Experian QAS recently made an important blog post about something very close to our hearts, they spoke about getting ecommerce to run alongside the social media landscape. Social platforms are offering so much more than mindless chatter – they let us review customer feedback, customer requirements and what their needs are. Nearly 43% of US firms have successfully gained new business from using social media. Ecommerce platforms do need to have better social media integration and we are currently working on a system that allows us to use social media alongside products and services allowing the word to be spread further!

There is also several Facebook plugins for ecommerce that are now emerging, which we plan into integrate for our own ecommerce clients, maybe even provide offers exclusive for Facebook “likers” or discounts and other incentives that can drive the social side to new heights, gaining vast amounts of facebook likes can also mean an integrated newsletter platform which can help a superb retainable customer platform.

Using social media as news broadcast system, product information and competition platform can also serve as a great new basis for on twitter and linked in.

We can give you on going consultancy into using social platforms to find customers and apply your business into the social stream.

How well do you know your bounce rates? It’s the question I continually ask my current and potential clients. How do you measure success factors on your homepage? It’s another question that may be tough to answer.

Web design agencies produce beautiful websites, no question, there is in an art in the perfectly designed website, however, this can create an issue, particularly with ecommerce websites.

E-commerce and websites structured for monetisation usually miss elements in the design that is geared towards one thing – customer acquisition. I have come across so many product based websites lately that have designed skills that far surpass our own design capabilities!

This is the difference, web innovators like Ultima Media focus on the customer gain and retain process. Our goals are too focus on working on a design that makes the offer and experience easier for our client’s customers. We then actively watch these month by month using conversion goals to see what elements are working and what aren’t so our clients get the maximum exposure for their traffic.

Web design agencies traditionally deliver projects under clients requests, which is fantastic but without on-going structure for performance and structure will not necessarily be the best solution for businesses

The ecommerce world is rapidly growing and new start up’s are being introduced each day. No matter what your business is about, you will always have competition, which is why it’s important to keep your website at its very best. If you don’t market your business properly, you could lose it altogether. Below is a list of common mistakes which should be avoided at all costs.

Website Design and Layout
the most important (and most common) mistake new start up’s make is the layout and design of their website. When running an e-commerce website it’s important that you know its purpose and stick to it. Many mistakes are made when new start up’s concentrate on the look of their website rather than the actual marketing strategy behind it. You could end up turning potential customers away with dull product advertisement.

Marketing
learning to market your business the right way can be challenging. Although your website may look great, it doesn’t necessarily mean anybody will find it. One big mistake which can easily be made in business is blowing your entire budget on the development of the website, rather than the actual marketing itself. Online and offline marketing should both be looked into, as online advertising can only take you so far.

Product
many ecommerce websites fail by adopting a weak product line. If the customer isn’t convinced on what it is they’re buying, chances are they will go elsewhere. It’s important to understand your competitors marketing as well as your own, such as price, product placement and customer service.

Customer Acquisition
one of the key aspects of customer acquisition is the process from finding the item to the checkout procedure. Depending on the simplicity of these actions can determine whether or not your online store succeeds or fails.

Customer Service
customer service is the forefront of any business. Things such as being attentative to customer requirements, speed of delivery and the quality of the product are all major aspects of why online business’ fail. Focusing on your customers is as important as focusing on your website.

There are over 400 million local searches through google every month, which is proving to have an increasing impact on local business sales. Over 70% of these searches are targeted at local organisations or services based in a specific area. While a local business may look at this as an opportunity, it may also prove to be a challenge by taking local business rivalry that one step further.

For example, if you’re looking for web design based in Chester, you can specify this and the search engine will pull up numerous local web development companies for your viewing. Information about these companies which may be published in the search could include the contact details, an image and possible directions for ease of travel.

Consumers search and then buy online or search and buy off-line, its that simple, however the start of their web journey is increasingly focused on local search. Retailers are able to combine both on and offline methods to provide analytical data for their products which is also a step Ultima Media use.
Our Strategy for ecommerce is nationwide but tapping into a large local market is one of our key elements and with geo location AND the introduction of better mobile browsing, localization is a massive untapped resource of potential customers.

Take advantage of location based optimisation and speak to us today!

Will the ICANN suffixes increase backfire on corporates/organisations as we are so used to our standard .coms and .co.uks?

Interesting to see that ICANN will be allowing people to have their own web suffixs for a little more than £114,000, but how will this have an implication for sites, how will google assign a good QS to custom domains and will it all have to work on redirects?

I personally think the only way around this is for clients is to redirect to their existing .com, i cannot see the domains working unless its used on print media, or resold - however i think this creates a whole barrel of worms if you have people using their .bbc domain for instances outside of the british broadcasting corporation.

Only the next few months will tell!