How to attract more business to your online store

how-to-attract-more-business-to-your-online-storeThe answer is already in your hands. And it’s free.

Tucked neatly into every Spiffy Store is a simple promotional tool that can make a big difference to your business.

What am I talking about? Your store blog.

7 ways a blog can improve the success of your store

If you’re already up and blogging away, good for you! You can skim through the rest of this post if you like. For the rest of you, pay attention.

Contrary to what you might think, a blog’s not just for foodies and cat lovers. It’s a powerful marketing machine that can be working away 24/7 to support your store by:

  • Helping your website to rank higher in search engine results
  • Attracting more traffic from search engines
  • Growing awareness of your store
  • Building your credibility
  • Developing your unique business personality
  • Building relationships with browsers and customers
  • Building your email list (as people to subscribe to your blog)

To show you how that translates in real terms, I pulled out some online research.

US Marketing company Hubspot regularly surveys businesses around the world about their marketing habits. They found that web sites with a blog received 55% more visitors and 97% more inbound links than those without.

Not only that, they discovered that 57% of companies with a blog had acquired a new customer from it.

How does something as simple as a blog do all that?

The answer lies in the potent mix of quality content and search engine optimization that a regularly-updated blog provides.

Your blog is the information hub of your online store. It’s the place to share interesting news, opinion, advice and even entertainment with your audience. As you add to it, your online presence and authority grows.

And it’s a search engine magnet.

Search engines like Google look at specific elements when indexing web content and deciding how it will rank. Some of the most important factors are the amount of relevant information it contains, how many quality links are present and the number of social signals it generates (likes and shares etc.) One of the simplest and cheapest ways you can do all this is with a blog.

Now, are you ready for action?

Don’t put it off any longer because you think it’s hard and scary, and you don’t have the time. I’m here to get you up to speed.

Don’t ignore it because you have a Facebook page. You should be driving traffic to your own website, not Mr. Zuckerberg’s.

Over the weekend, grab a cuppa, sit down and invest a little time reading other blogs for inspiration. Blog directories like technorati and blogarama are a good place to start looking.

I’ll be back next week to guide you through the basics. Get ready!

Why the new iPhone 5s is great news for your online store

taking iphone photosReaders of this blog will know I’m a huge fan of taking photos with my iPhone.

I mean, why bother with the expense of a separate camera when an iPhone takes great hi-resolution images with ease, and apps like Instagram make me look like a ruddy photo rockstar.

I’ve even written posts showing how you can use a smartphone to take top quality product shots and how to give extra punch to a photo with Instagram.

Why?

Because detailed, hi-resolution photography is key to the success of your online store.

The world just can’t get enough of big, juicy images busting with personality and detail and it’s especially important in e-commerce. Your store could thrive or die on the quality of your product photos, which is why the iPhone 5s camera upgrades are a blessing for online retailers.

The new 5s still has the 8 megapixel camera I know and love, but they’ve improved the lens so you get better results in low light conditions. There’s a new flash that adjusts colour and brightness, and two new shooting features; a burst mode that takes 10 frames per second, and a slow-mo video that shoots 120 frames per second.

Combine all that with the powerful photography software coming out in the new operating system iOS7 and you’ve got a professional photo studio that fits in your pocket.

Imagine how great your product photos would look if you took them with this baby. Actually, you don’t need to imagine – here’s a few examples.

Don’t say I didn’t let you know.

Photo credit: Barry Pousman via Flickr