Four steps to online success

Now you have your site up and running its time to attract customers, keep them and make some money. This post is designed to share with you what we know works and does not to promote ecommerce sites.

Take these four steps and you are on your way to success! It works!

Step 1: Establish your product in a niche or vertical market

If you already have product in a competitive market and you are not yet getting any results maybe you need to specialise. The biggest mistake many companies make is trying to be everything to everybody. Find an obvious void in the marketplace and fill it. Adjust your company or product to meet a specific need and then specialise. Ask yourself, what problem are you solving for your customers and why would they choose your service over a competitor?

Step 2: Getting found on the Internet

Aside from utilizing traditional marketing tools, there are three essential strategies that can be deployed in attracting visitors and sales to your website. These are:

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Pay Per Click Search Engines (SEM)
• Pay for Inclusion Services (comparison engines)

It’s more than likely that you’ve recently used a search engine to find either a product, a services or other information. Search engines have become a part of everyday life. No doubt you would love to be found the same way.

The importance of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Promotion

When running your business on the Internet, nothing is more important than having a highly ranked site in search engines. The great advantage of having your customers find your website through search engines is that they are qualified leads. These customers are actually searching for your goods and services, not just passing by.

ezimerchant automatically populates product information into your website search data, optimising your site with Google. Each product is enabled with Rich Snippets, which provides an enhanced description and product image.

You can check how your website and each product within your site is displayed on Google by clicking here.

Step 3. Managing your customer and email lists

Email marketing and Customer List

We find that most of our successful merchants are very good at building; managing and servicing a growing customer email lists. From slow beginnings they have worked at it and built lists that are worth rivers of gold to their business.

Your most valuable email asset: an in-house, opt-in list

If you are online and you are not building an email list of customers and prospects, you may be making a costly mistake. Why? Because the opportunity to build opt-in lists will become more limited in the future as the volume of email rises. You'll need to make the collection of email addresses a top priority for every contact with customers or prospects.

The ezimerchant single page checkout provides customers with an option to register their details and opt into future mail campaigns.

The best email lists concentrate on quality, not quantity. Its better to have a list of 5,000 prospects who want to hear from you on a regular basis than a list of 20,000 who are only marginally committed. Good email lists deliver as much value to a subscriber as the product or service it promotes. Keep that in mind, and you'll do a fine job of building an effective list.

Of all the components needed to successfully build an effective email list, the most important component is the value proposition to the consumer and you are sending out emails at an appropriate frequency.

Remember when sending out emails you have to comply with the Australian Spam Act 2003, details can by found by clicking here.

Step 4. Be patient and budget for 6-18 months

Success can happen relatively quickly. But be prepared to wait, the majority of successful sites did not happen over night. Make sure that you have not spent all your money on the initial site design but budgeted money for promotions over the initial 6-18 months.