Essential Visibility Advice for Online Stores

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Some would say that brick-and-mortar stores have it easy. If someone happens to walk past, then a simple window display change or witty sign can attract people to your business. Online, people don’t just happen to come across your store – not unless you put a bit more work into online visibility. Here’s what you need to think about.

Optimization

There are two things that ‘optimization’ can be taken to mean in this context; for now, we’ll stick to the type you’ve probably already heard of: search engine optimization. Don’t assume that your website is automatically going to appear on Google just because it’s on the Internet. The fact is that people searching for products online are probably going to get flooded with results from Amazon and eBay. If you want to make sure your online store gets to the first page of search results alongside those giants, then you need to engage with SEO.

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Speed and reliability

The other way ‘optimization’ can be taken to mean is in reference to the speed and reliability of your website. If your online store is a little sluggish or is down for long periods of time, then you need to optimize it. A speedy and reliable e-commerce platform is a must not just because it stops your customers from becoming frustrated. It’s important for your visibility because search engine bots/crawlers can measure how speedy and reliable your website is. The likes of Google don’t want to refer people to slow websites, so your visibility will be throttled if your website isn’t of great technical quality.

Original content

You may have heard before that blogs are great when it comes to marketing. After all, most of the things that people click on in the search engine results are blog posts! A lot of business owners in e-commerce underestimate the power of blogs; that, or they simply don’t see how an online store could fit a blog into its business model. It’s actually easier to think of content for such a website; film and game reviews, news articles about your business, interviews, etc. Get some brainstorming done and you’ll come up with some original content in no time.

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Social proof

People are much more likely to do business with you if you have social proof. This phrase refers to the existence of proof that other people have heard about your business and used it! Customer reviews on independent websites come to mind. Social media is good for building social proof because that proof increases as you get more followers on the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Getting mentioned in magazines and trusted websites is also extremely useful

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The importance of reputation

The reputation your online store has from independent customer review sources (Yelp comes to mind) will also affect your visibility. Search engines favor websites that are highly recommended by customers, and may throttle the results of an online store that doesn’t have a good reputation. Make sure you work on this part of your business; even if you make mistakes, you can still take action to keep a strong reputation.

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