Setting up your ecommerce site is no simple process, but setting up the site is only the first step. Promoting your ecommerce site is what will determine whether or not you make money. How you promote your ecommerce site will determine how much profit you will make the first month, the first year, and for the life of the business.
The reason you have an ecommerce site is to sell your products. Each page that lists a product needs to have words to offer the consumer as much information as possible about the product that you have to offer. Because your images don’t have the benefit of touch, your pictures need to offer as many angles as possible, including close-ups and labels if applicable. In this way, your customers can feel confident that they are getting exactly what they want.
Search engines, however, can’t see pictures. The only way that search engines will pick up your site info that relates to your product is if you have text that relates to that product on the page. Include the product info in the title bar, in the header and throughout the descriptive text. Use variations of the words within the product page as well as words that are related to it. If you do this the search engine will recognize your page as a legitimate landing site for the consumer. Important point – describe the image clearly in the image alt text.
Don’t get carried away with the text, however. Keep the word count between 300 words and 750 words. Too little means you don’t have enough information to convince the search engines or the consumer that you are the expert you claim to be. Too much and the consumer gets bored or overwhelmed and clicks through without reading through.
Once you have your ecommerce site set up and properly filled up with informative text and images, submit your URL to main directories like Dmoz and Yahoo. Directories are great places for consumers to get focused results for their key phrase searches.
In the same way, niche directories offer the same authority to your site and then some. Only sites that are qualified and related to the particular niche of the directory will be accepted by the directory for listing. So, if your ecommerce site is among them, you’re guaranteed a much higher percentage of traffic that will not only come to your site but are more likely to stay, purchase, and return often.
Your next step in promoting your ecommerce site is advertising. Get your name, your brand, and your URL everywhere that matters. That means posting your expert industry related advice on forums that consumers interested in your product area are likely to visit. Blogs have the added feature of RSS feeds which allow its regulars to subscribe to an alert system that lets them know every time a new post (i.e. your new post) goes up.
Finally, watch your traffic rise and your profits soar within several weeks.