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eCommerce and Point of Sale News
Increase Sales by Gift Wrapping your Website for the Holidays
Computer savvy consumers may conduct as much as 50% or more of their holiday shopping online. Changing your website to reflect the holiday season is a cost-effective way of emphasizing that your site's information is fresh, updated, and timely. Merely substituting a graphic can be a simple and inexpensive way to spice up a site’s look for the season. With free shipping offers, money-back guarantees, and, often, lower prices than physical stores, there's rarely a downside to shopping online but it is still a very competitive market. So, how can you sell more online?
Target the pain points
Remind them of why they are shopping online in the first place. Display “Avoid long lines and crowded malls, save gas, and have your products delivered on time, right to your door.”
Give them an incentive to buy from you
Shopping cart abandonment often results from charges displayed at checkout. If you do offer free shipping, promote it! Don't just put up a little link: scream that you don't charge for shipping! One great way is to add a banner or graphic to your homepage. Put them in the holiday buying mood with your messaging: "Free shipping on all gift purchases through Christmas week only!" and ensure you include a firm cutoff date to guarantee delivery.
Inspire customer confidence
Special offers and pricing will not matter if your consumers have no trust in you. Dispel their fears by offering guaranteed delivery when orders are placed by a certain date and always clearly state your return policy.
Contact Cephrus today to see how we can help you gift wrap your website for the Holidays!
Why a Website Redesign is Critical to the Success of your Online Business
Imagine a brick and mortar store which never changed their window display-it doesn’t exactly spur a buying frenzy to see the same dress hanging in the window for three years! The truth is the success of your online business can greatly depend upon the return of your regular customers. They notice when your site changes, or doesn’t. It is critical to demonstrate that your site is state of the art. Regular customers will notice if your website is stale and while they may be familiar with your site, they may also believe that because your site has not changed, neither have your products.
Ask yourself-is my site still hot compared to other sites in my industry? How long has it been since significant visual changes have been made to the layout/graphics/colors? Is the content outdated? Are you using the latest technology? Does the homepage design suit your current business needs? If you have changed the focus of your services, added new products or want to communicate a different face to your visitors, consider a redesign for your overall website.
Contact Cephrus today to discuss a redesign of your website and watch your sales increase!
Getting Better Google Results Through Submerce’s Comprehensive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools
Did you know that if your website does not return a listing in the Top 10 search engine result positions (SERP) the chance of getting a visit to your site drops dramatically? If you are not in the top 20, there is little to no chance of someone scanning through multiple pages to find your site. Optimizing your content for a search engine is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) yet many web developers and designers either don’t take the time or just don’t know how to code a site properly. The basics of code optimization are merely sound HTML coding practices, and when followed, go a long way toward SEO. Once you’ve built an SEO friendly site, it is good practice to ensure each page is also configured properly. The areas contained between the <head></head> and <body></body> tags has a huge impact on how a page is indexed and can impact the functionality of SEO.
The Submerce platform was built to be SEO friendly from the start and provides the tools and features needed to ensure your website gets the traffic ranking it deserves. Some eCommerce providers only offer site-wide SEO configuration which severely limits the amount of “votes” your site can get to move up the search results ladder. Submerce is unique in that it offers a unique set of Meta Tags, Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions for every product, category, and for your entire store. This provides the administrator the ability to assign unique tags and descriptions at many levels, giving your site the competitive advantage over the eCommerce stores. The more products and more categories you have that are interrelated, the better your chances of increasing your search rankings.
“SEO is one of the most ignored tasks for any webmaster besides looking at traffic reports, but when you are selling products that are not unique, then you are really losing out on potential sales opportunities,” says Brian Schoenfeld, QA Engineer for Cephrus. “I was amazed at the level of SEO features that Submerce offers when I first came to Cephrus. I’ve seen other eCommerce packages and nothing comes close,” says Brian.
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