Ecommerce and Your Strategic Web Presence

Compare today with websites of the year 2000. The Web 1.0 - or the web as we know it - focused primarily on products, price, search engine listings and key words to generate traffi c to a specifi c site. That’s changed dramatically in 2007 with the explosive growth of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is not a fad - it is changing the way your eCommerce site is found around the globe. The key to Web 2.0 is social networking or user generated content and it must be an integral segment of your web design. To drive traffi c, businesses must now think beyond the product or service offered. They must think in terms of social networking brought about by web sites like MySpace, YouTube and LinkedIn. The practice of consumers posting; talking; sharing thoughts and reviews among like minded individuals is the new key to driving traffi c to your web site. It’s about creating a buzz for your products and services. It’s a virtual referral system through word of mouth marketing over the web. It harnesses the basic network aspect of the Internet to rapidly reach large numbers of people. To have a strategic web presence, businesses must incorporate viral marketing into their eCommerce technology plans.

Viral techniques should be implemented throughout seven steps. The quality and number of visitors to your site, the conversion rate to one of your business goals; the practice of obtaining and analyzing data from traffi c on your site will result in a better return on investment.

The seven steps to a strategically successful web presence

The first step is discovery. Location, location, location is not just true only in a traditional bricks and mortar storefront. Your strategic web location must be easy to fi nd and targeted. Whether you are selling to consumers or businesses the buyer of your goods and services must be able to find your location. If you’re a traditional retailer looking to expand your market potential online, you may consider syndicating your products onto Amazon.com and Yahoo! or Ebay. These sites enable on-line and off-line merchants to sell their products online. While leveraging other larger players for on-line product placement is important, nothing takes the place of your own web site. Many companies can help you either get started or take your web presence to the next level such as, Vertex Internet, a Lancaster County-based web site development company that specializes in eCommerce.

The second step is the research stage. Recognize that more consumers are using the Internet for research prior to any purchasing decision. They may be using your web site to research a future purchasing decision at a retail store. When designing your site, keep in mind how consumers may research products and prices prior to making a buying decision and how you should design and manage your site to optimize on these searches. Remember, the availability of information consumers have today is a lot greater than just a few years ago.

The third step is the comparison stage. The buyer is saying, “I’m ready to buy.” To optimize your web presence, you should be listed with Google’s free comparison shopping site called Google Product Search or other competitive shopping engines such as PriceGrabber.com. It’s free for any company to upload a product master data fi le to Google and they will index it. Review your site construction. Do you offer side by side product comparisons? Do you allow tagging, creating smart lists and wish lists so that it is easy for potential buyers to come back to your site?

Step four is the Purchase. Every business with a web presence must plan for maintaining security and providing safe transactions; safeguarding billing information; allowing for secure credit card payments. After the transaction, how will the purchase be fulfi lled? Do you need to ship by common carrier, shipping companies or the postal service? Once a product is shipped, how will you track orders and confi rm orders were received? These are things you need to embrace and think about.

Step five is Service. Businesses must have a service plan for an on-demand society where consumers expect much faster turn around times. How easy was the process for the buyer in terms of navigation, security and delivery? Does your website allow for such things as referrals and customer satisfaction surveys?

Step six is Retention. Forrester Research has been reporting that customer retention is at a five year low – brought on primarily because switching to competitors is one click away. Viral marketing can contribute to the loss of customer base or create a new excitement through referrals. Companies need to understand how to implement retention programs. Implementing an email marketing program is a perfect way to increase your customer retention rate by touching customers through a relevant and meaningful dialogue via email. Your company email newsletter can contribute to buzz that will drive traffi c to your website.

The seventh step is Optimization. You need to track everything you do from referral source to conversion. Understand how you can optimize referral sources that are your best performers. Get help from Google Analytics – it provides free web site visitor tracking and analysis services to give you a deeper understanding of where your website traffi c is coming from and what visitors are looking at on your site. The service will show key words by source as well as ROI by key word. Since your main goal is to acquire, maintain and grow your customer base tools like Google Analytics must be incorporated into your plan and site design.