant blog posts, launch more effective micro sites and shoot more effective YouTube videos. More on all of these later.

Modern accounting packages have good inventory control and reporting functions, this allows you to monitor what is selling well and what is fading. This data can prevent you from tying up precious cash in unpopular or worse still obsolete stock. E-commerce is fiercely competitive and you ignore this data at your peril.

You may love a particular item but if the market says otherwise do not ignore the facts. Successful businesses have to continually ‘get it right’ in a changing world, it is very easy to get on the wrong side of this by making emotional rather than calculated moves. Generate, farm and take note of the data. This really helps you stay on top of trends and keep growing. Trends can of course be seasonal, but an underlying down trend in a certain product or market area must not be ignored.

High quality data driven decisions also take the stress out of planning, it is a great feeling to have confidence in your business planning because you have done your homework and taken the guesswork out of it.

Excel is still king of the numbers for me, I can keep monthly tallies of product sales and set prices and order stock  accordingly, in e-commerce things must flow or stock can get stuck and grind to a halt completely. You must see this happening and get things moving again with sales and offers or precious storage space can become clogged up with slow moving items. The thing about a monthly sales excel sheet is that you can see trends taking shape in front of your eyes. Stay nimble, no flab, this is business, customer demands will be met by someone else if you do not stay on top of them. 

CHAPTER 4

Launching micro-sites, blogs and videos

If you have a flagship product, category or brand that people are looking for by name, then launch a micro site, blog and videos to draw more traffic and sales.

Websites are cheap and easy to publish, I found great success putting up simple 5 or 6 page html product specific micro sites for hot products that simply used the product name as their url. The websites instantly ranked top 10 in the SERPs for that product and continually generated sales through a simple “buy it here” link back to the main e-commerce enabled retail site. A simple investment that can pay you back over and over again. Micro sites add gravity to you as a retailer of the product too and if you are the manufacturer, importer or distributor, you simply need to have an individual site dedicated to that product. It is a great way of listing stockists you may have too, a link out to their websites will be appreciated on a “where to buy” or “stockists” page.

I would then film product specific Youtube videos using the product name and brand in the title and description of the video. As simple as it sounds and free to host on Youtube and other video sharing types. Do not forget that people research products and ways of doing things on video sharing sites. If you make a video on furniture refurbishment or the best way to free off a rusted hinge, you will get views. Also well made “liked” videos feature in conventional SERP’s too as likes, shares and views are counted by the more popular search engines. If you get creative you may well have a viral video on your hands too, which simply means people share the content with their social circles and more people learn about your business and services for FREE!

Remember each video you share will have a text section in which you can use to link back to specific pages on your website for people looking to learn more or buy!

I like to log into my Youtube creator studio to see the videos I made years ago still getting shared, liked and viewed. You can equip yourself with an HD or even 4K camera very economically get hold of some LED lights and film your own content easily. Apple products come with Imovie, learning to edit video takes an afternoon and of course there are loads of helpful videos on you’ve guessed it, video sharing sites like Youtube.

The better you get at videos the more attractive they will be and you may want to graduate to more advanced video editing software like final cut pro. This give more functions than Imovie and the results can be spectacular.

I also embed the product videos I make on the product pages of my e-commerce sites as this gives potential customers a great product tour which generates sales and helps avoid returns as people are making fully informed choices. Video talks, quite literally.

Blogging is vital. Well written blogs are shared on social media which is free advertising and has SEO benefits too as a blog post is seen by the search engines as fresh content showing your site is being worked on and is current. You can tailor a blog post round a high traffic search phrase like “how to start a juice bar” and grab more high quality traffic. You can then shoot an informative video and embed it in the post which people appreciate and can be as simple as you presenting the blog post text with little else going on. In the internet age people appreciate sincerely shared expertise, this isn’t salesmanship it is a way of helping answer questions with your content that has the welcome side effect of building trust in your business and you as an expert.

This is easy to overlook too, but I guarantee you this, when you have a full time job that you’re immersed in for ten hours a day, you are an expert full of specific knowledge. It all seems pedestrian and hum drum to you, but get your expertise out there, there are people looking for it right now. When I was young you had to ask a person or look things up in an encyclopaedia, now you search the net. Quality, up to date information is at everyone’s fingertips and you can add your bit. You are part of the global brain, share it!!

There is a tendency to look at the vastness of a site like Youtube or the internet itself and think adding to it is pointless, but prepare to be surprised, if you put some effort in, your videos and blog posts will accumulate views and help your business. Never before have we had such a direct link between reader and author!

Give your videos every chance by putting effort into their names and descriptions so for example if I ran a juicer company I could shoot a video named

“The best way to clean your cold press juicer”

This would attract traffic on search phrases like “best way to clean a juicer” “how do I clean my cold press juicer”

Then, in the video’s description, repeat the key search phrases but re-structure them to scoop more targeted traffic, for example:

 “In this video we give hints and tips of the best ways to clean your vertical cold press juicer showing neat ways to make sure your juicer is as clean as possible before dismantling. We then looking at cleaning each of the juicer’s components including the tricky juicing screen and squeezing screw or auger. We share our best ideas on cleaning juicing machines and the best tools and detergents to use in juice extractor clean up”

Do you see what I have tried to do there? In the description I have attempted to gain more traffic by adding subtle variations on the most obvious (or high traffic) search terms.

So “juicer” was expanded to include “juicing machine” and “juice extractor”
I added “hints and tips” and “best ideas” to “best way” and mentioned some common juicer components to try and scoop additional traffic by those searching things like “best way to clean my juicer’s screen”

Then finally add your links to the bottom of the description so viewers can find your website, social media channels, blogpost or whatever else you want to send them to. This is the way that the internet can offer a cohesive marketing strategy that sends leads directly to your main site or social media channels so people can stay in touch with and get to know you and your business.

Mark Snare is a successful entrepreneur and gives his time as a mentor through Dorset Business Mentors’ program. When business owners approach us, either for personal or role mentoring within their business, we carefully assess the requirement and who of our mentors could add the greatest value. At the top level Mark is considered for business at all stages but most particularly that are fledgling start-ups, those looking to grow where e-commerce is a significant factor, and those who are considering exit options. His particular expertise is in marketing and trends, optimised use of the internet, common pitfalls as well as developing resilience and strategy. He is currently supporting two businesses and you can read one of two testimonials here, as well as Mark’s perspective here. As you will discover this business centres around e-commerce and his expertise and support is proving very effective in contributing to their growth. To request a Mentor to support you in your business please contact us for an informal conversation about the process and to answer questions, or you can send us an email through our contact page and we will be in touch.