Thursday, June 15, 2017

Keeping your shop website fresh

A lot of focus is put on content when you create your website, but after it goes live, it’s often left to its own devices.  If you’re wondering why you’ve seen a decline in traffic and engagement, it’s a good time to breathe new life into your online presence with a website spring clean, whatever the season!

By making a few simple changes, you can improve user experience, search engine ranking and retain visitors longer.  Let’s take a look at some strategies you can implement to rejuvenate the appearance, performance, and content of your website.

Boost SEO

Regularly updating your site with new content improves organic search ranking; engines prioritize active sites over those that lie dormant.  To improve your ranking even more, here are some actions you can take:-

  • Check that links on your site are working, both links to internal pages and external sites.  
  • Ask for backlinks to increase the credibility and ranking of your site.  For example, ask customers to link to your site, offering a 5% discount on their next order via an ad on your packing slip or a follow-up email.

  • Incorporate keywords relevant to your services, products, target markets and location in your content.
  • Start a blog, news page, or offer downloadable resources, such as eBooks, targeting niche markets, or answering common queries from new customers. Use questions asked in the way your customer would, like ‘How do you start your own T-shirt Label?’
  • Link to your website in your social media profiles and on relevant posts.  For example “Check out the cap embroidery we just completed for (tag the business).  If you would like to cap off your order too, check out our cap range (link to your site).”
  • Check Google analytics regularly to ascertain your site’s traffic sources so you know what strategies are working well and are worthy of your time and energy.
  • Verify that your contact details are clearly displayed and up to date with current phone number, email and street address.  Consider adding a google map to your location and business hours. This help article explains how DecoNetwork customers can set up a geotag on their website.

Refine your products

When was the last time you reviewed the products displayed on your website?  Chances are you cast your net far and wide when you launched to cover all bases, but now you’ve got some juicy order history to identify popular and unpopular products.  You can still provide specialty products on request, but it’s important to refine the product display on your website so as not to overwhelm customers with too many options.  Refine your existing products and add some new ones that would be of value to your customers.

Getting social

Social media is a great way to showcase your latest work to attract and engage with customers.  Do you provide links to your social media channels on your website?  Check that these links work and make sure you are only linking to accounts that you actively monitor.  If you’re no longer using a platform, remove the link from your website. You never want to miss a customer message; it makes you look like you are inactive, or worse, that you don’t care.

Share your Story

Your About Us page is one of the most important parts of your website; review your current bio and update anything that isn’t current.  Remove old information and include any new information about added services, changes of location, or any important details about your business.  Throughout this process, envision the customers you want to target and the type of work you want to attract, and include keywords to appeal to them. Consider adding a behind the scenes video, photos of your team, or a shop tour to humanize your business.  Include customer testimonials to build trust; social proof entices new customers to work with you.  For more on crafting a compelling ‘About Us’ story, check out our blog post here.

 

Creative collaboration

Many customers like to flex their creative muscles when ordering decorated goods; update your static site by adding an online designer that allows those customers to mock up and share their ideas, creating more engagement, interaction, and even encouraging social promotion. An online designer keeps them on your site longer and lets them spread the word about your business while sharing their creation; a win-win situation.

By design

Attract new customers and better serve your current ones by offering design templates and stock designs in popular theme categories.  Include designs that target the niche markets you’d most like to work with as well as more widely popular themes such as special occasions, events, sports, interests or holidays.  Offer them on your site for download and customization (DecoNetwork users can offer design templates in the template builder or online designer).

Get blogged down

If you already have a blog, when was the last time you shared a post?  Are you due to add some current content? A blog is a great way to share your expertise and stories, but it has to be updated regularly. If you are struggling for content, you should always consider solutions to common customer problems as your first line of potential topics. Posts like, ‘how to shoot killer product photos’, ‘t-shirt tagging and packaging inspiration’ ‘event merchandise tips and tricks’ or ‘how to produce profitable band merchandise’ are valuable to the customer and can point back to your services.  Between those value-driven posts, you can always toot your own horn;  talk about your proud achievements, specialty services, new products, showcase a customer, your team, your processes and the passion behind your craft. Your customers want to hear from you, in your unique voice.

Your hall of fame

Your website should include a gallery, displaying samples of your work. This cleanup is a great time to evaluate whether your current images best represent you. Once you’ve built up a library of images, you can strategically plan the type of work that you show. Remember that the work you show, is the work your customers will request. Share images that give insights into your process, special techniques and effects, jobs for recognisable brands or businesses, inspiring artwork, and jobs done for industries with which you’d most like to work.  

Appearances matter

New visuals can freshen up the look and feel of your website and captivate visitors. Is it time to try a new font, color scheme or a new header/banner?  Maybe there’s a special offer, package deal, new products or services that you could promote?  Take advantage of an image slider with a series of examples targeting the variety of industries you serve or services that you offer, or link to answers to frequently asked questions about your ordering process. Make your additions useful as well as attractive.  For inspiration head to our Header Pinterest board here.

 

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day business of your running your shop, but having a successful website is not as simple as ‘if you build it they will come’.  Don’t be discouraged, refining your site to capture more leads and engage loyal customers will be an ongoing process as long as you run your business. If you keep it fresh with regular maintenance, you will reap the benefit of increased traffic and more sales in the long run!

Ready to take your shop online with DecoNetwork?  Find out more about our integrated online store, site, and shop management tools here!


from DecoNetwork Blog https://www.deconetwork.com/blog/keeping-your-shop-website-fresh/

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