Content checklist for e-commerce websites

Emily Hill // May 1, 2012

Successful e-commerce content involves much more than simply copying and pasting the manufacturer’s spec into your product pages. Here is our checklist of the content your e-commerce site needs in order to give its customers the information, confidence and reassurance they need in order to put their credit card details through your website and purchase your products.

  • Full company details, including registered address, company number and VAT number – to reassure customers that you are who you say you are
  • An up-to-date ‘About’ section – to make your goals and brand identity clear and appealing
  • A phone number – to increase customers’ confidence that you are a ‘real’ company
  • Information about the history of the company – to let customers know who they are buying from and why they should trust you
  • Terms and conditions and legal information – so that any legal queries can quickly be answered in a clear cut and reassuring fashion
    e-Commerce content
  • A company blog  – to make your e-commerce site look active and knowledgeable, showcase new products and give your brand a more personal voice
  • Keywords – to optimise your e-commerce site for the search engines, and drive more traffic to your product pages
  • Descriptive and eye-catching product titles – to make an instant impact and spark interest in your products
  • Punchy product descriptions – to ensure every product has a concise and compelling description to secure the sale
  • Detailed product specs – to sit alongside the punchy descriptions, ensuring your customers can access all the technical information they need to make a decision about buying the product
  • A simple, straightforward buying form – to make transactions effortless and encourage repeat purchases
  • A comprehensive and easy to access FAQ section – so any questions can be answered quickly and efficiently
  • A clearly highlighted contact section – to allow customers to get in touch easily. Ensure all points of contact are highlighted: telephone, email, online contact forms, live chat etc
  • Social media links – to encourage customers to connect with you on social media platforms, reinforce brand identity and make feedback channels accessible
  • A sign-up form for a regular e-newsletter – to keep customers up-to-date with new products and promotions
  • Downloadable user manuals/ brochures – to provide as much helpful information about your products as possible
  • Auto-responder emails – to confirm purchases and delivery details, building confidence in your brand and offering opportunities to encourage future sales
  • Product support section – to offer post-sales support either through searchable on-site content or via email, to encourage repeat business, while reducing call centre costs

It may be tempting to prioritise the design of your e-commerce website and think about content afterwards but, as this checklist demonstrates, it’s the content that will make the difference between a one-time site visitor and a loyal customer.

 

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Content, SEO and social media news: weekly round-up

Eleanor Jones // April 27, 2012

Google DriveGoogle Drive to destroy Dropbox?

Rumours of a powerful new ‘cloud’ storage system have been confirmed, as Google has officially announced the launch of its remote storage offering, Google Drive. The service will allow users to store their documents and images, and will combine search capabilities and advanced image search technology to allow access to a wide range of other files, such as Adobe PDFs. It will offer free storage of up to 5 Gigabytes (GB), as well as the option for users to pay an undisclosed fee for a premium service, which will include increased storage of up to 100 GB. The announcement service has influenced competitors into advancing their own systems – current market leader Dropbox recently upgraded its service so that users can share files through an emailed link, rather than sharing folders, to enable easier access. It’s likely users of Dropbox and other competing cloud storage providers can expect further announcements of service improvements as Google Drive prepares for its launch.

New Look beats Topshop and Asos for social media engagement

New Look’s social media strategy is more effective than that of its high street and online competitors, according to the latest research from digital marketing agency Stickyeyes, who analysed a range of strategies to assess the effectiveness of respective campaigns in order to measure social volume and social engagement. Despite ASOS’s impressive score of 97.26 for volume and engagement, New Look had managed to maintain a balance between volume and engagement and received a higher level of encouraging input, showing a high level of positive engagement with their customers.

Google Ideas supports anti-extremist website

Google Ideas has launched a new website supporting the opposition of radical extremism across the world. The site, named ‘Against Violent Extremism’, is focused on useful information which suggests ways to initiate dialogue with communities, methods to protect young people from being manipulated by radical groups, and to help those who have already become involved. The aim of the site is to endow smaller, local organisations with essential resources to combat the rise of extremism in their communities. It is a great example of the positive use of online content to aid in the resolution of an important global issue.

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Be careful what you blog: an extreme tale of caution

Eleanor Jones // April 19, 2012

Blogger John Kerlen arrestedPolitical blogger John Graham Kerlen, who writes under the name Olly Cromwell, was recently convicted of sending a series of ‘grossly offensive malicious communications’ through Twitter. His words were directed towards Melvyn Seymour, a Bexley Heath councillor, as a result of a longstanding dispute with Bexley Council. In the tweets, Kerlen referred to the councillor as the C word, and posted an image of his house, accompanied by the message “It’s silly posting a picture of a house on Twitter without an address, that will come later. Please feel free to post actual shit.”

Kerlen has always been a controversial internet presence. He previously received a ‘prevention of harassment’ letter from the Metropolitan police about his blog, ‘You’ve Been Cromwelled’, a site which is again particularly critical of Bexley Heath council. He was also contacted by his blog hosting company, who were acting on behalf of the Metropolitan police, asking him to edit inappropriate language on his site, or have it removed. As a result of this, Kerlen simply chose to move his site to an offshore hosting account.

However, as a result of his tweets, Kerlen was arrested in October 2011 for harassment and incitement to commit criminal damage, and found guilty of the charges in April of this year. He now has a restraining order, which not only stipulates that he can have no contact with Mr Seymour, but that he cannot write any blogs or social media posts that contain critical material about Bexley Council. The Council has said that it is supportive of freedom of expression and political debate, but that “Kerlen’s actions went beyond the limits of what is both acceptable and reasonable”.

Whilst Kerlen’s story is an extreme tale of caution about freedom of speech and online content, it is relevant to every individual and business using social networks, blogs, and various other kinds of online media. Blogs, particularly those employing effective SEO and digital marketing techniques, have proved to be hugely effective corporate tools. Although it is highly unlikely that any company would reproduce the sort of content that Kerlen was convicted for posting, the story is still a pertinent reminder to businesses to write and publish only useful, valuable content that remains within best practice guidelines.

Last year’s update by the Advertising Standards Authority has tightened the rules applying to misleading advertising, so they now extend to businesses’ online communications, including their websites and blogs, as well as all marketing communications they make through social networking sites. The rules apply to all businesses, regardless of sector, company type or size of organisation. It is therefore important that all businesses are aware of the guidelines applicable to their online material, and to ensure that any content that they post is accurate, inoffensive, and always on the right side of the law.

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A clue from Google: on-site content should include rich media

Emily Hill // April 16, 2012

brightonseo logoOn Friday last week I had the opportunity to ask a direct question about how best to optimise on-site content to representatives from Google, Bing and Expedia.

The opportunity arose as part of a panel session at BrightonSEO. Following several questions about link spam (answer: don’t do it) conference organiser Kelvin Newman asked if anyone had a question about a different aspect of SEO – so I raised my hand, took the microphone and asked the panel what advice I should be giving clients who want to optimise the content on their websites for search.

The answers were very interesting indeed.

Dave Coplin, Director of Search at Microsoft, said that Bing would rank websites that demonstrated a strong social media strategy. When I asked him to clarify his definition of “social”, he said: “For us it’s Twitter and Facebook”.

Pierre Far, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, began his answer with a reassuring statement for a questioner from a content agency, namely: “It’s all about content.” Elaborating further, he said: “A website has to be able to answer the fundamental question: ‘Did the user get what they want?’”

As well as the to-be-expected advice about sharable content, and writing good quality product pages, blog articles and Help/FAQ sections, Far dropped a major clue about an important new measure of search engine optimisation: the presence of “user symbols” such as feedback forms, surveys, maps and video.

Martin McDonald, SEO Strategy Director at Expedia, pushed for a more direct statement from Far: “Are you saying that rich media is now part of the Google algorithm?” To the disappointment of the audience, Far refused to be drawn into such a commitment, but I’m sure many of those present at BrightonSEO (including myself) are reviewing their website’s use of rich media in light of these new hints from Google.

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Content, SEO and social media news: weekly round-up

Eleanor Jones // April 13, 2012

Facebook buys Instagram

Facebook has announced a staggering $1billon acquisition of photo-sharing Smartphone app Instagram. The free app, which enables users to apply one of 17 different colour filters to their photos, was only launched in October 2010, and has only recently been made available to Android users as well as iPhones. Still, it has proven to be hugely successful and popular, both with the public, and numerous celebrities, many of whom use Instagram to show fans their edited photos through their Twitter accounts. The team behind Instagram consists of only 13 employees: 26-year-old chief executive Kevin Systrom will receive $400 million from the sale, co-founder Mike Krieger, also 26, will receive $100 million for his 10% stake, and the remaining 11 employees will split a $100 million windfall. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has confirmed that he will continue to develop Instagram as a separate brand, meaning that it will still be possible to post images to rival networks.

WordPress is still the most popular blogging platform

A survey posted on Tuesday by website uptime testers Pingdom confirms that WordPress is still the most popular blogging platform. WordPress is now used by 49 of the world’s 100 most popular blogs, compared with only 32 of the top 100 in 2006, demonstrating how it has grown in popularity over the last few years. WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg responded to the survey with a blog entry, stating that he expected usage of WordPress to continue to increase, as blogs running their own home-built or customised platforms – which account for 22 of the blogs on Pingdom’s current list – move to WordPress.

The World’s Largest Online Population is in China

China is now responsible for over half a billion web users, a figure which means that one in five people with online access are currently in China. China’s total number of web users is now greater than the entire population of the EU, after a quick period of substantial growth within the industry. China now has a booming market in terms of internet use, with users logged on for an average of 18.7 hours a week, and making an average of 8.4 monthly purchases online. Last year, technology giant Apple deemed China to be its second-most important market after the US, highlighting the influence of China’s phenomenal internet usage.

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