Eniche Commerce

7 Reasons Why A Small Business Needs Local SEO

Patrick Pylypuik — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:42:37 +0000

Truthfully, there are tons of reasons why you need local SEO for your business; but here are the seven biggest:

Local SEO is highly targeted and timely

This simply means that you are making sure that your business’ name gets in front of the customers you want, and at a time when they really need it. Keeping with our example of a mortgage broker, no one is going to look for a broker until they need a home loan. So when they search for the keyword “mortgage broker New York City,” and you’ve employed proper local SEO strategies, you’ll be one of the first ones they see, at the time they need a mortgage the most.

Local SEO has the highest conversion rate of any other kind of advertising

Of course, the whole point of any kind of advertising is so that you can reach a large number of people and convert them into customers for your business. And local SEO does this more effectively than any other kind of advertising – because you’re reaching the people who are most likely going to use your business – the people closest to you.

Local SEO allows customers to find you easier when they’re on their mobile phones

Local SEO doesn’t limit itself to just desktop and laptop computers, but mobile phones too. Not only are all of the same local SEO tools used by the same search engines on a mobile browser, but many, many apps are now available that are tailored to local businesses. A person logs into the app and enters their search terms, which will include the category they’re looking for (“mortgage brokers”) along with a location (“New York City”) and your business comes up. These apps are dedicated to local SEO, and that alone should tell you just how important it is!

Local SEO gives you a better return on your investment

We all know that you can spend hundreds on newspaper advertisements, more than that for radio ads, and thousands upon thousands if you want to have a TV commercial. All that money, and you have no idea whether or not it’s actually going to get to your target audience or be successful! That’s a lot of wasted money, money that your business probably can’t afford. With local SEO though, it costs you next to nothing to utilize a few local SEO strategies, even if you hire someone to do it for you. You spend less money to reach your target audience – it just makes good business sense.

Much of local SEO is free

To go along with getting a better return on your investment, a lot of local SEO is also free. Google Places currently doesn’t charge anything to be listed in their service; and inserting local keywords isn’t going to cost you anything more than the time it takes to think about them. And that won’t be much, because you already know what your business is, and where it’s located. However, as local SEO becomes more popular and more used, these services are likely to start charging for their services.

70% of local customers trust online business reviews

Online business is big and if there’s only one thing that’s bigger than it, it’s online business reviews. The concept is simple, really. A customer uses your business, completes a write-up talking about their interaction with your company, whether it was good or bad, and whether or not they would use you again. When potential customers are searching for your business or in the category of your business that review will be one of the first things they see. And if that review is good, it means that more customers will see it and be inclined to use you when they need your product or services.

Local SEO is Greener than Many forms of Advertising

Because there are no flyers or pamphlets to print out, and no newspaper ads to run, local SEO is much kinder to the environment. Think about it. Entering a few keywords into a blog or leaving comments on the blogs of others wastes very few resources. Local SEO is quite simply a much greener option and much more friendly to the environment. And even if that’s not a big concern to you, it will be to your customers. Going green and trying to reduce, reuse and recycle is no longer just a hot trend – it’s a lifestyle that millions have adopted. And many consumers now take environmental awareness into great consideration when trying to choose which businesses they deal with.

Building a Retailers Case for Mobile.

Patrick Pylypuik — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:50:41 +0000

Earlier today Pew Research released a study titled “The rise of in-store mobile commerce.” The key takeaway from the study was that 52% of all cell phone owners used their mobile phone in one of three ways to help there purchase decision during the December 2011 shopping season.

- 38% of cell owners used their phone to call a friend while they were in a store for advice about a purchase they were considering making.

- 24% of cell owners used their phone to look up reviews of a product online while they were in a store.

- 25% of adult cell owners used their phones to look up the price of a product online while they were in a store, to see if they could get a better price somewhere else.

With approximately 83% of all Americans owning some sort of a mobile phone, this in its own right should provide a strong enough case to have a mobile strategy in place. The environment for mobile commerce is similar to that of e-commerce in the late 1990′s when online retailers saw double-digit growth through 2008 to today, whereas online sales represent approximately 9% of gross sales. It appears that m-commerce will only be 2 percent of e-commerce in 2011 but expected to grow to 7% of e-commerce sales by 2016. Today, retailers that missed the “online e-commerce gold rush” seem poised not to miss out on the following mobile commerce rush. According to Forrester Research (May 2011), 91 percent of online retailers in the US has a mobile strategy in place or in progress.

Mobile is poised for growth and a marketer’s desire for several reasons. I’ve highlighted the apparent below:

- In the online world, marketers are continually developing their ideal buyer persona, segmenting data and delivering a specific sales proposition. Mobile allows you to accomplish this because mobile phones are personal, not shared. Mobile phones are also equipped with GPS allowing marketers to send personalized or location based messages.

- Mobile users are motivated buyers and much further along in the buying process. If I am searching my local newspaper online reading about last nights hockey game there is a higher chance I’m out-and-about and ready to buy tickets; especially if an ad to purchase tickets is strategically placed and convenient.

- You will reach a captive audience of those that are playing games, downloading different apps or simply killing time at their leisure.

“5 Do It Yourself Tasks That Will Help Speed Up Development of Your eCommerce Site.”

Patrick Pylypuik — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:59:15 +0000

People often ask me how they can speed up the development of their eCommerce project. Obviously, there are many reasons as to why a project appears to be taking too long in the customer’s eyes. We believe that project delays are real, and then amplified by unrealistic expectations assumed by the client. So responsibility must be shared and avoided by both parties. A web developer should clearly communicate what is expected from the client including milestones while the client understands what they are responsible for the need to act quickly to meet deadlines keeping the project on schedule.

The following 5 Tips can help keep your project on schedule:

1. Map Out Wire Frame of Product Page.

You should ask your developer his or her thoughts on how they think a product page should be developed from the customers standpoint. By providing your customers with a well thought out data plan your customers will be able to search effortlessly and in a reasonable manner which ultimately increases sales conversions. Many-times, a developer will share with the client the visible elements such as “add to cart” button above the fold etc., but remarkably few study display of product data from a potential customer perspective. Ideally your web developer should have a solid understanding of your customer’s buying process including the product variables you want to sell online. For example, if your potential customers are going to search by attribute, such as, price range, color, specific model etc., your product data will need to be created specifically, so your developer can import properly.

Therefore, you should decide what attributes you are going to have that allow your potential customers to search through your products. At the same time provide your developer of other sites that have the same or similar structure and functionality early or before you sign that contract.

2. Make Sure Developer provides you with a Data Template.

After you and your developer finalize your data structure and how the data will be presented to your customers the next step needs to be started on as quick as possible. The next step starts by asking your developer to provide you with a data template. Most if not all product data imports stem from a flat file such as Excel, text or CSV. Either is acceptable but, the most crucial element is to get started immediately. Approximately 90% of all eCommerce project delays because of the product data being not completed.

3. Separate every product attribute into a separate column in Excel.

Once your developer provides you with the product data template the next step for you is to go through each attribute and make sure that there is a single column on your template that represents each attribute. Here, the more you can break down your product data into as many different columns the better even though it will add more time in the beginning the long term benefits will far outweigh the amount of time allocated initially.

4. Make sure you have a consistent Unique Identifier for each product and related images.

Typically if, you are in the business of selling products you will probably have some sort of specific number that you use to manage your inventory. Most companies that we have worked with will either use an internal SKU number or the products UPC. It should not matter to your developer but using the same UPC or SKU consistent with the product data and images are essential otherwise you are going to have your developer import shoddy product data and even worse a poor user experience for your customers.

5. If, you have a question be sure you ask and understand before you proceed further.

Misunderstanding of how you need to build out your data template is the number one reason for a delay in finishing your eCommerce project. Once you get the product data template from your developer you need to start working on it as soon as possible and then give your developer a sample of the template to ensure that you are adding the data so that the output is exactly how you want it to appear, otherwise; having to redo your work adding more time to the project.

How to Create A Site Map, Properly, The First Time.

Patrick Pylypuik — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 03:32:17 +0000

One of the most important, yet most overlooked elements of designing a website is its architecture or site map . Building a website is often exciting for our clients from a design perspective, but the site map is ultimately what can be used to drive traffic to the site. Although a great design is important, not establishing proper site architecture soon becomes costly from an SEO standpoint. Poor site architecture will hurt your search rankings for your most important keywords. With Marketing Sherpa reporting that 70% of all links being clicked are organic on search engines, creating the right site architecture from the beginning to maximize your exposure among the 10B searches each month is very important.

Proper architecture does not start with a “gut” feeling or by copying your competition. Instead, you must understand the importance of keywords and create the proper site architecture through a research process. You must trust that your web designer will provide you with solid research and past experience to give you the greatest amount of traffic for the lowest amount of money. There is an adage, “you want to fish, where the fish are” that speaks exactly to the importance of proper research versus having to spend money to drive traffic for keywords you don’t rank very well for.

When researching your site architecture remember to keep it simple by following the formula outlined below. Using Google Keyword tools you can identify which keywords generate the greatest amount of queries.

Through structuring your website based on keyword research, you can add relevant keywords to each content page that focus on a specific category “niche”. In addition to maximizing your organic traffic through proper architecture, you have delivered a great shopping experience to your customer.

In summary, your home page targets the largest market, hockey equipment, and then links to your category pages. Your target niche markets are mapped to categories on your site. Each category has its own home page. Your category pages link to your content pages which include videos, images, content etc. that search engines love to reward.

“Why Web Design Projects Fail” (Client’s Perspective)

Patrick Pylypuik — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:33:42 +0000

As an established web design company, people often come to us seeking help with completing their projects. The first question we ask our frustrated customers is, “Why did your previous project fail?”.The reasons vary but include the project was taking too long, the project wasn’t what had been agreed upon, or one of countless other reasons that we have heard over the past ten years. A client can eliminate the majority of these problems by asking simple questions during their web designer selection process.

Most people don’t understand what a web design project process should entail when they begin discussing their options with web design companies for the first time. The majority ask to see the portfolio only. In addtion, most web designers and free-lancers do a poor job conveying what the client can expect during the entire process.Most of the time, the problem is solely attributable to the web designer’s communication skills and has nothing to do with their design or development skills. It is a fact that most people forget 85% of what they are told within 48 hours. This statistic alone substantiates the need to document and convey the process to a client to serve as a preventive solution to the majority of the problems that arise. Web designers who document their processes can easily set expectations to keep their clients satisfied. With this level of engagement they can deliver exactly the website the client envisioned.

From the client’s perspective, the web designer’s internal protocol is useless unless they communicate how value is delivered along the way. Not only does this high level of transparency build stronger client relationships, but it will also allow your company to be more profitable as your customers become more confident in your abilities to deliver as promised. Through communicating the project process from the beginning, clients understand when to provide content, data, images etc. to make the project successful. When a client is engaged during the project they tend to appreciate the amount of resources required to deliver a successful website and with this understanding clients are more open to address further issues.

To conclude, if you are currently in the selection process of finding the right web designer the most important question to raise before seeing the designer’s portfolio is, “What is your process?”. I’ll bet that 99% of the time when the response is silence on the other end of the phone the project will fail in your eyes.