As a business owner, it’s important to consider every opportunity that can help you build your business online and connect with the customers who are looking for your products or services. One of the ways you probably stay connected to friends, family, and business associates is through your smartphone. More and more people have smartphones attached to their hands every waking hour to access directions, post on social media sites, send emails, manage their schedule, and do just about anything else you can think of!

Mobile phones are changing the way we access the Internet and use technology in our daily lives. Smartphones also make us demand that information be delivered fast . . . or we move onto something that is easy to find and easy to access. You only have a few seconds to entice new customers to do business with you or to engage them in analyzing your business products or services.

One of the ways to enable your business to reach more customers who are on smartphones is to make sure you have a mobile website.

Why is a mobile website important? With a mobile website, you can be sure your site is accessible and viewable on a smaller screen. It gives people searching for your business a fast and easy way to find you wherever they are! 77% of local information seekers call or visit a business after looking up local information on their smartphone.*

Three-quarters of smartphone shoppers report purchase decisions were influenced as a result of using a smartphone.*

Customers viewing a mobile website can:

• Access a map to your business location—if they can’t find you, how can they do business with you?
• Research your website for more information about your business.
• Use the click-to-call function that allows someone on a mobile phone to call you in seconds—no typing needed and no room for errors!

What does a mobile site look like? A mobile website is a smaller, simpler version of your company website that is built to be viewed on a mobile device. Standard Web pages often load slowly, have technology that is not viewable on a mobile phone, or require scrolling to view on a mobile device. A mobile site provides a quick snapshot of your product or service in an easy-to-navigate format for smartphone viewing.

How do I get a mobile site, and what does it cost? There are many providers for mobile sites, and they range from custom developing a new site to simply optimizing your existing website for mobile viewing. The costs range from a low monthly fee such as $5.99 with no setup fees to $35 per month with a $99 setup fee or more. Some providers require a domain name issued or managed by them, and other mobile services allow you to create a mobile site with no existing domain name.

The Web.com mobile website product enables your existing Web.com domain to be versioned as a mobile website and displays the mobile website when viewed on a mobile device. This makes it easy for your customers to remember your domain, and automatically view your mobile site when they’re using their mobile phone. The mobile website is developed quickly for you by pulling information from your existing website.

What do I do once I have a mobile site? As a next step, you’ll want to make sure you’re appearing in mobile search listings. Because people on computers use different sources to search online than mobile users, you need to make sure you have your business listed in directories, map and review sites, and other applications that are already popular with mobile users. You can list basic details like your location, contact information, and a short description for free on many sites and apps. Some key listings include Google Maps, Google Places Mobile, Yahoo!® Local, Bing™ Local Listings, Yelp, and Foursquare.

It’s not hard to set up a mobile website. We can guide you through the process, set one up for you, or help you find a solution that fits your needs. At Web.com, we’re always here to help you succeed online. Just give us a call at 800-932-4678 to get started.

*Source: Google.

Does My Business Need a Mobile Website? is a post from Web.com | Blog

While the holiday season is a great time to gain new customers and capture the attention of consumers, you’re also working nonstop to make sure your business is running at full capacity. Here’s a quick list of items that can make an impact this holiday season, but won’t tax your already limited time available as a small business owner.

1. Make Sure You’re Where Your Potential Customers Spend Their Time
More people go online first to research local businesses for their shopping needs. If your business is not easily found, you are missing out on potential new business opportunities and new customers. Ensure that you are found in search engines, local directories, social sites, GPS devices, and mobile applications so your business is found no matter what way your customers look for you. Many small business owners do not have time to manage this on their own, so they have enlisted us to promote their business for them.

In addition to search results and online listings, Facebook is another area of opportunity for small business owners. With more than 800 million active users (source: Facebook) and with more than 50% of the active users logging on to Facebook any given day, it’s a great place to source potential new customers.

Ensure that your business has a presence on Facebook so that people can check in and broadcast that they were at your business to their entire network of friends. A Facebook Company Page allows you to have a customized business presence that competes with many national businesses that advertise on Facebook. The company page serves as a personalized view to your business showing photos and status updates about new items, and it serves as a communication tool for users to ask questions and connect with your business.

2. Keep Your Website Updated
It’s important to make sure you are delivering accurate and updated information to your website visitors, but also that it is updated frequently so that search engines are encouraged to come back and index the new information. Take a look at your website now and make sure you have all of your products and services updated, include any holiday specials or coupons prominently on the home page, update new extended business hours, and anything else you notice that needs an update.

If you’re too busy to update your site, and you are an existing Web.com customer with our monthly update service included in your website package, call us and we’ll get your website updated for you.

By 2014, 53% of total retail sales (online and offline) will be affected by the Web, as consumers increasingly use the Internet to research products before purchasing.
Forrester, March 2010

3. Give Visitors a Gift
You’ve probably noticed people during the holidays walking around shopping malls or entering your business who have a somewhat glazed look on their face. The holiday shopping crunch and all the activities related to the busy shopping season do tend to wear us down. Something that doesn’t have to cost much but will go the extra mile is to give your customers a gift when they visit your website or your business. It may be as simple as a cup of gourmet coffee in a ceramic mug with your business logo, free gift wrapping, a wrapping paper kit to save customers that extra trip to the store, a coupon for a family holiday photo session, or other time-saving items. Make sure you promote it to customers now, by putting out a sign advertising the free gift, and include it in your email marketing and Facebook Company Page updates to get the word out.

When asked what sources “influence your decision to use or not use a particular company, brand or product,” 71% claim reviews from family members or friends exert a “great deal” or “fair amount” of influence.
Harris Interactive, June 2010

Your gift to website and business visitors will quickly become something to spread instant word of mouth for your business as your customers tell their friends about your offer.

4. Ask for Customer Reviews
Asking for customer reviews is often overlooked and is a very important factor in influencing new customers to do business with you. Your happy customers are the best advocates of your products or services and why they choose to do business with you.

During this holiday season, ask for reviews . . . or even better yet run a contest to encourage customers to provide their reviews on Google Places or Yelp or email them directly to you. Make sure it’s easy for customers to enter their reviews, and that you are set up on Google Places, Yelp, and other review websites before you ask for the reviews. Don’t forget to include your customer reviews on your website as a great way to showcase your business.

83% of all holiday shoppers are influenced by customer reviews.
ChannelAdvisor, “Consumer Shopping Habits Survey,” August 2010

No matter how busy you are this holiday season, make sure you are presenting your business in the best way possible. Ensuring your customers can find you and keeping them updated about your business is the best way to keep your business top of mind . . . and the place to make purchases during the holidays and thereafter.

4 Tips for Preparing Your Business for the Holiday Season is a post from Web.com | Blog

The process of monitoring thousands of calls across all types of businesses to ensure quality leads for our customers has given us great insight into some of the most common mistakes small businesses make doing a seemingly basic task—answering the phone. You’re probably thinking, “This is a no-brainer. I know how to answer my business phone.” Likely so, but does your staff?

Here are ways you and your team can avoid the top seven mistakes:

1. Monitor. If you’re the business owner or manager and have access to call recordings, be sure to listen to them. You’ll quickly find out which staff members are doing a great job—and which are not. Plus, you can use the calls for training purposes, as well as to help you understand what your customers truly want. With a small investment of your time, you may be able to make a significant positive impact on your business.

2. Shorten your automated greeting. Click. That’s what you’ll likely hear when a caller encounters a lengthy automated greeting or an extensive menu selection. Many callers simply hang up without pressing an option or waiting for voice mail. Take another listen to your greeting, and consider reducing the time it takes for callers to reach a live person.

3. Hello? I’m always surprised when I hear a business answer their phone and simply say, “Hello?” Here’s a typical conversation—verbatim:

   Business: “Hello?”
   Caller: “Hello?”
   Business: “Hello?”
   Caller: “IS THIS BUSINESS XYZ???”

   Rather than confusing or frustrating your callers, be sure to confirm that they’ve reached your business. “Joe’s Pest Control” or, better yet, “Joe’s Pest Control. How may I help you?” lets the caller know they’ve reached their destination.

4. Don’t be rude. Some businesses actually come across as inconvenienced when answering the phone. One example is a business that had two agents handling calls. The first had a very gruff phone demeanor, and the second, a very polite one. The gruff one? He didn’t convert a single caller into a customer. The polite one? Almost every caller became a customer! Exuding a bad tone does not help you gain new business. Sincere smiles, on the other hand, can turn callers into customers.

5. Listen. Sounds obvious, but sadly it’s not. A comedy of errors ensued when a caller wanted to rent a car but had incorrectly dialed an airport shuttle service. The first mistake the business made? You guessed it—answering the phone with “Hello?” The second mistake was not listening to the caller, and instead speaking over them. I heard the caller’s intent very clearly from the start, but it took the business almost six minutes into the call to recognize the mismatch. Six minutes! Both parties ended up laughing, but wow, what a waste of time.

6. Enunciate. This is especially important with the increasing variety of accents, dialects, and nonnative English speakers in the population. It’s frustrating to hear callers repeatedly ask for clarification when the business agent is either speaking too rapidly or not clearly enough. Wait for the other party to stop talking and then e-n-u-n-c-i-a-t-e.

7. Sell! This one is super important. If you can’t provide what the customer is requesting, do you have an alternative? I listened to multiple examples of a charter service that failed to offer alternatives when they could not accommodate specific dates or times. Instead of saying, “Sorry, we can’t help you,” how about, “Sorry, we’re booked that day, but we have availability the next. Will that work?” Calls that offered an alternative to the customer frequently resulted in bookings. Don’t hire people to simply answer the phone—train them to sell!

For small businesses in today’s economic climate, how (and if) they answer the phone can make or break a sale. For managers, try to take immediate action on the first two mistakes above, and then review the rest with your teams. Quickly correcting these common mistakes can help you build trust with your customers and increase sales.

7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Answering Your Business Phone is a post from Web.com | Blog

As you finalize preparations for the upcoming holiday season, it’s important to make sure your business is ready for the busy gift-giving season. Having your store or business stocked with popular items is a great way to tap into additional sales. Another way to grow your business and meet the needs of gift-givers is to offer gift cards for purchase at your business and on your website.

Gift cards provide a convenient way for your loyal customers to spread the word about your business and their experience with you. Gift cards are also an impulse buy that you can keep close to your register, showcase in your window signage, or offer on your website or Facebook Company Page.

There are many ways your business can benefit from selling gift cards. Here are 5 ways for you to consider:

1. Tap into more sales for your business.
   Customers who do business with you may not think of your business when they plan gifts for their friends, family, or coworkers. To let customers know that you offer the convenience of gift cards, make sure they’re prominently displayed when people visit your website or physical location. That visual reminder will increase impulse purchases—and help to plant the seed for future sales. And as research shows, gift card recipients typically spend 20% more than their gift card balance.

2. Make it easy for customers to promote your business.
   When a customer chooses to give a gift card, they’re endorsing your business by telling their gift card recipient that they trust your business and like doing business with you. By offering gift cards, you make it easy for your customers to spread the word about your business to their network of friends and family.

3. Build your contact list for future promotions.
   When recipients redeem their gift cards, make sure you’re capturing the contact information for those cardholders. You can use that information to send out future news items and promotions about your business. Just as gift cards help to drive new sales to your business, your contact list provides you with valuable information that can help you develop and maintain long-term customers.

4. Don’t think of gift cards as just gifts.
   Another way to keep your business growing is to issue gift cards as part of your refund or return policy. That way, you ensure that customers come back to your business to spend those available funds.

5. Sell gift cards 24/7.
   Although many businesses think they need a physical store or business to sell gift cards, that’s definitely not the case. You can offer gift cards for sale on your website and via your social media marketing efforts, such as your Facebook Company Page. And with more and more consumers researching businesses online and making online purchases, you can leverage your website presence and your social network to generate sales for your business 24/7.

Please note: You should spend time evaluating gift card programs and their associated fees to ensure that you find the right program that fits the needs and goals of your business.

To help small businesses tap into the lucrative gift card market, Web.com is offering a new gift card program as of October 3—just in time for the busy holiday season. Our program allows you to sell gift cards at your business location and on your website.

For more information about how gift card sales can help your business grow, contact us at 877-543-5107 today.

5 Ways Gift Cards Help Your Business Grow is a post from Web.com | Blog

Web.com is excited to be a featured partner in Dell’s new program for small businesses: My Business Toolkit. Customers who purchase Dell’s Vostro line of desktop and laptop computers will automatically have access to small business solutions, including the creation of a professionally designed website or custom Facebook page by Web.com. Nearly one million small business customers have already discovered that Web.com’s professionally designed website or Facebook page is a critical component to being found in a local search on the Internet, and Dell has made it particularly attractive for new Vostro owners to join those satisfied customers. My Business Toolkit is available on select new Vostro computers, and one click on the My Business Toolkit icon starts the simple process to have Web.com get your small business website up and running. You can learn more at Dell’s My Business Toolkit.

Good Things Come in Small (Business) Packages! is a post from Web.com | Blog

Today we announced that we signed a definitive agreement to acquire Network Solutions, in a transaction that will make us the leading online marketing solutions company focused on small and medium-sized business.

For those of you who are not familiar with Network Solutions, it is a leading provider of global domain name registration and complementary website design and management services focused on SMBs. You can read more about it in our news release.

Here are some of the reasons we’re excited about this announcement:

• It’s a great opportunity to increase the scale of our business and accelerate our growth potential.

• It will position Web.com to be nationally recognized as the go-to provider of online marketing solutions for SMBs.

• We will be able to invest even more into new products and services, such as our new Facebook application, that will help our customers grow.

For our customers, this is what you can expect:

• The same high level of service that you have come to expect, even as we look to opportunities to offer you more.

• An even better customer experience as both companies leverage each other’s strengths.

• Greater opportunities for us to provide you with new products and services to benefit you and your business/organization.

Even as the Internet has been a game-changing resource for consumers and large companies with the scale to tap enterprise marketing resources, we believe there are a great many small business owners out there who could more fully leverage the growing adoption of online local search, social media and mobile devices to grow their businesses, and could use cost- and time-efficient help.

Today’s announcement is all-out building on this focus, and we are committed to continuing to provide the best combination of products, services and know-how to help our millions of small business customers better market themselves in a rapidly growing and changing online marketplace.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email us at support@web.com. Thanks for reading, and we look forward to continuing to serve your needs in the future.

Web.com and Network Solutions to Join Forces as Leader in SMB Online Marketing is a post from Web.com | Blog

A common misconception small business owners have is that if they rank well organically in the search engine results, they do not need to allocate additional budget to a paid ad strategy. This may seem logical on the surface, but let’s face it, organic traffic is not free—you have to dedicate resources to ensuring that your website content is strong and organized, you have to invest in an effective backlink strategy, you have to do extensive keyword research, and you have to monitor and analyze your results and make continual changes. For many small businesses, this means hiring a firm specializing in search engine optimization (SEO). Not free!

Even if you have a successful organic strategy—and before assuming that SEO is all you need to promote your website—here are five quick questions to ask yourself when assessing the use of paid ads:

1. What keywords do you have top ranking for?

   When we ask clients this question, they typically respond with their business name. Most businesses with quality websites rank well for their business name, but what about other keywords? Although you may rank #1 for “Joe’s Plumbing,” how do you rank for keywords that would drive new customers to your business who have never heard of you? It’s important that you not only rank well for “Joe’s Plumbing,” but that you also rank for purchase-ready buyer terms such as “plumbing repairs,” “emergency plumber,” and “sink replacement.” Depending on the competitiveness of those terms, it may take months to rank well . . . or you may never achieve adequate ranking. With the right budget and bidding strategy, supplementing your organic strategy with paid ads can produce immediate placement and results.

2. What would you do with 20% more traffic to your website?

   You may be asking yourself, “Why should I pay for clicks if I am already appearing for free?” A frequent budgetary concern is that paid ads cannibalize organic clicks. Not so! According to Google, websites appearing in both the organic and paid sections of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) achieve 20% more traffic. The goal here is to displace your competitors by taking up as much real estate on the SERP as you can.



3. Where do your customers click on the Search Engine Results Page?

   As a well-known adage reminds us, the most important thing in real estate is “location, location, location.” The same holds true for search engines. While most users focus on the left-hand side of the page (80%+ of us), almost 90% never make it to page two of the SERP. If you’re relying on organic ranking but aren’t on page one, you’re missing out on almost all of the traffic! Your paid search ad will allow you to compete for keywords that you rank low for organically.

4. Do you run seasonal offers or special promotions?

   Let’s say you already rank well for your most desired keywords. How do you fare, though, when you create a new landing page to promote a special offer or seasonal discount or launch a new product line? Depending on your time frame, you will likely not gain organic placement quickly enough to promote your offer—in fact, you may not gain good placement until well after your promotion has ended. In these cases, the fastest way to drive traffic to your promotion is through a paid ad.

5. Are you happy with the content in your organic results?

   Organic results automatically show content from your website. Chances are, the search engines don’t pull the exact text that you would if you had control. With paid ads, however, you control the content of the ad as well as determine the specific landing page to drive the ad to. Since you write the text, your paid ad allows you to focus on purchase-ready buyers by:

   • Focusing on specific products and services: “July Savings on Water Heaters”
   • Including call-to-action text: “Save 15% Online” or “Call for Free Estimate”
   • Focusing on your geographical client base: “Serving the Tri-State Area”

In sum, an organic strategy is necessary, but paid ads enhance your ability to attract the right customers at the right time. While you’re building your organic rankings, the use of paid ads will supplement your traffic and allow you to attract your target customer. Your organic placement may adjust slowly over time, but your paid ads are instant and completely flexible.

As always, track the results of your paid ads to ensure they are effective, and continue to monitor and optimize them. Once you have achieved strong organic placement for your favored keywords, maintain your paid ads to promote new product lines quickly, advertise seasonal specials efficiently, and gain that extra 20% in traffic.

Why Do I Need a Paid Search Ad If I Rank Well Organically? is a post from Web.com | Blog

Many, many months ago, I was shopping at Kmart for some necessities, and as is usually the drill with me, I started to browse other departments—for all kinds of stuff that I really didn’t need and wasn’t shopping for in the first place.

That’s when “the” comforter caught my eye. In all of its silvery, shimmery style, it beckoned me. I didn’t really NEED a comforter, but this one was beautiful, machine washable (a must for me, as I don’t believe in paying dry-cleaning costs for things that I should be able to launder right at home sweet home), and on clearance! (FYI: I can’t resist a good clearance item.)

After getting into a debate with myself, I decided: You don’t need it. Leave it!

But as the months went by, I’d brood about that silvery, shimmery clearance comforter. So when the brooding got to be too much, I started looking for it online, to see if anyone out there had one to sell me.

Lo and behold, not only did I find it online and in the size I needed, but it was still being sold by Kmart, so I was sure I’d get a deal!

Although the comforter that was marked at a clearance price of about $40 eight months ago was now on sale for $59.99, I once again debated with myself and decided that although I never spend a lot for a comforter (and 60 bucks is a lot by my budget), the sale price was still much better than the original price of $99.99.

That’s when I made up my mind: I’m getting that comforter.

So when I added it to my cart and started the checkout process (with a gleam in my eyes), I assumed that it was mission accomplished. But then . . . bam!

Because it was an “oversized item,” the shipping would cost either $90 for standard or $179 for expedited. Yes . . . the lowest shipping price as quoted was nearly double the price of the item. My $59.99 sale comforter just became $149.99. Seriously? I thought this must surely be an error, and the system is simply placing an irrational shipping price on my order by default. I was certain I just needed to contact someone at Kmart to get it all straightened out.

So I emailed the customer service team with the following:

Hi,

I’m trying to find the “Jaclyn Smith Today Euphoria Comforter Set” in size King.

I see it on the site, but the shipping is coming up as either $90 or $179, which, needless to say, is preposterous.

Can you please tell me if this item is available at a reasonable or free shipping rate, or if it is available within 30 miles of ZIP code 18702?

Here’s the response I received:

Thank you for contacting Kmart.com regarding the shipping charge of item “Jaclyn Smith Today Euphoria Comforter Set.”

We appreciate your interest in the item “Jaclyn Smith Today Euphoria Comforter Set.” Please be advised that this item is for oversized delivery and hence the standard shipping charge is $90 and the expedited shipping charge is $179. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this matter has caused you.

We are here for you! Please reply should you have any further questions. You can contact us through online chat support or contact us at 1-866-562-7848. We look forward to fulfilling your future online shopping needs.

We’re here to make everything easier. Take our survey to tell us how we’re doing.

Look for great bargains throughout the store and find Kmart exclusive brands like Thalia Sodi, Joe Boxer, Route 66 and Jaclyn Smith. Make sure you are registered at kmart.com for emails, so we can stay in touch!

Not only was the response mostly canned, but it didn’t even answer my question about whether a store near me had the item. I was dumbfounded.

So still being determined, I visited one of two Kmart stores that are within a 5-mile drive from my house. Voila! There it was, in all its glory . . . and I didn’t even need to sell my bed to cover the most expensive shipping charges ever.

My chase for the comforter had come to an end!

Just for fun . . . and because I’m stubborn and needed to prove a point to myself that Kmart was the crazy one in this relationship, I took the comforter to my local post office and asked for estimated shipping costs as if I was going to send it clear across the country from northeastern Pennsylvania to ZIP code 90210 in California. The costs ranged from $20 to $35, with the most expensive delivered within 3 days, Priority Mail.

So what business lessons can we learn from this experience?

1. Don’t charge excessive shipping costs. If you don’t ship items at reasonable prices, your customers will find another business that does.

2. Don’t call it “customer service” if you’re only going to provide a cookie-cutter response. You might as well just send a note that reads, “Good riddance. Try Walmart.”

And the best part? After all was said and done and the beautiful $59.99 comforter was in my bedroom, I received the following message:

Did I leave an item in my shopping cart, Kmart remarketing? I wonder why. . . .

An Un-comforter-able Shopping (and Shipping) Experience is a post from Web.com | Blog

With the explosive growth of eCommerce, it’s easier than ever to put your small business offerings in front of a large group of prospective customers. Drop shippers make it easy to obtain a catalog of items that a merchant can sell, and they provide all of the images, product descriptions, and price points . . . usually in a format that doesn’t require a lot of work to integrate the information in your platform of choice.

Unfortunately, there’s a downside to receiving all this information from a drop shipper. Many small online stores end up using their provided product descriptions, which means their content is up against an army of other merchants carrying the same wares, using the exact same product descriptions and content, just in a slightly altered look for their site. When Google and other search engines see this content, they bury the newest results to promote the older content, which will be a massive problem for a new merchant who is trying to create a presence online.

So how does a merchant combat this army of replicas? How does one stand out among a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of duplicates?

The answer is in rewriting the descriptions that your manufacturer or drop shipper provides. Although this can be an extremely time-consuming process (depending on the number of products in your store), writing effective product descriptions can mean the difference between success and failure online.

Here are a few tips that can help you fine-tune your product descriptions and target your customers:

• Know your audience. Try to imagine your best customers when you write your product descriptions. Because you’re writing as a salesperson, you’ll see better results if you communicate with your target audience on their level. Writing clearly, concisely, and specifically will naturally lend itself to creating keywords and key phrases within your product descriptions. Original content will help customers find you more easily on search engines.

• Communicate . . . QUICKLY! Think of your shoppers as if they’re speeding down a freeway. At 65 mph, they don’t have time to read a large block of text. You need an attention-grabbing start that engages your readers and creates enough interest for them to continue reading. Consider beginning a product description with a question that gets them thinking . . . and hopefully keeps them reading. Billboards offer great examples of this type of content.

• Remember that shopping is an emotional experience. If it weren’t, you’d never hear the phrase “buyer’s remorse.” Once you have a reader’s attention, it’s important to appeal to emotion first. Craft a story that offers detailed examples of how the product you’re describing is going to save them time, money, stress, and so forth. Find the specific pain point that this product will address, and offer logical support for the feelings your prospects are having toward purchasing it.

• Recognize that spelling, grammar, and wording DO matter. The most convincing product descriptions use a powerful story with adjectives that reinforce the feelings your shoppers are having about purchasing. Consider using Thesaurus.com to help you find convincing adjectives without being too repetitive. And be sure to check your copy for any misspellings or grammatical errors. Errors in product copy are easily noticed by customers, and they can reduce confidence in your store as well as your products.

Writing convincing and accurate product descriptions is the best way to stand out in a crowd of competing messages, so it’s important to get your message out there in your own voice, and then reap the rewards that you covet . . . getting noticed and generating sales.

Bonus Tips

Want to boost your customers’ confidence in buying from you? Consider these tips:

• Provide answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Although many customers prefer to shop online rather than drive to a brick-and-mortar store and interact with a salesperson, they’ll probably have questions about the products they’re considering. That’s why it helps to include a link to Frequently Asked Questions—and their answers—on your product page. That way, you’ll be able to address your customers’ questions as they think of them.

• Leverage the power of product reviews. Although you might be able to craft the most intricate product description in the world, you probably won’t be able to come up with every use that your customers find for your product. That’s where product reviews come in . . . they help to tell prospects how other customers are using the product—and how satisfied they are with it.

  When you’re selecting a product reviews option for your site, make sure you use a solution that:

  • Allows you to approve or deny a review before it posts to your site.

  • Provides an option to email your customers (a set number of days after they purchase) and request a product review from them.

  It’s important to note that negative product reviews aren’t always a bad thing. If you’re getting a lot of bad reviews for a particular product, you should definitely remove it from your catalog. But one or two reviews that aren’t overflowing with love for a product can help lend some credence to the integrity of your store. Plus, people are more likely to buy from a site that’s honest with them. Remember . . . shopping is an emotional experience.

eCommerce Product Descriptions: Tips for Getting Noticed and Generating Sales is a post from Web.com | Blog

I’m not usually a big impulse shopper, but when something catches my eye, I’ll stop and look at it more closely—whether it’s a wacky cereal box, crazy nail polish color, or my dog, Ada.

Because online shopping is the only shopping I like to do, that was naturally the way I found Ada. I didn’t get her from a breeder, but from a website that features unwanted animals from shelters across the U.S. And just like with pay-per-click (PPC) ads, when you search that pet adoption site, you see results with a very short description, which includes the location, breed, size, and age of each dog.

Unlike most PPC ads on Google, however, the short descriptions were accompanied by a picture.* While I was searching, I only clicked on the dogs that instantly caught my eye—because that’s how I shop. With my strategy, however, I could have missed out on a great dog. Who knows . . . one of them could have known how to cook dinner, locate large sums of money, or run the vacuum.

The point is, I didn’t spend time clicking each ad to learn more because many of the descriptions and pictures just weren’t that interesting. I have plenty of other things to do with my time than read a ton of lengthy copy. And the reality is, my online shopping mentality—from clothes to dogs—is the same as typical Google users who are searching for their next purchase.

The moral of the story? It’s crucial that your PPC ad quickly grabs the attention of your potential customers.

In PPC, your ad is sandwiched between other ads. Is yours interesting enough to make someone click? Although you might have an amazing product—and an even better deal—if you can’t get customers to your page, they’ll never know about it. As a PPC Manager, I spend a great deal of time making sure that I use the 130 characters wisely—because if my ad isn’t eye-catching within a few seconds, those 130 characters will mean nothing.

If you have ads in your PPC campaigns that have low clickthrough rates or poor overall performance, it’s probably time to take a look at your ad copy. Assuming that your keywords and ads are relevant, creating more persuasive, targeted ads might just be the way to teach an old dog some new tricks.

*Please note: This ad format is available with product extensions.

What My Dog Taught Me About PPC is a post from Web.com | Blog