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How eCommerce Works

Posted on 27th April 2020 by The Marketing People

If you would like to sell your products or services online, read our blog below to find out how to set up a successful eCommerce business.

What is eCommerce?

eCommerce allows you to operate your business online, selling your products or services through your website and increasing your revenues.

What makes a successful eCommerce business?

To trade online effectively, there are many things to consider: from customer experience to find and buy, through to the order process, the payment process, related communications to customers, order fulfillment, customer service, delivery and returns. Feedback also plays a crucial role, as customers look for reviews before buying.

Get all the above right, online and over the phone, and you will gain loyal customers and potential referrals.

How do I set up eCommerce?

In order to accept payments online you need three things: an eCommerce platform, a payment gateway and a merchant account.

An eCommerce-enabled website alone does not allow you to run an online business. You still need a way to process payments and collect money, which is where payment gateways and merchant accounts come in.

A payment gateway is a service that acts as a secure link between a company’s website, a customer’s card issuer and the seller’s merchant account.

It’s basically the go-between for all parties, taking the transaction information from the merchant and sending it to the issuer and merchant account. Think of it as the online equivalent of a card terminal.

A merchant account is a special category of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments via debit and credit cards, which you may already have if you take card payments already.

Here are the steps you need to follow to set up your eCommerce business:

1. Website design & development:
First you must develop the eCommerce website, creating a suitable and easy customer experience to find and buy your product(s) and/or services.

Remember, the design, the copy, the layout and the calls to action, along with good product images, all have an impact on how well your online store will attract, engage, convince and convert potential customers.

Trading terms and conditions need to be written and applied for all stages of the online transaction, so buyers are aware of the contract they are to undertake.

SEO needs to be considered at the outset, and will play a huge part in increasing traffic to your website.

2. E-mail setup:
E-mails also need to be set up for the whole process – those to the buyer and those to you from the online transactions.

3. Payment gateway:
You will then integrate your chosen payment gateway i.e. PayPal, Stripe, Worldpay, which will link to your bank account. Make sure that your chosen gateway is applicable to your merchant account at your bank before proceeding.

4. Advertise:
You will need to advertise through Google Ads, YouTube Advertising and Facebook Advertising to drive awareness and customers.

Looking to find a way to operate online to sell your products and services? Or, do you already have an eCommerce website and want to improve its visibility, get more clicks, improve conversion rates and increase sales? Then give us call on 01543 495752 for no obligation chat to see how we can help.

8 Common Mistakes With Google Ads

Posted on 21st April 2020 by The Marketing People

There are many simple mistakes that business owners make with their Google Ads. It prevents them from getting clicks and can cost them big money. This blog will discuss the 8 most common mistakes that are made with Google Ads.

Read on or watch our short video to find out if you’re making these mistakes with your Google Ads…

1. Using only one Ad

Google is an auction site. Every time someone carries out a Google search for a product or service, it carries out an auction in milliseconds by looking for relevant website pages and ads.

If you only have one ad in your campaign then you only have a small chance of winning the competition. Giving Google a choice of ads will increase your chances of winning the auctions and getting page clicks.

2. Not structuring your ads into themed Ad Groups

If you have different services or products, then they shouldn’t be in a single Ad Group. Separating them into different Ad Groups helps Google have clarity on who it is that you want to click on your ads.

This process can be quite complicated and you should click here to schedule a free 15 minute call with our Google Ads expert to go over this in more detail.

3. Not including a problem and solution in your Ads

The majority of ads we come across talk about you, the business, which is totally wrong. Yes, your brand is important and you need to establish who you are, but you need to give the problem and solution you provide in less than 30 characters.

The person that comes across your ads will be looking to fix an issue or seek a solution. If you show the problem and solution in your ads then you will receive more clicks at a lower price as Google will reward you.

4. Sending clicks to your homepage

In any campaign you need to be sending clicks to a relevant page: this is called the landing page. It should include the keywords the person is looking for and be relevant to the solution you are trying to provide. Need help? Click here.

5. Running your ads 24/7

Chances are, you have specific opening hours. Your ads should be altered so they run during your opening times rather than having them run constantly. This way, if a potential customer clicks on your ad and phones your business, they will be greeted with a friendly staff member rather than an answering machine. If they were to click the ad when you’re not open, you are not only in danger of losing that potential business but you will also be wasting a lot of money.

Now, if you are a 24/7 service or business then this may not be a major issue for you, however we can still help to optimise your campaign to refine your results even more to squeeze extra juice out of your ads, so click here to get in touch for a free ads review.

6. Not tracking inbound calls

Not only should you be tracking your inbound calls, you also need to be running remarketing campaigns and make sure you understand how your ads are performing.

We can help you do all of this with 360 tracking, so you can improve your performance.

7. Not running remarketing campaigns

The chance of a customer buying on their first visit to your website is less than 2%. You need to understand that potential customers need to do their research before they make a purchase.

The only instance where a customer will buy off their first visit is if you offer an emergency service such as an electrician or locksmith etc., where the intent is high. If you’re in service or retail your customer has an average 21 days from consideration to buying.

If you are interested in learning more about this click here to watch our video on the average customer journey.

8. Not focusing on your negative keywords

If you are not focusing on your negative keywords, your ads will show up when people look for slightly similar services or products. This could cost you money but also relevant clicks will increase your true campaign fee too. This is a biggy!

Since you’ve made it this far, here is a bonus mistake…

9. Not recording inbound calls

All of our clients get call recording as standard. This allows you to listen back to conversations and evaluate your process.

You may find that your staff need more training, or you may decide your process needs to improve to get more sales and be more convenient for potential customers. Overall, it helps you to fully understand your customers’ needs.

Talk to our expert team about how we can help you to reach your business goals. You can reach out to us by clicking here and making an appointment via our website or by calling the office on 01543 495752.

A Guide to Image Alt Text

Posted on 16th April 2020 by The Marketing People

Optimising your Image Alt Text makes your website more accessible and helps you rank higher in Google. But what actually is Image Alt Text? How do you optimise it? And what benefits can it bring to your website?

Read on or watch our short video to find out the answers to all of these questions…

What is Image Alt Text?

Simply put, Image Alt Text is a brief description of the appearance/function of a particular image on a webpage.

It’s usually a short sentence and helps users with visual impairments understand the image within the context of the website. If an image doesn’t load correctly the Image Alt Text will still allow the user to fully understand what the image is.

Every webmaster should be utilising this and incorporating it into every website. It’s also extremely good for SEO, but more on that later.

Best Practices

Your Image Alt Text should be:

Short
To the point
Descriptive

From an SEO perspective it would be beneficial to include a keyword relevant to the page but no keyword stuffing as this will negatively impact your Google Rankings.

Examples of Image Alt Text

Here are some good, mediocre and bad examples of Image Alt Text for the following image:

A bad example would be either no Image Alt Text or ‘Cereal’.

These examples are not descriptive enough and could negatively impact your rankings and how accessible your website is.

A mediocre example would be ‘Cereal bowl with juice’. There’s slightly more description in this example but still not enough.

Now a good example would be ‘Oatmeal with bananas and a glass of orange juice’. This describes what the cereal and juice is and provides the user with plenty of information.

Locating Image Alt Text

We’re going to be using Amazon.co.uk as a great example of Image Alt Text and how you can find it.

Step 1: On Amazon’s home page we firstly scrolled down to the ‘Everyday essentials’ section.

Step 2: Right click on the image you want to see the Alt Text for and select Inspect.

Step 3: A box will appear on the right-hand side giving you all the details relating to that image.

Step 4: Rolling over the image will highlight a certain section in blue. Right in the middle of this section is the Image Alt Text which says ‘Pringles Sour Cream and Onion Crisps, 200 grams, Pack of 6’.

Image Alt Text and SEO

One question we get asked a lot is “Is Image Alt Text good for SEO?” and the answer is yes, of course it is. You can include your targeted keywords within the description of each image which helps them to rank individually in Google Images. Just make sure that each image is relevant and in context to that page.

It is also good for site audits. A common error/warning that appears on site audits is when your images do not have a description, so by adding Image Alt Text you’re minimising your errors and improving your website.

Click here for a FREE site audit from the marketing people.

Another reason Image Alt Text is great for SEO is because it helps spiders crawl the website better. This means that Google and other search engines can gather a better understanding of your website, making it more likely to rank for relevant search terms.

If you have any questions or need any help with your marketing, then give the marketing people a call on 01543 495752.

Top 4 Tools Your Website Needs

Posted on 14th April 2020 by The Marketing People

In business, knowing your numbers is almost as important as cashflow. If you don’t know your numbers, you’re essentially flying blind. You’ll have no knowledge of what is happening when users visit, buy or make an appointment on your website. Therefore, you need these four tools in order to remarket in the future, track your current website visits and evaluate if your ads are converting.

Read on or watch our 90 second video below to discover which 4 tools you must start using on your website:

Tool One – Facebook and Google Remarketing Codes

Remarketing is essential. Many of your website views will be from users who are not yet ready to buy. Every user is going to be at a different stage of the buying cycle so you need to remarket to your users to stick in their minds and make sure they return to your site when they are ready to buy.

Facebook and Google Remarketing codes allow you to build a list of people who have previously visited pages on your website. This enables you to remarket to them across the internet, reminding them to return to your website when they are ready to buy.

Tool Two – Call Metrics Tracking Code

If your business requires new inbound enquiries, then this tool is essential. Call Metrics tracking allows you to know if your Google Ads are working from a telephone call point of view. Without this you cannot track new enquiries from your Adspend.

Tool Three – Google Conversion Tracking

This tool helps you to assess how well your ads are performing. It allows you to evaluate your ad campaign and see whether or not it is generating leads, downloads, sales etc. It is a vital tool as it allows you to optimise your campaign and make any necessary changes to get them performing better.

Tool Four – Google Analytics

Most website companies will install Google Analytics into your website when they build it but they typically will not teach you how to utilise it effectively. Google Analytics can provide you with heaps of information and with the right provider (The Marketing People *cough cough*) you can get endless benefits using it!

Google Analytics can inform you of how many visitors came to your website, what pages they clicked on, how long they stayed on a page for and so much more…

If you have come this far, you may benefit from talking to our expert team about how we can help you to reach your business goals. You can reach out to us by clicking here and making an appointment via our website or by calling the office on 01543 495752.

YouTube Advertising: Target Your Ideal Customers

Posted on 7th April 2020 by The Marketing People

YouTube Advertising gives you the opportunity to get your product, service or brand in front of people who are in the “considering stage” of investing or buying your product.

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, with billions of hours of video being uploaded every day. It’s where 68% of consumers will go to look for product/service reviews before making the purchase decision.

Watch our short video now to find out how to target people based on their interests and online behaviour:

YouTube Advertising is a win-win situation. It’s cheaper than advertising on other social media sites and its targeting options are much more powerful too.

Here are just a few of the benefits:

• You can start advertising from just £5 per day and get sales
• There are B2B targeting options, not just products
• The first 29 seconds of your video are completely free!

Many other social media sites will charge you per impression, whereas YouTube only charge you if the viewer watches over 29 seconds of your video, or if they click the link to go to your landing page.

Here are a few examples of ways that you can market within YouTube, along with some of the sniper targeting options. Bear in mind that there are many things to consider so if you are thinking of running a trial campaign contact our expert team.

Ways of Advertising on YouTube

Search Ads

The image above shows three search ads that appear after searching for the term ‘Xero bookkeeping review’. These adverts have been pulled from businesses who want to offer their services.

YouTube Advertising has allowed them to get in front of their competition and advertise their product, service or brand to people who are using search terms that are relevant to their business.

This is free advertising up until the advert is clicked on – just like Google Ads.

If you are unsure how Google Ads work then see our blog post here.

Targeted Ads

This numbered image above displays a targeted ad that played before a fitness video. This video is perfectly targeting people who want to keep fit with a promotion for two pairs of leggings for £24.

After the first five seconds of the ad playing, a ‘Skip Ad’ button appears on the right-hand side (1). If this advert didn’t appeal to the viewer then they can skip it; if that happens it wouldn’t cost you a penny. The advert on the right (3) will remain there even if the advert is skipped.

There are two call to actions (2 & 3) which both take you through to a landing page where you can purchase a pair of leggings. Once again, unless someone was to click these call to actions (CTAs) these adverts will not cost you anything.

The company running this advert gets free advertising unless someone watches past 29 seconds (4) or clicks on one of the links (2 & 3). If this advert was on traditional TV it would cost the company thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, but on YouTube they will pay pennies for someone to watch the same length of content. Which one would you prefer?

How to Target Your Next Client in YouTube

Below is an image displaying the range of options you have at your fingertips:

This image shows you just how targeted your adverts can be. You can specifically target people who are looking at these categories and essentially get in front of your competition’s video too- pretty clever stuff.
If you select, as an example, Baby & Children’s Products, your adverts will only show up for people looking for those specific products. It’s so simple but works so effectively.

What’s next?

Since you’ve come this far, it may be suitable to take the next step and jump on a discovery call with our in-house YouTube Ads expert.

Click here to schedule your FREE 15-minute discovery call where we will show you how simple it is to script, plan and deliver your YouTube Ads.

Or call us on 01543 495752 and see how we can help your business.

What is Google Search Console?

Posted on 2nd April 2020 by The Marketing People

Google Search Console (previously Google Webmaster Tools) helps you maintain, monitor and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google’s Search Results. It ultimately helps you to understand and improve how Google sees your site and best of all, it’s completely free!

Watch our short 1-minute video to find out how Google Search Console can help you:

What can Google Search Console do for you?

Google Search Console provides you with some great insights into what is actually happening with your website. It assists you in finding and fixing any website errors you may have, as well as allowing you to submit a sitemap and create/check a robots.txt file.

Should I use Google Search Console?

If you have a website then you should be using Google Search Console, no matter your expertise. It can provide you with information from the last 30 days, three months, six months, whatever time frame you are interested in.

It also allows you to identify:
• How many users are accessing your site
• What pages they are going to
• What search queries they are using to find your site
• Which countries they are coming from
• Which devices are being used
• And much more!

Google Search Console and SEO

Google Search Console is essential in helping you monitor your website’s traffic. It supports you in optimising your rankings and allows you to make informed decisions about the appearance of your site’s search results.

Technical decisions can also be made based on the information provided by Google Search Console. Tools such as Analytics, Google Trends and Google Ads all work in conjunction with Search Console, which allows you to do sophisticated marketing analysis.

Overall, Google Search Console can provide you with great insights into your website.

If you have any questions or need any help with your marketing, then give the marketing people a call on 01543 495752.

Monthly Archives: April 2020