Along with your Webport Global membership, having a website that includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features is an important component of your sales channels strategy for increasing exports. You can start with your company site by following a checklist of simple steps that will make your site easier to find and more likely to facilitate a sale. You can easily and inexpensively transform your marketing site into a transactional site that can be integrated with large and specialized e-marketplaces and social media channels.
Once you’ve created your website, you need to help search engines find it on the Internet. This process is called Search Engine Optimization, or S-E-O. Most people create a website for their business before adding an online store to the site. The website is an important first step because it helps create your brand, which may not exist in the countries you’re targeting.
Keep in mind some simple but important things to enhance SEO. They are relevant for B2C, or business to consumer transactions, but also work for B2B, or business to business promotions and sales. Here are a few tips.
- Make it easy for visitors the visitors to find what they are looking for. Use simple declarative sentences, keeping in mind that your international visitors may not be fluent in English.
- Keep the site navigation simple. The last thing you want is for visitors, including search robots, to get lost on your site.
- Consider welcoming the international visitor prominently and telling them that you ship internationally. If you are targeting customers from specific countries mention them.
- If your products qualify under existing free trade agreements, share that information with buyers, indicating that they may save money by paying lower or no duties on qualifying U.S.-made products.
- Make sure to emphasize when products are made in the U.S., and other countries with reputations for high quality, because for many international buyers this fact is important to their purchase decision.
- Indicate that you are delighted to receive inquiries and orders from wholesalers and distributors, as it’s usually more profitable to sell pallets and containers than selling and shipping one item at a time.
- One important element on your site is your contact information. All search engines look for phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
- Describe your product in detail and include lots of product photos, and even video, as many international buyers prefer a lot of information. Spend a little money on getting top quality photos.
- Properly tagged, the photos you take can be found more easily on Google Image searches—another way to attract international buyers to your site. And the more time they spend there, the higher the site will go on search engine rankings.
- Consider including original content, such as a brief company history, testimonials from buyers and even a blog. Write in simple, concise sentences. If you translate product information or other text, make sure the translation is done by a native speaker.
- Rename your website URLs, or individual pages from a string of characters to a name that describes what the visitor is looking for, such as the description of your company.
- Add metatag descriptions to each of the pages on your site; this helps search engines more easily find your site.
- Use existing free online tools to see where visitors are coming from, what they’re looking at, and what they’re doing. This data can help you improve the site to reduce abandoned shopping carts and to more effectively promote the site.
Now you’re ready to take and fulfill orders and to accept payment. You can easily add a digital store to your now global e-commerce website.
Stores are available from many online vendors with different features and price points. Many stores integrate seamlessly with e-commerce and social media platforms, themselves now e-commerce platforms—with you controlling and improving a bigger part of the customer experience.
( Melissa )17 Nov,2017
