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There are many considerations when you start planning for marketing your store and products...I will mention just a few below to get you started,
These are the main ones I would address from the start as you create your shop, and add in other focuses as you gain more experience and have more data...
First we have the one you all know about (you learn a LOT about it here on Wealthy Affiliate)...'SEO.'
SEO
Before you start spending any cash money on paid advertising, SEO might be a better first port of call for you. As with affiliate marketing, you know that SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’ and it is essentially the process of optimizing a website and link strategy so that your store is easy to find on Google when people search for it.
To do this, you will often begin by identifying a search term (key phrase) such as ‘buy hats online’. Only you won’t want to choose ‘buy hats online’ because that will very competitive and very difficult to rank for.
This is why it’s such a good idea to have a particular target audience and a particular type of product. Note how this can dovetail with what you are already doing right here on Wealthy Affiliate. Go for keywords in your descriptions that are not as competitive or use a keyphrase that people will look for but which also isn’t quite as competitive.
As with affiliate marketing to start ranking for your terms you will need to ensure you have a well optimized website (meaning it’s fast, mobile friendly and easy to navigate) and that you include the keywords you’ve selected in your descriptions and on your blog occasionally.
Aim for around 1% density, so for every 100 words, you can include the keyphrase once. It’s also useful to include it in headers and in meta descriptions and then to try and build as many links as possible on relevant websites (that might mean getting a fashion blog to link to you for example). You might be able to do this by providing them with free content, which is called ‘guest posting’.
Next we have Content Marketing considerations...
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a fantastic tool you can use to help market your shop. This basically means you’re running a blog (which you are anyway) and the aim is to get people to subscribe and to look for your site when they want information relevant to your industry.
So if you sell gardening tools, you should have an authoritative blog on gardening that peoples subscribe to.In doing this, you’ll now have an audience that trusts your recommendations and that listens to what you say. You can now recommend them your own products and even provide them with special offers.
Email marketing goes hand in hand with content marketing. Try to build the trust of your audience to the point where they’re happy to hand over their contact details – then subtly sell your products to them.
Building an audience for your blog is of course the tricky part but you can do this by running a social media account and by using SEO.Speaking of social platforms that brings us to the next consideration...
Social Media
Social media is an excellent method get attention on your store and also to directly sell your products. One great way to do this is by promoting the value proposition and the lifestyle that your products support.
So if you want people to buy your fitness books, this might mean running an Instagram account that includes lots of pictures of you training in the gym. You can also use ‘influencer marketing’ this way – why not get a big Instagram star to post a photo with one of your products?
You can even sell directly through several social media channels. Pinterest for instance now lets you sell straight through your account and so too does Facebook if you use the right WooCommerce plugin or Shopify plugin for your page.
Don’t be afraid to ask your friends to share your page and your special offers either!
Note that with both content marketing and social media the main objective is to provide value. If you don’t do that then people won’t follow you and you won’t have an audience to sell to!
Lastly I want to add a little content on PPC...
PPC
PPC is ‘Pay Per Click’ marketing. This is an excellent tool for getting more sales but costs money. Basically, these platforms charge you only when someone clicks on an advert.
This means that if the adverts don’t work, then you won’t be charged anything! You can set a maximum ‘cost per click’ though the more you’re willing to spend, the more your advert will show up in competitive niches.
The biggest platforms for PPC are Googel AdWords (meaning your advert appears on Google) and Facebook ads. And they must work – Amazon spends up to $1M a day on AdWords!
And particularly useful is the ‘remarketing feature’ of AdWords that lets you advertise products that people have considered buying previously back to your old visitors when they’re on other sites.
My recommendation is to start by using Bing Ads and FaceBook Ads. Both of these allow you to start small, with as little as $5, and scale up as you test and see what is working..There is some excellent training right here on Wealthy Affiliate by Kyle that will help you a lot. I recommend you start there before starting any paid advertising campaigns...
I Have a couple of questions for you. Related to Subdomain which I think I prefer over a new domain:
Once I have created a subdomain for eCommerce, will I advertise that subdomain or will I advertise the main domain?
Can I call the subd. shop.mydomainname.com or myproducts.mydomainname.com
Is there a special way to link them together? Or are they just naturally linked?
Thanks again
Best
Reply
If you go to a link cloaking tool like bitly dot com (replace the "dot" with a period) you can then create a shortened link or a link that relates to where you are sending the person clicking on the link...
Have a look at the image and I have created a simple sample and screenshot to show you what I mean...
This screenshot I have here is what will come up after you click on create a link from the bitly home page and when type in the link you want to change...
In the screenshot, you see three arrows...
(1) The first at the top shoe the original link as created by bitly after you add the link you are trying to change/shorten...
(2) The second arrow points to what I want the link to look like...i.e. instead of the shortened url as shown in arrow one...
(3) The third points to the "create" button, which when I click on it will then create my cloaked link which will look like you see where arrow 2 points to...
My result would look like this:
...bitly/memories
Note that the free version of the bitly tool will NOT allow you to create a modified cloaked link, it will assign a random file name, as what you see at the first arrow of the screenshot...
There are however many options out there you can use for this, many of them free. I use a tracker pixel tool and it will do the same thing for me (this is a paid tool)...
If you do a simple google search you will see some - check them out and see which would work best for you...
In our case, since we are tracking what is happening with our sales campaigns and ads, pages, and websites, the tracking tool works well and the cloaking of links feature is just a plus as part of this tool...
The reasons for using this kind of tool are many...
The links look nicer in many cases, they fit better to the subject or content, they hide affiliate information when you are promoting something, and they create a better impression to the prospects...
To tell you the truth, I do not think you would have to cloak the link for your subdomain unless you wanted to make it look better somehow. You could create a cloaked link and test it with a link that is NOT cloaked to see which gets a better response from prospects, and then go with what works better...
Cheers! Dave
please explain, this "If you did choose to move to this theme, the store that is created will ‘replace’ the website you already have."
Does this mean that you loose your original theme you chose to start with to create your store?
If this is the case, it doesnt matter what initial theme to install WP would be, Right?
In this case what initial theme would be better?
Also, you write:
"You might want to use a subdomain or a separate secondary domain for your shop and create a separate website, then link the two together rather than install the entire theme on your current blog website".
Where can I learn how to do that?
Thanks
Best
Thanks for the questions and let me get you some answers...
When you start a website using a domain and WordPress, the first installation will add automatically a couple of themes that come standard...
After you have uploaded the WooCommerce theme you can activate and then delete the unneeded themes. I would leave at least one so you can switch if you need to...
As you say, it really does not matter. I would likely add a second WooCommerce supported theme so the store would be up and running if you do have problems...
Keep it there as a back-up, it might save you losing down time if something happened with the main theme you use...Also, I would create entire site backups often, daily or more if possible...
On to the next question...How to set up a subdomain here using SiteRubix...There is some training if you check out this tutorial it will help you get it done - this works, by the way, I have set one up here in the past... How to set up a Sub-Domain. Live Walkthrough If you have any problems, just put a support ticket in (I had to as well because I was getting a specific theme set up and it required access from a third party)...The folks will help and quickly!
Cheers!
Dave : )
Thanks for taking the time to create this training, you did an amazing job.
I do have a question, maybe you can help. I already have a Paypal account that was previously setup for personal use. Can I use the same account or do I have to create a Business Paypal Account?
Does it cost anything to setup Paypal Business Account?
I am also not sure if I have to setup a Braintree account also?
Sorry for all the questions.
Thanks for all your help it's much appreciated. :)
Ann & Alex
When you set up your payment routing system you should be able to check it out to make sure it is working properly. PayPal has a sandbox tool where you can test everything to make sure it is working properly...
If you are using another payment system, I would make a test order just to make sure it all is working OK...Maybe have a friend make the order, reimburse them, and you will know...
We used the second method when testing the Thailand operation out, but for Germany, we used the sandbox testing...Both worked well and we had the peace of mind that all was OK...
When you do this testing, you will also see that the email series is working properly (i,e, thank you and order confirmation, shipping confirmation, update messages, support, etc)...
It is all about the customer experience, and this is an important piece of that...We have also added a checkout process plugin, so the clients can see their progress as they go through checkout (we have to activate this after switching themes)...
Best of luck!
Cheers!
Dave : )
Would it make sense using WooCommerce for selling Amazon stuff (as a start, for one site)? This means I would not need its all features, only some of them. Is there possibility to show updated price?
Product descriptions in such sites are usually short, so can one really rank with it? Earlier you replied to me by saying this was the usual SEO.
Are those pages or posts? If pages, there is a limit of pages in ordinary WP site menu (it is 80, know it for sure, I reached the limit once and could not continue, had to convert pages to posts). How is it with WC site?
Thank you in advance. Jovo
Sorry so long to get back to you on your questions, I missed the notification I guess on my email....
I have not tried selling Amazon products using WooCommerce, but I do not see why not...
Here is an article that will give you some insight on options...
https://shopitpress.com/blog/woocommerce-setup/top-3-ways-to-integrate-your-woocommerce-store-with-ebay-and-amazon/
There are add-on plugins that will help you import the data I do know that...I just have not used them (I do not like the commission rates, I know they do build over time and can be significant, but...).
Regarding SEO, yes e-commerce stores typically have short descriptions and the keywords are in the title, the meta description, maybe the tags, and maybe the image information...
Maybe try to link a review article to the WooCommerce product page (not sure if this makes sense over sending directly to Amazon product page), maybe do some testing to see which works better?
On page limits so far no issue at all...We have 140 product pages and these have between a simple product with one item all the way up to 6/7 variations (size or color differences)...
We are in the process of adding an additional 160 items and some of these also have variations (i.e. T-Shirts) so at the end of the day, we will have almost 500 line items...
The other factor with this scenario is that we are adding German translation pages for each item too...That is a work in progress and each dau we are doing 4-5 pages...
With the auto translation tools such as Google Translate that the Chrome browser has, I am not sure this is worth the effort as of now - we will see (we are doing manually ourselves inhouse, after 4 external "experts" screwed the pooch badly for us)...
The WooCommerce product pages are also separate from the normal pages on the theme we use (all we have used to now too), and you manage these separately...There may also be a limit, but so far we have not run up against that (I believe I read somewhere that 500 was the magic number but not positive that is correct)...
I hope this is not too late to make any difference Jovo, and apologize again for taking so long to get back to you!
Cheers!
Dave : )
