Ecommerce Fundamentals
eCommerce can be VERY complex. To offer a world class customer experience, retailers must incorporate technologies and functionality that exceeds rising customer expectations.On the flip side however, site fundamentals still play a very large role in converting visitors into customers. Many retailers surprisingly lose sight of these site basics and leav

The Power of Knowing Your Customer
Often times we believe the depth of our customer does not extend beyond that of the business they do with us.In fact, it goes way beyond that. People love to talk about themselves, and if you take the time to talk to your customers about non-business topics, you will find that, more often than not, they are more than happy to engage you in conversation.You have optimised your website, found the keywords that get lots of traffic and don’t have much competition. All the keywords are added to your site (Title, Meta tags etc) and you have done some excellent flowing writing with your keywords peppering your homepage.

Great, you now have a website, it is fairly well optimised, you are getting lots of traffic and guess what there is still something else needed in the mix.

You need to juggle all of the above with excellent copywriting.

What is copywriting? Well it’s the text that appears on your website, the bits that sell. And yes that’s mainly what websites are for, they are your representative, they sell you places that you wouldn’t have dreamed of looking or find people you just wouldn’t have talked to.

For starters whatever is above the ‘fold’ of your page i.e. before you start scrolling is THE most critical area, you literally have about 8 seconds to grab the ‘surfers’ attention before they’re gone to the next site.

What is said to your visitor when they arrive at your site is just as or even more important than getting them there in the first place! What would you prefer, 1,000 visitors a day with 2 sales or 100 visitors a day with 2 sales? Personally I would prefer the 100 visitors, at least then I would know my copy was working and could easily ramp up the visits.

So, what makes for great copywriting and a great landing page? There is lots of information out there and I can recommend a few people, just search for them on the web; Chris Cardell and Alan Forest Smith (Orange Beetle)

Some of the main fundamentals:

• Tell your customers the benefits of your service & what problem it is going to solve in their lives

• Talk about your customer (don’t talk about you, your company etc blah, blah, blah). Everyone likes talking about themselves, your customers are no different. Include YOU and YOUR as much as you can in your copy.

• Start building a relationship with your customer, give something away for free, ask them to join your mailing list in exchange for something free.

• Break the text up and use bullets (bullets draw attention to areas of text)

• If you can, give your product away on a 30 day trail, with customers agreeing to return or pay on xxxx date.

• You need to write with some level of energy and passion.

• Test and Measure EVERYTHING

Well there are a few bits to start with. And remember test and measure, once you have got your new page up, ruthlessly test all the results and tweak your copy until you have something that just reels them in.

You can get somethi

’s the text that appears on your website, the bits that sell. And yes that’s mainly what websites are for, they are your representative, they sell you places that you wouldn’t have dreamed of looking or find people you just wouldn’t have talked to.

For starters whatever is above the ‘fold’ of your page i.e. before you start scrolling is THE most critical area, you literally have about 8 seconds to grab the ‘surfers’ attention before they’re gone to the next site.

What is said to your visitor when they arrive at your site is just as or even more important than getting them there in the first place! What would you prefer, 1,000 visitors a day with 2 sales or 100 visitors a day with 2 sales? Personally I would prefer the 100 visitors, at least then I would know my copy was working and could easily ramp up the visits.

So, what makes for great copywriting and a great landing page? There is lots of information out there and I can recommend a few people, just search for them on the web; Chris Cardell and Alan Forest Smith (Orange Beetle)

Some of the main fundamentals:

• Tell your customers the benefits of your service & what problem it is going to solve in their lives

• Talk about your customer (don’t talk about you, your company etc blah, blah, blah). Everyone likes talking about themselves, your customers are no different. Include YOU and YOUR as much as you can in your copy.

• Start building a relationship with your customer, give something away for free, ask them to join your mailing list in exchange for something free.

• Break the text up and use bullets (bullets draw attention to areas of text)

• If you can, give your product away on a 30 day trail, with customers agreeing to return or pay on xxxx date.

• You need to write with some level of energy and passion.

• Test and Measure EVERYTHING

Well there are a few bits to start with. And remember test and measure, once you have got your new page up, ruthlessly test all the results and tweak your copy until you have something that just reels them in.

You can get somethi

r site is just as or even more important than getting them there in the first place! What would you prefer, 1,000 visitors a day with 2 sales or 100 visitors a day with 2 sales? Personally I would prefer the 100 visitors, at least then I would know my copy was working and could easily ramp up the visits.

So, what makes for great copywriting and a great landing page? There is lots of information out there and I can recommend a few people, just search for them on the web; Chris Cardell and Alan Forest Smith (Orange Beetle)

Some of the main fundamentals:

• Tell your customers the benefits of your service & what problem it is going to solve in their lives

• Talk about your customer (don’t talk about you, your company etc blah, blah, blah). Everyone likes talking about themselves, your customers are no different. Include YOU and YOUR as much as you can in your copy.

• Start building a relationship with your customer, give something away for free, ask them to join your mailing list in exchange for something free.

• Break the text up and use bullets (bullets draw attention to areas of text)

• If you can, give your product away on a 30 day trail, with customers agreeing to return or pay on xxxx date.

• You need to write with some level of energy and passion.

• Test and Measure EVERYTHING

Well there are a few bits to start with. And remember test and measure, once you have got your new page up, ruthlessly test all the results and tweak your copy until you have something that just reels them in.

You can get somethi

Some of the main fundamentals:

• Tell your customers the benefits of your service & what problem it is going to solve in their lives

• Talk about your customer (don’t talk about you, your company etc blah, blah, blah). Everyone likes talking about themselves, your customers are no different. Include YOU and YOUR as much as you can in your copy.

• Start building a relationship with your customer, give something away for free, ask them to join your mailing list in exchange for something free.

• Break the text up and use bullets (bullets draw attention to areas of text)

• If you can, give your product away on a 30 day trail, with customers agreeing to return or pay on xxxx date.

• You need to write with some level of energy and passion.

• Test and Measure EVERYTHING

Well there are a few bits to start with. And remember test and measure, once you have got your new page up, ruthlessly test all the results and tweak your copy until you have something that just reels them in.

You can get somethi

ak the text up and use bullets (bullets draw attention to areas of text)

• If you can, give your product away on a 30 day trail, with customers agreeing to return or pay on xxxx date.

• You need to write with some level of energy and passion.

• Test and Measure EVERYTHING

Well there are a few bits to start with. And remember test and measure, once you have got your new page up, ruthlessly test all the results and tweak your copy until you have something that just reels them in.

You can get something called Google analytics that measures all your traffic and where people go, where they leave your site etc and it’s free. You will need to apply and there may be a waiting list, but well worth it.

Wishing you all the sales you deserve. Neil Swift