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With summer approaching, how do you make sure your products are at the fingertips of the modern customer, whether they’re browsing from a laptop at work or from a mobile phone on the beach? In this blog post we share some top tips on getting your website and digital marketing activities up to speed so you can maximise sales this summer.

1. Create a Great Online Experience

Is your website up to the job? If you want to retain your customer’s interest once you have attracted them, you need a website which is responsive (resizes depending on what device it is viewed on), is easy to modify (so you can update prices and stock easily), provides you easily with all the stats you need (so you can easily see what your most popular products are and order more stock) and provides a seamless, user friendly experience. Make sure that all of your products use great images and share key product information and that your load times are fast. There’s a lot of competition online, if your website feels slow and clunky you’re liable to get left behind.

2. Be Top of the Search Results

Do the Google test and type into the Google search engine (in an incognito window) what a potential buyer might be looking for on your website. If you come up on page 2, or worse, not at all, it’s vital that you enhance your Google presence.  As well as improving your SEO to help with organic search results, use Search Ads and Google Shopping to attract people searching for your products.

Any online retailer would be well advised to use Google Shopping. It’s ideal for showcasing your products, making it easy for people to buy. Many people start with Google Shopping and might not ever make it onto the search results if they find what they are looking for.

3. Ad Budget and Settings

Are you running Google Adwords campaigns? If so, it is worth reviewing the setup of your Ad campaigns. Are the settings matching your target audience? Make sure your location targeting is set up correctly to concentrate your efforts where your products sell best. Are your Search Ads appearing within the top 4 positions, or do you need to increase your bids? Or it could be that you’re paying too much for your search terms.

It is also worth monitoring search queries on a weekly basis. It doesn’t take long to do this, and by knocking out irrelevant keywords used when people search for your products, you can really help to minimise wasted clicks and get the maximum return on your budget.

4. Bring Customers Back

Customers are likely to research several products or brands online before making a decision about what to buy. They might visit several websites, so it’s important to remind them who you are once they’re left, preferably before they’ve made their decision on what to buy. There are some great plugins you can add to your retail site to help lower cart abandonment rates and bring customers back to finish their purchase. This works well if people were merely distracted whilst checking out, rather than having a complete change of heart. The Auto Abandonment module plugin sends an automatic follow up by email to those who abandoned their basket. Read more about it on our previous blog post How to Improve Abandon Cart Stats.

Remarketing is also a powerful tool. It works by retargeting your website customers with adverts about your business as they browse the web. Remarketing ads can be set up within both Google Adwords and in your Facebook Ad Manager. For your ads to show on Facebook, install your Facebook pixel code onto your website. Read our blog post on Google Remarketing. Don’t let potential customers forget your website!

5. Stay Ahead on Social Media

Make sure your social media accounts are linked to your website – people will often head over to social media to see what people are saying about your brand before buying. Use social media to raise awareness of your brand and products, mentioning their key features, benefits and endorsements.

Social Media advertising is also a great way to reach beyond your existing audience and increase web visitors and sales. You can do very detailed targeting on both Twitter and Facebook: narrowing down your audience by location, age, interests and job titles.

We hope you found these tips helpful and we wish you a busy trading period this summer. We specialise in eCommerce websites that makes it easier to sell, so get in touch to find out how we can help.