“There’s no quick win in terms of being successful online. You can get online simply and that’s not a hard thing to do. But it’s about how you perfect it and how you make it help and grow your business,” says Nick Wilson, Head of Marketing Netregistry.
Yet whether your business is at the early stage of its online journey or you’ve been trading online for a while, Wilson believes there are key considerations that will help you drive traffic and achieve online success.
Where do they come from?
Wilson says your first consideration should always be understanding where your website traffic is coming from.
“Is it coming from paid? Is it coming from organic? Is it coming from Google? Is it coming from Facebook? Are people clicking on your PPC (pay per click) ads or did you go and do an amazing video on the weekend that was a lifestyle thing and you posted that out onto Facebook. You did it free and then a whole bucket load of people clicked on it and then came to your site.”
If social media is driving traffic to your site, understanding which channels work best for your business is also important.
“Is Linkedin the right channel? Is Facebook the right channel? Is Google the right channel? Is Instagram the right channel? They all have a role to play and depending on your type of business it’s a matter of picking the right channel, doing the right thing and the right level of investment with that channel to drive the right traffic to you.”
Where are they going?
Once you understand how customers are getting to your website it’s vital to track their journey. How sticky is your site? Are people landing and leaving or are they deep diving into your content?
“What are they doing on your website? Where are they going? Which pages are they going to? How many pages are they viewing? Is there anything trending in terms of where they’re going on your website?” says Wilson.
How are they buying?
If you sell products online Wilson says you must pay close attention to the buyer’s journey.
“How many people that are going to your website are then starting the shopping journey? How many people are going and finding a product, putting it in the shopping cart?” he asks.
Measuring and tracking how many people started the shopping journey compared with how many people actually purchased a product is also important. Is there a particular point in the shopping journey that is making them bail out on a purchase?
“If you know this, you can do re-targeting, you can track them down if they abandon a cart.”
How can you optimise?
Wilson advises keeping track of the entire buyer journey as it will provide you with a wealth of information.
“Once somebody has bought something, what did they buy? You can start to follow the whole journey, which channel did they come from? What part of the website did they visit? Did they start the cart? How many products did they buy?”
Armed with this information you can start to get absolute granularity through the customer journey about what’s working and what’s not working.
“One of the phrases that get used a lot in digital marketing and online is optimising. It’s a bit of an industry catchphrase. Basically, what does it mean? Find out the bits that are working and do more of them. Find out the bits that aren’t working, fix them or do less of them or don’t do it at all. What that enables you to do, is to just maximise any return. You spend your money, and it’s really important as a small business when cashflow is tight, that you get your return on that investment,” says Wilson.
As for the one piece of advice he would give any small business thinking of going online, the answer is simple: understand your customers.
“You hear it a lot, but it’s particularly important in terms of digital marketing and the reason for that is… If you understand the type of person that’s already purchased your product, or the type of people you want to buy your product, you can then start to think about where do they live? What’s their gender? How do they buy the product? Where are they going for information? So you start to break down the customer and that’s incredibly important for any business.”
Want more online sales advice? Catch Wilson when he appears as an expert on out docuseries Bricks & Clicks.
Missed an episode of Bricks & Clicks? Don’t worry you can catch up on Youtube or 7Plus
Bricks & Clicks is made possible thanks to our wonderful partners at International Towers, Xero and Netregistry. Find out more wwww.bricksclicks.com.au
Find out more: www.bricksclicks.com.au
Trending
Weekly business news and insights, delivered to your inbox.