The website for your small business is up and running, now what? Post launch, the goal of your website is to get more website visitors buying your business products or services. The marketing term for this process is called “conversion” and is measured by the conversion rate (percentage of web traffic that participates in your call-to-action). For example, how many website visitors entered their email addresses when prompted or clicked the “Buy Now” button. For more marketing terms explained, click here. 

Reviews, live chat support and email marketing campaigns are all proven ways to boost conversion by increasing customer’s trust and confidence. Here’s four awesome tools to help you increase and measure conversion rates in your website traffic: 

1. Yotpo

Eighty-eight percent of consumers take reviews into account on purchase decisions! (searchengineland.com) Positive reviews can close sales, increase overall spending and can also be a tie-breaker when deciding between establishments. Learn more about how your business can benefit from customer reviews on your website here.

Yotpo is a widget embedded into your website that allows customers to write reviews about your product or service. Beyond the review widget on your website, Yotpo offers a full review management system that goes above and beyond gathering reviews. “Yotpo leverages data science to get you more reviews”. It’s “smart algorithms” determine which products to request reviews for, when to reach out to customers to request a review, and when & how to remind customers to write a review. Check out Yotpo’s all inclusive review widget here. 

2. Zopim Live Chat

Did you know that 83% of customers require some type of support before completing an online purchase? (econsultancy.com) For both content and ecommerce websites, using chat to communicate with your customers in real time can be beneficial for your bottom line. 

Zopim is a leader among current live-chat applications available. They offer an easy to use chat widget with additional features depending on your needs. The backend dashboard allows you to setup and control triggers, view website analytics, and customise the look of your chat box. To learn more about why your website should offer live chat, click here. Check out Zopim Live Chat here.

3. MailChimp

Despite the huge influx of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, email is still the most consistently used digital communication tool. Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter. (McKinsey) Your business can benefit from this by sending out marketing emails offering promotions, incentives, contests and creating a regular email newsletter. 

MailChimp is a great place to create your email newsletters & email marketing campaigns, store your email lists and track campaign results. Mail Chimp lets you easily design attractive, and effective emails to send to your customers. Check out what MailChimp has to offer here. 

4. Google Analytics 

Understanding who your customers are and how they use your website is an integral piece of the website success puzzle. Knowing things like specific demographics and page performance offers huge advantages to your business when creating marketing campaigns and increasing conversion rates. 

When it comes to website data, Google Analytics is the gold-standard for tracking and reporting on your business’s website. Google Analytics tracks and reports visitor data in a convenient dashboard allowing businesses to see new visitors to the website, returning visitors, how long each visitor spent on the website, which pages they viewed and their geographical location. You can also pull reports on specific page performance and traffic sources. Businesses can monitor marketing campaigns, conversion rates, keyword data and add e-commerce tracking. Google Analytics is a “freemium” (free with paid options) tool for monitoring the basic health and operation of any website and is a must for businesses. Learn more here.

Review widgets, live chat support and email marketing are all aimed at increasing customer confidence and trust. If your website visitors feel trusting and confident when they come to your website, they are much more likely to become paying customers. Consider adding these four tools to boost your website’s effectiveness and conversion rates.

One of the great benefits of the Webware platform is the ease of use. It’s very easy to make changes to your website yourself – to edit your content, change images, add blog posts, even create your own web pages.

To make it easier for you to add great-looking web pages, Webware has added 14 new web page design templates! Now your inner website pages can look just as great as your home page, and you can choose from a wide variety of styles that include images, videos, product collections, forms, and more.

Scroll down to see all the new page types you can select for your website:

Collection Page

Mostly Image Pages

Menu Collection Page

Text & Image Pages

For details on the variety of page types available, see our Help Center article here.

To learn the basics of how to add a page, view this article.

Great news for Webware customers! Use our latest product update, customizable forms, to help you get the most out of your website.

Now you can create custom forms on your Webware site, to collect exactly and only the information that you care about from your customers.

There are three types of forms available on any Webware site: Registration Form, Profile Form, and Newsletter Form.  Each of these forms gives you an opportunity to find out more about the people who visit your site.  

Your site will be created with each of these forms already included and with standard fields such as name and email address.  

 You can now customize your forms by adding or removing fields, even creating custom fields, to collect the information you want to know about your customers.

For example, if you’re offering B2B services, you may want to know Company Name or Website URL.  

If you’re an ecommerce apparel store, you may want to know Gender or Shoe Size.

There’s all kinds of information you might want to collect, such as:

• Company name
• Phone
• Address
• Neighborhood or zip code
• Website
• Preferred store location
• Shirt size

For details on how to customize your forms, see our Help Center article here.

For more on the types of forms on your Webware website, see this article.

Are you considering an investment in your small business by building a website? The good news - An effective website can help your business reach new customers and boost your bottom line. The bad news - A poorly designed website not only doesn’t help your business grow, it can cause customers to lose confidence in your business and head elsewhere. Understanding what makes a powerful website from your customers perspective ensures a better user experience and more success out of your website. Whether you plan to invest money by hiring someone to build it for you or invest time building your own website, knowing some website psychology basics can help you get the most out of your investment. 

Here’s 4 principles of psychology to keep in mind when building your website:

Pattern Recognition

As humans, our brains are wired to constantly seek out what we recognize. Recognizing patterns helps us understand and navigate our surroundings. If we come across an unfamiliar situation, our brains may interpret it as a threat, triggering a chemical “fight or flight” response. [source]

However, familiarity lends itself to trust. If your website fits the “website pattern”, your customers are more likely to inherently trust your website and business. Upon landing on your business’s website, your customers will make snap judgements (in less than 1 second!). Instilling trust right away improves the chances of your customers staying on your website after their first impression. Your website should include the basics like your logo, obvious navigation, and banners with high-quality images balanced with easy-to-read text to maintain a recognizable “website pattern”.

Cognitive Overload

From a user-experience perspective, cognitive load is the amount of mental effort required for your customers to navigate your website. The original definition of cognitive load, first used by psychologists, defines cognitive load as the mental effort required to learn a new task. For your customers, the new task is to understand how your website differs from other websites then adjust to their behaviour to effectively use the website. The cognitive load required affects how easy it is for your customers to find the information they’re looking for on your website - and as a small business, you want to make it as easy as possible! [source]

The first step to make things easier for your customers (aka reducing cognitive load), is to know what they’re looking for when they visit your website. Are they looking for food/service menus, your blog, products you sell, information on products/services, or contact details? Then, focus on presenting the information in an easy-to-find way. To reduce the risk of cognitive overload in your website visitors, keep your website as simple and clean-looking as possible. Each piece of content on your website should provide valuable info. Using keywords at the top of your website, like in the navigation bar, help customers understand and navigate quickly.

Attention 

Human brains are designed to pay attention to anything different or unique in our surroundings. From an evolutionary perspective, humans noticing something out of the ordinary was developed as a survival tactic to judge potential threats. [source]

Though there aren’t any threats on your website, marketers can take advantage of this human tendency by creating a visually unique Call-To-Action. Draw customers’ attention to your offer with colours, images, or typefaces. For example, a bright orange “Start Your Free Trial” button against a neutral background will immediately catch your eye, drawing attention to what you want your customers to do. For your customers to be able to respond to your call-to-action, they need to know where it is. For the best results, make it easy for them to find by ensuring it stands out from the rest of your website.

Information Scent

With roots in Information Foraging Theory, information scent can be traced back to the earliest humans hunting for food. The scent of information describes our ability to judge whether or not we will find what we’re looking for by following a certain path. Humans are designed to look for cues that point us in the right direction as we hunt for information. The hunt boils down to two factors - motivation and effort. What will I gain by following this cue (motivation)? and is this a worthy use of my energy (effort)? [source]

Tap into your customers’ natural instinct to know where to look for information. Descriptive navigation tabs and meaningful subheadings initiate a strong information scent. Maintain the scent with images and further text descriptions on landing pages. Like cognitive load, the goal is to make things as easy as possible for your customers. Even if you have a lot of products or subcategories, studies show that customers don’t mind clicking several times, as long as they believe they are headed in the right direction. If the cues on your website don’t support humans tendency to follow the information scent, they’ll likely become frustrated and head back to Google to continue their search.

Conclusion

Investing time and money into your website can be invaluable for your business but it’s important to understand the underlying factors of website success. Using science-backed tactics to instil positive feelings in your website visitors means better chances of reaching new customers, increasing awareness and building sales. Time and money are both extremely valuable to small businesses; keep these website psychology basics in mind to maximize your investment in your website. 

Don’t want to waste time or money on your website? Webware’s professional team ensures your website is optimized for user-experience and setup for success. 

The trend of mobile search shows no signs of slowing down soon. Following the path that Google began in April of last year, the mobile-friendliness ranking signal will be updated in May 2016 to further improve mobile search results.

According to TechCrunch, “Google’s search chief Amit Singhal said for the first time this summer [2015], more Google searches were completed on mobile devices than desktop computers”. There are 100 billion searches performed on Google each month with more than half happening on mobile phones! 

With more and more people relying on Google’s mobile search, this update to further penalize non-mobile friendly websites is the next natural step for the search giant. 

From the official Google Webmaster blog,

“Getting good, relevant answers when you search shouldn’t depend on what device you’re using. You should get the best answer possible, whether you’re on a phone, desktop or tablet. Last year, we started using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal on mobile searches. Today we’re announcing that beginning in May, we’ll start rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.”

With this update to its search algorithm, Google continues to confirm the mobile-first industry standard. If your business website is not mobile friendly, now is the best time for a redesign. Not sure if your website is mobile-friendly? Click here to test your website.

This is great news for Webware customers! Our mobile-friendly, responsive designs will continue to be favoured by Google and give our customers great search results ranking. 

Related Posts:

Reach More Customers with a Strong Online Presence

4 powerful Google tools for businesses

How is your website working for your business? If it’s not bringing in traffic or sales, it might be time to give your website a health check-up. Here’s 10 common issues that signal your website could benefit from some TLC:

1. Your website is not mobile responsive. Or worse, you don’t know what mobile responsive means. A website that can be viewed on all devices is not optional; it’s essential. In this booming age of smartphones and tablets, non-responsive websites are outdated, annoying to navigate, and severely affect your rank in search results. If your website in not mobile responsive, run, don’t walk, to your nearest, trusted web designer. Read more about mobile responsiveness and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) here. 

2. You don’t know what SEO means. If you have never heard of Search Engine Optimization, that’s a red flag that you need help. SEO is an essential component of a successful and effective website. When ranking websites in search results, search engines, like Google, run algorithms to check several factors on your website. Here’s a few examples of factors that contribute to where your website lands on search engine results: website content, mobile-friendliness, website quality (speed to load pages, duplicate pages, broken links, etc), website architecture and geophysical location. 

3. Your website has no (or minimal) traffic. Your website has very few visitors or the number of visitors is declining. This is most likely related to no SEO or poor SEO practices. Even if your industry is already saturated online (like women’s fashion), there is room for everyone and a little SEO work can go a long way. 

4. Your web traffic isn’t navigating past your homepage. If your website has a high bounce rate, your traffic is either clicking the “back” button in the browser, closing the tab, or going dormant. In any case, they aren’t being captivated by your website and there could be a few things happening:  

• content is cluttered or hard to read 
• content is irrelevant
• there is no Call-to-Action
• your website is attracting the wrong traffic    

Whatever the reason, if visitors to your website aren’t moving from the initial place they land, now is a good time for a general website review. 

5. Your website isn’t updated regularly. In addition to mobile responsiveness, updates to a website positively contribute to it’s Search Engine Optimization. Regular updates help your website and business get found. If it’s not updated regularly, you will likely notice a decline in web traffic and a drop in your search results rank. If you can’t or don’t know how to make changes to your website, seeking help can get you on the right track. 

6. Your website has 404 error pages. These are error messages a visitor will receive when a URL (link) doesn’t exist; either because it was moved or deleted. This can be an annoying and frustrating experience for your web traffic and may send them packing. Search engines, like Google, do not like 404 errors either. This will be reflected on the search engine results page (SERP) with a low rank. A review for 404 error messages and broken links should be part of your regular website maintenance plan. 

7. You have trouble finding your own website on search engines. If you can’t find your own website online, how do you expect your customers to find it? Being unable to find your website (without typing the exact business name) means it’s not fully optimized for search engines. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a basic website practice that makes it easier for search engines, like Google, to find your website. There are several things you can do to improve your website’s spot on the search engine results pages and here is a good place to start.  

8. Your website was designed by you. Unless you’re a professional designer, designing your own website can be tricky. Web designers have studied the discipline in detail and understand what makes an effective web page. DIY websites can be time consuming, frustrating and can lack the professional polish that comes with hiring an expert. An effective website provides customers with a smooth, user-experience; something a designer has been perfecting for years. If you want your website to work for your business, it’s best to seek out a professional designer. 

9. Your website doesn’t have an online marketing plan. Even if it’s basic and simple, every website needs some amount of online marketing. There are both free and paid services to help you market your website. Blogging, social media presence, email newsletters or setup and maintenance of Google tools are all things you can do for free! Without a plan for finding and attracting potential customers, your website may not be as effective as you expected. 

10. Your website uses flash intros. Thankfully, flash intros on websites have been on a rapid decline over the last 5 years. “Flash” is a web coding technology (by Adobe) to create animation, like a video, on a website. Firstly, search engines cannot read flash technology. If your website has any flash elements, they are detracting from your “search-ability” (how easy or hard it is to find something online). Secondly, they use a lot of bandwidth and can take a long time to load. If your web developer recommends flash elements for your website, it’s time to get a second opinion. 

Your website should be contributing your business. If any of the above 10 signs ring true for you, it’s likely your website could be working harder for your business. Seeking the right help can give your website the refresh it needs to compete in this ever-changing internet world. 

Not sure where to start? Webware offers a complete tool-kit to help businesses navigate the internet. Your toolkit includes: a content website or an ecommerce website, blog plus all the digital services your website needs to thrive online. 

Google provides some amazing tools to anyone with a website. These (for the most part) free tools offer businesses an amazing advantage over their competition on the most used search engine in the world. Where your business ranks on Google Search can influence how many new customers visit your business and possibly your bottom line. Use these four powerful tools to ensure your business is as visible and effective as possible across all Google platforms.

My Business

The Google My Business tool is arguably the most important tool offered by Google for businesses. The My Business Tool allows you to set up how your business contact information will look to customers on Google search. Once set up, your location, website, reviews, phone number and business hours will appear prominently in Google search results, making it easy for your customers to see relevant information quickly. The My Business Tool is used across Google, including Mobile Search and the Google Maps app, so your customers see consistent, accurate info from anywhere they search. Given the popularity of Google and it’s powerful local search, the My Business tool is a necessary component to any business’s online strategy.

Google Analytics

When it comes to website data, Google Analytics is the gold-standard for tracking and reporting on your business’s website. Google Analytics tracks and reports visitor data in a convenient dashboard allowing businesses to see new visitors to the website, returning visitors, how long each visitor spent on the website, which pages they viewed and their geographical location. You can also pull reports on specific page performance and traffic sources. Businesses can monitor marketing campaigns, conversion rates, keyword data and add e-commerce tracking. Google Analytics is a “freemium” (free with paid options) tool for monitoring the basic health and operation of any website and is a must for businesses.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console, previously called Webmaster Tools, allows for more advanced website tracking and maintenance of Google-friendly websites. It provides detailed reports on your search traffic, click-through rates and mobile vs. desktop traffic. Through the Search Analytics Report, you can group, filter and compare your data to tweak your overall digital strategy and maximize website performance. The alerts feature will notify you of any website errors that might affect your rank in search results. Google Search Console can provide your business with the tools to get an extra edge against your competition in search results.

Google+ Publisher

The Google+ Publisher tag is another valuable tool to further enhance how your business info appears in search results. Once you install the publisher tag on your website, Google will link your website to your business brand page on Google+. When someone searches your brand specifically on Google, the content from your Google+ plus will appear on the right side of the search results, providing an eye-catching and detailed description of your business. The Publisher tag allows you to show customers more than the basics of your company without leaving the Google Search page.

Conclusion

With consumers turning to the internet more than ever for information, a business in solid standing with Google is likely to have better online visibility and see increases in both foot and website traffic. These four tools comprise a solid foundation for any business looking to establish a strong online presence and manage an effective, profitable digital strategy.

Webware offers it’s customers an extensive range of services to help manage and grow their websites after the initial launch. The Digital Services Package includes the set up of Google My Business, Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Google+ Publisher for your website. The package also includes blog content writing, online reputation management, website/keyword analysis and optimization to ensure your website adds value to your business. Click here for more info.

In this digital age, the value and influence of online reviews is on the rise. Eighty-eight percent of consumers take reviews into account on purchase decisions! Reviews, both positive and negative, can influence your business’s reputation and bottom line. Monitoring what’s being said about your business online is an important part of any digital strategy. Keep reading for a detailed guide on how to make reviews work for your business.

Here’s why your business should care about reviews:

1. Trust - 88% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Consumers actively seek out opinions on products/services and studies show consumers highly value peer reviews.
2. Visibility / SEO ranking - Businesses with more total reviews and more positive reviews are ranked higher on search engines. For example, Google Maps and Google Mobile Search return the top three businesses nearby with the best ratings and reviews.
3. Traffic - The more visibility your business has online, the more likely you are to see an increase in foot and website traffic.
4. Conversion - 40% of consumers read reviews on their mobile while at the POS. Positive reviews can close sales and increase overall spending. They can also be a tie-breaker when deciding between establishments so ensure your reviews are accurate and up-to-date.

Ready to get started? Here’s your most important review-related questions answered:

Which review sites should my business use?

The best thing your business can do is find where your competitors are reviewed. Do some research to find which review sites your industry uses to concentrate your effort.

Some popular places to leave and read reviews:

Google Reviews - Google is the most used search engine in the world and specializes in local search. This is a good place to start.

Yelp - This app spans many industries and is go-to search tool for consumers looking for highly rated businesses.

Trip Advisor - If you’re in the hospitality business, TripAdvisor is a well-known and respected website to find reviews

Angie’s List - Mostly for North American based businesses, Angie’s list is ‘higher end’ review site for product and service businesses with guaranteed verified reviews.

Your Website - Add a review widget to your website. Reviews on your own website can increase traffic and sales.

How many reviews does my business need?

Consumers generally read between 4 and 10 reviews before they trust a business. Check out your competitors then aim to stand out from that number. However, consumers are smart and can sniff out fake reviews. If your competitors have 10 reviews and your business has 200, consumers are likely to be weary of your reviews. Aim for a steady increase of one review per month or per quarter.

Can I trick Google with fake reviews?

Absolutely not. Google is well-known for authenticity and will find, then punish, businesses abusing the review system with poor search rankings.

What can I do about bad reviews?

Negative reviews are an opportunity for your business. If you receive a bad review, reach out to the customer. At the minimum, you can apologize for the negative experience and hope they return to your business for another chance to make things right. You can also offer an exchange/refund or discount to compensate for a bad experience. If your business turns the experience into a positive one, you can ask the customer to update their original review or write a new one.

How can I monitor reviews to stay up to date with what people are saying about my business?

Set up Google Alerts to let you know anytime someone says anything about your business. This allows you to respond immediately and provide top-notch customer service.

Ready to get reviewed? How to get reviews:

1. First and foremost, DO NOT offer incentives for reviews. This is against most review sites’ policies. Incentivized reviews create mistrust in your customers and will get you booted off review sites.
2. Lightly encourage your customers to write reviews. Use your best judgement here. Ask your regulars and satisfied customers. Not everyone will write a review, but if you ask 10 people, you may get 1 quality review.
3. Display your reviews inside your establishment. This shows your customers you value their input and may encourage them to add a review as well.
4. Establish your online presence. Simply increasing your online visibility can remind customers to write a review.

Word-of-mouth is one of the best forms of advertising. As the digital age’s word-of-mouth, online reviews are a simple, yet effective way to increase traffic, sales, and improve your online reputation. With the increase in value and influence of reviews, a small business can no longer afford to have a poor online reputation. Ensure your small business is up-to-date and reaping the benefits of this essential online tool.

The holiday season is upon us! Is your business prepared? The average American consumer is expected to spend over $800 during this holiday season. SMB retailers see 20-30% of their annual business during the last two months of the year. It is essential for you to ensure that your business is able to capitalise on the high rate of spending during the holiday season. An estimated 47% of consumers prefer to shop online compared to the usual brick and mortar stores. In other words, it means is that there is big money to be made this time of the year as far as online shopping and marketing go. But how do you make sure that you and your business are prepared?

 Here is where you can start…

1) Start Planning For The Holidays Today

If you have a website or a dedicated blog, begin by updating it to reflect the mood of the ongoing holiday and festivities. If you haven't posted a new article, photo or even a mere promotion in a long time, then this is the time to do it! You can also try pinning one or two colourful banners or even populating it with holiday verbiage. If you run a webstore, then it is an opportune time to start planning what deals and discounts you can offer!

2) Step Up Communication with your Customers

The key to driving traffic and increasing sales during the holiday shopping season is knowing exactly who your customer is and marketing to them well in advance of the holiday season. Businesses that communicate with their customers year-round have more successful holiday marketing campaigns because they took the time to build relationships with shoppers. Incorporate your holiday promotion ideas into a year-round marketing strategy. During the holiday season, focus on your existing customers but also work towards improving your business’ online presence and driving more traffic to your site.

3) Harness the Power of Social Media

It's the holiday season. And as far as the web statistics go, this is the time of the year when social media outlets record the highest amount of traffic per year. Therefore, it goes without saying that if you lay out strategic plans to tap into this traffic, you can easily multiply your mailing list subscriber base within a few weeks or even days! Be accessible on every social media platform and every device. 65% of shoppers use social media to find the perfect gift, so help them find your store. Below are a few ideas for great social media posts during the holiday season:

• Gift guides
• Wish list items
• Creative ways to use your business’s products/services
• Seasons greetings from your staff
• Party planning and event ideas

4) Partner with Other Small Business Owners to Drive Sales

Just like the adage goes, there's indeed strength in numbers. And if you're just starting out (have a new blog, website or social media page), you'll be far much better placed this season if you concentrate most of your effort in pooling your resources together and partner with other local businesses in your area by promoting one another’s products/services during the holiday season. Partnerships with other local businesses will spread awareness about your business to a new audience of highly qualified buyers, e.g. if you own a nail salon, you could partner with a hair salon and offer combined holiday packages.

Now is the time to get working on your holiday marketing plan.  Try out one - or all - of these ideas to kick-start this holiday season for your business.

Webware.io is now integrated with Fedex, the world’s largest express transportation company. Webware customers now have access to Fedex’s shipping service right from their Webware workspace.

Enabling Fedex with your Webware website allows you to manage your entire online business from a workspace you already use.  Track and fulfill orders right from the same place, your Webware workspace.

Setting up Fedex with your Webware site saves you time too. You won't need to add any shipping rates or setup weight slabs (for example, 1kg = $2.99, 2kg = $4.99, etc). The shipping rate is automatically integrated into your shopping cart during checkout, based on the weight of the items and the zip/postal code entered. This shipping rate includes delivery fees and pickup fees.

Activating Fedex on your Webware website makes shipping easier and streamlines your e-commerce process. Take advantage of Webware’s newest integration and simplify your shipping today!

Webware is a leading cloud-based web platform designed for small and medium sized businesses. Businesses can use Webware and our expert support team to design, set up, manage, and grow a website or webstore.

Whether you’re starting an online business, taking your existing business online, or are ready to upgrade your website, Webware has all the key components for a successful digital business, all in one place:

1) Website

A website builds your brand, increases your business’s credibility and, ideally, will bring you more customers. But it’s a lot of work to build and maintain a website, even if you’re outsourcing the work.

Webware's Do-It-For-Me team will design a website to reflect your brand and give your customers an informative and easy-to-use online experience. Here’s how it works:

• The Webware expert team will start from one of our beautiful website templates, get your inputs and preferences, and build a website that fits your business brand and needs.
• Once it's built, you can run and manage the site yourself with our easy-to-use web-based tools.

With Webware, anyone can have a beautiful, mobile-friendly site at the lowest rates available, all within a quick delivery timeframe.

2) Webstore

Want to sell your products online? The Webware Do-It-For-Me Team will deliver a beautifully designed webstore, fully integrated with reputable payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe that support mobile-based transactions.

Site visitors can browse, add to cart, and make payments right from their smartphones, tablets or desktops, using our integrated, straightforward checkout process.

Then you can log into your Webware's Workspace to:

• Manage your products, orders, and customers from one, easy-to-use online Workspace.
• Create coupons to drive more sales and draw in customers.
• Add apps from our App Store for additional features, like customer service chat, surveys and reviews.
• View reports on order activity, visitor stats, and referral sites, so you can keep tabs on your business.

Webware's platform gives you all the tools you need to digitally manage your ecommerce business, from one convenient place.

3) Blog

Blogging significantly increases a website’s SEO and lands your business higher in Google search results. Whether you’re selling online or promoting your business with a website,Webware's blog platform is a great way to increase traffic to your website. It’s also a great place to link to content on your website and products/services on your webstore.

Your customers will experience a seamless transition between your website and blog, while you enjoy the convenience -- and SEO benefits -- of managing both from the same platform.

4) Social Store

Use social media to get your fans onto your website and convert them into buying customers! With the Facebook Store feature on Webware, you can sell your products on your business Facebook page.

Consumers love to research their potential purchases online and frequently ask their social networks for advice. Your Facebook fans can easily view your products on your Facebook page, and share them with their social networks. This will increase your reach and allows you to harness the power of word-of-mouth through social media.

When your fans want more information, or are ready to make a purchase, they click on the product from your Facebook Store and are taken to your website.

Social media is vital to online success - increase your web traffic and engagement with Webware’ Facebook Store.

5) Loyalty Program

Once your fans become customers, it’s important to treat them right to keep them coming back. With Webware's loyalty program, you can award points to customers who register with your website and/or make purchases. And you can decide how customers can redeem their loyalty points. A Loyalty Program helps increase customer satisfaction, customer retention and brand loyalty.

Conclusion

In today’s world, it’s imperative for businesses to have an online presence, and your website is the heart of it all.  But a static website alone is not enough. 

If you’re selling products online – whether it’s physical products, professional services, or takeout menu items – you need a secure, easy-to-use ecommerce store.  And extras like a blog, loyalty program, and social links are now critical elements to success.

And even for those businesses who are not conducting sales online, you still need your customers to find your website, learn about your business, gather the information they need to make an informed decision, and follow your call to action.

Webware's, with our team of experts, will design and setup your online business and give you the tools you need to manage it, all with minimal cost and effort to you.  For more info, start a free trial or contact us.

This article is the third in a series about marketing on Instagram.

Do you want to boost your Instagram marketing effort? Attract more fans and engage existing followers? Host an Instagram contest! 70% of Instagram users have already participated in a contest on Instagram or would be willing to do so (according to the Iconosquare 2015 Instagram study). Instagrammers enjoy engaging with brands and appreciate companies who value customer interaction. It’s easy to overlook an Instagram contest, but it has proven valuable for small business marketing.

Why host an Instagram contest?

Hosting a contest can increase your followers, likes, and overall engagement. A creative, thoughtful giveaway will reach your target audience and increase your Instagram stats. One contest can create the same interest and engagement as months of your regularly scheduled content. It can also get your customers creating interesting and relevant content for you.

The benefits of a well-executed contest will extend beyond the length of the contest, so it’s important to create a clear plan.

Step 1: Create and plan

Choose the target market, prize, type of contest, and theme.

Target Market: Get a clear idea of who will be interested in your contest, and who you want to participate. Once you have the ideal contest participant in your head, research what they post on Instagram and which hashtags they use to guide you. Targeting the right audience is vital to your contest success.

Prize: Give away an awesome prize. Choose something your followers are going to get really excited about. To keep the focus on your business, make sure the prize is related to you. If you’re a company with one product/service, give that away. If you have a lot of products/services, give a gift card or a dollar value to spend at your business. Webware clients can give away coupon codes and Loyalty Reward Points. This ensures your contest entrants are genuinely interested in your brand. Other options include tickets to trade shows and industry-related events. Decide how the winner will be selected (public/private vote, random selection, your favourite, etc). To continue reaping rewards after the contest is finished, you want to attract those who have potential to be interested in your brand (not someone who is only interested in winning an iPad). 

Contest Rules & Structure: Think about how the rules of your contest can help with your marketing strategy.  Here are some ideas we recommend.

1. Select an interesting theme related to your business or industry. Get creative with your theme and encourage your followers to have fun. 

2. Choose a brand or contest-relevant hashtag that participants must use to enter their posts. This is the best way to have all submissions organized in one place for reposting entries, selecting winners and for people to view all submissions.

3. Content that your customer creates for you has high value. If you want to take advantage of this precious resource, make user-generated content a mandatory qualifier for your contest. 

You can host a contest based on likes and/or follows, which means that users who “like” your photo or “follow” you are automatically entered into the contest. This is an easy way to host a contest and doesn’t require much planning. Because it’s simple to enter, it will get you likes and followers. The drawbacks to like/follow contests are that they will attract people who aren’t members of your target audience, and that contestants aren’t creating any content for you to use. This type of contest may not create future engagement on your Instagram feed or in your community. 

Other types of contests include reposting or comment-based entry. Entrants must repost your contest photo or comment on one of your posts to qualify for your giveaway. These entry methods have more interaction than like/follow contests but don’t come with the valuable user-created content of a photo contest. You can also use a combination of requirements for entry into your contest. For example, contest entrants must like a photo, follow your brand AND comment on the contest post. However, one of the most common reasons why contests fail is that there are too many requirements for entry. Find a sweet spot between too easy and too difficult to ensure maximum, quality entries. 

Helpful Tip - No matter what kind of contest you host, always require a “follow” for entry. This is a simple yet effective way to increase your potential future engagement. 

Step 2: Prep fans 

Once you've decided on the type of contest, a fun theme and a cool prize, let your customers and followers know about the upcoming opportunity. In the weeks leading up to your contest, give your fans the heads up that soon they can participate to win an amazing prize. Before launch, advertise the contest regularly on social media, email campaigns, your website, and in-store. Use your Instagram bio space to promote the contest while it’s happening. To create some buzz, encourage your fans to spread the word or offer an added incentive to anyone who shares your contest post.  

Step 3: Launch

Before you start your contest, ask a friend or two to go through the contest steps from start to finish. How easy or difficult was the entry process? Did you understand the rules and how to qualify? Was the prize motivating? Do you know when it starts, ends, and how the winner is chosen? This will give you an idea of how your contest is received by others and how you can make it easier and more lucrative to participate. On day one of your Instagram contest, give your followers all the info they need to enter. Create an eye-catching post with a high-quality photo of the prize. If you’re giving away a gift card, get creative to keep it interesting! In addition to the prize photo, the post should also include start/end date, qualifications for entry, rules, winner selection, hashtags, and other contest details. Another reason for an unsuccessful contest is misunderstanding how to enter. To avoid losing participants, clearly state how to enter and what to expect.

In addition to the contest-entry hashtag, the launch post should also include other fitting hashtags. Refer to your target audience research in the planning phase to ensure your contest execution is on track. If you’ve been hash tagging for a while, you may already know which general hashtags your target audience follows and uses. Add popular/keyword hashtags relevant to your contest and frequently used by the Instagrammers you want to engage. You can also include general contest hashtags but keep in mind this may attract contest-seekers only. You’ll have more success with general contest hashtags if your contest is easy to enter or appeals to a broad audience. Popular general hashtags are: #contest #photocontest #giveaway #entertowin #contestgram #contestgiveaway #contestday. More on Instagram hashtags for marketing here.

This Instagram contest was hosted by Webware customer My Envy Box, and is a great example of a well hash-tagged contest.

Click here to read Instagram’s requirements for hosting promotions on their app. 

Step 4: Maintenance 

Give the contest enough running time to garner attention and entries, but not so long that people lose interest. Two to four weeks is the general guideline for an average contest, ensuring ample promotion before the start date. If you’re running a photo contest, you can promote throughout the contest by reposting submissions. Continue to repost even after the winner has been announced, to show appreciation and maintain the connection you established with your fans during the contest. 

Conclusion

Carefully crafting and hosting an Instagram contest can boost your social media stats. Get creative and have fun with your followers. Instagrammers appreciate brands who want to get connected and see the world from their customers’ view. Find your like-minded fans and get them thoughtfully engaged with a fun contest!

-------------------------------

Related Articles

6 Tips on Getting Started with Instagram for your Business

3 Essentials for your Instagram Marketing Plan

You already know that marketing is essential for your business. And if you’ve done any marketing for your small business, you also know that social media is an important part of the overall strategy. The photo-sharing app Instagram is a growing force in social media, especially for business. Research shows that Instagrammers love to shop - more than people on Facebook, who use the older social media site mostly to stay connected with friends and family. So if you haven’t already, it’s time to get your business on Instagram.

We’ve covered the basics here, so now that your Instagram business page is up and running, it’s time to make a plan to achieve your marketing goals. This post covers three essentials to include when creating your Instagram marketing strategy.

1. Use Hashtags!

There a lot of ways you can use hashtags to promote your brand and get more followers.  First off, some examples of the types of hashtags you’ll want to use.

Trending hashtags - Trending hashtags are the topics that people are currently discussing. They can be trending in a specific community/industry/country or trending across all of Instagram. The use of trending hashtags can help increase your exposure to non-followers. It’s best to use them when you find one related to your business. When that happens, switch out your regularly scheduled post for the trending hashtag to reach like-minded Instagrammers. Last week, #nationalsiblingday was trending. This adorable non-profit in New York City got in on the action. 

Top Hashtags – These are the most commonly used hashtags on Instagram. Examples of consistently popular hashtags include #love #picoftheday #fashion #friends #food #repost #beauty.

To see the overall top 100 Instagram hashtags, click here. 

To see a sample of top hashtags sorted by industry, click here.

It’s useful to hashtag your posts with one or two popular hashtags to reach non-followers. Use both general and industry-specific hashtags to maximize your reach.

Brand hashtags - It’s almost always best to use your brand name here. For example, #powerstores. In some cases, a short and clever slogan can work (KitKat uses #haveabreak), but it’s best to do some research beforehand. Include your brand hashtag on your profile page so anyone viewing your feed will see it.

Campaign hashtags - Hashtags for marketing campaigns or contests. Choose a short phrase that captures the essence of the campaign. Make a requirement for entering a contest or participating in a campaign.

Keyword hashtags - These are general hashtags used to describe the content of your post. They describe products and lifestyle.

Locations and events - Hashtag your geographical location (country, city, community, neighbourhood etc). Look for and use event/conference hashtags to reach fellow attendees and fans.

General tips on using hashtags - Use between 5 and 10 hashtags per post for maximum exposure. Any more and risk putting your followers off by appearing obnoxious (this goes for posting more than once a day, too). Use a few different types of hashtags to best describe what’s happening in your post. Knowing which ones to use can be tricky, so when getting started, check out what other businesses in your industry are up to on Instagram. Follow industry leaders, businesses you admire, and customers you appreciate. Research a hashtag you’re considering by typing it in the Instagram search field to see how popular it is and what it’s already used for.

For extra help, hashtagify.me lets you search a hashtag then gives you related, popular hashtags. It can help you find trends and recommend additional hashtags that may be relevant to your post.

2. Show Appreciation

As with all social media platforms, a grassroots marketing plan includes engaging with your customers. This is especially true for Instagram. A great tactic to increase overall engagement and attract more followers is customer appreciation. Re-posting followers’ content shows you’re listening and value their outlook on your brand. A popular campaign by Chobani yogurt showcases delicious food creations made with their products, by their customers. They encourage followers to get creative with their product then post the photo with a branded hashtag (#creationaday). Chobani re-posts the photo with a shout-out to the creator.

While showing the love is bound to get you more followers, the value of appreciation goes beyond customer loyalty. Your customer has saved you time by creating valuable content that genuinely shows how your product or service is actually used. It’s also great insight into what people love about your brand.

Instagram doesn’t give you the ability re-share your followers’ content, but Repost and Regram are two popular apps you can download that will. The free versions of these apps add a watermark to re-posted content and paid versions allows multiple Instagram accounts. Check your mobile’s app store to see what’s available.

There are other ways to show appreciation that work. 41% of Instagramers would follow a brand to benefit from special offers. Reward your followers with exclusive promotions, discount codes, sneak-previews of product launches or priority access to new services. Offer giveaways – such as your products/services, tickets to food & beverage shows, fashion shows, concerts, or other events of interest to your fans. Offering quality benefits exclusively to your Instagram followers will encourage them to never miss a post!

3. Measure what works

Don’t let the effort of creating content, researching hashtags and hosting promotions go to waste. You’ll want to measure how each of your strategies affects the number of likes, followers and comments received. Analytics are the key to refining your marketing plan and understanding what works for your business. Then you can make tweaks in response to how different strategies affect your metrics.

Iconosquare is the most recommended analytics tool for Instagram. Get your basic statistics and analytics to hone your marketing plan. Union Metrics offers a free checkup of your Instagram account which will give you a few pieces of valuable information at no cost. Collec.to’s free plan provides the same basic stats. These platforms also offer paid plans to get additional features to manage your Instagram account.

Conclusion

Instagram is great for business because users want to get involved with the companies they buy from. Instagrammers love to engage and are very active on what’s becoming one of the most popular social media apps in the world. Once you incorporate these essentials into your marketing plan, your business will get the most out of Instagram.

------------------------

Related Articles

6 Tips on Getting Started with Instagram for Your Business

How to Host an Awesome Instagram Contest

Last November, Google announced that it would be labelling and promoting "mobile-friendly websites" in their search results. This was in response to the fact that 80% of Google searches are performed on a mobile device. People are moving away from their desktops and spending more time on smartphones and tablets. As technology improves, mobile devices are getting better at handling tasks which were once reserved for desktop computers.

On April 21, in less than four weeks from now, Google will update its search algorithm to include mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor for websites.

As stated on Google's official blog:

“This change...will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

If your website or webstore isn’t mobile-friendly by April 21, it will take a big dive in Google’s search results, which could significantly impact your website traffic.

If you’re already a Webware customer, you can rest easy. All of our themes are responsive, automatically giving your website or webstore the “Mobile-Friendly” label. Your business will rank higher in Google’s search and customers will have a hassle-free experience on your website.

Is your website not mobile-friendly? Visit www.webware.io and get a new website!

Instagram is a photo sharing app that has taken the social media space by storm! Users post photos and short videos to share any and all aspects of their lives with friends, family and fans. Before posting photos, Instagram users can easily enhance them using filters. Each filter has a different effect on the photo like adding more contrast, light, shadows, tint or vignette edges, black and white/sepia options. Take a picture with your smartphone, add a filter and share it with the world.

Brands have discovered that Instagram is way to communicate with their current customers and reach potential customers in a fun and unique way. Because Instagram is one of the top ten most popular smartphone apps, it’s an easy way to reach your customers and target market. Create a buzz around your product and engage your community to increase brand awareness and loyalty with this popular and growing photo sharing tool.

As part of a three-part blog series on Instagram, here are some basic guidelines to get your business’s Instagram account started off on the right foot.

1) Communicate your brand consistently. 

What is your business hoping to achieve with Instagram? More followers? Increased product sales? Brand awareness? Know what your main objectives are and work toward them with every single post.

Instagram is a great way to visually communicate your brand’s values through relevant, eye-catching images. These posts can be funny, inspirational, educational, or simply beautiful to look at, as long as they promote your brand image and align with your business goals.

2) Connect your Instagram account with any other social media you use.

Facebook and Twitter will automatically repost your Instagram photos to your existing fans and followers. Link all of your accounts and let all of your social networks know you’re on Instagram to build your initial following.

Learn how to link your social networks and more on linking to your Facebook page.

3) Post a good mix of business and fun images. 

Business images promote your products and show them in action. These are a great way to start a conversation about your product and interact with your customers. However, your followers will get bored by seeing posts that only promote products and feel sales-pitchy. Connect with your followers on a personal level. Share the faces behind your company at work and play. Your followers will appreciate an inside glimpse of your company’s day-to-day life and culture.

4) Use #Hashtags. 

This is the best way for non-followers to find your photos. Hashtags are words or phrases used to categorize posts making them searchable by subject. For example, if you take a photo of a beach and add the hashtag #beach, it will come up in an Instagram search by anyone looking for beach-related posts.

Use hashtags to describe your post and further convey your brand’s message, and it will help increase visibility of your photos.

5) Time your posts for the most engagement.

Post consistently, when your followers are likely to have down-time. Don’t post too often, once a day with a purposeful message is enough to engage your followers.

6) Engage with your followers.

Reply to comments on your posts. Like, comment and re-post your followers’ posts to build brand loyalty and attract new followers and potential customers.

These beginner tips will help get you started with your first posts and create a foundation for your business’s Instagram presence. Stay tuned to the Webware blog to learn more about using Instagram for your business. Future posts will cover marketing with Instagram, tools to help you get the most out of Instagram, and integrating Instagram with your website/webstore. Happy Instagramming!

-------------------------------

Related Articles

3 Essentials for your Instagram Marketing Plan

How to Host an Awesome Instagram Contest

Most owners of online stores typically run extensive promotions and marketing campaigns to capitalise on the festive season at the end of the year, and watch with delight as their sales volume soars. You are likely one of them.

Now that you have set up your promotions and campaigns for the peak shopping season, it’s time to focus on another equally important element for success - Customer Satisfaction!

If you had any reason to wonder just how important customer satisfaction is to your ecommerce business, we have compiled the top 5 reasons just for you!

1.Satisfied customers are the ones who return

As obvious as it may sound, it’s important to always keep in mind that only those customers who are satisfied with your products and service are likely to return for more. Of course, not every satisfied customer will become a repeat customer, but it’s almost certain that a dissatisfied customer will never return, especially given the large variety of options available in today’s highly competitive market.

2. Returning customers are cheaper to retain than acquiring new customers

If you’ve ever run a successful marketing campaign, you are well aware of the high cost of customer acquisition. The cost involved in getting a satisfied customer to return to your website is a lot cheaper than the marketing spend required to acquire new customers. One thing successful businesses have in common the world over is a high volume of returning customers. And, as I’ve already said, the only customers who are likely to return are the satisfied ones.

3. You can make it part of your brand’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

As you already know, in today’s highly competitive market, customers have a number of businesses to chose from to satisfy the exact same need. Good customer service can often become one of a brand’s USPs that customers take into account when making their choice. Price  is of course an important differentiator, especially for first-time customers - but research has shown that very often, people are willing to pay a slightly higher price for better customer service.

4. It leads to customer loyalty, increasing Customer Lifetime Value

The more frequently a customer returns to your store, the more value he or she creates for you. Your Sale Cost reduces with regard to that customer, while your Sale Value keeps increasing. The longer you can keep a customer satisfied, the more you stand to gain from them.

5. It affects your Online Brand Reputation

Research shows that more and more online buyers are depending upon product reviews and customer testimonials to make their purchase decisions. The more positive reviews you have, the higher your chances of acquiring a sale. On the other hand, negative reviews will turn away customers in a devastatingly efficient way.  So when you start getting those great customer reviews, be sure to post them on your website for all to see!

Conclusion: It's Worth It!

With these important reasons in mind, be sure you go the extra mile to please your customers. Fulfil your orders quickly, communicate well with your customers, ensure your products are high quality and well packaged – all with a goal of ensuring the highest levels of customer satisfaction. You'll be glad you did it! And your customers will too!

After you get your business online, the first thing you’ll likely want is to have people find it. One way to do this is advertising and marketing, for sure.  But one critical (and free) step you should do right away -- once your website is ready and optimized for SEO -- is to index your site with Google, so that people can find your site through search. 

Think for a minute about how you shop online. You search for the product you want in a search engine like Google, and then click on links that show up as results.  So you need YOUR business to show up for people who are looking for YOUR products and services in the same way. 

As we’ve said before, Google is by far the most popular search engine today, with 67%+ of all searches happening there, so it makes sense to focus your attention on Google’s search engine.  You can make sure your site shows up on Google quickly by indexing it.

What is indexing?

It’s a way of telling Google that your website exists. Google’s search bot may eventually find and index your site, but you really have no idea how long it will take, it could take weeks or more.  So this is a way to speed up that process.

How to index your site with Google

Here are the steps:

1) Go to Google Webmaster Tools site. You will need to sign in with a Google Account. If you don’t already have one, you will need to create one.

2) Click on the ‘Add a Site’ button and submit your website URL.

3) You will be given different options to verify that you are the owner of the site. The easiest option is to choose the “HTML tag” option under “Alternate Methods”. You will be given a code that you need to copy-paste in the meta tag of your home page.

Webware clients, to paste the HTML tag into your homepage, go to Website > Site Pages in your workspace and select “Home” page, or ask your Guru for help with this. 

4) Once the site is verified, you will get an email from Google that looks like this:

This email will help you set up your Google Webmaster Account.

If you are unsure of how to do the set up, there are helpful links to explain the whole process in easy-to-follow-steps. Whether you make use of the other options or not, be sure to submit the sitemap of your online store.

Once you have set up your account, your website, along with all its pages, will get indexed by Google soon thereafter. And once your site is indexed, it will show up in search results for searches that are relevant to your business.

How is indexing different from SEO?

SEO is about page rank, which is the next step. First, your site needs to be indexed.

Note that indexing does not guarantee your website will appear on the first page of Google search results.  It only guarantees that it WILL show up on relevant search results.  It won’t be missed. 

For a new website, it’s highly unlikely you will show up on the first page right from the start. You need to work on your SEO to get it moving up the Page Rank, hopefully to the first page, for your most important keywords.

Conclusion

Indexing your site with Google is a key and simple first step to getting your site noticed by Google's search engine.  

Webware customers, we’re now offering an SEO marketing package, where we will make sure that your site has all the right title tags and meta descriptions, and we will take care of indexing your site on Google for you. Contact support@powerstores.com or your Guru for more information!

We have talked about why online businesses need Marketing Analytics and what kind of data to look for in Marketing Analytics. Now, let’s look at some specific tools that you can use to gain insight into the performance of your website as well as marketing campaigns.

1) Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the best website analytics tools, and it’s free! You can gain insight into many different parameters related to user behaviour on your website, such as:

• Deep insights into your audience - where they are coming from, their demographics and interests, the devices they use, etc.
• An overview of their usage of your site - number of pages, time spent, etc.
• Tracking your social marketing campaigns and how much traffic they have brought to the site, and
• Details of all sales on your website, to help you identify marketing strategies that work.

Google Analytics also offers real-time analytics, in-page analytics and visitor flow visualisation that can have a deep impact on understanding how well the website is performing and which elements need to be improved.

2) Compete

Compete is a paid tool and its prices vary based on the types of features you need. Compete offers comprehensive information on keywords that attract your target audience to your website as well as your competitors’ websites. Such information can be very useful in creating advertising campaigns that provide a high Return On Investment (ROI).

You can also find out where viewer came from and where they go, for both your website and those of your competitors. This can help you identify the best referral websites to place your ads or content on as well as understand how customers behave when they leave the website.

3) Google Analytics Content Experiments

Formerly known as Google Website Optimizer, Content Experiments is now part of Google Analytics. Content Experiments enable you to test all different segments of your website to identify the best options. For instance, you can try different layouts, images and content on different pages of your website in rotation and easily find out which ones or which combinations perform better than the others. This will help ensure that all elements on your website are as optimised as possible.

4) KISSinsights

KISSinsights is a free survey tool offered by KISSmetrics. It enables you to reach out to your customers directly and get answers to important questions like:

• What are visitors attempting to do on your website?
• Are they able to do it or not?
• How satisfied are they?

KISSinsights is an extremely simple survey tool, and its best advantage is that it’s short and does not impose on your visitors for too long, while providing you with the most important insights you need into their opinion and experience of your website.

5) Social Media Tools

Let’s look at tools for two of the most popular social networks: Facebook and Twitter

Facebook: Page Insights

If you have a Facebook Page for your Brand, Page Insights can provide you with a whole lot of information about it.

You will find the Insights tab in the top left corner of your Facebook Page. 

Here you will get deep insight into the Likes your Page has received, your Posts that have been popular, the kind of audience your page attracts and their ages, genders and locations. Such information can be very useful in targeting your Facebook ads and promotions.

Twitter: Twitalyzer

Similar to Facebook Insights, Twitalyzer offers comprehensive insight into your number of followers, retweet insights, how often a specific account replies or engages with your brand on your Twitter feed, and more.

Conclusion

As you can see, these are tools that assist you in every aspect of your online presence and engagement - your website, your audience and your social networks. Using these tools will provide you with all the data you need to ensure the best performance of your brand on every net property.

Related Articles

Top 5 Reasons Why Marketing Analytics is Critical to Your Success

Using Marketing Analytics to Make The Right Decisions

‘No Pain, No Gain’ seems to be the way things go for everything in life, whether it’s a fitness program or even an online business. No matter what it is we want to achieve, we have to endure a painful ordeal to get it, right?

Let’s look at all the hassles you will have to go through (or already have gone through) when you want to build an ecommerce store and/or take your business online.

PAIN #1: Finding the right designer

You need someone who can translate your vision for your website in a web-ready design, while keeping in mind all branding requirements.

PAIN #2: Finding the right developer

Then you need to find a website developer who can translate the visual design into a functioning website, keeping in mind user experience and functionality.

PAIN #3: Finding the right domain-selling and hosting company

You need to decide where to buy your website’s domain name from and on whose servers you will host your website. Understanding the choices and all the features offered requires major time spent just educating yourself on all of it.

PAIN #4: Finding the right payment gateway

If you’re selling online, you have to choose a payment gateway that is right for you, based on many different technical and non-technical parameters, then have your web developer integrate it with your website.

PAIN #5: Finding the right vendor for site maintenance

Once your site is ready and launched, you will need someone who will update and maintain your website on a regular basis. Often, the developer who built your site has then disappeared when it comes time to make changes!

PAIN #6: Finding the right fulfillment partner

Finally, if you’re shipping products to customers, you will also need to find the right logistics partner and then negotiate with him to offer you a reasonable deal.

THE BIGGEST PAIN: The Cost

More than anything else, you will need to start with a large capital investment to pay for all the above-mentioned professionals and expenses.

It is easy to see why so many people are put off by the thought of taking their business online.

But imagine if this process was not as convoluted or as expensive as it is right now… Would you let anything stop you from breaking the Internet barrier and offering your goods and services to the large number of shopping buyers online?

Meet Webware.

Webware is a DIY Online Store Builder. We believe that ecommerce has the power to transform the lives of small business owners, and that it should be as easy as possible for them to have a great website where they can promote their business and sell products. That’s why we’ve created an extremely easy-to-use platform that’s as effortless as managing your Facebook page.

With Webware, you get pain-free access to:

1. Create your own professional-looking website yourself in a matter of minutes using our beautiful website themes.  And they're all free, even the mobile responsive ones.  
2. Or you can have us build it for you in a matter of days, at about one-third the cost you’d pay a web developer!
3. Try out many different designs, colors and other elements of look-and-feel of the website, as many times as you want until you have a website that you like - and it’s all for free!
4. Web hosting on blazing-fast Amazon servers. And the hosting cost is included in your highly affordable monthly subscription.
5. The best Payment Gateways available, like PayPal and Stripe, pre-integrated into your website. Just enter your merchant account info and you’re ready to accept payments for orders.
6. Webware  tie-ups with several logistics partners to help you find the right fulfillment partners at reasonable rates.
7. Finally, Webware is such a simple platform to manage that you will be able to make any and all changes to your online store on your own. You’ll never have to rely on a developer again!

Webware offers a host of other features that make it easier for you to manage your website easily, like:

• Easy web-based tools to manage orders, update product info, and communicate with customers
• Integration with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter
• Discount coupons and Loyalty programs
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly
• Blog platform hosted right on your site
• App Store with a wide range of third-party apps to plug into your site

Webware does not require any upfront or setup fees, so you avoid a large upfront capital investment, plus the monthly subscription prices that you pay are also extremely affordable. Check out our Pricing Page to see for yourself!

So, what are you waiting for? Join hands with Webware, and say good-bye to the pains of cobbling together a website and chasing elusive and expensive web developers! Set up your online store in minutes and watch as your business grows online!

Our recent blog post took a look at why you need marketing analytics and how it can help you streamline your marketing efforts. Here, we’ll explore what kind of data you need to study and how it can guide your marketing decisions.

Let’s consider what kind of data you need to mine from marketing analytics.

Website Performance: What to Track

You will have visitors coming to your online store from many different places, like Facebook, Twitter, blog, email links, organic search, Google Ads, etc. Website Analytics will not only help you indentify which channels of incoming traffic are leading to conversions (ie sales), but will also provide a large amount of valuable data like conversion rate, lifetime customer value, and cost per acquisition.

These figures can give you meaningful insight into what is performing effectively and what isn’t, thus helping you to decide how to allocate your marketing budget across various channels.

Sales: What worked?

Focus on actual sales and conversions on your website. Go as far back as possible in users’ behavior  to track down the path of clicks from how they entered to your online store all the way up to actual sales. Did a click from a text ad on Google search bring the sale? Or was it a link on Facebook? Maybe discount coupons in emails led to terrific sales!

Find out everything you can about what worked. If you compile enough data, you will start to see trends and be able to identify which channels work better than others in bringing in sales. You will also find out what kind of products the user was interested in and you can target your ads accordingly using remarketing tools. (Read more in our blog post covering remarketing).

Offline and Online Metrics: Consider Them Together

If your marketing strategy includes both online and offline marketing, it is important to ensure that the data record does not get interrupted in-between. So, for instance, if you advertise in a local newspaper or you give out leaflets with discount coupon codes on it, it is important that you keep records of these channels so that you can later combine both the online and the offline records to get a holistic picture of how well your marketing efforts are creating conversions on your online store.

There are many ways of doing this. For instance, in the case of discount coupon codes, create a separate coupon code for different channels, e.g. your Facebook ad can have the code FB123, while the code in your emails can be EM123. You can then look at the records of which codes were used to get an idea which channel was more effective in bringing in sales.

Vanity Metrics: What to Avoid

There are lots of metrics available that do not add any meaningful insight into what helps the bottom line. But easy availability of these metrics makes it very easy to get distracted by them. These metrics are called Vanity Metrics and they include elements like page views, time spent on site, number of pages visited, etc. These numbers do not add any value to your marketing strategy and are best avoided, to save time.

Social Media: Keeping a Bird’s Eye View

If there are any social media networks, like Facebook or Twitter, that you use to market your online store, it is important you use marketing analytics tools to keep a bird’s eye view of your performance there. You need not pay attention to every single like and share, but it is important to know where your audience is coming from whether the network is leading to website visitors and especially buyers, the demographic breakdown of customers who found your website through social media, etc. There are many tools that can make it easy for you to access this data, e.g. Google Analytics.

We will provide more in-depth information on various tools that can help you get the right Marketing Analytics data in our next post in this series. In the meantime, you can start identifying the most critical types of data you are going to need with regard to your own marketing efforts. Watch this space for more!

Related Articles

Top 5 Reasons Why Marketing Analytics is Critical to Your Success

Tools for Marketing Analytics at Your Fingertips!

So you have decided to start a company blog on your online store/ website to drive more traffic, promote your business and engage your target audience. But what should you write on your blog? What kind of content is considered appropriate for a business blog? And, how to create content that will benefit your brand as well as your bottom-line in the long run?

Here are 10 ideas on what to post on your company blog:

1. Tell your Story: People are inherently interested in stories, and you can use your own story to develop interest in your brand. Talk about how you got the idea, how you met your collaborators, how you came to start your business, etc. If there are some really interesting facets to your brand, talk about them - the designers, the craftsmen, the techniques, etc. Introduce the people on your team, talk about their dreams and aspirations. The more people get interested in your brand, the more they will care about it.

2. Make Announcements: Whatever announcements you may have with regard to your brand- whether it is a new product launch, a new collection, a season-ending sale, use your blog to make these announcements. The blog provides a whole new channel as well as attracts a different section of your target audience.

3. Answer your Customers’ Questions: There is an important caveat here and that is ‘before they ask them’. You are surely aware of your target audiences’needs, concerns, demands, questions, etc. with reference to your products. Address these issues long before they actually come up. Use your blog to provide all the relevant information your potential clients are likely to need with reference to your brand, company and products.

4. Educate your Customers: Apart from pre-empting the questions your potential customers may have while buying your product, you can also use your blog to educate your customers in using your product most effectively and efficiently. If you have any guides, tutorials, how-to videos, etc. post them on your blog. Not only can you use this as a ready resource when your clients make a purchase, you also develop a reputation for being concerned with customer satisfaction.

5. Get Customer Feedback: Undoubtedly, a lot of market research goes into product development. You already know what your customers want and you have developed a product to fulfill that need. How about finding out exactly how your customers will respond to your products BEFORE you launch them? Use your blog to provide sneak previews of your products and get feedback on them from the very people who are going to be using them. You will have time for fixes, changes and troubleshooting before the launch, should the need arise.

6. Create a Platform for your Customers: Use your blog to create a space dedicated to your customers. Add their pics taken with your products, post their comments and testimonials, answer questions that they may have, link to blogs they may have written about you. Your blog can become a community space to help create a community of your customers.

7. Provide Industry News and Information: This is your opportunity to establish yourself as an industry expert. Report and remark on important industry news, identify and analyse trends that you see, write your opinions on how your industry can create a greater impact.

8. Create Engagement: Fun engagement opportunities can bring tons of traffic to your blog if done right. For instance, run a photo or a caption contest on your blog. Announce the contest, provide all the rules and guidelines, keep updating the page throughout the duration of the contest and announce the winners of the contest on your blog. Use other social media networks like Facebook and emails to promote such contests. Watch as traffic increases and your brand awareness builds.

9. Follow Relevant Blogs for Ideas: Look for the market leaders and thought leaders in your industry and follow their blogs. Of course, you never want to plagiarize their content, but you can easily find out what the industry is talking about, concerned with, aspiring to, etc. and use these ideas as a starting place for your own blog post.

10. Entertain: Use your blog as a space to provide relevant entertainment to your target audience. If you find a comic strip, a funny video or a quirky experience with regards to your product, brand or industry, post in on your blog so you and your target audience can share a laugh together and bond over it.

Now, you have the secret to creating the best possible content for your business blog. Once you get going on your blog, you’ll get better at knowing what works and what doesn’t, and it’ll come as second nature to think of new post ideas.  So go ahead and blog, and you’ll be interacting with your target audience in ways that were not possible before! 

Note: Webware customers, go here to read about how to add a blog to your Webware today!

Related Articles

Webware New Feature Launch - Blogs!

Top 10 Reasons Why Your Online Store Needs a Blog

Do you have an online store? Then, you need a blog! Blogging is one of the most critical channels available to your business to attract new audiences, engage them, retain them, create brand loyalty, and in the long run, make your business profitable and successful.

If you were looking for one good reason to start a blog for your online store, we give you 10!

1. No-Pressure Communication: Your website needs to sell your products your ads need to drive traffic, your Facebook posts need to go viral, but your blog offers respite from these pressures and allows you to communicate whatever it is that you think might interest your target audience- news, updates, industry information, tips, company values and philosophy, tutorials, guidelines, the people behind the scenes, history and tradition associated with your products and services…. And the list goes on & on!

2. Two-Way Channel: A blog offers a platform for your target audience to engage in a meaningful conversation with you that goes beyond a ‘like’, a ‘re-tweet’ or a ‘re-pin’. A blog with a comments section offers a place to share ideas and have discussions with people who matter the most to you – your existing and potential customers.

3. Fuel for SEO: Regular updates, relevant & original content and additional tags are all things that get search engine algorithms to rank your website higher on relevant searches. Blogs also generate a lot of inbound links when they get shared- another plus for SEO.

4. Content for Social Media Marketing: The content you generate on your blog is the perfect material to share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Newsletters, etc. These links will further help your SEO efforts.

5. Long Term Results: Most blog posts continue to produce results for years, as long as the information you have provided is original and relevant. Research shows that unlike news, blog posts are often read and referred to months, even years after they have been posted.

6. Establish Credibility and Expertise: A blog is a great way for you to establish your credibility and expertise as a thought leader in your industry. The more this perception increases, the easier it will be for your target audience to trust you and give you their business.

7. Build a Brand: Blogs go a long way in building a brand because they provide the perfect platform to share the story behind the brand. Human beings love stories and can relate to a company better if they have insight into the brand that runs deeper than just the products and services they provide.

8. Create Symbiotic Relationships: Blogs are a great way of building mutually beneficial relationships with other complementary brands and thought leaders. For example, if you sell cookware, you should easily exchange links with a recipe website and blog. This is beneficial to everyone involved - both for the brands as well as for the readers of both blogs.

9. Get Insight: While the blog provides your readers insight into your brand, it also provides you an insight into your target audience. By analyzing popular topics, clicks, shares, comments, etc. on your blog, you can gain deep insights into the needs, likes, preferences, etc. of your readers. This can go a long way in strengthening your overall marketing strategy.

10. It’s Easy! If you already run an online store, managing a blog is likely to be a breeze for you! You need no technical expertise to create and maintain a good-looking, easy-to-navigate blog. All you really need is just good content and appealing pictures to go with it.

Note: Webware customers, go here to read about how to add a blog to your Webware today!

So, you have set up your online store. And you are keen to spread the word and have more and more people find out about your online store. Apart from online advertising and marketing, is there anything else you can do to promote your online store? Of course!

Here are the top 5 ways you can promote your online store offline:

1. Printed Stationary

Add your online store URL on all your printed materials. Like visiting cards, your letterhead,and envelopes, invoices, receipts, packing, and labeling. Ensure that your website URL is always present when your brand name, logo or contact details appear in print.

2. Your Physical Store

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, then you already have an excellent venue to promote your online store. For most of your existing customers, an online store will be an added convenience and they are likely to take to it enthusiastically. Add your online store URL to all your signage - outside your store, window dressing, direction boards, announcement boards, etc. If your business requires your employees to wear a uniform or ID badge, add your online store’s web address on the uniform or badge. And put the URL on the shopping bags!

3. Outdoor Signage

On the other hand, if you do not have an actual store, you can still find ways to post signage for your online store.  Make use of signposts and other locations where signs are required. You can piggyback on signs for existing landmarks, by offering to pay for painting the sign and adding your brand name and URL in return.

4. Promotional Items

Many businesses invest in creating and gifting promotional items to their customers, vendors, investors, shareholders and potential customers on various occasions like festivals, anniversaries, etc. If you are one of those businesses, you now have one more vehicle to promote your online store! Add your online store URL to all promotional items and watch more and more people find out about your online business.

5. Pass out Leaflets

This is another great way to promote your store offline. Make brochures, leaflets, posters, catalogues, etc. for distribution and pass them out at locations where your target audience is likely to be found in large numbers, like the shopping mall, or the multiplex. This will be especially useful if your business is local and you cater to customers in a fixed geographical location.

So, now you have some great, cost-effective methods of promoting your online store in the offline world. Go out and try them all, then focus on the one that gives you the best results. All the best!

Marketing Analytics? What it is? Why do you need to pay any attention to it? It’s not as if online sellers are not already bombarded with enough jargon to make their heads spin!

Simply put, Marketing Analytics is analyzing the results of your marketing campaigns. You may be marketing your online store through various online channels like Facebook marketing, Google advertising, blogging, email marketing, etc. Marketing Analytics helps you analyze the results of each so that you can ensure that you are getting the best value, or the highest Return on Investment (ROI) for the time, effort and money you are spending on various marketing initiatives. Here are top 5 reasons why Marketing Analytics is critical to your success.

1. Identifying what Works:

Not all channels produce the same results. Some may bring in a lot of traffic, others may lead to higher sales, while other channels may not be adding much value to you at all. By employing Marketing Analytics, you can easily identify which channel works best for each goal.

2. Streamlining your Marketing Goals:

What is more important to you right now? Is yours a new online store that requires brand awareness and high traffic, irrespective of sales? Or do you want to focus on sales, and you’re not really concerned with many new people discover your website? Marketing Analytics will help you streamline your goals based on the kind of results each of your marketing channels is capable of producing.

3. Making the Right Investments

Most new online businesses have limited resources, so it’s extremely valuable to know how to invest those resources to get the maximum value. Once you have streamlined your goals and identified the strengths and weaknesses of all your marketing channels, you will find it a lot easier to decide which marketing channels to invest your time, effort and money into.

4. Save Money & Avoid Unnecessary Costs

If you have figured out which channels are most important to you, you can either completely stop or dramatically reduce your other marketing channels. This way, you can ensure that your resources and budget are not being wasted on initiatives that don’t contribute to the goals you are pursuing.

5. Have a Ready Toolkit

Once you have associated every channel with the type of results they are capable of producing, you have at your fingertips a ready toolkit for the future. Now going forward, no matter what short-term or long-term goal you want to achieve, you will always have ready knowledge of which marketing channel to employ to meet that specific goal.

Important Note:

It is important to also understand that online marketing is a highly dynamic field which is affected by a number of factors like seasonality, industry trends, new technology, quality of content, marketing expertise, etc. You will need to factor in these changes, trends and updates into your Marketing Analytics to ensure that you have an accurate understanding of all your marketing channels and their ability to produce specific results.

Watch this blog for more posts on this topic, including more specifics on how exactly to gather and analyze the data you have access to, for the most insightful Marketing Analytics for your business.

Related Articles

Using Marketing Analytics to Make the Right Decisions

Tools for Marketing Analytics at Your Fingertips

If you have an online business and are like most, you’ve also set up a Facebook Page to promote your business on social media. Setting up the Page is easy, but knowing what to post there is the hard part. 

Do you see posts “go viral” on Facebook and want to know what to post on your own Page that can get the same level of exposure? Do you see other Pages get hundreds of ‘Likes’ for each and every post and wonder what their secret is? Exactly how do you determine what is the right kind of content you should be posting?!

Fret not! Here are some tips to guide you in choosing the right blend of content for your Facebook Page.

Remember these 5 things and you’ll be on your way to great posts with lots of likes:

1. It’s a Brand Page

First things first - your Facebook Page is your Brand Page. It should only contain content that is relevant to your company and your brand. This is not the place to post personal posts, opinions, rants, etc.

2. A Brand is Different from Products

While products form a very important aspect of Brand Identity, there are other elements to consider as well, like brand philosophy, vision, influences, accomplishments, press coverage, etc. Of course, you will need to post about your products, sales, news arrivals, etc., but your Facebook Page should also encompass all these aspects of your Brand Identity and not just be a catalogue of products that your company sells.

3. A Brand Belongs to an Industry

Your brand also belongs to a larger fraternity - your industry. Including news, trends, changes, etc. about your industry on your Page is a great way to be a part of the bigger picture and keep your fans informed of the larger factors that affect your industry, as well as news that your fans are likely to find interesting. For instance, if you sell organic products, posting news that a well-liked celebrity has endorsed an organic lifestyle can give you great mileage.

4. Know Your Target Audience

Just like in Advertising, the most important thing to keep in mind is your target audience. It is important to understand all sections of your target audience and know what they like. If you are selling sarees to women, think about the various activities and occasions where women like to dress up, and tailor your posts accordingly. If you are selling tees to the youth, think of their various influences – music, celebrities, etc. - and post about them. If you are selling electronic gadgets to young employees, talk about how your gadgets will help save time, improve productivity, increase efficiency, help them stay connected, etc.

5. Images Get Attention

In this age of information overload, you have very little time to connect with your target audience. Web users on social networks do not typically spend more than a few seconds on a post on their Facebook News Feed before moving on to the next one.  If your post has only text, chances are people will not take the time to read it. On the other hand, if you post a great picture of something that your Target Audience is likely to be attracted to, chances are that it will attract their attention immediately.

Here you go! Follow these 5 Basic Tips to find the right blend of content to post on your Brand’s Facebook Page and see how many likes and shares each of your posts is able to generate!