This article is aimed at all small business owners in the eCommerce sector, especially those interested in more effective ways to market your eCommerce website. If you are just started out, this article should be important to you. If you have been in the eCommerce business for a while, you know how easily you can waste thousands of dollars with unscrupulous firms. Listed below are the principles we often discuss with our eCommerce clients.

SEO
Apply Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to your eCommerce website. This technique makes it easier for search engines, such as Google and Bing, to find your website. Sprinkle relevant keywords throughout your website to attract search engines. For example, if you sell second-hand clothing, use keywords and phrases like "online thrift store" and "buy used clothes." Avoid Flash, as search engines have great difficulty "seeing" this type of content.

In our opinion, understanding and staying current with Google's algorithm(s) is critical. CLICK HERE to see how Google can penalize your site for not following the rules!

SEO Services
SEO is the process of improving the organic ranking of a website with leading search engines. Professional SEO firms can help improve search engine rankings for their clients by modifying their websites to better reflect what search engines are looking for. However, be very careful when investigating SEO Services. In our experience, there are hundreds of "sharks" that prey on startup eCommerce companies promising to get them on "page #1 of Google" overnight, only to take their deposit, then disappear. Do your due-diligence carefully!

BLOG
Start and maintain a BLOG that relates to your eCommerce website. As an example, if you sell DVDs on your website, write articles about new movie releases on your BLOG. Link the BLOG and the eCommerce website together. If a reader likes your BLOG, he may visit your website. Writing a weekly BLOG article is important - but write at least two BLOG articles monthly.

Social Media
Most big eCommerce companies out there seem to express a great deal of 'love' for social media. In private, a lot of these companies complain there's very little ROI from social media. I couldn't disagree more. You don't have to spend hours every day in order to promote your business via social media; some of the best campaigns are executed in less than an hour each day. In our experience, the best platforms for eCommerce businesses tend to be Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

Pay Per Click - or PPC
PPC is a general term, and stands for Pay Per Click. There are lots of different components involved in PPC, from search network advertising to retargeting. PPC has come a long way over the last few years, and it's a really good way to advertise an eCommerce website in a sustainable, profitable manner. You'll hear plenty of naysayers exclaiming that 'PPC isn't profitable' but it can be.

It's not as simply as throwing a PPC campaign online and hope that it makes a lot of money immediately. If that model worked, then everyone would do it. With PPC you have to make a commitment to testing and bettering your campaigns on an on-going basis. Only when you make this commitment will you really begin to see the results you're wanting.

From our experience, the best PPC options out there are Google PLAs (Product Listing Ads) and retargeting. Although traditional text ads still work, PLAs and retargeting are yielding by far the best results.

PR
There are numerous articles on the web where people are claiming 'PR is the new SEO'. From our perspective, there is not a single process that will guarantee success of your eCommerce business, but rather, it's a combination of everything mentioned above.

PR basically involves generating a buzz around your brand or website, this is typically done via getting your website in newspapers, on the TV, on popular niche blogs and so on. In some niches PR is a great way of building a reputation - it's a great way to market to your target audience.

PR is simple but effective - the problem with PR is working out exactly where to start. It can seem daunting and pointless trying to contact random people from the TV or newspapers to see if they want to review your products.

For more information about promoting your eCommerce website, please contact North Texas Web Design at [email protected]