Curating Results: How to Fill Your Ecommerce Site with Great Content
As our global dependence on mobile phones rises, more and more people are going online to shop. With 2017 sales projections to be around $434 billion in the U.S. alone, ecommerce seems to be an unstoppable money-making machine. Today’s consumers want new and innovative products on a thoughtful and intuitive website that calls them to keep on shopping.
Today, the best way to sell products online is by keeping your users engaged and clicking around your website. It takes around 50 milliseconds for a user to judge whether or not they enjoy being on your website. The first impression a user has on your website can last a long time, and you need to make sure you grab their focus immediately. This can be achieved through intuitive web design and search engine optimized (SEO) content pages.
Here a set of tips to help you create or curate the best possible content for your ecommerce website.
Use Pictures Effectively
According this infographic from WyzOwl, your average customer will remember 80 percent of what they see and a mere 20 percent of what they read. Large product photos within a great web design should be one of your main focuses. All of the best ecommerce website builders will have customization options to allow for showcasing your products with effective photographs.
Keep Your Blog Active
In a perfect world, you would be publishing about three or four optimized articles per week, however, not everyone (especially solo ecommerce store owners) have the kind of time to do that. Starting slow is fine, as long as it is active — one article a week isn’t asking too much from your schedule, yet will get you going on the content needed to compete with the big-name brands.
Consider drafting five to seven blog posts and queuing them up to post weekly, so you don’t have to worry about the blogging aspect of your webpage for a few weeks at a time.
Create an SEO Strategy
You could write a series of books on what you should and (more importantly) SHOULDN’T be doing in order to increase your search engine rankings. You’re going to have to do a little research and find out how to best optimize your product pages. You should be using keywords, but not overdoing it to the point where it makes your content look spammy or unreadable. Place relevant keywords in your titles, headers and image alt tags for quick boosts in rankings.
A simpler URL is more accessible and SEO-friendly than a longwinded, digitally generated one. You are going to want to use the keyword you’re trying to rank for and as little of anything else as possible. Keep it simple, readable and user-friendly!
Avoid duplicate content at all costs. Search engine crawlers will detect duplicate content and lower your rankings. Write a unique product description for every product, instead of a plug-and-play template or the one provided by the manufacturer.
Don’t delete the pages of items that are out of stock, especially if they have high rankings; instead, redirect a related product from your current inventory. Google Analytics provides thorough insight into the inner-workings of your store, and should be used by every single ecommerce store.
Creating great content for your website is an exciting part of being a business owner. It allows you to directly interact with your customers while also boosting your sales margins and overall profits.
