Checklist for more visibility on the net

Just like with brick-and-mortar retail, the requirement for strong sales in ecommerce is that an adequate number of customers find their way to your store and enter it. In this article, Ines Maione from clickworker provides helpful tips for this.

Every online merchant wants as many customers as possible to become aware of his shop and products, and to make their way into his store. Today almost every user relies on search engines to start their hunt for products. Therefore it is smart and very effective to increase the visibility of the shop for search engines. An enhanced presence on social media channels, forums and blogs also contributes to better visibility on the net.

The goals of an improved visibility are that users come across the shop and its offerings all over the net, that the shop becomes better known as a brand, that more users find their way into the shop, and that sales increase.

Ways to improve an online shop’s online presence and visibility

There are a number of methods for online merchants to increase their presence on the web, and in doing so to increase their visibility.

Create a list of keywords (long tail and short tail keywords), under which you would like to appear or be found on the Internet.
When choosing your keywords make sure there is an appropriate search volume for them, for example with the Keyword Planner from Google.
Always optimize all pages and content created for your own website, as well as the content you publish through other channels, for your respective, appropriate keywords.
Regularly create and post content to your website, like videos, images or audio files.
Give your users the opportunity to like, share and forward your content.
Regularly feed your social media channels with new, useful and interesting content too, which will be readily shared and recommended.
Interact with users on your social media channels.
Chime in on relevant, existing discussions in forums and place your own contribution to the subject there.
Write relevant guest commentaries and publish them on topic-relevant sites with high rankings.
Pursue online public relations.
Where possible, provide no-cost extras that will offer many users, not just your existing customers, significant added value, for example webinars, and widely publicize these offerings.
Regularly create and send out newsletters with interesting content.
Monitor the content and information put together by your competitors, and where they post and publish it. Try to determine their success with it, and adapt the most promising measures for yourself.
Place online ads if possible (for example AdWords advertisements) based on your keywords.
Use a web analysis tool like Google Analytics or etracker to measure your number of visitors and the success of your campaigns.

If you follow our tips, you’ll have left your mark on the net in a variety of ways. People will come across you, your business and products everywhere. When search functions are used on platforms and social media channels with delivered content, ideally your business will also pop up in the results when relevant search terms are entered. That in turn is assessed positively by search engines, and increases the value of your keyword-oriented web content, which then becomes apparent in a better ranking in search results.

Online visibility is not static. That means you should constantly keep up the abovementioned measures, as intensively as possible, to maintain your success and possibly improve visibility. If you cease your activities, the content once created may become obsolete and your visibility might decline. The search engines could negatively value your inactivity, rank your site as not current, and therefore no longer so relevant.