However, considering developing e-commerce can be a process fraught with difficulty, here are just a few tips to help the process go smoothly.

Know what you want to sell and how

The first, and possibly most obvious step is to decide what you will be selling and how you will be fulfilling orders. You can sell almost anything on-line, however as a merchant you need to consider what you will be selling and then how you will deliver this to your customers in a timely fashion.

If you are already involved with mail order or providing an electronic product this may be a simple transition. With physical products you need to look how you will be packaging, mailing and dispatching products within the time-scale that e-commerce users will expect.

This does not have to be a massive operation, however you need to look at how you would dispatch your goods safely to clients around the world and you should look to take advice on areas including shipping and customs to ensure you price this accordingly and do not lose money.

Delivering a secure and efficient service

Online security is vital, almost daily there are news stories about data breaches and issues with on-line sales. You need to find an e-commerce and payment processing supplier who can provide the highest level of security for you and your customers.

There are a variety of suppliers available and you need to consider their reputation (as this will reflect in your own) as well as transaction costs and the speed of payment to your accounts.

Within your own organisation you must ensure you encompass a stringent security policy to ensure you do not become a weak link. This includes ensuring you use the latest anti virus and anti malware software and also employ a secure password policy.

Build it and they (may) come…

It is not as simple as putting your new e-commerce site on-line and expecting droves of customers to suddenly be spending their money on your site. You need to ensure you have a website professionally built  to attract customers.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a set of tools which you can use to drive traffic to your website, in involves using various techniques to maintain high listings in the major search engines. There are some simple things you can do yourself but to keep on top of a rapidly changing environment you should look at employing SEO experts to develop and maintain your on-line presence.

Stay legal

You must be aware of the legal requirements when you are selling on-line. The E-Commerce Regulations came into effect in 2002. One of the elements required is the minimum information which should be provided on your website. This includes:

• Service provider name
• The geographic address of the organisation
• Contact details including email address
• VAT number where applicable

When you are selling on-line any prices on the website must be clear and unambiguous and, in particular state if prices are inclusive of tax and delivery costs.

When a customer places an order on your site they should be provided with “appropriate, effective and accessible technical means” to allow them to identify and correct any errors before completing the orders.  

You must also ensure you confirm receipt of the order without any delay electronically, for example by an email.  It is worth noting you are not required to accept the order at this point it is sensible to state that ‘your order has been received and is being processed’ otherwise you may be responsible for any pricing errors on your website. You should ensure you explain your terms and conditions for payment and refunds.

Make e-commerce simple

The simplest way to employ e-commerce is to work with a trusted partner who can support you through the process and can develop a bespoke, industry standard solution which will provide you with the confidence to trade safely and securely.

Introducing Website Giant

With over twenty years experience of web design and development, Website Giant are well placed to be your preferred partner when it comes to the implementation of e-commerce solutions.

Website Giant will create a bespoke solution for your specific requirements. Built using industry standard tools to ensure you have an e-commerce solution which meets your requirements and provides you with an on-line presence twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Contact Website Giant

For more information and a free, no obligation quotation, contact Website Giant: http://website-giant.com/contact/

The post So, you want to sell on-line? – A simple introduction to e-commerce first appeared on seo-giant.

What is PPC?

Pay per click is an internet marketing technique where you, as an advertiser, pay a fee every time one of your ads is clicked by a user. The most popular technique is search engine advertising where, on sites like Google you will see advertising links listed above natural results.

In the above image you can see that, for the search string ‘Loan’, two ads have been delivered at the top of the search results. If I was to click on either of them a fee would be charged to the advertiser.

PPC is an excellent technique as it allows you to place highly targeted advertising in a prime location for a selection of key search strings. Research shows that over 64% of users will select ads when looking for items on-line.

What is the cost per click?

Of course these directed links come at a cost. The price is set by the search engine provider and is according to traffic and your industry. To give an example for the finance industry PPC clicks can be priced at up to £5 per click, the average is almost £3 per click.

This may sound good, but you have to remember this is for every click and only a small percentage will go forward to convert to sales averaging around 2%.

Is there another way?

You may well consider PPC and it can be a useful part of a larger advertising strategy, however do not underestimate the value of customer data. For example, you can purchase finance data providing opt-in data for much less than £1 per contact. Remember also that this is not just for a prospective click but includes name, address and full contact details (mobile, land line and email contacts).

Generating warmer leads

The variety of data available is vast and the data cubes can be created to deliver the specific information you require. For example, if you were a ‘poor credit’ loan provider you could look to select data which lists all individuals who have been declined for a loan from mainstream providers. Here you will have the full contact details for people who are looking specifically for your product area and have been qualified by having gone through an application process but hitting a decline. For less than £1 per individual you can have access to this valuable resource.

What is data is available?

You can select, within reason, any dataset that you require suiting your business, from B2B lists through to consumer data including finance, home improvement, energy use and charitable donation.

If you need to target company directors who regularly give to charity, subscribe to wine clubs and enjoy golf you can request this and gain reputable, opt-in data which you can respond to personally with direct contact.

Introducing Data Giant

Data Giant is an organisation who can provide all your data requirements. It was grown out of a desire to offer excellence, they understand the pivotal position direct marketing has within every business and combines the need for high quality, legal data with professional customer service.

Data Giant is UK’s most trusted data supplier. With many years experience in our management team, their team know the B2B, B2C & direct marketing industry inside out and can provide you with the data you require at a highly attractive price.

Full service provision

The Data Giant also has access to their very own call centre with over 250 seats specialising in lead generation & data monetisation through in-bound and out-bound campaigns. Let Data Giant manage your whole lead generation operation for highly competitive prices and with measurable returns.

Find out more

Contact Data Giant – www.data-giant.com for a discussion of your requirements and a no obligation quote.

The post Calculating Cost per Lead – Data vs PPC first appeared on seo-giant.

As soon as you start to look at marketing your organisation,  you will be bombarded with various things you can do and organisations who will do them for you. From developing a marketing strategy, building a strong brand, developing a powerful on-line presence and generating leads to support new business.

The simplest and most effective thing you can do is to use a full service agency to provide you with a seamless marketing, sales and on-line presence.

What is a full service marketing agency?

As the name suggests, a full service agency can provide every element of your marketing, sales and on-line functions within a single organisation. You can see from the flowchart below, the entire marketing cycle is provided by one provider.

The benefits of using a single agency

The most obvious benefit is that, by using a single marketing and on-line agency you have a single point of contact for your marketing and sales operation and that each element works seamlessly together. You can save yourself the hassle of trying to communicate and share ideas and concepts between agencies, instead you can have a single team providing a holistic approach to all your marketing and sales activities.

You can be confident that you will have full control over all aspects of your marketing operation and don’t have to spend your time project managing multiple suppliers.

What to look for in a great full service marketing agency

There are many providers who will tell you that they can provide the level of service you require, before you select any agency you need to answer the following questions:

• Do they understand my business? – you need to be sure that the agency will take the time to work with you to fully understand your organisation and what you require from a marketing project.
• Do they have relevantly qualified colleagues? – what experience does the agency have and will you have a project manager who will act as your single point of contact and who has the experience to offer sensible advice and to maintain the project on track.
• Do you like what they have done for other clients? – each client will have different objectives, but you should see that the quality of their creative work is excellent also that they have been able to demonstrate an uplift against the set objectives for a project. Ask to see content from other projects and to speak to current clients. Don’t consider an agency if you are not happy with the quality of the portfolio.
• Are they willing to offer you a report showing what they could do for your organisation? – following initial discussions you should ask for a report detailing what the agency can do for your organisation.
• Finally, can you work with them? – is this an organisation you feel you could work with? It is important as this is likely to be an important and likely long term decision, you need to be sure you gel with the team and that you can work effectively with them. As the question, if this was a job interview, would you hire them?

Introducing The Giant Brand

The Giant Brand is a full service marketing and on-line company covering Bristol, Bath and Somerset. We have highly experienced teams of experts who can advise and develop your marketing strategy, professional design and branding specialists who can create powerful branding and on-line experts who can develop state of the art on-line content, e Commerce and professional web development. We can support this with search engine optimisation ensuring that you maintain the best search engine rankings for your website. We cover  Bristol, Bath and Somerset, we are local to you and can provide you with a friendly and professional service allowing you to keep your site performing effectively.

Our consultants will work with you to understand and develop your marketing, website and branding, creating highly effective content with powerful keywords, we can then maintain your web presence delivering you a monthly report detailing your sites performance.

How do we work?

As the leading full service marketing company covering Bristol and Bath you can be reassured your on-line presence is in good hands. We will take the time to understand your organisation and its requirements, reviewing your current web presence and giving sound advice on how you can improve the content to maximise your search engine listings.

We are small enough to provide a highly personal service which you will not find within a larger agency, however we are large enough to deliver and you can trust the experience of our specialists, we have over twenty years of experience in delivering excellence in on-line content.

The post The Benefit of Using a ‘Full Service’ Marketing Agency first appeared on seo-giant.

Step 1 – Plan your site on paper

Before you sit down in front of a computer grab a big sheet of paper and start to doodle what you want from your website.

This is an opportunity to think what you want the focus of the site to be and also how you would like your users to navigate through the content, and it is considerably more simple to change ideas and experiment with a pencil and eraser.

You need to be sure you have the basics, a call to action, a way to communicate and relevant and authoritative information. Remember that your content will be viewed on a variety of platforms from PC’s to tablets and mobile phones, in fact your site will likely be viewed more often on a mobile device than the type of machine you are using to create the content.

Step 2 – Understand what you need it to do?

Ask yourself a question, ‘What does my website need to do?’

This sounds simple but it is a vital question to answer, all too often a web presence is a confusing mish-mash of pages with no overall direction. You may consider your site to be:

• A location to promote my product or services
• Somewhere to inform customers about who we are and what we do
• Providing a location where existing customers can find information
• Providing location information, contact details and opening hours

Of course your site may cover more than one of these, but having a clear definition of what you are hoping to achieve will prevent ‘bloat’ where your site becomes confused and over complex.

Step 3 – Consider how you want it to look?

When you have your content planned you need to look at the look of the site, it is good to have a clean and easily readable design and there are many design principles you can use and many professionals who can advise you. However, ensure that it looks great to all of your users.

Remember I said that most of your web traffic may come from mobile devices, ensure that you view your content on a variety of devices to make sure that your shiny site that looks great on Google Chrome on a PC also works effectively on a tablet.

Step 4 – Ensure that it is accessible to all?

Additionally you should consider accessibility for people who have disabilities to ensure that they can also use your website. It means that people with disabilities can understand and navigate the content. This is a benefit also for people who may have changing abilities, such as older people.

You can take advice from accessibility professionals or read the very well created content at the Web Accessibility Initiative  where you can find out how you can ensure your site is built to be compatible and find tools to help you test accessibility for a wide variety of users.

Step 5 – Make sure people can find it

In order for your new website to be found you will need to ensure that it is visible to the major search engines. This is carried out via a process called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. This is  a set of techniques used to increase the number of visitors to a website by ensuring the page has a high-ranking in the main search engine results. To understand how to ensure your website is seen by as many people as possible you need to understand how a search engine operates.

Search engines at their simplest level ‘crawl’ the web, exploring every single page it encounters and then ‘indexing’ the content that it finds within those pages. When the internet was new this was all that search engines did and your ranking within the search results was purely based on the indexing. Today search engines use highly complex algorithms to provide information to users based on ‘relevance’ and ‘popularity’

Once a page could be seen as being relevant for a search if the word was contained many times within the content. This lead to abuses and so now the search engines use a wide variety of techniques to establish the relevance of the content. An SEO expert understands and can employ methods to best engage with the search engine. The exact details of the ranking algorithms are highly confidential and not released by the search engine providers, however our team of specialists use their knowledge and experience to understand the most likely techniques to ensure that a web page ranking is maintained as the search algorithms evolve over time.

Google recommends that you make your content primarily for users and not for the search engines, useful. relevant and well written content is vital as this will develop your popularity and relevance. There should be a clear site hierarchy and text links allowing both human users and the search engines to find the content easily.

Step 6 – Employ great SEO

The majority of web users will select one of the top search results when they complete a search, if your website is not correctly optimised it will not be within this crucial set of high ranking results and the traffic you require will be going to your competitors.

Our professional SEO consultants will work with you to ensure that your website gains the highest possible search engine rankings.

Step 7 – Create your site

There are a number of ways to create a website, you do not have to be an expert in coding to present some good looking content as there are a number of drag and drop website building tools you can use. These are very useful if you have the time to develop your own simple site however you can find that there will be limitations if you need additional functionality or to use bespoke designs.

If you want to do more than a basic site you are best looking to engage the services of a professional web design company who can create a professional site, specifically built for your requirements.

Introducing Website Giant

Website Giant is a UK based web design and development agency based in the UK. With over twenty years experience in the industry will work to learn your business and explore where you need to go, providing suggestions and listening to your ideas to come up with a shared vision for your online presence. They will provide you with a simple, honest quotation. When you decide to go ahead you will be assigned a specific project manager who will support you throughout the process so that you are always kept up to date.

The Website Giant design team can work with your existing branding guidelines or create a new look and feel for your organisation. They use a collaborative process allowing us to visualise and produce a range of logos, branding concepts and online models for you to review before we create the final agreed designs.

Once the branding, layout and content of the site have been agreed the highly skilled developers will create a site which is both Google and mobile friendly so that you can be sure it will look great, whatever the device or browser. Your project manager will work with you to ensure you are regularly informed on progress.

When your site has been completed and passed the rigorous in house testing phase the implementation date will be agreed ensuring that your team have any training or support they require for back­end systems or content management. Your project manager will have been with you every step of the way so we can be confident that you will be happy with what we deliver.

Website Giant’s own SEO consultants will work with you to understand and develop your site creating highly effective content with powerful keywords, we can then maintain your web presence delivering you a monthly report detailing your sites performance.

The post Creating a new website? Follow these rules to get it right first time. first appeared on seo-giant.

So you have invested in a shiny new website, it looks great it works well and so you sit back and wait for the business to roll in… And wait, and wait… Disappointingly you find that your site is lost in the deep listings on Google and your customers are selecting your competition who is managing to get listings above you.

The post Curing the “I know nothing about SEO, but I do know my website doesn’t get the hits I need…” problem… first appeared on seo-giant.