Make Your Online Store Stand Out: Here’s How
Our previous discussion revealed that e-commerce sales growth would hit the 8 Trillion mark in 3 years. Moreover, Statista claims 55% of customers prefer to shop directly from the brand in comparison to multi-brand retailers today. A very keen insight on putting up with your online store. And suggestive that today you must make your online store stand out.
Working with SEO, hosting platforms, mobile friendliness, and page loading speed can all contribute to developing your store. But making it stand out requires more. In continuation with the tips to grow your e-commerce business, our discussion today will focus more on the ways to make your online store stand out. Here’s looking at all that we plan to explore today.
Why do you need an online store to stand out from the crowd?
Growth potential is much higher for e-commerce store. Which also makes it a highly competitive arena. Implying if the competition is fierce, doing more than the requisite is essential.
Besides, if you sell directly to your customers, the mediators and margins paid can be cut. Letting you sell the product at a lower cost than before. There is a closer association with the customer. At the same time, you channel better control of your orders, shipments, and fulfillment to customers.
Anything that you entirely own does give you the edge. That’s the same thing with owning an online store for your products. But mind you, if you get the freedom to act, you also have to be more responsible because now there is a direct dealing involved.
Therefore, when you own an online store, you are liable to address the audience for their wants. And how do you address them? By practicing the vital considerations to shape and make your online store stand out.
Considerations to make your online store stand out
Your online store is your face to the audience. From communicating the right to helping them know you better. Your online store should do it all.
Website Footers
John Mueller from Google states that internal links in footers and headers are treated as equal and are not given less weightage than links within the web page content. This means you can include everything you want your customers and search engines to know about you.
Footers help you conclude your page better and ensure continued use engagement for your website. Because you have listed out all the actions that they can take. Your local SEO also improves if you state your contact details well. Thus fuelling a better user experience along.
Customer Reviews
A vital part of developing customer trust is highlighting their reviews. Since the purchase decision is taken over it. This also acts crucial to help you stand out. If you and your competitor are selling the same product with little to no differentiation, highlighting customer reviews/ ratings about the product on your website’s product page lets customers click more. Because 62% of consumers will then censor you.
And according to BrightLocal, 3 out of 4 people leave reviews of products they purchase today. And it is not just the positive ones but the negative ones too. As viewers scrutinize them to make a decision.
With customer reviews, you gain more on-site conversions, better product visibility, and more product information. Take the extra mile of highlighting not only on your website but TrustPilot, GoogleBusiness, and Yelp, as these showcase the best in business based on customer reviews.
Rewards
In this give-and-take business equation. What also lures potential and existing customers is the rewards you bring them. Therefore a solid referral marketing program will make you win in the longer run.
Your rewards can therefore include the following:
- Gift cards
- Store Credits
- Customer Referral Commission
- Give coupons
- Time-sensitive discounts
- Custom offers
- Converting one-time purchases into subscriptions
(Example of this would be when you check out from Amazon while making a purchase, it gives you an option to covert into Amazon Prime)
A benefit that it brings to you is you only pay when you earn a new customer via that program.
You can also take this further by organizing contests and giveaways. As 62% of people who take part in it also share it with their friends. Plus, this contributes to your traffic immensely.
Varied landing pages
Many online stores are working on varied or different landing pages today. To highlight a product range, they often deploy and run ads of customized landing pages on the target customers’ social media and browsing sites.
This adds to the lead generation. As HubSpot also reaffirms, 31-40 landing pages can lead to 7 times more leads than fewer landing pages. That is more the merrier.
When you differentiate your landing pages basis on the customer, you not score the leads but also get a better CTR (click-through rate).
Self-service
Customer satisfaction stems from the customers. A fundamental we have to remember while catering to helping them. Gone are the days when customers wanted you to help with everything they want. Today they look for FAQs and self-help portals to resolve their queries. Only then coming to you when they can’t solve it by themselves. So load your website with the knowledge base they need.
You can help in this self-help process by chatbots for frequent queries, filters, and search options for them to look for their ideal product and dedicated FAQs on your website. You can also utilize your website blogs to help with more information.
Positive Sentiment Generation
Evoking emotions is a big deal for any brand. It can be sad, happy, exciting, to so on. But evoking emotions that promote action is essential. That is, give feelings to your promotion. Like Mcdonald’s ‘I’m loving it,’ Nike’s ‘Just Do It,’ or Loreal’s ‘Because you are worth it.’ These taglines are stuck with people because they connect emotionally. Letting them take action that supports the brand promotes the brand. As people will pay 50% more if they feel your brand had a positive impact on them.
Once you associate your brand with a positive, actionable sentiment, it establishes brand recall and builds on its awareness.
SMS marketing
SMS today are important reminders. Especially for people who are on the go and do not check their emails for promotions. But how to use SMS marketing?
A simple text message on your next big sale. A new product announcement or a brand reminder text goes a long way as SMS doesn’t get scrolled like socials or go into the spam of emails. You can even use it for sharing restock alerts or inviting loyalty programs.
They lead customers to your store. So make sure to collect numbers during checkout, and enable text messages as an option for receiving notifications.
They now act as a precursor to directing traffic. A step to show your heightened responsibility. Along with sharing updates regarding their order queries.
Because,
About Us Section
This section is your chance to show your personality. This also helps the visitors understand why you do what you do. Besides, Marketing Sherpa says conversions increase by 30% if the about us section is jazzed up.
How you use the page depends on you. You use it to highlight ‘the real you’ or the ‘vision you have’ for the brand. One thing should be clear, what you do and what your operations are.
Moreover, having an about us page helps with your SEO and adding the human element to your website.
In Conclusion
With this, we come to a halt on the tips and ways to make your online store stand out. SEO, content marketing, to mobile-friendliness, in the course of the discussion, we have touched upon their vastness. Along with the effort to help you with stand-out practical points.
If you got more to contribute to our study or have queries to be addressed. Please feel free to connect with us and share your thoughts. We will be happy to assist you.
