Free advertising, incentives for customers to share offers, target marketing, huge boosts to cash flow, increased traffic to websites and ‘bricks and mortar’ premises .... it’s easy to see why so many local businesses are taking advantage of daily deal sites.

Like most successful business ideas, the premise is quite simple. Daily deal websites, such as Groupon and Living Social, build a mailing list of customers who have signed up for news of discounts in their area. Each day the subscribers receive an email providing the details of the deals.  As the site becomes more popular with both clients and merchants, the range of services and goods increases and local businesses benefit from increased traffic to online and high-street stores.

Not only do businesses gain access to potential clients in their area, the advertising has a snowball effect, as subscribers are offered incentives to share the news with friends. The result is geographically-specific viral advertising that targets the most appropriate demographic without the high costs of a more traditional (less effective) marketing campaign.

For Paul Haslam, Creative Director of Belfast’s The Web Bureau, these websites could prove highly beneficial to local businesses:

“Belfast-based companies could really benefit from the interest daily deal websites are generating locally. Online sales figures suggest a very buoyant market and websites such as Groupon help to carry some of that consumer interest from the internet into business premises. With high returns for small investment, they represent a very positive development for local companies, regardless of size.”

As more businesses in Belfast sign up with attractive deals, more customers are subscribing to the daily alerts to avoid missing out on the best offers. And with the severe weather warnings and stress about online purchases not arriving in time, discount vouchers are proving a popular choice this Christmas with the last-minute shopper!

With the online sales industry booming, online sales predicted to hit $250 BILLION in the US by 2014 (conducted by Forrester Research), many retailers still only offer catalogue type website and don’t allow people to make purchases. Yes that’s right, “Don’t allow you to shop”. That’s like having a high street shop, great window display but keep the doors locked. Incredible.

If you are a retailer and haven’t taken the step, now may be the time to gear up and take those steps, no point in saying “We should have done it!!” next Christmas. Customers may not intend to only buy on your site, but at least get the brand out there and encourage folk to come into your shops. This is what all the large retailers who are making their fortunes are doing it.

So if you are thinking or considering going down the online, e-commerce, selling online route  here are a few tips to get it right from the word GO (these are irrelevant to the size of your business)

Safety
The shopper’s security must always be paramount. Regardless of how your site looks, works or how many cool things it can do, if the user doesn’t feel safe they won’t continue browsing your site. Make sure everything is safe and all pages let the user know that pages and details are secure. The most important thing for your online shop is not how it looks or what it contains, it’s the security of the pages. Your reputation will be hopelessly damaged if you fail to protect your customers’ details and they fall into the hands of a cyber criminal.

Know your Customers Legal Rights
You want to provide a reliable and trustworthy online shop so that your customers return, but you also have some legal obligations to them. The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations mean you must provide customers with your full company name and address before they make a purchase.

Once online customers have ordered, you’re obliged to send them a confirmation message and allow them a cooling off period in case they want to cancel their purchase.

Keep Your Website Simple
Make it easy for me to shop.

Returns Policy
Build consumer trust and let the user know that if it is something they don’t want the can return the goods as necessary.

Keep your marketing Professional on and off Line
Both your online shop and physical shops should correspond and work together. Make sure product and prices are matched as any sales that you may be running. Unless of course it is a web discount only or the likes.

Monitor your website constantly to make sure it’s up to date.

Maintain Professionalism (would you buy from yourself)
If you won’t buy neither will your customer. Make sure your site is slick, professional and easy to use. Ask yourself.

Phone and Contact Details
This creates a safer environment, plus if you let me know you are happy to talk I will feel more confident and feel more comfortable on your site. Try and let customers know you want to help (they do in store so why not online).

Plus, this can give you an opportunity to up sell as well as having great customer service.

Promote your website
Do it properly. There are various different options to Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click Advertising, Social Media and more. This is when you need to get hands on, or at least get someone to do it for you. We would love to help.

Don’t leave Customers in the Cloud
If I have made a purchase, let me know the progress of the order. Some sites even allow you to track the order. The more communication the better. Good service will encourage me to return in the future, bad wont.

Let customers know when the final date for delivery would be before deadline dates such as Christmas, Valentines etc....

These are some of the basics, some may sound to be so obvious but next time you are browsing you will be shocked at how many ecommerce businesses and e-retailers miss these obvious online golden rules.

The BASICS

Call it what you may SEO | Google Search | Search Engine Rank | being found on the internet, Search Engine Optimisation is an important aspect to your business and website or web design working for your business. Whether you are marketing Belfast, Northern Ireland, Ireland, the UK or on a World Wide Scale, SEO internet marketing plays a very important role in the success of your website. This isn’t only for people selling their products on the internet; Search Engine Optimisation is effective for businesses that are selling a service.

Can anybody get you to number 1 in Google next week? NO (unless of course you pay, well then that’s not organic, in fact if that’s the case you could be number one nearly immediately if you want to pay for it). Google and the other search engines (Yahoo, BING etc) make it fair for everybody in the organic listing or natural listing in the search engines, so the more work you put in the more chance you have. As some businesses and sectors are different, various search engine marketing would be needed for your specific sector.

What is Search Engine Optimisation? I found this answer in a blog and thought it made perfect sense for somebody who doesn’t understand all the ‘techy’ talk that the SEO people throw at you.

 “Imagine a librarian enters a huge, empty library filled with empty (but labelled) shelves and sees, on the floor, a huge pile of books which they have to place on the shelves. Now they could just put the books on the shelves in a random order and be done. But then none of the library visitors would be able to find the kinds of books they were looking for. So instead, the librarian looks at each book for clues as to which part of the library they should shelve the book.
The book can give the librarian all sorts of clues as to where it needs to be shelved in the library. The picture on the cover; the title of the book; the recommendations on the back of the book; who the recommendations are by; the index of the book; the contents of the book; the introduction of the book; whether the books pages are filled with text or are mostly illustrations etc.

A very good bookmaker will know EXACTLY how to produce a book so as to give the librarian the best possible chance of placing the book on the most relevant library shelf where the maximum number of library visitors looking for it will find it.
That’s what SEO is.”

Courtesy of http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/why-the-internet-needs-seo.html

There are some basics that should be adhered too and considered.

Keyword Research
Effective use of meta data (keywords, title, description etc)
Proper use of heading tags
Image optimisation
XML Sitemaps
Search Engine Friendly URL’s

Combining all of these methods in your strategy will hopefully help you rank well in the search engines and bring more and more visitors to your site via the search engines. To make your website design more effective with search engine rankings and beat your competition, be sure to include Search Engine Optimisation in your online marketing strategy to some degree.