In our most recent webinar, we dove deep into ecommerce. Our presenter, WSI Consultant John Leech from Ireland, explained why ecommerce is so essential for your business and some expert ways to improve your visitors' website experience. Read this recap on our recent webinar, “Expert Tips to Improve Your Ecommerce Website Experience,” or watch the recording here. While in 2019, only 15% of retail commerce was online, COVID-19 has brought about a permanent shift as internet shopping becomes the new normal. In our webinar, John shared his three-step framework for developing a strong ecommerce solution: Ecommerce Website Experience #1 – Learn Exactly as IRL, prospects will ask themselves, “does this look right?” and “am I comfortable doing business with this company?”. Use your Home, About, and Why Buy from Us pages to portray the type of establishment you are. Include social proof content such as testimonials and how-to articles to engage and build your reputation as a helpful expert. Display your physical phone number in the header as it is still a subconscious trust indicator. 51% of consumers trust companies that make it easy for visitors to contact the company's people. Use your website's footer to build more legitimacy with certifications, security protocols, and professional partnerships. 23% of shoppers have abandoned a purchase because they don’t trust the website's security. Double down on your contact details and make navigation easy with the predictable social media links in the footer. Thanks to Amazon and eBay, a well-curated search function is essential on your Home page. While the element's arrangement can vary, category image navigation helps move customers to your profitable, key product categories. This is particularly important as the public gets more comfortable with using mobile to shop. By 2021, 72% of all retail eCommerce worldwide is expected to be on mobile. At the same time, beware of distracting carousels and animations, which can negatively impact your conversion rate. Make checking out easy – just as you would in a physical store. Ecommerce Website Experience #2 – Shop Your product catalog pages and how you categorize them to assist in navigation tell users that you have the solutions they are searching for. Your website is your shop, so who is your best sales assistant? A dynamic search with multiple different filters that helps your customer find what they want. People make decisions based on comparisons, so help them compare options. Answering questions before they are asked keeps customers moving through the flow to making a purchase – avoid instances where they may stop and wonder “why?” as this is when you risk losing them. Customization options, such as choosing a specific Photo Editing Services color combination, mean that the user is investing more time selecting that product. Feeling control in the experience leads to more commitment and that, in turn, leads to significantly improved conversion rates. Your images must be of the best quality possible, without impacting your page performance. In line with that, videos are growing more popular every day – especially for your top, high-markup products. Shoppers who view a product video are 174% more likely to purchase. Make everything easy for your customers – from navigation and checkout to descriptions and warranties. Ecommerce Website Experience #3 – Buy To complete the purchase process, your checkout page needs to be as clear and concise as possible. Avoid being part of the approximate 70% global cart abandonment rate for eCommerce by: Removing all possible distractions; Having a one-page checkout process; Avoiding forced registration and allowing guest checkout; Waiting to upsell until the purchase is complete; Offering multiple payment options, like a credit card, PayPal, or Apple Pay; Being open about shipping costs right from the beginning. In Summary With the assistance of your local WSI consultant, you can tweak your eCommerce web design and see the impact of those changes using analytics. But don’t focus solely on the design, and make sure to spend as much time as possible on the entire online shopping experience.

Just when you thought you had your SEO, social media strategy and web presence under control, yet another social networking site is becoming mainstream. Seven months ago it was Google+, now it’s Pinterest and it is gaining momentum in popularity as well as relevance in organic search. Pinterest Pinterest is a social photo sharing website that has also been described as an online pinboard. Its more than 10 million registered users, over 2 million of whom log in every day, “pin” photos, graphics, and videos into categories they create based on their own personal interests. Pinterest users also share their pins on Facebook and Tweet them. “Their own interests” may indeed include images that represent your brand. Pinning images is how your visitors, prospects, clients and fans want to visually socialize your organization. The likes of GE and IBM are using Pinterest, proving that it is relevant to both B2C and B2B. Here are eight SEO reasons to add Pinterest to your web presence and how to get started. 1. SEO for Better Google Rankings Pinterest content is being crawled and indexed by Google, therefore it will impact your SEO rankings. Think of it as an opportunity to outrank a competitor for a keyword. If you are pinning on behalf of your organization, take the time to optimize Pinterest photo comments with important keyword phrases. If you have control over image file names when originally published, take the time to optimize photo descriptions for keywords as well. 2. Backlinks & Referrals Every image pinned to a Board has a link back to its original published source. These are valuable backlinks and can provide referral traffic as well. Capitalize on this. Posting your product and service images and videos is a great place to start. However, keep in mind that it’s important to avoid being blatantly self-promotional – remember to provide value to your audience by sharing quality content that is relevant to their interests and worth liking, commenting on, and re-pinning. 3. The Pinterest Search Box With millions of visitors to Pinterest every day, people are looking for brands via the Pinterest search box. Is your brand available? Does your Pinterest presence represent and reinforce your brand to a prospect who might be searching? 4. Web Presence Pinterest is yet another web presence point. Simple as that. Just like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, Pinterest has gained enough momentum and significance that excluding it any longer may negatively impact your web presence compared to your competitors. 5. Content Pinterest is unique because it is the only social networking site focused solely on sharing images. You likely do not have to go far to find an inventory of photos, graphics and videos in your organization. For example, design and architecture firms have projects, real estate agents have listings, product companies have products, services companies such as vacation and leisure have snapshots of places, artists have art, sports-related companies have action shots, non-profits have people and places and event pictures, technology companies have conferences and infographics, and so on. Get creative and start thinking about how to build your inventory of photos. 6. Social Signals We know that social signals are factored into Google’s and Bing’s organic search algorithms. Pinterest provides yet another opportunity for your visitors, prospects and customers to generate social signals (Tweets, Likes, Shares, Google +1’s, and now Pins). Social signals indicate to Google that people want to socialize your content with people they have relationships with, which signals that your content is relevant. 7. Competitors Your competitors are likely using Pinterest already. This is a grand enough reason to get started. But better yet, if they are not, you can take advantage of the situation and start building out your Pinterest presence before they do. 8. Pinterest is not going away in the near future. In December 2011, the site became Philippines Photo Editor one of the top 10 largest social networking sites, according to Hitwise data, with 11 million total visits per week – this number increased to 21.5 million visits for the week ending January 28, 2012. According to Experian’s 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, Pinterest is now the third most popular social network in the U.S. behind Facebook and Twitter, having surpassed LinkedIn. And the Pinterest team is serious about their business. Recently they raised an additional $100 million from some noteworthy investors. Getting Started Getting started is rather straight-forward: Request an account by going to https://pinterest.com/. If you know someone who already has an account, ask for an invitation. Set up a Pinterest account for your business and reserve your main brand name. Be sure to connect your business account with your Twitter and Facebook accounts so you can share content across the social sites. When you pin an image you can also tweet it and share it. Add the Pinterest social icon to all your corporate web pages and blog pages. Add a Board and get busy pinning! Pinterest is one of many tools you can use to optimize your internet marketing plan. Get on the right path today by contacting a knowledgeable WSI Internet Consultant to assist with your SEO strategy, as well as other facets of your digital marketing strategy.