SEO, Smart Way for Your Online Store

Written by Muthia Alfiani on November 16, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick - 1 Comment

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization or well-known as SEO, is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. SEO is a web marketing technique that will crawl your web, and then looking at particular site items to get an idea what your site is about. SEO will make the content of your web pages more relevant, more attractive, and more easily read by search engines. It will simply make your site easy-to-find by only type-and-click method.

image by martin.canchola on Flickr

How SEO works?

Just like mentioned in ‘Introduction What Is SEO’, they wrote that SEO works by crawling, indexing, processing, calculating relevancy, and retrieving.
It will simply crawl your web and then identify the words and expressions that best describe the page.
After that, it will assign the page to particular keywords. Then, the SEO finding-results will processed and calculated to listed the site from the most relevant and attractive one to the least. Last, it will retrieve its results on the displays to the browsers.

SEO commonly targets different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines. But of all those search, mainly are based on text.

Why Online Store and E-commerce Site need SEO?

Nowadays, there are many things you can do to improve your site and increase customers of your products. Start from using a Facebook fan page, until making an E-Commerce business site.
And don’t forget, after making an e-commerce business site, you also need to get your site become more easy-to-use and nice-to-see by using themes on your site. It will make people and customers more attracted by your site.
More to see about benefits and best combination to use all these tools and various fancy themes served by Tokokoo.

By using either Facebook fan page, E-commerce business site, or even both, you can simply get your products and your business sold and done in right way.

You may use and package your Facebook fan page and E-Commerce business site in your best way, but still you need your site and page to be more easy-to-find and accessible by people and of course your customers.
So, after all the great combination of tools (the frame, the engine and the case you use for your website and online store), there’s still one more thing you have to pay attention. And that is the SEO itself.

An online store or e-commerce business site certainly depend their business activities on internet and social-media developing. Based on the activities and businesses done all-over the connection, online store and e-commerce business site will make so many movements, changes, and even tell-updated-news on their site.
Over all that things, an online store or e-commerce business site need to be ‘popular’ and easy-to-find to increase their product sells and developing their business activities. And SEO, can help you and your site to get these.

The benefits of SEO for online store

Top Web-Ranking

Simply get find by SEO will give your site more chances and possibilities to be placed on the first page of the search-results.

More accessible for your customers

Knowing the personal data just like phone number, address, or such things, are the basic needs for people to get you and your site known. People will search a simple and quick way to call and reach you. Specially for a-business-purposes website, your site and your business will not stand for long time if there’s not an easy way to reach you and your site.

Increasing traffic into your website

More accessible means more visitors to come in your website. More visitors means new potential customers to get. And more customers means more products could be sold.

So, SEO may not be the only way to rise and develop up your site and business, but it could be your smart way to do a one-click-easy to get new visitors, or even new customers at once.

Facebook Meets WordPress Ecommerce Themes

Facebook. Even with the attendance of Google, you don’t need to google to know what Facebook is. Since Mark Zuckenberg found Facebook in 2004, now it has more than 800 million active users with more than 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages).

Facebook Statistics

Have we got your attention yet?

Let’s take a look on compiled Facebook statistics provided by Social Commerce Today.

2-4% F-store conversion rates – on a par with web-stores (avg. 3.4%, according to Forrester/Shop.org)
Click-through rates on Facebook walls are 6.5%
67% of retailers plan to use Facebook to drive traffic to their e-commerce sites
25%; proportion of users who post links to other companies, products or services
Facebook users spend 1.5x more online that other Internet users
1 in 11 humans that are on Facebook (642 613 700) [Q2 2011]
In 2010, Facebook grew by 7.9 users/second
700 billion minutes are spent on Facebook every month
75% of Facebook users have “liked” a brand
The media value generated by the average Facebook fan is $3.60/year
117%: the additional amount a fan will spend on a brand compared to a non fan
51%: the increase in likelihood a customer will purchase, after clicking the ‘like’ button
76%: percentage of retailers who plan to use Facebook for ‘social commerce’ initiatives
7 out of 10: proportion of digital marketers who have implemented or planning to implement Facebook Like feature

Facebook as Ecommerce Platform For Newbies

Nowadays, Facebook is more than just a social utility. Just like anywhere else where people routinely gather and communicate, creative people called entrepreneurs would sniff the opportunity to promote and sell. I have to admit that there are 20-30 accounts being misused as online store in my Facebook friends list. That is what exactly happening to Facebook these days: sort of becoming an ecommerce platform for newbies.
There is nothing illegal with using Facebook as an online store platform, except that you violate the terms of use. Oh, who cares. Yet why do I say that it is just for newbies?
Because, Facebook probably is a good start to sell products, but it is not the one that you want to live forever with. Let me just break it down for you to get a better picture.

Selling Products via Facebook – Common Practices

After sign up for a new account, a seller would add as many people as possible as friends. On average, Facebook limits this activity up to 25 people/day. To get, let’s say, 500 friends to make your marketing efforts get heard, you’ll need +- 20 days just to get friend-ed. Next, you’ll upload your product pictures. Do not forget that an album can only contain 200 pictures. After they are uploaded, you still have to add description and tag friend for each picture. Your last job is to promote your latest upload by update status as often as possible, or send link to your friends’ wall.
Pretty exhausting, isn’t it?

Another Red Flags To Consider

There are several other limitations of using Facebook account as online store:

There is maximum number of friends.
No statistics report of people who have been visiting your profile from time to time.
No search feature. Imagine if you have hundreds or thousands of products. It must be very tiring for your customers to check each photo album.
You can say good bye to search engine optimization. Until today, there has been no clear sign if Facebook would like to cooperate with Google Search.

The first limitation can be eliminated by using a Facebook fan page instead of account. Yet still, the others cannot.

A Win-win Solution

I’m not saying that you should not use Facebook for business purpose at all. Look at how close you can get to those 800 million active users. Look at the opportunity to build your brand image in relatively cheap way.
Now, imagine if you combine all those advantages with the reliability of having your own ecommerce website.

WordPress Meets WordPress E-Commerce Meets Tokokoo Meets Facebook

WordPress is a free blogging platform that powers more than 25 million sites worldwide whose trend now moves to become ecommerce platform. To use WordPress as ecommerce platform, sure you have to install an ecommerce plugin with tested reliability and high user satisfaction.

WordPress E-Commerce is a free e-commerce plugin provided by GetShopped for selling digital and tangible goods online. The WP e-Commerce Plugin has been proven over and over to be the most powerful, matured, and industry relavant WordPress e-Commerce Plugin in the world. This makes the plugin has steady download statistics even since its early launch. Below is the WPEC download statistics screenshot from WordPress Plugin Directory.

WPEC Awesome Features

There are reasons why Tokokoo endorses WPEC plugin for our themes. WPEC plugin makes it easy to add a WordPress e-Commerce shopping cart to your site whether you sell 10 or 10,000 products. Besides, it is easy to manage even for beginners. The interface is so familiar for WordPress users, so you can save learning time. More of WPEC Awesome Features

Now that you have the frame (WordPress) and engine (Ecommerce Plugin), you need a case to complete your ecommerce site. This case means a theme, something that has closest proximity to your customers. This theme will serve as you, talk as you, and react as you.

Therefore, no ordinary WordPress theme is required. You need a WordPress ecommerce theme with extensive features like Facebook Integration, so you won’t miss any Facebook opportunity previously presented. A theme with responsive layout (adjusts itself when viewed from different devices) also helps a lot, since:

200+ million Facebook users accessing the utility through their mobile devices
94% of phone users will communicate on their handsets via social networks

“Where will I find such theme?”

: Tokokoo WordPress Ecommerce Themes Provider

Try Tokokoo. We produce high quality WordPress ecommerce themes that were born from the marriage of style and purpose. In short, here are a few of our themes that will get you interested:

Responsive WordPress Themes – automatically adjust themselves when viewed from different devices: PC, laptop, iPhone, iPad, smartphones, etc.
Facebook Integration – this feature will connect your ecommerce site with your brand Facebook fan page. By doing this, all products uploaded to your site will automatically being view-able on Facebook. Impress your fans and sell more with the power of WordPress E-commerce.
Facebook Fan Page Example – Kelontong WordPress Ecommerce Theme
…find more at Tokokoo.com/features

Take a quick look to see how Facebook Meets WordPress E-commerce at the theme demo pages, it only takes 3 minutes of your time:

Kelontong Premium
Kelontong WordPress Ecommerce Themes with Facebook Store Tab
Bookoo
Parquet
Appcloud Premium
Disco Premium
Dangdoot Premium
OlahRaga
Kakileema Premium
Bangkoo

Conclusion

Now, imagine what will happen if you build an online store website (on free platform like WordPress), using reliable e-commerce platform, wearing powerful WordPress ecommerce themes, and combine all of those with the Facebook opportunities. Your business will definitely turn into something big!

F-Commerce Infographic credit: AllFacebook.com

Facebook & Business image credit: Sean MacEntee

Responsive Design For Beginners

Written by Shinta Yanirma on October 17, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick - 3 Comments

Meet The New Kid

So, you have been wandering around and heard the responsive design term frequently mentioned. What is responsive design? Many developers say that it is a new phase of web design, just like when the industry moved from table based design to css based design.

Why does people, trigerred by Ethan Marcott, bring up the importance of responsive? Why should it be here now? If we pay attention to smart phones’ rapid growth, we’ll know that computers aren’t the only piece of hardware with a web browser anymore. People want more than just able to view a web in their mobile web browser with mediocre performance. They actually expect more whic makes web design needs to be flexible and adaptable. Hence, the responsive design: what is considered to be a standard for today’s web design. We believe those who ignore this idea are going to be left behind.

7 Most Common Ecommerce Problems

Written by Shinta Yanirma on October 3, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick - No Comments

Ecommerce Isn’t Everything

Ecommerce is not an efficacious remedy for your business. Yes, it is important and can help to expand your geographical customer reach, blah blah blah. But you can’t just set up an online stores, pour your products and services into it, and wait for good things fall down from the sky. Just like another form of business, ecommerce has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The most common ecommerce problems are usually the unrecognized ones. They seem to be just the little disruption at first, yet they are crucial. Never ignore them, because they may mightily influence your sales amount for the upcoming period.

So, have you set your online stores free from these most common ecommerce problems? You know, just in case.

Web Copy For Your Ecommerce Site: Tips & Tricks

Written by Shinta Yanirma on September 19, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick - No Comments

In the ecommerce world, communication is the core requirement to do effective marketing effort. But, what kind of activities best describe the words “marketing effort”? Is marketing effort limited to campaign, advertisement, and special promo? IMHO, those examples of marketing effort are the conventional ones. Paraphrasing Jason Fried’s statement in his book “Rework”, today, marketing should not be a separated department from other functions. Accounting is a department, but marketing is not. Marketing should be in the company’s blood. It can be done in any company activity, by everyone; regardless of what job title he/she has.

Why We Shouldn’t Put Web Copy In Second Place

In the ecommerce world, web copy is one of several ways we communicate to external parties, espescially, customers and visitors (potential customers). This is why web copy is important and should be written in some way. You built an ecommerce site for some purposes, some of them may be:

sell products or services,
widen your customer geographical reach,
………. *insert something else here*.

Whatever your purpose is, you clearly don’t want visitors to just land in your site, wander a few seconds, then navigate away, do you?

The good news is you can prevent this unwanted thing happens. With great web copy, you can even persuade visitors to do what you want them to do (buy your product? be your client?), and build an audience that keep coming back over and over again.

Now, what characteristics should your ecommerce site have to be the closest representation of your company and establish good communication with customers? Keep reading.

Instant, Easy Tips To Be Practiced

For you who already have an ecommerce site, these tips are useful to reevaluate your current web copy. For you who are planning to have one, then these tips are useful to guide you prepare web copy, or to be a benchmark for selecting a freelance writer to do the job for you.

It should be the closest substitute of real talk. Imagine you are talking to your potential customers as you write some words. Imagine how bored you will be when someone is talking to you and all they talk about is themselves. You don’t want to make your site visitors get bored, do you? So use simple and to the point words as in real talk, and remember to use “you” in calling your site visitors.
Interesting user interface layout. Web copy isn’t your school old textbooks. Besides, eyes get tired faster when facing electronics device compared to reading books. This also one of the reasons why visitors barely read the entire content of a page. So, be creative.
Beautifully written web copy is useless unless search engines can find your ecommerce site, it is proven by some research said that +-80% visitors come off after find a site in search engines. So, what to do to be indexed by search engines, espescially Google? Choose the suitable keywords (and repeat it quite often in your posts), insert hyperlinks (it’s better when you link to existing posts on your site), and post regularly are the main successful techniques.
Persuade visitors to do what you want them to do. Firstly, decide the activity flow you want visitors to take. For example, do you want visitors to land on homepage then continue to read your blog, move to product page, and end up buying something? Insert link in each page to persuade them do so. After you’ve done with activity flow, now learn about persuasive post. If you write a post to persuade visitors buying a product, never pass these important concepts: (a) focus on describing what customers will get, not what your product technically offers, (b) tell them what problems they might currently have, and how your product will help solve it.

Hope these little tips help. Do you want to share some other helpful tips? Feel free to leave them on the comment box.

images credit: World of Gopher

Online Stores: Don’t Just Dream, Build One (Part II)

Written by Shinta Yanirma on September 16, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick - No Comments

…before you continue, please first read the “Online Stores: Don’t Just Dream, Build One (Part I)”.

Shopify

Their features include a personal app store, SSL security, unlimited server bandwidth, a custom mobile template and a whole lot more. Shopify is preferable if you have some standard knowledge of HTML and are looking for a fully-accountable staff to back up your new launch

#5 Online Payment Method

PayPal

Everyone must’ve ever heard about PayPal. It is absolutely the leader in online payment service business. Lots of infamous ecommerce websites (e.g. eBay, Amazon, etc) have been using it for years.

Google Checkout

Have many issues with PayPal? Then, you may interested in runner-up service providers who work just as well as PayPal but haven’t attracted enough attention, like Google Checkout. It offers very secure and speedy transaction process. Besides, it is definitely integrated with all Google accounts.

Both PayPal and Google Checkout support solutions for invoicing, though.

#6 It’s All About Traffic!

Google Analytics

All that softwares, ebooks, and blogposts related to the Search Engine Optimization technique actually end in the same point: to generate more traffic and earn more revenue. But how do we know if our online store traffic is increasing or decreasing? Thanks to many analytics service providers out there. I recommend Google Analytics, because it is free yet still come in incredible features like letting you know your most trafficked pages and biggest referring websites. Just like Google Checkout, it is also integrated with all Google accounts

#7 Pick A WordPress Ecommerce Theme

Now that you’ve set up some online store functionalities, it is the time to worry about the appearance. For you that use WordPress free hosting service, feel free to visit Tokokoo Themes Gallery. We have 10+ free and premium WordPress ecommerce themes with unique industry segmentation for each theme, e.g. music, book publishing, furniture, retail, electronics, and apparel industry. But if you look a little closer into Tokokoo Features, you’ll find that our themes are applicable for all industry in general.

Let’s Start!

START - Image by jakeandlindsay

You have the guts, theory, plans, and also a website to start. So, what are you waiting for? Spare some hours and get your online stores known.

Credits: Image by mxtruck

Online Stores: Don’t Just Dream, Build One (Part I)

Written by Shinta Yanirma on September 14, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick - 3 Comments

So, you have been wanting to have some ecommerce business for quite a long time. But you barely have any idea where to start because those ecommerce things seem very complex and confusing. Keep reading. This post will guide you through some easy steps to build your own online stores.

The very first thing you have to do is focus. Instead doing a bunch of work, all at once, try to make a to-do list with continuous little targets to hit. Every time you hit one, you’ll feel better since you’ll feel like a part of your plan is already accomplished thus give more energy to accomplish the next ones.

#1 Build Your Business Idea

Whether it is offline or online stores, it is just a shell. But, you must have a fundamental concept since this will be the ground for your business.

What kind of products will I sell? Are there any competitors in this segment? What is the matching brand name for this business? How should the website’s user interface ideally look? Try to answer these important questions as the start point.

#2 Register A Domain

Now that you have decided your company name and logo, do a little research of what domain service you’d like to use. After you find one, purchase the matching domain name ahead of time to secure your company name and logo.

#3 Pick Web Hosting Service

You can choose between free web hosting service (like WordPress, who now moves from blogging platform to online stores platform and powers more than 25 million sites as of today) or paid web hosting service (like Hostgator and Bluehost that offer average cost of $100-$150/year for unlimited storage and bandwidth).

#4 Hosted Ecommerce Solutions

Here are some answers for your search of hosted ecommerce solutions. If you are not interested in messing around with FTP and programming thingie, then they would be viable options. The tradeoff is, you will lose a lot of customizations opportunity for the gain of added security and personal staff support.

GetShopped

GetShopped is integrated with Google Checkout, PayPal, Payment Express, and many other trusted payment processors. They provide many useful features like to send newsletter to customers, blog online, and market products in Facebook.

To be continued…

Image credit: Gerard Stolk presque 64

Have You Checked Our KBase?

Written by Shinta Yanirma on August 25, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick, Updates, WP Ecommerce Tutorials - No Comments

Experiencing some problems in installing and or customizing our WP ecommerce themes?

Yes? Dear Tokokoo mania, this blog post is dedicated for you.

For all Tokokoo theme users, you are very welcomed to visit Tokokoo KBase (Knowledge Base). We have uploaded many posts relate to WordPress, ecommerce, WP ecommerce themes, plugin setting, upgrade, maintenance… anything that may answer your problems and questions. Recently, we also uploaded some videos from Getshopped related to the WordPress E-Commerce plugin.

Do not hesitate to surf the eight categories we got there:

You might find some posts there helpful.

“Then, what is the use of Support Tickets? Is it no longer available?”

As we promise to give you reliable support for a lifetime, it is still there. We even maximize its use to improve Tokokoo themes for now and the future. The function of Tokokoo KBase is to answer questions that we get, like, plenty times. We think you can handle them faster if you use our knowledge base. You will save more time then if you have to wait for our respond –even if we are here, like, 24/7 for you.

So, yes, Tokokoo KBase is a complement of Support Tickets, not the substitute of it.

How To Use Email Marketing Effectively Instead of Spamming – Part II

Written by Shinta Yanirma on August 18, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick, WP Ecommerce Tutorials - 2 Comments

Tokokoo Unique online store by categories

…have you read the How To Use Email Marketing Effectively Instead of Spamming – part I?

Learn From Other People’s Mistakes

A proverb in my neighborhood says, “It’s only donkey who fell twice in the same hole.” For you who are about to begin using email marketing, don’t do things that had been proven didn’t work. From the facts list above, we learn that there are some forbidden things,

Don’t do email marketing too frequently. Once a week is considered okay, but once every three days? Two days? That’s annoying. Some exceptions work, though. If you are having special event, it is okay to send your subscribers one or two additional emails.
Don’t do repetitive and boring email marketing. Don’t behave like a college sending education publication with the same format from time to time. Keep in mind that your subscribers do not have the obligation to read your emails. So, be creative. Use interesting layout, good-and-approaching words selection… be outstanding!
Do marketing, not spam. If you undertake the #1 and #2 excelently, well, the #3 is done, too.
Don’t do exactly the same as your competitors do. Be recognized.

how to use effective email marketing part ii

"Trash Mail" by Dirk Wegman

Load Your Gun and Shoot

No matter how good your plan is, it will remain a plan forever if you don’t execute it. Just make sure you read our helpful tips and tricks below so you hit the correct targets.

Understand whom you are trying to market to. Without the proper knowledge of the types of customers interested in a business’s products and/or services, marketing tactics fail, no matter the medium.
Put the “Subscribe to Our Newsletter” links on as much pages as possible at your website. Not too catchy, but enough to gain customers interest.
Maximize the social media benefit. Nowadays, who isn’t into social media? Put the Like and Tweet button on your website pages. Be active in both medias, build an audience, e.g. people who would come back checking your accounts everyday and help spreading the words about your products at no cost.
Put attention to the content. Instead of reading a very-ads-alike content, your subscribers must prefer a more-human content. Write the content as if you are telling your bestfriend about your great findings on the web.
If you are currently doing email marketing, don’t forget to analyze the state of the current marketing plan.
Set up your tomorrow email marketing strategies. Evaluate goals periodically to determine whether it’s okay to continue or it’s the time to change direction.

Those are the basic things about doing email marketing campaign. The rest are adjustable, depend on your business’ needs and goals. Good luck!

How To Use Email Marketing Effectively Instead of Spamming – Part I

Written by Shinta Yanirma on August 16, 2011 in Ecommerce Tips and Trick, WP Ecommerce Tutorials - 1 Comment

Let’s take a look on right bottom corner in Tokokoo home page. As a customer, what does snap into your mind when a website offers you to subscribe to their newsletters? Interested, or… kinda allergic that you neglect them by a quick glance? Now, when you act as ecommerce business owner and you are doing, or will soon do, email marketing, of couse you want them to be effective, don’t you? And by effective, it means increasing sales.

Use Two Points of View

To do effective email marketing, we must first think of what our customers want and what the statistics show. Sounds cliche, but it works. How will our sales increase if no one aims to read your ads (which some significant portion is done through email marketing)?

How to use effective email marketing - blender

"Chiller email blender" by Paul Mayne

Listen To The Statistics

You don’t live in utopia (e.g. where every subscribers read your email regardless of the contents), neither do I. That’s why some facts would definitely help you in planning your email marketing strategies. Relax, because we’ve got your back covered.

88% of B2C firms currently use email marketing and another 10% are planning to use it before December 2011.
72% of responding companies reported ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ return of investments for email marketing plans.
54% of people who unsubscribe from permission emails said the reason was due to emails coming too frequently.
49% of people who unsubscribe from permission emails said the reason was because content was repetitive or boring over time.
It should be noted that statistics state that peak hours for social media traffic is from 9am to 3pm, therefore, tweeting or Facebook posting during these hours could yield more results.
Ideally, according to one study conducted in 2011, the best hour to tweet is during the midweek or weekend at 5PM EST. Also, studies have shown that to maximize possible traffic on Facebook, posting at noon on a Saturday would give the best possible visibility.
40% of US and UK internet users said the reason for not regularly opening/reading email marketing messages is that they consider the message to be spam.
55% of mobile phone users with internet access check their email. This also coincides with the statistic that 13.6% of emails are opened on a mobile device or operating system.