SiteBeat: December 2019
The holidays are just around the corner! This is an important time to connect with your website customers with merchandising and shipping offers. Posting a site-wide message that appears on every page of your site is an easy way to reach anyone who happens to come to your site, and it's a good way to get across a holiday message.
One of the key questions we get from new customers is how to get their site to the top in Google. We've updated our instructions on SEO basics and, in particular, the steps you should take to get a new site off the ground in the search engines. These steps are good for all site owners to review!
Another marketing-related function our customers have been asking us about is referral tracking. We have a simple way to allow you to track orders based on links from other sites and generate a report of those orders and their source.
Finally, have you considered adding a chat feature to your site? Live chat is easy to add to your site and lets you respond in real time when people have a question. If you don't want to be available at certain times, you can simply turn it off.
These are just a few of the ways that you can think about improving your website in 2020. If you have any questions, just let us know! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
In This Issue
Posting a Sitewide Message
Posting a sitewide message is an easy way to reach anyone who happens to come to your site, and it's a good way to get across a holiday message this time of year. For instance, consider a message advertising free shipping, store hours, local pick up, or gift ideas. The message will appear at the top of every page. Just review our instructions on Adding a Sitewide Message. The message will appear at the top of every page on your site.
Adding a sitewide message works during the holiday season or anytime. Use it to convey a timely and personal touch for your website visitors, or to share important information, such as sales, vacation days, or anything else you want to make sure people see.
How To: SEO Basics for Success
Having a new site found in the search engines is a key to business success. We've updated our instructions on SEO basics and, in particular, the steps you should take to get a new site off the ground in the search engines.
A new site can sometimes seem like it is invisible. It does take time to show up in Google search rankings, and it takes some effort to show up at the top. We've updated our guidelines for search engine success, and you can find that article, Achieving Search Engine Success, on our support site.
When you're ready to increase the odds of your site coming up in search results, start by compiling phrases that you think your target customers will be typing in the search engines to find you. If you have a local audience, consider your geographic area. Consider that the more general the phrase, the more competitive and challenging it will be to get your site to the top in Google. The phrase "baby clothes" will be much tougher than "winter baby outfits." An even more specific phrase like, "wool baby clothes Eugene Oregon," or some other similar, short phrase, likely has less competition, but will also not be searched for as much.
Read the Achieving Search Engine Success article for more details about compiling your target phrases as well as additional steps you can take.
Pro Tip: Referral Tracking
An important part of effective web marketing is knowing where your orders come from. MightyMerchant gives you a simple way to track orders based on incoming links from other sites and then to generate a report of those orders and their source.
Tracking referrals helps you determine where the majority of your traffic is coming from, so you can make more informed decisions about where to focus your advertising efforts. It also allows you to partner up with sites that send traffic your way, and to credit those referrals that result in orders.
Our article, Using the Referral ID (rid) to Track Referral Sources for Your Orders, explains how to use the MightyMerchant Site Manager to track your referral sources. It might look complicated at first, but the extra information in the URL is simply a "tag" of sorts that tells you where people found the link they used, for instance, from an email, a newsletter, or another site.
Adding Live Chat to Your Site
Have you considered adding a chat feature to your site? Live chat lets you respond in real time when people have a question, and if you don't want to be available, you can simply turn it off.
Customers enjoy being able to get fast answers to their questions, and they appreciate being able to talk to a real person. Chat can increase confidence in a site, and gives you a valuable way to connect with your customers.
Live chat services work by displaying a small window on your site where customers can type questions. You can turn on the feature when you're at work, and turn it off during after-hours. You will be notified that someone has entered a question via the live chat software running on your computer, so you can respond immediately.
Most live chat services are not expensive, costing somewhere between $10 to $50 a month. MightyMerchant websites integrate well with these third-party solutions. Let us know if you would like to see live chat in action on a site, or if you would like to turn it on your site.
