Last week, we discussed the juggling act that is operating a business online. You have your social media to stay on top of, your blog to generate new content and modes of visitor traffic, you have your email marketing to strengthen customer relations and engagement. This may be a lot to juggle all, but in the words of any great infomercial pitchman, “WAIT, there’s more”! Not only do you have to maintain contact with your clientele via your written outbound content, but the way you communicate to your customers or to-be customers from your website also begs your constant attention and consistent pursuit of ecommerce improvement. So how do we accomplish this? Let’s nibble at the food for thought regarding website management.
Promotions
Promotions are a huge part of your website activity! Promotions act as a conduit through which shoppers can become buyers, when they see, from a broad search query, your incredible deals, savings, or whatever else you have to offer at a given time. To your established customers who already frequent your website, promotions are generally represented as the first major thing that they see upon entering your site and is often the reason they are visiting, to see what kind of specials you have at the moment. Bearing the importance of promotions in mind, thinking about how to cycle through your promotional material and keep it fresh is a necessity.
So, to what consistency, in what fashion, and for what reason should our promotions be executed? First, you’ll want to dig deep and really grasp your reasoning for the promotion. Made Freshly breaks down the reasoning to three of the more likely reasons for, or transitional times when, you will give ample thought to your brand’s promotional approach:
“When you want to get rid of old inventory
When you want to sell more of a particular product
When you want to build hype around a particular product”
Made Freshly goes on to state another important thought considering promotional discounting. The way in which a brand goes about promotions should not ultimately lead clientele to see discounting, sales, or the like as an expectation. Once this becomes the case, it says two things. First, it says that your customers will only buy from you when they going to get dollar knocked off their bill. Second, it says that the same customers do not value your goods or services to the level that they should be valued or appreciated, enough to pay for them at a cost that you see fit (Made Freshly). Ultimately, the one consistent thing to think about is the active pursuit of ideas as to what you can promote, test out consistencies for actually implementing those promotions and circumstances under which people will most likely act on said promotions, and you will find a system that works for your industry or brand specifically.
Content
By virtue of looking at the breakdown of your promotional plan, one inevitable thought holding the hand of promotions is content. Heck, even without promotions, content is a must. And with content being a must, thinking about the lifespan of each wave of content is equally important. We’ll start with promotions. Revisiting a thought from the previous point, sometimes individuals will base a lot of their patronage of a brand’s website on first looking to see what promotions are available and then continuing to shop. Haven’t you noticed that anytime you go on a website, the first banner you will typically see is about a current promotion? Okay back to the point. With promotions you need content. It gives sometime to draw the attention of the visitor, no matter what form of content it may be. For this reason, when you are considering how often to cycle through content regarding promotions, adhere it to the same lifecycle as your promotion. Bam!
As for other content, let’s explore a particular approach before actually releasing the floodgates of content. Before you even think about the consistency of your content updates and life cycles, think big picture from the get go. Look at all things monumental taking place in the time to come. Promotions, as already discussed, seasonal updates, changes to the brand or company, new information regarding the industry and what your brand is doing to adjust according to it, and much more call for new updates in content. Think about what you can provide on your website regarding these things, like images, written blurbs, videos, etc to best highlight these things. Deluxe.com outlines the important the optimal way for managing website content, as depicted here:
“Write content in big batches and publish little bits of it over time.
Keep a running list or diary of projects and topics you want to write about.
Get employees to participate by writing or taking pictures for the website.”
Upon composing a list of things to anticipate, one should always be creating new content. As a sizeable amount of material is accumulated, devise a plan of release based on the waves of your industry, and be equipped with relevant, attention-grabbing content for all of every important milestone.
Keywords
The materials covered thus far pertain to what one could see upon reaching their destination on your website. Although there are plenty of people following your brand to a loyal, consistent level, there are still many more shoppers in your industry that have yet to stumble onto your brand’s page. The means to reach your website are equally important to content and promotions available upon arrival. To those that are still soul searching for the pivotal moment when they find your website and all that it has to offer, you will need to maintain the proper breadcrumbs to help them find their way. We’re talking about keywords.
To some capacity, your keywords can be implemented in a ‘set it and forget it fashion’, but only for so long before you have to refrain from forgetting about this necessary consideration. The algorithms by which different search engines find websites are ever changing and ever adapting. For this reason, your keywords must be accordingly adjusted periodically to keep up with the changes being undergone by the search engine powers that be. According to Rhino Digital Media Incorporated, you will want to return to your keyword strategy for potential revisions or improvements every 3 to 6 months. This will ensure proper search engine optimization and a consistent capacity to be discovered online.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the list of things to monitor and keep up with to ensure online relevance span further and further as you really dig into your online business strategy. Even when merely looking at your website, let alone everything else on your docket, you already find multiple things to constantly keep in mind and address. While juggling everything can be tricky, having the proper tools, namely the best website, will instantly improve the ease and efficiency of getting it all done. To get the best in website design and maintenance, as well as countless other web services, contact Rave Retailer today!