Category Archives: ecommercetips

Effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Optimisation

Whats is Effective SEO

Effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to a set of strategies and practices aimed at improving your website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal of SEO is to drive organic (non-paid) traffic to your website by optimizing various aspects of your site to align with search engine algorithms. Here are some key components of effective SEO:

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SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is a crucial aspect of digital marketing and online presence for several reasons:

Increased Visibility: The primary goal of SEO is to improve a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). When your website ranks higher for relevant keywords, it is more likely to be seen by people searching for information, products, or services related to your business.

Organic Traffic: SEO helps generate organic (non-paid) traffic to your website. Unlike paid advertising, which stops delivering traffic once you stop paying, SEO efforts can continue to attract visitors over time, making it a cost-effective long-term strategy.

Credibility and Trust: Websites that appear at the top of search results are often perceived as more credible and trustworthy by users. SEO can help you establish authority in your industry, leading to increased trust among your target audience.

Table of Contents

1. Keyword Research:

The practice of identifying and selecting relevant keywords to target in your SEO efforts.

Identify relevant keywords and phrases that your target audience is likely to use when searching for products, services, or information related to your business. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to find valuable keywords.

2. On-Page SEO:

On-Page SEO, also known as on-site SEO, refers to the practice of optimizing individual web pages on a website to improve their search engine rankings and visibility. It involves making changes and improvements directly to the content, structure, and HTML code of a webpage. The primary goal of on-page SEO is to provide a better user experience and make it easier for search engines to understand the content of a page. Optimize individual pages on your website by incorporating target keywords into elements such as titles, headings, meta descriptions, and content. However, avoid keyword stuffing, as it can negatively impact user experience and rankings.

3. High-Quality Content:

Content Optimization: Focusing on improving the quality and relevance of the content on a website to improve its search engine rankings

Create valuable, informative, and engaging content that addresses the needs and questions of your audience. High-quality content attracts both visitors and search engines, leading to higher rankings.

4. Optimized Images and Multimedia:

Use descriptive file names and alt text for images and multimedia content to make them searchable by search engines. Optimized media enhances user experience and accessibility.

effective seo

5. Mobile-Friendly Design:

Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly. With the mobile-first indexing approach, Google prioritizes mobile versions of websites for indexing and ranking. 

A mobile-friendly design, also known as a responsive design or mobile-responsive design, is a crucial aspect of web development and design. It ensures that a website or web application is accessible, usable, and visually appealing on various mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

6. Page Speed Optimization:

Improve your website’s Technical SEO by optimizing loading speed on image sizes, reducing unnecessary code, using browser caching, and utilizing content delivery networks (CDNs). you can check page speed for free by visiting https://pagespeed.web.dev/

We see a lot of slow websites, WordPress sites in particular where people have opted for the cheapest hosting solution, like many things you get what you pay for, if your hosting is costing pennies then likely your not getting a very good level of service, you’ll be on a server with 100’s of other websites of whom could be using all the bandwidth, rederring you site slow or even unusable. Check out our hosting service here

Wordpress speed test results

7. Technical SEO:

This aspect of SEO deals with optimizing the technical aspects of a website, such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, and structured data. Also address technical issues that might hinder search engine crawlers from indexing your site properly. This includes fixing broken links, optimizing URL structure, and creating an XML sitemap.

8. Backlink Building:

Earn high-quality backlinks from reputable websites in your industry. Backlinks serve as “votes of confidence” from other sites, indicating your website’s authority and relevance. However, don’t be tempted by phishing emails offering you 100’s of back links on ‘so called’ reputable websites. Your links should be on relevent websites, do not use a scattergun approach.

9. User Experience (UX):

Design your website with a focus on user experience. User-friendly navigation, intuitive design, and fast load times contribute to higher rankings and better engagement.

10. Local SEO (for Local Businesses):

If you have a physical presence, optimize your website for local search by creating and maintaining a Google My Business profile, acquiring local citations, and gathering positive reviews.

11. Regular Content Updates:

Keep your website updated with fresh, relevant content. Regularly publishing new blog posts, articles, or product updates signals to search engines that your site is active and valuable.

12. Monitor and Analyze:

Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor your website’s performance, traffic sources, keyword rankings, and other important metrics. Analyze this data to identify areas for improvement.

Remember that SEO is a long-term strategy, and it requires ongoing effort and adaptation as search engine algorithms evolve. Focus on providing value to your audience, adhering to best practices, and staying up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and guidelines.

Looking for Help With Your SEO

Our search engine consultants will collaborate with you to outperform and outrank your rivals.

They will delve into your business and goals. Extensively research the target market using the insights provided. identifying which search terms should be targeted to achieve your objectives. We will carry out a full audit of your website to assess if any technical issues exist that need to be fixed. In conclusion we plan a SEO strategy with realistic and measurable targets in place.

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Email Marketing Automation That Matches Your Ambitions

Choosing an Ecommerce Platform

What to look for when choosing an ecommerce platform.

Choosing the right e-commerce platform for your business is a crucial decision that can impact your online success. Here are some key factors to consider when evaluating and selecting an e-commerce platform:

1. Type of Business and Products:

Consider the nature of your business and the types of products you’re selling. Some platforms might be better suited for physical goods, while others excel with digital products or services.

2.Scalability:

Ensure that the platform can accommodate your business’s growth. It should handle increasing numbers of products, customers, and transactions without compromising performance.

3. Customization and Flexibility:

Evaluate how much customization the platform allows. Depending on your business needs, you might require extensive customization to match your brand and unique requirements.

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4. User Experience (UX):

A user-friendly and intuitive interface is essential for both customers and administrators. Look for platforms that offer responsive and mobile-friendly designs.

5. Features and Functionality:

Identify the essential features your business requires, such as product catalog management, inventory management, payment gateways, shipping options, and SEO tools.

6. Integration Capabilities:

Check if the platform can integrate with other tools you use, such as accounting software, email marketing platforms, analytics tools, and more.

7. Security:

Security is paramount for an e-commerce platform. Look for built-in security measures like SSL encryption, regular updates, and PCI compliance for handling payment data.

8. Performance and Speed:

Slow loading times can deter customers. Choose a platform known for fast page loading and smooth performance.

9. SEO-Friendly Features:

An e-commerce platform that supports search engine optimization (SEO) practices can help your products get discovered more easily on search engines.

10. Support and Documentation:

Evaluate the level of customer support offered by the platform. Are there resources like documentation, tutorials, and a customer support team to help you troubleshoot issues?

11. Costs and Pricing:

Consider the overall cost, including platform fees, transaction fees, payment gateway charges, and any additional costs associated with add-ons or extensions.

effective SEO. How to Increase Website Traffic - SEO Services Colchester

12. Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce):

With the rise of mobile shopping, make sure the platform offers mobile-responsive designs and a smooth mobile shopping experience.

13. Multi-Channel Selling:

If you plan to sell across multiple channels (website, social media, marketplaces), ensure the platform supports these integrations.

14. Data Analytics and Reporting:

Access to data analytics and reporting tools is vital for monitoring your business’s performance and making informed decisions.

IRP Commerce, an ecommerce platform built for growth

15. Future Upgrades and Maintenance:

Assess how often the platform releases updates and new features. Regular updates can keep your site secure and up-to-date.

16. User Reviews and Recommendations:

Research user reviews and recommendations to understand real-world experiences with the platform.

Furthermore, Remember that each business’s needs are unique. Prioritize the factors that align with your business goals and long-term strategy. It’s also a good idea to consult with other business owners, industry experts, or developers to gather insights before making a final decision.

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We only build on ecommerce platforms that offer the scalability and customisation you need to deliver a growth-enabled, brand-focused web stores that puts your customer first.

We offer options to suit all levels of investment, from start up businesses to enterprise level companies.

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What is Ecommerce Management

What is Ecommerce Management

E-commerce, online commerce has revolutionised the way business is carried out, has become the order of the day if people wanted to expand their business on the internet and has created the need for ecommerce management

 

What is Ecommerce Management

Ecommerce stores exist in varying degrees such as brick and click and pure-play businesses. But all of these businesses have one thing in common. The need for Management of ecommerce. Any company should have the ability to identify, define, and manage the relevant eCommerce initiative, as well as have a professional execute this initiative.

So, what ecommerce management? It was previously the responsibility of IT engineers and programmers, and it was later passed on to web design professionals. But a business’s eCommerce needs in today’s online retail command a proper eCommerce management and a manager who is dedicated to care of the entire campaign.

 

Ecommerce management entails the creation and operation of an online business website, with the ecommerce manager in charge of managing all personnel involved in providing ecommerce functions. In short, it involves knowledge of the responsibilities and roles that the fields of IT, marketing, and website development teams must perform, as well as regular interaction with them to create and promote the ecommerce for the business.

Creation and management of a business’s e-commerce initiative is no easy task. It takes a special understanding that ecommerce is like any other integral department of a business, and thus eCommerce management involves online branding, promoting the website, maintaining the freshness as well as quality of the eCommerce website, and constantly creating new plans for the website’s online business initiative.

 

In order for the eCommerce website to deliver the relevant message on the online marketplace. The primary focus of eCommerce manageer is the identification and redefinition of the eCommerce initiatives and objectives of the company.

Once the digital strategy is defined, selling the concept becomes simple. So, identifying the prime reason of existence of the eCommerce website is really crucial. Whether the site is for commerce, community or for content…or for a combination of them, getting ecommerce revenue from all types of businesses on the internet is now very much possible with proper ecommerce management.

 

Why is ecommerce management important?

Your ecommerce website isn’t a one-off creation it needs constant development to keep up to date with all the updates. You need to think of ecommerce management as a long term investment to make sure your online store continues to meet customer needs and pull in sales. Carefully monitoring user activity on your website can allow you to:

 

  1. Improve website efficiency By devoting time and resources to your ecommerce website, and seeing how users behave and make changes to aid conversion, complete regular maintenance and make sure content is up to date.
  2. Guide your marketing strategy Collect insights about how your customersare using the website and what they are purchasing. Who they are?, and what they want from your brand? Then you can create a personalised marketing approach.
  3. Improve productivity Owners of ecommerce businesses can use tools and software to simplify and automate administrative tasks. As a result, your team will be able to devote more time to the creative and strategic aspects of ecommerce.
  4. Focus your time on what matters You ecommerce manager can make data-backed decisions about where to spend time and money with clear analytics from your ecommerce platform and integrated apps

 

Ecommerce management is an integral part of all Business to Business transactions and hence has become the backbone of all commercial sites that exist on the internet.

 

As a Full Service Ecommerce Agency here at Focus Ecommerce, we specialise in connecting brands with consumers around the world. We sell & market consumer products, helping businesses reach global consumers. Offering a wide flexibile range of ecommerce services including both marketing and operational services.

 

 

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Full Service Ecommerce Agency, Your Flexible Solution​

Choose how and where you want us to be involved, whether as an extension of your in-house team or existing agencies, or allow us to fully manage your ecommerce and marketing activities.

 

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What is a Full Service Ecommerce Agency?

What is a Full-Service eCommerce Agency?

While it sounds great, you’re probably wondering what a full-service eCommerce agency would provide, which is understandable. Read on to find out more.

Do you have an Ecommerce Business? 

If this is the case, you should think about hiring a Full-Service Ecommerce agency.

What Does Being a Full-Service eCommerce Agency Mean?

It is reasonable to assume that all eCommerce agencies provide all of the eCommerce management services that your may business  require. This would be ideal, but it is incorrect. Even to go as far to say some agencies advertising a full service are still not a 100% service.

 

For example, you might come across an eCommerce agency that specialises in development, another that specialises in digital marketing, B2B vs. B2C, yet another that specialises in content marketing, and so on. 

What is a Full-Service eCommerce Agency

Some may even offer a combination of services, very few with give you a 100% service that can manage your online business. You might need to work with a number of different agencies if running an ecommerce business, such as  website development, content creatation for your blog, and market this content to drive traffic to your website.

Focus Ecommerce’s full-service commerce service addresses this overspecialization, giving you the same power of a specialist without the need to hire multiple companies and saving you money.

Here are some of the services we can offer your eCommerce business. This includes but not limited to:

Ecommerce Websites

  • Ecommerce Development
  • Ecommerce Strategy
  • Website Managment
  • Tracking and Analytics
  • UI/UX Design
  • Website Performance Optimization

Ecommerce Management

  • Back Office Processes
  • Order Management
  • Customer Services
  • Stock Control
  • Project Management
  • Analytics & Reporting

Ecommerce Growth

  • Marketing Strategy
  • Digital Marketing
  • Google Ads
  • Social Media
  • Email Marketing
  • PR – Brand & Product
  • Traditional Advertising (TV & Print)

Why Hire a Full-Service eCommerce Managment Company?

Working with a full-service eCommerce agency has many advantages aside from preserving your mental health. To begin with, you won’t have to juggle work between agencies to get anything done.

Coordination between different eCommerce agencies with different teams, working on various tasks, can be time-consuming, Just finding a time that suits all parties for a simple meeting can be excruciating, (imagine trying to hurd cats). It is not a long-term solution to your problem or well being.

Even if you manage to work with and coordinate between different agencies while still having time to run your own business, you’ll soon begin to wonder what the point of working with an eCommerce agency is in the first place.

One of the primary advantages of working with a Full Service Ecommerce Agency is the ability to provide a hands-off solution. That is something you will receive if you work with a full-service eCommerce agency. And if that’s not the case, and you end up coordinating between different agencies, why not just hire freelancers and save money?

Working with a full-service agency makes the most sense.

Here are more advantages to Full Service Ecommerce Management:

Long-term strategy and vision

Full-service agencies have a big picture approach that achieves your long-term goals because they offer everything from strategy and creative to marketing and technology services under one roof.

Latest technologies

Full-service agencies keep their staff up-to-date with the latest eCommerce technologies and trends.

Reducing your costs

A Full-service eCommerce agencies can handle all of your company's requirements or work with your enternal team. This will allow you to outsource your company's task to save money.

Multi-channel opportunities

Being a full-service agency entails working across multiple channels. This enables you to meet rising customer demand, increase engagement, and capitalise on multi-channel opportunities.

Ecommerce Management | IRP Commerce

Conclusion

A full-service eCommerce agency can handle all of your eCommerce needs. Focus Ecommerce can handle everything from eCommerce websites and custom feature development to digital marketing and overall strategy.

Because we have people from various disciplines collaborating in our full-service agency, you won’t be in a disadvantaged position if you try to manage this critical revenue-generating force yourself.

In addition to being a hassle-free solution, our full-service agency makes scaling your marketing efforts easier. Because we can handle your increased workload on relatively short notice. If you want to hire outsourced professionals to help you grow your Ecommerce business, nothing less than full-service will do.

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Future of E-Commerce

Navigating the Future of E-Commerce:

November 30, 2023 No Comments

In the dynamic world of e-commerce, the future is all about personalization. As we delve deeper into the digital era, the key to customer satisfaction and business growth lies in personalized shopping experiences.

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Jersey Honey Luxury Candles Shopify Website

Latest Website Development Project

October 20, 2023 No Comments

We are thrilled to announce, in partnership with HMS16, the launch of our new website development project for Jersey Honey, dedicated to luxury scented candles!

Built on Shopify in double-quick time to satisfy a need in the run-up to Christmas. 

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ECOMMERCE SOLVED

Solving ECOMMERCE with Real Time Calculation of Sales, Margins and Net Profit

The IRP platform effectively solves eCommerce by demonstrating novel technology that calculates merchant net profit in real time.

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Outsourcing Ecommerce The Benefits To Your Business

Ecommerce Outsourcing - What are the benefits.

Ecommerce outsourcing and associated tasks is a business practice that has many different definitions and comes in many different forms. However, the one thing that is certain is that it’s the most effective ways for ecommerce businesses to reduce their costs and become more efficient, both of which are essential if they want to stay competitive. This article describes the benefits of outsourcing ecommerce and what it can do for your business finances, revenue, and workflow. We will also dispel a few of those disadvantages people believe outsourcing brings with it.

Ecommerce Outsourcing - What is?

Ecommerce Outsourcing

is the practice of using a third-party company, products and services to create goods and provide services, rather than doing the work in-house. The practice started in the 1970s and grew popular in the 1990s as a way for companies to reduce their internal cost structure and is still a popular option today.

 

The term “outsourcing” typically refers to tasks usually performed by in-house staff. With an ecommerce business, these tasks can include things like marketing, order management, stock control, writing product descriptions, handling support tickets, website development, technical support, and more – sometimes even handing the complete responsibility of eCommerce to a third party.

Ecommerce Outsourcing

Reduce Overheads

Many businesses outsource ecommerce services to cut current costs or save on new resources they want to add to their workflows when they can’t afford or don’t wish to hire dedicated employees.

 

Smaller stores may have the business owner and one other employee handling multiple tasks, but eventually, all businesses need to hire an individual or an entire department to handle each task. This is the point when the owner of the eCommerce business must decide whether they want to outsource or insource the task. They can insource a task has become too overwhelming for the business owner to handle themselves.

 

This can become a major task in itself. On average every job offer attracts approx. 250 applicants, so are you willing to sift through them yourself or do you spend money on recruitment agency?

An in-house employee can be more expensive as you will be paying benefits on top of a basic salary. Although its likely believed to be much easier to keep track of an employee, providing you insist on an office-based employee. However, with the introduction of more home working being a major factor in peoples decision making when taking a job, you may have to consider a more flexible approach. Then there will also be a time where their services are not available save for illness and holidays.

 

Its also said a full-time employee, contracted to work 5 days a week on average is physically only working for 3 of those days. So, it may make more sense to outsource roles and tasks in cases where the business output does not justify hiring a full-time employee or you are looking to be more cost effective.

Why Would a Company Choose to Outsource Work?

There are two basic reasons why organisations prefer to outsource ecommerce services.

 

  • Outsourcing saves businesses money.
    As an eCommerce business, you can save money by outsourcing tasks such as marketing, social media, web   development, technical support, administration, and even shipping tasks to a third party.
  • The other reason is time.
    Outsourcing gives you, the business owner, more time to focus on tasks that will help you grow and expand the business as a whole. It can also lead to a better quality of life for you and current employees as it’ll remove a few tasks from everyone’s daily list of responsibilities.
Benefits of Outsourcing Your Ecommerce Business

Ecommerce Outsourcing - The Benefits

Now that you know what outsourcing is, let us talk about what it can do for your ecommerce business. Let’s expand on the two key benefits that all Ecommerce businesses want to improve and has been mentioned a few times already—saving time and money—plus also a few additional advantages you’ll experience.

Benefits of Outsourcing Your Ecommerce Business

The Advantages of Outsourcing eCommerce Tasks

1. Save Money

Simply, this has to be one of the the biggest motivators for allocating tasks to companies and contractors outside of an in-house team. Employees require a full salary, benefits, taxes, time to train and equipment. You may also need to set up a new department or even a new office depending on the task that needs to be outsourced.


Without outsourcing, your options are either to continue handling the task yourself, pass off the task to an employee, which will only add to their workload and negatively impact their efficiency, or hire a new employee.
Take for example you decide you should be more active on Social Media, you look around your team, often business owners will settle on the youngest person believing that because they are active on Social media they can manage the company accounts, but are they fully up to date with all the changes the social media platforms are constantly making, are you putting this on top of their current workload. If an additional duty, they might become disillusioned that their workload increased without compensation. It is actually a time-consuming task creating compelling engaging content, engaging in consumers in conversations and tracking competitors. So should you trust this to an inexperienced employee.


With outsourcing, you can allocate certain tasks you and your employees do not have the time or skill for now without needing to cut costs in other parts of your business. You’re hiring a company that has experience in that field.

2. Enjoy a More Flexible Hiring Process

You will find yourself mainly outsourcing tasks you need performed year-round but not often enough to justify hiring new employees. However, there will be times where you will need short-term help as well. This is the case for projects that have expiration dates, seasonal work or perhaps even maternity leave.

 

For example, if you want to add 500 new products to your store, you will need someone to write optimized product descriptions for each. If this is something you don’t normally do, then adding that many new products to the store at once, you’ll need to ask a few employees to take care of it on top of their daily tasks or take care of them yourself. Plus, you need to consider the SEO benefit of the descriptions. Outsourcing this task, on the other hand, would allow you to hire a freelance copywriter or copywriting agency to handle the task as a one-off project.

 

As for seasonal work, you may have seasonal product launches or busy times for retailers can be events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas. You will hopefully see increased sales, significantly higher than normal, but this revenue boost brings with it other challenges, more orders to process and more customer queries.

 

Outsourcing eCommerce tasks may allow you to hire seasonal workers to cover the holiday rush with the money saved. For example, customer service could be managed quite easily on a few hours a week, but outsourcing would allow you to quickly increase the manpower to cover the extra enquiries, with the without the hassle of finding extra people yourself.

3. Save Time

As previously said, outsourcing eCommerce tasks saves you and your staff time. When you can outsource duties, you can devote more of your time to consumer research, development, outreach, and other activities that will help you expand your brand’s influence.

You’ll see a boost in productivity and morale when your employees are able to save on time and be much more efficient with the tasks they were originally hired to do.
Which will eventually turn into more sales and satisfied customers. Employees won’t be looking to cut corners when up against deadlines.

4. Stay Competitive

The internet breeds competition, you and your team can work yourself around the clock all you want, but if you only accomplish the bare minimum you will struggle to expand. Outsourcing allows you to complete tasks more efficiently and take on new projects while spending less. This will allow you to keep up with competition without needing to hire new employees.

A Flexible Ecommerce Solution

A complete e-commerce management agency. We can fully manage your ecommerce business, maximising your businesses potential.

Or choose how and where you want us to be involved, whether as an extension of your in-house team or existing agencies.

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5. Increase Your Profits

The basic aspect of business is you have to spend money to make money.
This rule never changes no matter how successful your business gets. You will always need to spend money on products, hosting, employees, marketing, and advertising to keep the business running. Take a look at some of the most successful brands such a Coca Cola or McDonalds how often do you see ad advertisement? They have reached a level, but to stay there they know they must keep promoting themselves.


However, referring to that basic principle one more time, spend more to earn more, which essentially means expanding the number of products you sell, the types of products, expanding into new countries and launching new marketing strategies, all of which require, more money.
Outsourcing, as explained above, allows you to expand the business and take on more projects without needing to spend money on recruiting new employees. This will allow you to earn more revenue and a higher return on investment

6. Start Projects Quicker

It takes a considerable time to recruit and onboard new personnel. You will need to post job ads, conduct interviews, assess which people are the best fit for the job and your organisation, and then train them. If all you want to do is start a new project for your marketing strategy or reshoot all your product photographs, this can be a long and difficult process.


Outsourcing simply cuts right through this process and gives you immediate access to qualified candidates and agencies. You can get to work on your new project at a much more efficient rate, all while spending less.
By outsourcing you can reduce the risk and test the idea without worrying, lets be honest not every idea works, another rule of business is test, test, and test again. An outsourced agency provides and cost-effective solution to launching and testing a new plan and the ultimate goal if successful is then to look at an internal employee.

Outsourcing Ecommerce Tasks

7. Staff Members’ Individual Skills

You might be able to outsource indefinitely without having to convert contract work into full-time work. If you have employees who work directly with outsourced labour, you may be able to train them in the skills you need to outsource.


As said in the previous point, the long-term, goal might be to move the task to an internal team and once at this point you can use the agency to train and develop that employee to take over the tasks without any loss in performance.

8. Less Red Tape

Hiring staff can be fraught with red tape and regulations. This is particularly challenging if your business fluctuates throughout the year and you need to up staff and down staff depending on the demand. There can be a lot of rules and process you need to follow in order to downsize your headcount.

 

However, one of the advantages of ecommerce outsourcing is that you can up size and downsize your staff without any associated red tape, allowing you much more flexibility in how you manage your business and costs.

Ecommerce Outsourcing Advantages

Dispelling the Disadvantages of Outsourcing

Dispelling the Disadvantages of Outsourcing

1. Believed Lack of Control

It is often believed a big drawback you can experience while outsourcing eCommerce jobs is a lack of control over the tasks you allocate to third parties.


They are not your employees. Instead, you will be operating in a business-to-business manner, so while you can certainly provide descriptions and leave feedback on how you want things done, you’re not able to manage these types of projects in the same way you could if they were performed by in-house employees.


However, here are Focus Ecommerce and Marketing we always operate the manner the customer requests and any other respectable agency of freelancer should be doing the same. Make sure you define the role and tasks to be actioned, set sensible timescales and KPIs.


Communication should not be something that gets in the way, your outsourced ecommerce agency should be willing to take your call at any time. Although just like an employee if you are constantly phoning or email to ask for an update, essentially that task ends up taking long. Agree regular times for updates, schedule calls and zoom meetings in advance.


Build a rapport with your agency, essentially the relationship is a two-way thing, if your setting unrealistic timelines or constantly hassling the relationship will breakdown, treat them like an employee, to which I hope everyone is treating their employees with the utmost respect. Have an open dialogue with your agency, use their experience to help guide your business.

2. Working in Different Time Zones

If you outsource work to individuals and companies from around the world this can be one of the greatest challenges you will face with your eCommerce store. An urgent messages and project updates may not receive the instant response you were looking for and you may have to wait for several hours, depending on the time difference.

Its important to plan and have clear communication of expectations and time scales. Agree time in advancer to communicate in real-time wherever possible.

Fortunately, on the plus side outsourcing to a different countries and time zones does have its upsides This including being able to operate around the clock. When your in-house employees clock out, outsourced workers are clocking in overseas. So perhaps your looking to expand into a new territory, having a localised outsourced agency allows you to respond to consumers in a timely manner and manage Social Media and Marketing that is relevant to that market.

3. Privacy Issues

Privacy should be a major concern for businesses and consumers especially in the light of GDPR and increasing government regulation. When you outsource areas, such as payments, data storage and customer service, you’re inviting third parties to view your customers’ personal information. You must ensure that the company you engage to outsource are trustworthy, GDPR compliant and take security seriously.

Often the issue can be reversed, At Focus Ecommerce and Marketing we often see gaps in a business’s GDPR practices and as an engaged agency would always make recommendations to help make improvements so that a business if compliant. Again, choosing the correct e-commerce outsource partner is key to getting the best service.

Conclusion

Most businesses will at some point engage in some form of outsourcing, without even realising it and certainly, for most small to medium businesses, the benefits of outsourcing eCommerce tasks, outweigh the negatives.

Still, you need to examine your business closely and decide whether it is the right move for you. You should also consider all the various tasks you may already be or looking to outsource to gain a sense of its value. Often by combining a number of tasks with one agency can lead to a further reduction in costs. You should also consider your Outsourcing partner carefully and focus on using trusted outsource partners.

Start by breaking down the tasks you and your team are already responsible for to see if there are things you could be outsourcing to a third parties. Tasks you and your employees spend too much time doing should be prime candidates. Tasks you and your employees are either overqualified or underqualified for should be prioritized as well. Do you currently have a vacancy, consider this as an opportunity to re-evaluate the need for an internal employee, now could be the perfect time to explore using a 3rd party agency.

Next, determine which tasks and projects you’d like to implement in your business but don’t have the workforce to tackle.

Now that you understand the tasks you want to outsource, do your research to determine how much outsourcing is going to cost. You may need to actually reach out to contractors and companies to find out this information.
Alternatively, now may be the right time to bring an agency that can assess how your business tasks are being run, giving you a non-biased objective review is often the best thing for a business, it could be that a new piece of software could streamline your process. However, staff don’t like change so that detail is unlikely to come from within your team.

Outsourcing Ecommerce Services with Focus Ecommerce & Marketing

An ecommerce store owner cannot afford to have their time and money stripped away by technical issues, as this post has clearly demonstrated. You can save yourself a few headaches when it comes to the technical aspects of running a store by outsourcing those tasks to us.

We are a trusted outsource partner to eCommerce stores in the UK, EMEA, US and Canada. We can offer dedicated staff for your ongoing eCommerce  administration needs, Social Media and Marketing. Our team have over 30 years of experience in areas such as Retail, E-Commerce, Marketing, Government, and the Charity sector.

Check out our full list of Ecommerce services , or Contact Us today with your Outsource Requirements and see how we can save you money and drive your business.
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Future of E-Commerce

Navigating the Future of E-Commerce:

November 30, 2023 No Comments

In the dynamic world of e-commerce, the future is all about personalization. As we delve deeper into the digital era, the key to customer satisfaction and business growth lies in personalized shopping experiences.

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October 20, 2023 No Comments

We are thrilled to announce, in partnership with HMS16, the launch of our new website development project for Jersey Honey, dedicated to luxury scented candles!

Built on Shopify in double-quick time to satisfy a need in the run-up to Christmas. 

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Replatforming – What is it and why is it important

Replatforming – What is it and why is it important

Replatforming is a method that can make any web developer or e-commerce manager nervous, but if approached correctly, it can be extremely beneficial to your business

Digital technology advances at an alarming rate, this poses a significant challenge for companies that operate online and need to stay on top of the latest emerging trend or technique.

As a result, a website’s or mobile app’s shelf life seems to be getting shorter and shorter. This isn’t really a major problem for a brochure-ware site because redesigns can be implemented with minimal effort, although at a cost.

However, handling updates and redesigns for more complex sites and web applications becomes more complicated. E-commerce sites are a great example of this.

This is where the concept of replatforming emerges. This is the procedure for transferring an ecommerce site from one platform to another.

Replatforming – What is it and why is it important?

Why replatforming might be necessary:

Failing legacy systems

Many businesses launched bespoke services in the early days of e-commerce, when “off-the-shelf” solutions just didn’t cut it. However, updating these customised systems has become difficult and costly over time.

New features needed

A desire to incorporate new functionality in a more productive manner will be linked to this last point. Older platforms also fail to keep up with the demands of expanding companies, while modern platforms are more “futureproof.”

A fresh start

It can sometimes be best to start over from the beginning. Starting with a blank sheet of paper is advantageous in other ways as well, since company goals and priorities are often different than they were when the original site was built. Even if you’ve decided to stay with you some platform provider can it be beneficial to start again to clear out some of that legacy coding.

Outsourcing website development

Moving from an in-house development environment to a hosted or fully managed platform might be enough of a justification to make the switch, as it reduces long-term costs and complexities.

Integration

E-commerce sites are increasingly being asked to integrate with a variety of complicated and sophisticated partners and third-party systems.

Many platforms now have these features built-in as plugins, eliminating the need for time-consuming development work.

Although replatforming will entail a financial investment, the long-term return on investment would be significant when compared to what was previously in place, not to mention the additional features and functionality that will be available.

Outsourcing website development

Moving from an in-house development environment to a hosted or fully managed platform might be enough of a justification to make the switch, as it reduces long-term costs and complexities.

Website Design Layout

Replatforming - A better approach?

However, there are a few items to consider before embarking on a replatforming strategy:

Website build cost

Don’t plan to pay the same amount for your new platform today as you did five years ago for making your website. Having said that, you’ll want to make sure your project is completely costed from the start to avoid any unpleasant surprises later on.

Likewise, you may have had your site built very cheaply, using a basic ecommerce platform, now is the time to ask yourself was that actually cost effective? Be wary of anyone offering to build you a site in a week or two and/or for a miniscule price. If it seems to good to be true it probably is.

If you want a hosted solution, keep in mind that there will be recurring costs. If possible, choose a fixed-price option, but do not forget to factor in a contingency!

Website specification

The value of developing a comprehensive specification before speaking with suppliers is linked to the previous point. Make sure you know exactly what you want from your new site and what you need right now (and in the future).

Website functionality

Be very clear about what functionality comes as part of the platform and what has to be added on (at an additional cost). Platforms like Shopify, Magento and WordPress websites with Woocommerce require many 3rd party systems, each with additional cost. Whereas IRP Commerce Cloud has all of the features you’ll need to run a successful online company. There are no hidden fees or costly plugins only a website dedicated to your sales and profits.

IRP Commerce Cloud | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Review internal processes

Do just look at finding a platform that matches your internal processes exactly, often it is easier to modify your processes to fit the new platform. Whilst no one likes change, sometimes its beneficial.

This is an opportunity to take a step back and consider how the company operates and whether it could be changed. Better to do this now rather than in the future when the site has already been built!

Service

While many platforms will be ‘off-the-shelf’, it’s very rare that you won’t need support or assistance, even if you plan to do the development work yourself or with another agency.

Check what support you will receive in the early days and on an ongoing basis too. Why not talk to other clients and get references?

Investigate all the options

From low-cost SaaS options such as Shopify, EKM, Bigcommerce to bespoke build and open source, there is an array of different options for ecommerce platforms. Make sure you consider them all and choose the best one for your business.

Strive to find the right ‘partner’

Are you a problem client? Are you being too demanding? Treat your suppliers well and you’ll get a better deal in the long-term with a website development service supplier.

Be wary of anyone that will offer to build you a site in a week or two and/or for a miniscule price. There are good deals to be done, but tread with care.

This is a significant, strategic investment for your business, so it’s worthwhile to investigating fully at this stage in your ecommerce development. It will finally pay off in the long run.

So that’s replatforming!

It’s definitely a strategy that more and more online businesses will have to tackle sooner rather than later, but approaching it in the right way at this stage will ensure you are better prepared for anything that might materialise in the future.

This is a significant, strategic investment for your business, so it’s worthwhile to investigating fully at this stage. It will finally pay off in the long run.

Need more advice contact us today

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5 Points for Developing a Website

5 Points for Developing a Website

Whether you’re Looking to build a new website or already have one that’s not performing as expected here are 5 points you need to consider when building your website.

Website Design | Building your website

Clean Website Design

  • Creating a clean, pleasing template is one of the most important things to note during the website creation process.
  • A good design is appealing when building your website. Make it easy to understand, and have simple navigation.
  • Importantly, a clean design allows viewers to concentrate on the importance of your brand and content. Rather than being distracted by distracting visuals and vast quantities of text.
  • Customers also equate website design with the quality of a business or product. As a result, delivering a meaningful user experience that inspires consumers to return necessitates a clean design.
Website Functionality | building your website

Website Functionality

  • There are a few things to think about when it comes to functionality when building your website.
  • Is the website interactive in the literal sense? Are there any problems with loading or broken links? Have you checked the site’s security features are adequate?
  • Aside from these organisational concerns, it’s important to see the website’s functionality from the user’s point of view.
  • Are your site’s interaction forms, surveys, and customer reviews sections functional?
  • A customer may leave your site due to one or more of these functional issues.
Website Navigation

Website Navigation

  • When your website is confusing and difficult to navigate it can result in website customers leaving and never return again.
  • Do an in-depth site review as if you were a new user to improve the quality and attractiveness of your site’s navigation.
  • Take note of which navigation streams make sense and which do not.
  • One way to enhance a visitor’s ability to access your site (while also assisting search engines in crawling it) is to add a site map.
  • View the navigation from an outsider’s view, your visitors may not understand your internal references.
  • Use external parties to review your site and navigation.
Website Usability

Website Usability

  • Easy-to-use websites are more likely to pique consumer curiosity and generate sales.
  • Displaying product and service details in a simple, succinct manner will improve usability.
  • Make sure your website has all the functionality that a customer would like for it to be user-friendly.
  • Do visitors who are reading your blog and want to sign up for an email newsletter have to go looking for the opt-in form?
  • How easy to find your contact information?
  • Is your website’s design conducive to social networking and more engagement with your brand?
  • When it comes to improving the usability of your website, these main elements must be considered.
Website Call to Actions

Website Call to Action

  • Customers are more likely to contact your company if you have calls to action on your website.
  • A nice suggestion like “Contact us today!” shows that your company is interested in building a partnership with its customers.
  • It’s critical that calls to action are sufficient for the level of engagement a visitor has with your site.
  • If they’re new to your business, invite them to sign up for your email newsletter.
  • Make Buy Buttons highly visible with clear wording such as “BUY NOW”
  • Always have a call to action on each page or article, regardless of what you’re asking visitors to do on your site.

Fror more help and support view our page on Website Management to see how we can help you today

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Creating a Content Strategy for your Ecommerce Store

Creating a Content Strategy for your Ecommerce Store

Content marketing, clearly described, is the process of producing original, high-quality content targeted at a specific audience, attracting their interests and addressing their points of pain. Creating a content strategy means instead of making a hard sell, by offering useful information that earns goodwill and interaction, it usually promotes a brand, service, or product.

Creating a Content Strategy| Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

The primary objective of this initiative is to convert consumers to buyers, directing them through the process of meeting their needs in the sales funnel, to prove yourself to be a credible source of knowledge, to position yourself as the best placed authority to assist them, and then to convert interest to paid business and a valuable ongoing connection.

The advantages of a well-executed eCommerce content strategy include:

 

  • It drives new traffic to your website.
  • This promotes confidence in your brand.
  • With the all-important conversions, it can help.
  • It can create a separate revenue source.
  • It can provide enduring value with its evergreen material.

 

1: Identify Your Target Consumer

When your creating a content strategy you need to know who your buyer is in order to create e-commerce website content targeted to consumer needs. You can create content targeted at them by creating a character or fictionalized image of a customer or buyers based on real data and

marketing insights, refining it depending on what part of the sales funnel you position it and which part of the purchaser’s journey you are targeting.

For instance, without any sales message, you will provide content customized to their needs at the top of the sales funnel. Further down the funnel, once you’ve won their confidence, you might start providing potential solutions to customer problems and have a more tailored sales pitch to convert them to paying business.

The things you will want to know for your buyer persona include:

  • Demographics: Gender, age, location, or other concrete identifying information.
  • Personality: Whether they are lazy, super productive, sceptical, optimistic, or have other traits, the personality profile will help determine their shopping behaviour.
  • Motivation: Are they learning more about your goods and industry on your e-commerce site? Are they ready to buy, or are they just shopping for windows? Understanding customer motivation allows you to customize content accordingly.
  • Pain points: What do your customers find frustrating? If you understand this, you can provide a solution to their issues.
  • Preferred content channels: Knowing your customers’ preferred sites, social media channels, and apps can tell you how best to reach them.

2: How Does Your Audience Consumes Content

You should find out how your audience wants to consume content to target them the same way for your e-commerce website content by looking at your internal data or researching market trends.

Some questions you’ll want to answer include:

  • What’s the most popular social media channel for my target audience?
  • Is there a specific type of content they prefer, Images, video, long form content?
  • Does my target audience prefer to make purchases via a mobile or desktop?
  • What length of time is my target audience willing to spend reviewing content?
  • Use your Google Analytics to track how people are coming to your site

3: Research and Create Your Content

For creating a content strategy you need to do some research at the front end to build an efficient content strategy for e-commerce. For instance,

  • Brainstorm: Work with a small group of people invested in the process, with strong contributions.
  • Competitive SEO Evaluation, Looking at how rivals’ domain names work in search rankings and keyword gaps, to find out what choices are available to create content against fresh search words.
  • Understanding the content being produced by other brands: Use a tool like Google Alerts to keep notified about brand mentions online, keeps you up to date of trending content.
  • Think outside the box if an idea seems stale because it been done many times, try flipping it on its head to come up with a new perspective.

4: Publish Content Based on your Buyer’s Journey

The sales or marketing funnel is divided into three parts a top, middle, and bottom that corresponds to various parts of the purchaser’s path.

The top of the funnel is the process of customer exploration or understanding, where you prove that you know their points of pain. Your content is easily found and consumed at this stage.

The content offers solutions to issues without any particular sale of your product or service, whether by blogging, social media marketing, search engine marketing, or any other medium.

 

The middle section of the Sales & Marketing funnel is the step of evaluation, where you engage with your prospective clients more profoundly, building confidence. You have proven that you know their points of discomfort, and now you can start pointing to solutions that will assist them. Where you tried to educate customers before, you are now leading them to the right responses.

Here, the items you offer might include comparison guides, case studies, and even free samples. Consumers usually do extensive research on the subject at this point, including whether your approach is the right match for them.

 

The bottom of the sales funnel is the purchase stage, where people put their money where their interest is. Here is where you prove that your outstanding value is just too much to be passed by. At this purchase stage, you might use live chat, a chatbot, or emails to customers at the point of buying or retargeting/remarketing to keep your message in front of someone at the tipping point.

 

The Decision stage, where people put their money where their interest is. Here is where you prove that your offer is just too good to miss out on. At this decision stage, at the point of purchase or retargeting/remarketing, you might use live chat, a chatbot, or emails to customers to hold your message in front of someone at the tipping point.

 

5: Measure the Results

Since creating a content ctrategy on ecommerce websites is typically an ongoing operation, and not a one-off thing, you need to look at the results from past attempts to enhance those that are going forward.

 

Good metrics will inform you what sort of investment return (ROI) you have accomplished. Progress may be evaluated by such factors as:

Organic traffic, Leads, Conversion rate, Time on page, Social shares, Engagement, ROI, Backlinks

 

Bear in mind that the specific metrics you want to measure will vary depending on the content type. Some forms of content and the metrics on which you would want to base performance include:

  • Blog posts/articles: Key performance indicators (KPIs) range from website traffic and unique visitors to page views per visit and geographic trends.

  • Email: Indicators include open rate, conversion rate, and click-through rate.

  • Social media: Followers/fans, Likes, and post reach are among the KPIs.

  • Videos: These include unique viewers, shares, and average view duration.

  • Podcasts: Downloads, subscribers, and shares are included here.

  • Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns: The many KPIs range from cost per click and click-through rates to cost per sale and impressions.

At Focus Ecommerce & Marketing we have the tools to help you measure the performance of your content activity. We can analyse various pieces of content and tailor that content to meet your specific needs.

 

6: Ask for Customer Feedback

Listening to what your clients have to say is a huge part of enhancing the content you deliver and making sales. Knowing what your customer feels about your sales process is vital for potential progress, whether you send a follow-up note, review live chat recordings, perform customer interviews, evaluate documented sales calls, track social media networks, or employ other means.

Some ways customer feedback can help your ecommerce content strategy include:

 

  • Ensure you have an effective customer support service: Customer feedback is one way to help gauge whether you have a sustainable customer support system, which ultimately can help keep sales coming in.

  • Qualitative feedback about content: Although we have suggested ways to get data, qualitative feedback is also very valuable. Through customer surveys, you can figure out whether your content is helpful to your customers. The more helpful your content, the more likely you will find more people who want to use your product or service.

  • Potential to use feedback as promotional content: Arguably, the biggest benefit to customer feedback is the possibility of using it to persuade new customers. Testimonials are a great way to add value to your brand and hopefully increase your bottom line.

 

What Are Some Types of Effective Ecommerce Content Marketing?

When developing an ecommerce content strategy, there a variety of content types at your disposal. Focus Ecommerce & Marketing can assist you with any of the following:

 

  • Blogging: Blog posts are fundamental to the majority of content marketing strategies, building customer relationships, delivering leads, and lending themselves to search engine optimization (SEO) practices.

  • Original photography: In this digital age people are unable to touch what your goods, using photography helps to make up for this fact. Create a set of images for each product, tagging them correctly will help search engines understand what you are offering. Create lifestyle shots so people can imagine wearing or using the item.

  • Video content: Videos create an immersive experience and are proven to drive up the number and size of sales. Social media channels recommend the use of video as a way of increasing engagement.

  • Product guides: These can attract more traffic to your ecommerce website as people look for more information about products and services.

  • Customer stories: Customer testimonials, reviews, case studies and user generated content.

  • Email marketing: Even just confirming orders, notifying buyers about shipping and package delivery, and doing a follow-up gives you multiple chances to communicate with customers and build relationships.

 

The most effective ecommerce strategy combines all of these elements. All brands, large and small need to invest in content marketing because it is crucial to attracting new business and staying competitive.

We can provide a comprehensive, all-in-one solution to boost your online selling presence, whether it’s to get more traffic with organic and paid searches or create unique content that meets marketing and sales goals.

 

Boost Your Online Sales Part 1 – Embrace Online Reviews

Boost Your Online Sales Part 1 – Embrace Online Reviews

Don’t ignore the power of your customers. An online review is as like recieving a personal recommendation and at the end of the day its the opinion of your customers that count.

Showing online reviews indicates your a honest online business and not trying to hide anything from your visitors. Whilst not all reviews will be good you should not hide away from these, rather you should embrace them and use to improve you business practices.

Your team should be giving 100% excellent customer service. Any bad online reviews should move you to evaluate your company procedures. Poor product reviews again should force you to re-evaluate, was it a one off, is there a persistent issue, if so should you buy that product again?

Keep the Good and Bad

Don’t feel that by having 1 or 2 negative reviews as detrimental to your business, its how you deal with that negativity that counts.

Be open and honest, most review systems will allow the option to leave a response, make sure you do. Make it an honest response, if you messed up – fess up! Mistakes happen people just want to see how you deal with these issues. Apologise for the inconveince, ask the customer to get in touch or indicate what you did to resolve the problem.

Keep the response polite and to the point when online. You will want to be contacting the customer directly as well to resolve it fully. Dealing with any issues will give that customer the confidence to hopefully come back and purchase again.

Use a Review Plugin

There are plenty of plugins nowadays that will help you manage reviews without major developer involvement and there are options to suit all budgets. So there is no excuse not to add reviews to your site, unless you have something to actually hide.

 

In other words online reviews benefit everyone. Ultimately boosting your merchant credibilty, improving your seach rankings and increasing conversion rates, how can you continue to ignore them?

Contact Focus Ecommerce & Marketing to see how we could help you.