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B2B Marketing

Awesome Tips to Increase B2B Leads and Sales in 2022

It can be more complex to secure sales and leads for business to business (B2B) than for business to consumer (B2C). Now, you’re not dealing with individuals who might make impulsive decisions, or that can be easily swayed by strategies that appeal to them personally. You will have to convince a group of people that might not all agree on what’s best for them when selling to businesses.

Even so, a group of people is still susceptible to the same social psychology that affects all of us. You just need to use more sophisticated techniques that include additional factors.

The following article offers 12 tips on how to increase your B2B leads and sales based on different approaches, along with advice on how to implement them.

12 Amazing Tips to Increase B2B Leads and Sales

One common thread you’ll find through these tips is that perception greatly impacts B2B sales. Be it using case studies to show your results or leveraging the power of social media for the same reasons, you’ll find that one of the best ways to increase your B2B leads and sales is by giving people proof of your work or letting them do it for you.

Here is the full list of tips:

1.     Take Advantage of Case Studies

Selling to businesses is different from selling to consumers. The first difference is that multiple parties often make business decisions. To get a resounding yes from everyone, you must prove that your product or service adds value.

If a prospect is debating between two options, it can help tilt the balance in your favor. Case studies are an effective way to prove this. Typically, this type of content is used near the end of the buyer’s journey, during the consideration and early decision stages.

73% of buyers used case studies in their B2B purchasing decisions. Studies show that your product provides distinct value to your clients and that partnering with you would benefit both parties.

Because of this, if you have some successful cases you are proud of, don’t keep them in a folder on your laptop; instead, study them and offer them to your audience. 

Using a case study can help you use an outsider’s point of view in your favor, with 81 percent of people trusting friends or family over a business.

Even if you write it yourself, it’s about how one of your customers achieved a particular result and what they can expect when working with you.

B2B deals are more likely to close when social proof is present.

2.     Align Your Sales and Marketing Teams

marketing teams

Super Office experimented with aligning their sales and marketing teams, and their findings were stunning. When the sales and marketing teams worked together to achieve the same goals, they increased brand awareness, filled their pipeline with more prospects, and, most importantly, increased revenue by 24% in just two years. Wouldn’t it make sense for you to do the same for your teams?

A bad interaction with a sales representative can cause a potential deal to be derailed.

The consequences of someone ignoring or ignoring an email for weeks can quickly devastate your brand’s reputation and revenue targets.

How can you prevent this from happening? Train your team.

Customers buy from people they know, like, and trust. Your salespeople must learn how to build rapport and close sales with tools.

To ensure a successful quarter, include the following in your sales training:

  • How to generate leads and guide them through the buyer’s journey.
  • Tips for overcoming typical obstacles and communicating the results of your brand. Scripts to help people avoid awkward silences and sounding hesitant.

The better your sales crew is trained, the faster you will reach your sales targets. Your overall sales goals will be hampered if your marketing and sales teams are constantly at odds. However, year-over-year growth can increase by 32% when sales and marketing are aligned.

The following tips can help achieve alignment:

  • Work together to create campaigns, content, and ideas. Both teams offer unique and equally useful perspectives on prospects.
  • Lead scoring helps you identify the best leads, then prioritize them.
  • Identify the exact point at which marketing leads to sales to avoid confusion.
  • Establish a clear definition of what constitutes a sales qualified lead versus a qualified marketing lead. Both teams argue about the quality of their leads, and this is one of the most painful parts of their work.

3.     Don’t Ignore the Holidays

B2B revenue can be generated in abundance during the holiday season. If you employ the correct approach, you can take advantage of the consumers’ disposable income during these months.

Below are some ideas to get you started:

  • Make a limited-time offer: Offer a new product, service, or holiday package. Informing your audience that it is only available during the holidays will create a sense of urgency.
  • Offer free shipping or a discount: Take advantage of the mentality of free items to increase sales. Obtaining something for free is a powerful emotional trigger, referred to as the “zero price effect,” which is extremely difficult to resist.
  • Use expiring bonuses: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the perfect time to take advantage of expiring bonuses. Remove one bonus a day to generate a sense of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out).

4.     Create a List of Potential clients

Knowing who you want to target is the best way to increase B2B sales. Your game plan is based on knowing your target audience. You are not making progress without it; you only wish for it.

But who are your best potential clients? You can identify them by answering these questions:

  • Are they large or small companies?
  • What is the annual revenue of their business?
  • Which niche do they serve?

The more specific you are here, the better your chance of increasing B2B sales.

After you have these answers, you can use tools like LinkedIn or Angellist to find companies that match your dream client description.

5.     Make Use of Paid Ads

paid ads

Still not using paid advertisements? Today, with most of the world’s population owning a smartphone and more people online than ever, this is the ideal moment to mine the gold mine through services like Google AdWords.

By focusing on terms your target audience uses to find solutions to the problems you solve, you might improve B2B sales while you sleep.

Here are a few more reasons to register for Google AdWords:

  • Pay-per-click advertisements generate 50% more conversions than organic ones and have a return on investment of 200%.
  • Google advertisements can increase brand recognition by up to 80%.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, B2B paid advertising increased by 83%, with LinkedIn ads leading the pack. Similar results can be found on social media. Among paid distribution channels, social media was the second most effective among paid distribution channels, behind only SEM.

6.     Leverage the Power of Social Selling

This strategy is not intended to increase sales conversions but to establish a solid foundation of long-term business partnerships. Social media does not guarantee that every lead will make it through the sales pipeline.

By building a solid online presence for your B2B business, however, you will develop ongoing connections with your potential customers, which will enable you to engage in more vital conversations, share essential information, and raise the number of loyal customers. It is estimated that recurring customers spend 67% more and make more purchases than first-time clients.

Are you still not convinced? The data speaks for itself:

But what exactly is social selling? It’s the process of identifying and engaging potential clients online.

When you check into Instagram, respond to a DM, or share a LinkedIn article, you deliver value and do social selling. Rather than standard sales approaches, it is a gentler approach, focusing on long-term, true connections.

How can social selling be used?

  • Talk about your transformation, not about features. You should emphasize the outcomes of working with you online when describing your product or service.
  • Social proof influences online purchases, which should be presented with case studies and testimonials. You can use your results to demonstrate that you are the best to your audience and build a stronger know, like, and trust factor.
  • Position your company as the industry authority by answering your prospects’ most pressing questions and guiding them through your marketing funnel.
  • Focus instead on building relationships rather than developing content. Follow potential customers on social media platforms like LinkedIn and interact with their content.

7.     Work on Your Email Marketing Strategy

email marketing strategy

Marketing via email generates $44 for every $1 spent, a 4400% ROI, making it one of the most effective ways to reach out to prospects. Keep your existing clients informed about new features and upgrades in your business with emails (increasing customer retention).

This will also encourage new prospects to buy your products. It’s important to avoid having your emails go into the spam folder when using this channel, as this harms B2B sales conversions.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter crash almost every few years sending influencers, company owners, and users into a tailspin.

The experience is a grim reminder that programs you’ve spent hours creating could disappear at any time.

Thus, you must get your followers on a platform you can manage, such as email marketing. You will not only have constant access to your list (until someone unsubscribes), but you will also be profitable.

Is your subscriber list lacking? The following months can be used to expand one through email opt-ins such as:

  • cheatsheets
  • industry reports
  • e-books
  • checklists

8.     Don’t Neglect Cold Calling

Cold calling is still one of the best ways to convert leads if done effectively, despite popular assumptions. 57% of B2B C-suite and VP-level buyers have preferred cold calls over other channels.

So why does cold calling work? People are social beings, and cold calling is the only channel that provides a personalized, real-time connection between the salesperson and the prospect. Engaging prospects during a cold call will allow you to skyrocket your B2B sales.

However, there is a catch.

Cold calling is only effective when it is done correctly.

Bulk emailing everyone and anybody without a strategy will not produce any results.

What’s the reason?

Nobody enjoys listening to irrelevant pitches. You will earn points with the customer by identifying a problem you can solve and offering a personalized solution.

9.     Use More Video Content

Videos have become an integral part of the B2B sales process for numerous reasons: They are engaging and amusing, have a high ROI, clients prefer watching videos rather than reading about them, and increase a sale’s chances by 1.8 times.

This does not mean you must immediately launch a YouTube channel. You can include short video content in your blog or send short videos to your prospects’ emails. You can even start a webinar course if you are ready to share some of your business expertise.

The video marketing industry has exploded recently, but what are the secrets to its success?

After all, It’s faster to skim a few lines of a blog than to watch a 10-minute video.

Even though videos require a greater time investment, clients prefer them to text, and they offer numerous commercial advantages:

  • 95% of viewers remember video messages.
  • Video increases site traffic and page dwell time.
  • Online customers are 1.8x more likely to convert after watching a sample video.
  • 78.4% of marketers say video content increases revenue.
  • The most influential platform when it comes to customer behavior is YouTube.

With TikTok on the rise, Instagram is fighting hard to gain market share.

The outcome? There is a high interaction rate for Instagram Reels, and the system favors them over photo posts. Instagram has declared itself a video-sharing platform rather than a photo-sharing app.

Incorporating videos into your content marketing strategy and using them to boost B2B sales cannot come at a better time. Consider creating a YouTube channel, a Reels strategy, or embedding videos on your website.

10.    Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Referrals

Word of mouth is the most influential factor in purchasing decisions, even more powerful than interactions with vendors or a company’s website. Due to timidity or lack of expertise, salespeople fail to ask for referrals from customers too often. That’s a huge mistake.

By generating referrals, you can enhance your B2B sales without drawing attention to yourself. Make it a habit to ask for referrals whenever you speak with a consumer.

Customer referrals are vital to every business. There’s no easier way to generate sales.

It is easier to receive a yes from a referral than a cold pitch, where you need to build trust first. Due to a recommendation from a friend, family member, or coworker, the customer already trusts your brand and is more willing to pay for your products.

That’s why influencer marketing is so popular online. Advertisers pay for a content creator’s endorsement and trust with their audience, which has more weight than a random ad in a newspaper.

What are some ways to increase referrals? Create a referral program.

Rewarding your most devoted supporters for doing the hard work for you is generating niche-specific leads that typically lead to sales is important.

11.    Train Your Team

Not everyone is born to be a salesperson. Many of you have probably received terrible sales calls and emails during your career. However, training can make anyone a great salesperson.

Your sales force must have the skills it needs to succeed since people still buy from people. Provide your sales force with the following:

  • Tips for dealing with difficult customers
  • Lead qualification and lead quality improvement strategies
  • A script that salespeople can rely on in times of need

Providing your sales force with the appropriate training is the best way to ensure they are maximizing their sales efforts. You will be more successful if your sales force is better prepared, whether you sell to private clients or customers who make critical business decisions.

12.    Incorporate Chat in Your Sales Channels

Sales Chat is an excellent tool for lowering bounce rates and converting website visitors into warm leads who want to learn more about your products and services.

Whether visitors are exploring your site during the day or browsing your offerings at night, a chat service can ensure that there is always a person or bot ready to assist them.

Through a properly set up and implemented sales chat system, site visitors receive high-quality personalized content and information tailored to their wants, goals, and pain points. This will help your customers be more in tune with your business and prefer your services.

Conclusion

Your best bet is not to follow one strategy but rather to adopt a combination of techniques from the list above. Using chat in your sales channels can easily incorporate referrals into the sales process. And if you are aligning your sales and marketing team’s goals, that would be a great opportunity to train your team on lead-generating techniques further. You can adopt these strategies, or only a few, depending on what you feel works best for you or is easier to implement. Bear in mind that their effectiveness may vary depending on the specific niche of your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

video editing software

Best Free Video Editing Software Choices for 2023

In recent years, video content has become one of the hottest marketing trends. In 2020, 244.4 million people in the US watched videos. As a result, it’s understandable if you want to learn how to make your video content.

However, choosing the right video editing software can be a daunting task with so many options available. A comprehensive review is your best bet.

In this article, you’ll find a list of the best free video editing software programs available today and their pros, cons, pricing, and features.

Quick Overview of the Best Video Editing Software

video editing software

Here’s a quick look at the top video editing software based on what makes them stand out:

Deep Dive into the Top Free Video Editing Software Options

All options on this list provide great video editing capabilities, but each has unique features, such as being better for mobile editing or having more powerful high-definition editing tools. Below are the breakdowns of each option:

Lightworks – Best All-round Desktop Editor

The UI of Lightworks is simple and intuitive, making it easy to learn. Lightworks also includes an extensive library of video tutorials, making it one of the easier to learn Linux video editing software options on this list.

You can use original stock videos and audio clips in any video you edit in Lightworks, adding polish to any marketing video.

Available for

  • Windows
  • Mac
  • Linux

Pricing

  • Free version available
  • Pro: $24.99 per month

Pros

  • A powerful video editor with a variety of export options.
  • You can edit while importing content with speed optimization.

Cons

  • Lightworks may be too advanced for some users.
  • Support for 4K video is only available in the paid version.

Features

  • With speed optimization, you can continue editing while importing new content. 
  • Quick and accurate video editing with high-quality trimming functions
  • You can synchronize clips from multiple cameras with multi-cam editing.
  • Easy video sharing with quick exports to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and Instagram.
  • 4K video compatibility for a variety of video formats.
  • Team collaboration in real-time with complete control over who can edit.

Adobe Premiere Rush – Best for Basic Mobile Video Editing

adobe premiere rush

Anyone looking for a way to create rapid video logs on their phone without spending a dime can use Adobe Premiere Rush. Creators can easily create engaging video content to increase their social media following.

Besides changing the video speed and sound effects, you can add special effects, overlays, texts, and transitions to your movies. Additionally, the presets can easily save and share videos to YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram.

One disadvantage is that it may be too basic for advanced video editors. Although Adobe Premiere Rush doesn’t have as many advanced features as some free video editing tools on this list, it can overlay text and images, add light effects, and fine-tune colors.

Available for

  • Mac
  • Windows

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

  • User-friendly
  • Support for Adobe Creative Cloud.

Cons

  • Some basic functions are missing, such as the ability to rotate clips.

Features

  • Online storage of 100GB (upgradeable to 10TB)
  • You can add transitions by clicking and dragging.
  • There are templates for adding and modifying polished titles.
  • Using presets, you can quickly create video files targeted for various platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, and then post them directly from the app.

Hitfilm Express – Best for Effects and Youtube Vlogs

It may initially seem complicated since it’s used to create Hollywood-style films, but it’s one of the best free video editors available. 

With HitFilm’s animation tools, you can design and edit audio and video transitions without using composite shots, saving significant amounts of time during editing. As well as 3D effects for movies, music videos, and YouTube videos, it features tools and options found in premium video editing software, such as 360-degree editing, 4K video, and special effects.

Note that HitFilm will require you to share your social network status update when you download the software, but it’s only a small inconvenience.

Available for

  • Mac
  • Windows

Pricing

  • Free version available
  • Pro: $349

Pros

  • An affordable video editor with true professional capabilities.

Cons

  • Getting used to the interface can take a little while.

Features

  • There are three transition options: push, zoom, and dissolve.
  • A professional video editor with motion tracking, color selectors, and cropping tools.
  • Unsteady footage can be smoothed out using an auto-stabilizer.
  • The ability to animate two independent shots together for bizarre video effects has been added to composite shots.
  • Using this adaptive trimmer, you can re-cut clips after they have been added to the timeline.
  • You can create as many videos and audio timeline tracks as you want.
  • Mixer for fine-tuning audio for high-quality output.
  • You can copy the properties from one clip and apply them to another or an entire project.

DaVinci Resolve: Best for Advanced Projects and Color Correction

davinci resolve

Many professional film editors, television shows, and commercials use DaVinci Resolve because it combines quality 8K editing, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production into a single product package.

DaVinci allows you to edit both online and offline. Plus, it can save an incredible amount of time editing and trimming thanks to its high-performance playback engine, even when working with processor-intensive file formats like H.264 and RAW. DaVinci Resolve’s complicated capabilities may be too much for some users, but the free version is great for more advanced projects.

Available for

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux

Pricing

  • Free option available
  • Studio: $269

Pros

  • Easy-to-use interface.
  • Amazing color correction.

Cons

  • Because of its many features, it can be a little overwhelming
  • Some tutorials are not free.

Features

  • With dual timelines, you can navigate, cut, and trim faster.
  • Use motion estimation speed adjustments and frame rate conversions to rapidly and convincingly speed up or slow down clips.
  • Sync your video and audio clips with intelligent auto-editing
  • Face detection automatically recognizes faces in your films and creates bins based on the persons in each shot.
  • The ability to edit in minute detail using a separate trim interface
  • Built-in tools for retiming, picture-in-picture effects, dynamic zoom, stabilization, text, and audio
  • All of these features are built-in: picture-in-picture effects, retiming, stabilization, dynamic zooming, text, and audio.

VSDC Free Video Editor – Best for Windows Users

Video editing software from VSDC is available in free and premium versions without watermarks. This free version includes VSDC’s full video editing options, including chroma key functionality for green-screen effects and a mask tool.

You will get slideshow/presentation capabilities, powerful post-production effects, video stabilization, direct social media sharing, and 3D diagram templates by upgrading to the full version.

Available for

  • Windows

Pricing

  • Free version available
  • Pro: $19.99

Pros

  • The app has powerful features, including filters similar to those on Instagram.

Cons

  • There is no free technical support
  • Only available for Windows.

Features

  • No watermarks are present.
  • Color-correction software is used to make the image look more professional
  • There is a broad range of transitory effects
  • Image filters similar to Instagram, with an easy-to-use interface
  • Use masks to hide, blur, or highlight specific elements
  • Video sharing link for Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Vimeo
  • For processing HD and 4K content, HEVC/H.265 offers the lowest file size and highest quality.

OpenShot For Beginners

OpenShot’s user interface makes it an excellent video editing tool for intermediate editors. OpenShot’s straightforward interface and simplistic style make it ideal for basic editing, even if more complex applications may have more features.

Small businesses prefer OpenShot because it allows them to resize, scale, trim, snap, and rotate clips. There is also frame stepping, credit scrolling, audio editing, time mapping, and real-time preview available.

Available for

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

  • The source code is open
  • A limitless number of layers

Cons

  • There are few video tutorials.

Features

  • Key-frame animation capabilities for making animated videos
  • The number of layers available for watermarks, backdrop videos, and audio tracks is unlimited.
  • Adding audio, video, and image files is as easy as dragging and dropping
  • Title card templates that can be customized
  • Digital video effects such as brightness, gamma, hue, greyscale, and chroma key compositing are used for green-screen effects.

Shotcut: Best for high-quality projects

Open-source, cross-platform video editor Shotcut has an extensive library of instructional videos and supports formats such as 4K, FFmpeg, DNxHD, and ProRes. There is one caution: Shotcut was originally designed for Linux, so the user interface may seem strange. It is a fantastic editor.

Also, Shotcut offers a wide range of audio editing capabilities, making it a great tool for audiophiles. Users can adjust the bass and treble, create bandpass filters, alter gain, apply dynamic compression, and more with its collection of audio fine-tuning tools.

Available for

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

  • The timeline can be edited natively.
  • Support for 4K resolution.

Cons

  • Some users may find the quirky interface off-putting.

Features

  • Support for AV1 encoding and decoding
  • FFmpeg, the leading multimedia framework, supports the latest audio and video format.
  • Multiformat timeline allows users to mix and match resolutions and frame-rates within a project
  • Video files can be imported directly into a project file instead of a media library, which enables native timeline editing
  • Audio filters such as balance, bass, and treble, as well as bandpass filters, compressors, and more

Blender Best for 3D Animation

blender video editing

Using Blender video editing, you can make 3D models for free. The program offers tools for modeling and rendering 3D animations. Blender’s software is desirable and has a diverse set of tools and a large user base. Hundreds of developers from all over the world developed the program together.

Blender includes a capable video editor that should meet the needs of most users in addition to being a 3D animation suite. This software simplifies video editing for novices and professionals and can mask video, making it an excellent choice for challenging 3D animation projects.

Available for

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

  • Users who want sophisticated editing tools will love this program.

Cons

  • It’s hard to learn because there are so many features.
  • The majority of the tutorials focus on 3D animation/modeling. 

Features

  • Faster saving and exporting of your project with advanced rendering processes
  • Animated objects rendered with path-tracing engine
  • An extensive library of visual effects and vignettes
  • Possesses advanced character animation tools for realistic kinematics
  • Ability to code game logic into the software for video game development

iMovie Best for Mac Users Getting Started

imovie

Apple’s Mac OS includes the popular iMovie application. IMovie, like many native Apple products, is straightforward and uses a drag-and-drop interface to transfer files from your storage to your computer. It is a simple method to create powerful videos to help you market on YouTube.

iMovie files are stored on Apple’s cloud, allowing you to edit them on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Furthermore, iMovie is continually updated, so new features and enhancements are always available.

Available for

  • Mac

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

  • Easy to understand

Cons

  • It can take some time to import and render.
  • The features may seem a little limited to advanced users

Features

  • With speed controls, you can speed up high-octane action scenes and slow down sports highlights
  • Users can create films of cinematic quality with 4K resolution
  • Consolidated sound and picture editing with built-in music, sound effects, and voice-over recording
  • Hundreds of studio-quality title animations for professional-looking credits
  • Stylish, contemporary video filters designed to fit specific film genres, such as Westerns and sci-fi
  • Work on the same project from your iPad, iPhone, and Mac with cloud storage

Vimeo Create – Vimeo Account Owners

Create beautiful eCommerce videos of your existing product photos and text with Vimeo Create, a free editing tool directly integrated with your Shopify store. Using Vimeo Create is easy.

Enter a few details about your product, upload your video and logo, and choose style customizations. With Vimeo Create AI software, you can edit your video in minutes (though you can also select your preferred styles or start from scratch). The AI software also suggests colors, themes, music, and typefaces.

It is very useful for making large-scale videos (e.g., starting a channel for your business on YouTube to make money and streamlining the creation process). YouTube has over 200 million users, and Vimeo has over 100 million users. Vimeo is a one-stop-shop, which allows you to manage, host, and distribute all of your films from one location, optimizing your workflow.

Available for

  • iOS
  • Android

Pricing

  • Free option available
  • Pro and Business: start at $7.00 per month

Pros

  • Integration with Shopify

Cons

  • You can only use videos on the channel of the account that created them

Features

  • You can choose from a library of commercially licensed music
  • Face recognition, filters, effects, and auto-cropping
  • There are more than 1,000 templates to choose from
  • Ability to auto-edit professionally
  • With iStock integration, you have access to unlimited high-quality stock images
  • The ability to share videos across marketing channels

KineMaster – Best for Fast, High-Quality Videos

kinemaster

You can use KineMaster as your go-to software if you’re a mobile video editor. A free version of this advanced video editing program for mobile devices is available (the subscription model is optional). With KineMaster, you can record footage, edit it, and upload it all from your smartphone or tablet. By sacrificing superior functionality to make video creation easier, KineMaster does the opposite of what other mobile editors do.

You can easily clip, splice, trim, and combine films with KineMaster’s 2,500 transitions and effects. Correct and enhance videos with color filters and adjustments. Once you’re done, you can share them instantly on YouTube, TikTok, Reels, Stories, and more.

Available for

  • iOS
  • Android
  • Chromebook

Pricing

  • Free option available
  • Paid plan: $3.99 per month

Pros

  • A variety of fonts and effects are available.
  • Blending options are available.

Cons

  • Importing clips can sometimes be a pain.

Features

  • Edit and export 4K videos at 60 frames per second
  • Download effects, music, stickers, fonts, and more from the Asset Store
  • Create artistic video effects with eight blending options 
  • Keeping video projects safe requires backup and sharing capabilities
  • Focus shifts, in-camera transitions, and other edits are easy with the reverse tool

Conclusion

Choosing the best video editing software depends on what you want to accomplish. You may prefer Kinemaster or Vimeo if you can use your phone or tablet. If you’re looking for a robust editor with professional capabilities, Hitfilm Express or Davinci Resolve are better choices. Depending on your level of knowledge, each option might be manageable or too complicated for you.

Regardless of your choice, you can rest assured that the options above cover all video editing needs.

niche markets

Top Niche Markets With Unexplored Business Potential

Every startup business blog advises you to target a niche market when starting your business. Simple observations of the world around you will give you the niche that suits you best. Let’s look at how you can find the best niche that suits your area and needs.

What is Niche Marketing?

niche marketing

Niche Marketing is finding a small segment of an existing market and targeting that specifically to exclude all other influences. The niche market features selected define the product or service that you supply. This way, you become the go-to specialist in that area or service, and you can grow your business off that base. With a niche market to target, you aren’t taking a shotgun approach and hoping to hit a customer. You are homing in on those most interested in your product or service.

How do you define your niche market?

There are several ways to look at a market and segment it to find your niche audience.

The Price/Quality Matrix: Are your prices lower with a cheaper quality or lower price with better quality than others in the market?  Is your product of such a premium quality to the competition that you can charge more?  Even better, is your product the only one available?

Demographics: Are you targeting the older generations, millennials, married couples, families, or children?  Or an alternative group?

Interests or Attitudes:  Will you target a group with a specific interest or who has a targeted outlook or belief on the world around them?

Geography: Is your niche only in your neighborhood or town or over a wider area?

Once you have taken a deep dive into these areas, you can determine the niche for your product or service and target that specifically.  And be mindful that your niche may cover two of these categories!

Your niche product or service should ideally solve a need or provide a benefit to the niche market you have selected.

By being specific, you can reduce advertising and marketing costs by building from a focused base and expanding your business.

What is your niche worth?

Sell the products or provide the services that people want.

Your niche business beginnings aren’t aiming to be the largest marketplace in the world – you need a small set of customers with a specific need to start.  Remember that if you have 500 loyal customers that spend just $20 per month with you, that is $10,000 in revenue per month.

Isn’t that a great starting point?

Which Niche has the Most Unexplored Business Potential?

business potential

There are niche opportunities in nearly every market that you look at around you.  Examples of a niche market exist in segments like books, smartphone accessories, fitness, homeowners, and specific demographic communities you are familiar with in your neighborhood and city.

The best niches?

As with any marketing strategy, you are providing a solution to a problem that someone has.

You will get the business if your solution is better than your competitors.

There are two groups of people that are the best targets for your niche: people who have a disposable income to spend on things that make them happy; and people who are so fanatical about something that they are constantly spending their money on the pursuit of their interests.

Find your market niche.

In the future, we predict a growth in the way consumers look at the world around them, and those areas are the niche markets with the best-unexplored business potential.

Saving the planet.

Consider the movement to better the planet – the Eco-friendly consumer and those living consciously for the betterment of the environment.

This group is so passionate about how they are living their lives and the impact that it is having on the planet that they will pay a premium price for a product that offers an environmental benefit to the planet, not necessarily just buy the cheapest item.

They form an emotional engagement with the product where the benefits to the wider community outweigh the small additional cost that their wallet may endure.

They will purchase based on the renewability or recyclability of the item, not just on the lowest ticket price. This makes them an excellent niche target for your product or service if it delivers a benefit they see value in.

The nature of your product or service could be biodegradable, compostable, or some other new way that we can return what we use as consumers to the planet to be reborn in another form.

When you provide the market with a product or service that delivers these tangible benefits, this group will beat a path to your door to spend money with you.  They will probably be lifelong clients as they believe in the benefits you provide to the planet.

Renewable Energy

Like our first group that encompasses all aspects of the planet we all live on, the drive to renewable energy is focused on saving the planet by, firstly, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels that pollute our environment and, secondly giving us a source of energy that will last us and our children and our children’s children long into the future.

The potential markets in new sources of renewable energy or the tools and systems by which we acquire and consume renewable energy are limitless.  And your niche may be created by inventing a new energy source that all of humanity can benefit from.

If your niche is another way to acquire a renewable energy source or a special way that renewable energy can be used when you have a niche that will grow even bigger over time as people want to reduce their reliance on oil.

This segment won’t be a price-sensitive market and has huge potential to develop from a niche market when it joins with other large-scale providers, distributors, or energy users.

Pets

Pet ownership is increasing worldwide as we all seek comfort and companionship in our homes and lives. Pet owners are another demographic that dotes over their dog, cat, bird, or fish and will spend ongoing amounts to keep their pet fed, happy, and healthy.

While many believe this is a crowded market, there are niche ways still to be found that pet owners believe will solve a problem for their fur babies.

Potential niches for pets can include natural pet foods and natural solutions to ticks, fleas, and other pests.  Another growth area is innovation in combining traditional collars and leads with technology like GPS trackers.  We are already seeing CCTV technology integrated into pet monitoring cameras and automated feeding systems.

Anything that helps integrate their pets into the owners’ lives is a niche market product or service they will happily subscribe to.

Wellness

Personal wellness products and services are a niche that is growing with people wanting to escape from the stresses of modern life.

Examples that currently exist in this market are candles, perfumes, and oils; vitamin and skincare supplements; and healthy eating products.

As part of people’s desire to care for their environment around them, they are looking at their internal environment care as well.

The wellness area includes holistic services like nutrition, alternative medicines, and preventative care. Plus, more personally involved activities like Yoga, Mindfulness, and Meditation. We already see the integration of wellness services and products into environments like co-working spaces and traditional offices, so this trend toward a holistic wellness overview in people’s lives doesn’t just exist at the home level.

Will technological advances move into or out of the personal wellness space?  Some say that devices like activity trackers and smart devices improve our well-being, while other schools of thought say they cause many problems.

Either way, the increasing stresses modern life and technology place on people’s lives will continue to make personal wellness at the forefront of many people’s minds.  The opportunities for new wellness techniques and solutions are limitless.

How do you tap into that Niche?

When determining your niche isn’t front of mind, there are some tools you can use to distill down an idea, thought, or segment to pinpoint the market niche that you want to target.

You can start simply by searching Google or your favorite search engine for your topic and see what results are returned. This will give you an idea of what exists locally for you in your chosen niche market.  It will also show how others in the market present and market in your niche area.

If your search returns hundreds of competitors for your idea, you aren’t niche enough!

 You can also utilize Google’s search suggestions.  Simply type your niche in the search box and read the suggested search list.  This reflects the most common similar searches people have conducted on Google and can help with long-tail keywords that will assist with making your niche even more targeted.

Keyword Research.

big data word cloud

Many great tools are available on the internet, like the Google Keyword Planner Tool within the Google Ads platform.  You will need an account, but it’s free to use.

This will allow you to enter a key phrase and see related key phrases that people search for.  The biggest benefit is that it shows you search volumes for the phrase in the geographical market area that you select so you can determine which are the most popular searches and which Google users rarely search for.

If a keyword’s search volume is low, it may indicate a low demand for that product or service, or it could be that the public isn’t aware of your niche solution!

It also shows related searches which can lead you in the direction of your market niche through the popularity of what your existing market is searching for.

Google Trends.

The Google trends platform allows you to track the number of searches on a topic over time.

Enter your keywords, then select the time range you want to investigate, and it will show you a chart that will help you understand keyword search data over time. This trend can be an ongoing rise or fall over time or a seasonal search trend.

Where there is a seasonality to search volumes, this can assist in helping to plan the timing for product launches and ensure your marketing dollar is spent at the right time of year.

It also shows related topics at the bottom if you want to investigate other close keywords to your niche market idea.

More research

These tools can also assist you when your niche idea involves a word that you use commonly but analyzing the search data reveals that most people call it an alternative name.

You can also spend some time in communities online following hash-tags on social media or looking at active communities on subreddits and then listening to what they are discussing.  This can give you a great sense of what the community feels about your niche area, but only with people using that online platform!

Evaluating the competition.

Once you have established the validity of your niche, you need to evaluate what competition is in the market.

Is this competition better than you on a price, quality, or service basis?  How will your offer improve over what they bring to the market?

If you have honed your niche to the finest point, you should have little competition in the market.

Of course, if your product is a true blue ocean product, then you won’t have any competition in the market and can set your price point based on what you believe the market will pay for your product or service.

What are your Niche Next Steps?

You have now selected your niche, evaluated the potential demand, and found the solution to meet your market demand.

Go back to a fundamental of marketing that has been around since the 1950s – the 4P’s.

Product: Have you determined the product or service that fits your selected niche?

Price: Have you priced your niche product or service in the market?  Have you evaluated single buy pricing, multiple buy pricing, and trade or distributor pricing?

Promotion: Have you determined your niche customers and how you will reach them?

Place: Where will your niche good or service be available?

Once you have determined these factors, you can start testing your niche with people you know or experts in the potential market that you are targeting.  While their feedback can be important to your journey, don’t let skeptical friends or family influence your direction.

If your niche product or service is in the right market, you may want to look to social media influencers to review or be seen with or around your product or service.

Once you have your first orders, solicit feedback from your first customers. Include this in your marketing plan to ensure they are happy with the product or service and where they may see areas of improvement.

If the product suits, start building a community on a suitable online platform or social media site to start and attract potential customers in your target market.  This can also assist with creating a buzz around your product.

Make sure you have a credit card payment method if you use an online platform or shopping portal to start selling your products online.

Next Steps

Set small goals to drive your niche in the direction you have planned.

Make sure they are SMART Goals

  • Simple
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound

Once your niche starts to flourish, look at a similar niche next to it and grow that niche.

How many more niche markets have unexplored potential?

As outlined above, many niche markets exist.  These exist in plain sight in our everyday lives.

Some of these niche markets are full of competitors competing over a small space already.

One of the main drivers in new niche discoveries appears to be technology, but the technology doesn’t drive the niche demand.  Instead, the modern entrepreneur will look at a small niche market with a need to be solved and then at how technology can deliver a solution to that need.

Technology is the solution to the need, not the change’s driver. Following this methodology framework, we will always have additional niche markets with unexplored potential; you only need to identify them.

e commerce store

15 Hot Trending Products to Sell in Your E-Commerce Store [2023 Update]

Driving sales in your eCommerce store is about what is popular. The easiest method to drive sales is to offer the trending products that people want to buy.

These are 15 of the hottest product categories you can offer your customers on your eCommerce site in 2022 that will drive sales and repeat customers.

What Are the Products Trending Online?

You need to include trending products that fit into your eCommerce store vertical when selling products online. Including trending products in your product mix strategy ensures that you provide what consumers want when shopping online.

Some of the current trending product category ideas are:

Printed Books and eBooks

ebooks

Many people find joy and relaxation in reading a book.  Whether it’s a physical book or an electronic version, books are a popular category that will continue to sell. Digital books continue to grow in popularity for their convenience and the number you can carry in one device.

However, most readers are still enjoying the tactile nature of having a paperback book to hold in their hands while reading. The opportunity to share a story with a friend or loved one by sharing the book after they have finished reading it is another, more social reason for the continuing popularity of the printed book.

Most avid readers are open to new opportunities in the genres they enjoy, so consider integrating reviews and recommendations into your eCommerce store to get readers into a new author or series you have in your store. Printed books are popular with drop shipping websites, while eBooks can be sold as digital downloads to the right eReader format, so no physical stock is required.

Vinyl LPs and CDs

The growing trend to the nuances and greater depth of sound in an analog music reproduction has increased interest in Vinyl LP records and CDs.

There is also a story-telling element that people are searching for with a vinyl LP or CD where the cover artwork and liner stories are part of the overall enjoyment of the album, as the artist intended it, so make sure you include details of these extra experiences in your online store product description.

In many cases, the cover artwork experience with an entire album drives LP sales over digital downloads of a single track.

The trend is moving away from the flat sound of digital music to the joy of analog vinyl records.  Adding these products to popular artist categories greatly drives online inquiries.

Belt Buckles

belt buckles

Many men (and women) consider the buckle on their belt useful for holding their pants up and a true part of their outfit; the opportunity to provide a variety of belt buckles to match the style of their outfit or occasion is a great eCommerce store addition.

Belt buckles can be an eCommerce store winner as most people have more than one belt, and some have more than one buckle per belt.

Belt buckles can also be a collectible item.

You might offer themed buckles, Western belt buckles, or logo belt buckles in your consumers’ favorite brand. Also, consider custom-made belt buckles for men and women.

These categories can also lead to sales in other verticals like hats and boots.

Also include not only leather belts in your range but a selection of cloth and canvas belts.

Play Vehicles

For kids of all ages, play vehicles can be everyday toys or collector’s items for the display case.

Remember to market your kid’s range to the parents and your collectibles to the fans of the major franchises. Adult collectors are major purchasers of branded franchise play vehicles and accessories. You can range from generic unbranded items to following the trends in the latest action figures from movies and TV series.

This category includes stationary vehicles, remote control cars, trucks, boats, and planes, as well as road sets and racetracks.  They can be made from plastic for lower-end products to die-cast models for collectors.

You can enhance your product range with a full range of accessories, sticker kits, chargers, storage options, and display cases in your offer.

A strong driver in this category can be the desire to relive the memories and experiences of childhood for the collectors.

Smartphone Accessories

smartphone accessories

While it once was just a phone we could carry around in our pocket, the smartphone has become so much more in our modern world.  It’s now an extension of our everyday lives that needs accessories so we can personalize it how we like best.

This is a great opportunity to provide a unique offer in accessories that enhance the user’s experience with their phone and extend its functionality.

Users want to personalize their phone with a case design that’s a unique pattern or leverage off their favorite trending brands and characters.  Also, consider the durability and protection benefits of hard, silicon, and flip cases.

With the increasing quality and functionality of the camera in today’s phones, a whole range of new accessories is coming to the forefront, like a clip-on smartphone lens.  The growth of vlogging sees an increase in demand for ring lights, phone holders, small tripods, selfie sticks, and gimbals.

Wireless chargers and power banks allow your consumer to cut themselves free from cords.

Dinnerware

When your offer is more than the pure utilitarian use of dinnerware, you can attract clients who want something special on the table for dinner.

Your offer may include enhancements to their tablescape that include modern, rustic, farmhouse, vintage, or classic styles with a full range of plate sizes and accessories.

There is a growing market in vintage designs, so consider reselling classic settings you can source from yard sales or markets.  You may also want to include a unique custom design and print service.

Apart from a range of plates, also consider table suitable service dishes, sauce and gravy boats, and meat platters.

When selling products in this category can be enhanced with other accessories like napkin holders, pot mats, and the addition of cutlery.

Pet Carriers

pet carriers

Every pet lover will buy something special for their pet.  So, when they want to take their pet with them, you have the product to assist!

From a basic cage-style carrier to a more luxurious padded penthouse on the move, you can offer a carrier solution for every budget and every pet.

Categories can cover car pet carriers, pet backpacks, and airline-approved carriers.  Carriers can be for dogs or cats, depending on the size.

Additional products trending in this market are dog and cat leads and collars.  Leads and accessories can include solutions for walking and restraining your pet while in the vehicle.

Car seat protection blankets for pets are another popular add-on sale to the pet portfolio.

Cables

Even with the recent growth of wireless phone charging systems, consumers still need cables.

Many generic cables can be purchased from local hardware or electrical stores, but a premium quality cable with quality connectors will always attract a premium price and are attractive to the discerning consumer.  Additional features like a multiple color offer, braided cables, or magnetic connectors will enhance your offer and the price point.

When you position your cable solution with a unique selling point and product quality offer, you will be able to make this one of the trending products of the year.

While the growth in USB-C connected devices is growing, consider more standard cables like Ethernet Cables and the family of HDMI cables for entertainment systems and computers.

With the increasing use of mobile devices, a quality range of hardwearing, durable cables will increase in popularity with their ability to withstand being moved around.

Mouse Pads

mouse pads

Nearly every user uses a mouse as a preference on a laptop or desktop computer.

With more people working from home, they want to personalize their space – and maybe occasionally revamp the décor to brighten their day.

A new mouse pad can be an inexpensive boost that brightens their day.

Your offer may include a built-in charger, a larger size, or natural materials.  Also, consider a custom design or custom printed mouse pad service for a truly personalized offer.

And best of all, the mouse pads will get used and eventually require replacement, so there is an opportunity for a high level of repeat sales in this category.

Home Office Accessories

Once again, a great niche for those working from home either due to company policy or being forced to isolate themselves.

Don’t underestimate the demand in this area as home office workers realize that their home office set-up isn’t suitable for 8 hours of work.

Consumers need to be comfortable working from home, so items like a footrest or a portable sit/stand desk are a great way to turn an in-house space into an office space.

Ergonomic chairs also make a great replacement for the dining chair and can be offered in a wide variety of styles and colors, and they can be shipped in a box for on-site consumer assembly.  A durable floor mat may also be required to protect the home carpet from wear.

For a smaller niche, consider monitor arms to get the monitor to the right location or adjustable laptop stands that sit on the desk or on a flexible arm.

And don’t forget the little things!  A range of pens and pencils from cheap to ultra-stylish can enhance your store range, as can some cute pen or note holders to enhance the home office space.

Craft Kits

Many people get great satisfaction from doing crafts at home.  You can offer a range of craft kits, yarn bundles, craft tools, and other bits and bobs for people who are into knitting, crocheting, or sewing in their spare time.

The individual craft items may be a low-value sale when selling products online, but putting all of the required items for a project together in a kit can increase your dollar value per sale.

A Kit is a great way to increase sales in this trending product category as it combines all the elements the consumer needs to complete a project in one sale.

Also, consider patterns and design ideas to inspire your customer with new project ideas and give them the outline to follow to complete the project. Completed projects are a great visual product that is easy to promote on social media like Instagram or Pinterest and appeals to all ages.

Facial Tools

facial tools

Everyone likes to look their best.  A range of self-care, cosmetics, and facial tools is a great offer to help your consumer keep on top of their appearance.

This covers not only improving appearance but also caring for the health of our skin. Think of cosmetics, face creams, and face massage rollers, to name but a few. False eyelashes, applicators, and grooming tools are another popular part of this category.

Although this category can be crowded, the uniqueness of your offer and the efficacy of your product can be great sales drivers.The opportunity for repeat sales is increased with many products in this category being your proprietary brand. This category can be marketed well with online tutorials on using the product(s).

Home Workout Equipment

This category is more than just large format expensive gym equipment.  Consider a personalized offer in areas like Yoga Mats, Dumbbells, or exercise balls that your consumer can use in the comfort of their own home without taking up much space.

Trending colors and styles can make your customer stand out in the Gym or Yoga Studio – not everyone wants a boring-colored mat!

You can cover stretching and well-being or weight training and muscle building.

There is also the opportunity to create a unique market with your proprietary exercise machine that exercises only one part of the customers’ body, like their abs.

Watches

watches

Watches are a popular segment as they are both functional and stylish.  Consider offering watch solutions for work, play, casual entertaining, or a formal occasion.

Men and Women will often wear a watch as an accessory to suit their outfit or the occasion, so include a range of styles from traditional, analog, digital faces, and even smartwatches with customizable faces. Watches can be simple, functional devices or designer jewelry pieces; that is where the opportunity lies for the entrepreneurial eCommerce watch provider.

Emerging categories like kids’ tracking watches equipped with GPS and communication tools to keep the parents happy that their child is safe and connected are also a great niche.

Temporary Tattoos

Temporary tattoos are generally henna-based tattoos that fade after one to two weeks as your skin regenerates.

You can provide a range of temporary tattoos that are inexpensive, easy to use, and aren’t a permanent life choice for your customer.

They can be a logo or insignia for an event or a more decorative cultural design intended to enhance the hand, arm, leg, or face to which it is applied. There are many choices to offer your consumer with a huge range of styles to choose from in standard and custom designs.

This category is very visual, so promoting on visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest makes your marketing easier.

Selling Trending Products Online

ecommerce store trends

You’ve established your online eCommerce store to satisfy a market need.Your store will always have a core range of products that are the basis of most of the sales and may change only slowly over time.

Continuously evaluating trending products in your market niche is required to ensure your competitors don’t leave behind your store.  You need to be constantly evaluating what sells and what doesn’t.

Slow stock that isn’t driving sales or inquiries to the online store isn’t delivering you growth.  The store must be abreast of the latest styles, colors, trends, and even new products.

By taking the opportunity to regularly evaluate what the current hot trending products to sell in your market category are, you ensure that your store is going to be at the top of Google searches and your customers’ minds.

Trending Products Drive Product Inquiries and Sales

When your product offer is aligned to what your consumer wants, you will see an increase in inquiries, leads, and sales. Your checkout experience is an important part of your customers’ overall eCommerce store experience, so when you are selling products online, ensure your payment processing solution at your checkout fits your business needs with HMS.

ecommerce store

A Guide to Starting an eCommerce Store

Have you always wanted to start an eCommerce store but not known where to start?

This guide will give you some of the tools you will need to get your very own online store up on the world wide web.

Let’s cover some of the things you will need to start your own eCommerce business online.

How To Start an eCommerce Business

An online eCommerce business can be a project that you can start from the comfort of your own home, or it could be an extension of an existing real-world business that you already have running.

Either way, it can be a simple enterprise that you can create and grow or a complicated task involving a large team.

You can target business-based markets that are:

  • B2B: A business that sells supplies or services to other businesses
  • B2C: A business that sells supplies or services to consumers

Or as a single operator business your markets could be:

  • C2C: Supplying goods or services to other consumers
  • C2B: supplying goods or services to businesses.

Which type of business you are in will be determined by your skills and the market that you want to serve.

start an ecommerce business

Choose a Product You Want to Sell

If you have an interest in a product segment or service, then convincing customers about your passion for the product and what it will do for them is a lot easier.

Your online business could be providing a service or supplying goods.  The goods could be something you create or a product you buy from a manufacturer or distributor and on-sell to the end user.

Find Your Niche

Your store won’t be the largest store on the internet at the beginning so select a niche market that you want to target and cover that well.

This focus ensures that when a customer visits your store the messaging around your products align well with the product offer you have.

Your niche should solve a need that isn’t being solved well by anyone else and be aimed at a group that has enough disposable income to spend it on things that make them happy or satisfies their requirements for an interest that they have.

Your niche could be based-on price/product quality mix where you aim to be cheaper than all your competitors or the quality of your product and service is so much greater than your competitors that the value your customer associate with your product drives repeat sales and customer satisfaction.

Your niche could be your neighborhood or city.  If your eCommerce store is booking services like plumbing repairs you may not want to travel the country for a small job, or a pizza store may have a limited area that they offer the delivery service.

There are demographic groups that may be a target for your product.  Baby clothes are best targeted at new mothers and mobility walkers for seniors.

You may also target a niche group with a common interest or attitude.  You will always sell more golf clubs to people who like golf!

Research the Product

How Will You Sell Your Product?

If you are offering physical goods, will they be in single packs or bundles?  Will your offer be for a service or a downloadable item like an ebook, course, or subscription service?

You may wish to purchase your goods from a manufacturer or distributor and re-sell them while manufacturing your own saleable items is also an option.  Home-made goods like candles, jewelry, and clothes can be popular on specialist sites like Etsy.

Another popular selling method online is drop shipping.  This is where you offer goods for sale on your eCommerce business website and when a customer orders the good you arrange for the distributor to deliver them directly to your customer.

ecommerce business website

By doing this you don’t have to carry physical inventory or have the hassles of organizing couriers and packing.

Drop-shipping can work with local suppliers or many international distributors will ship around the world on your behalf.

Legal Requirements

You will need to research your selected product for the local legal requirements in your state.

Does your business require registration to operate in your state and is there a need to register for sales tax?

A registration may be required if providing professional services and permits may be required for some types of production, like producing food items for consumption by humans or pets.

Consulting a legal professional or tax accountant may be required to ensure that you are compliant with the local laws before commencing operations.

Research The Market

Use tools like Google search to find other businesses offering a similar product to your own and investigate their price and service offers.  What are their strengths and weaknesses?  Where do the opportunities lie for your new business in this market?

This is referred to as a SWOT analysis.  Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

If you take a piece of paper and draw two perpendicular lines to divide the sheet into 4 squares, then write each of the SWOT headings in a box.

Next, write down each of the competitor’s strengths and weaknesses in the relevant box then formulate the opportunities and threats that this proposes for your business.

From the SWOT analysis, the threats give you insight and the opportunities help forge your direction forward.

You need to determine the size of your niche market and whether there is room for your new business to fit into the market.

If you decide the market is too crowded it could be that your product is just not niche enough and you need to drill down further to create a specialized niche of your own.

How Will you Differentiate Your Product and Service Offers From Others in the Market?

When you want to go deeper into research many online tools can assist you with evaluating what consumers are searching for online.

One of these is the Google Keyword planner.  This will allow you to enter your search term and see how many searches have been made over the period you specified.

You can also specify a region to search as well.  A high volume of searches for the keyword indicates a high demand for that good or service.

A low volume of keyword searches may indicate a low demand for your niche product or service, or it could just indicate that the public isn’t aware of your niche solution!

The keyword planner also includes related searches which can lead to showing you similar searches that have been conducted to your request indicating what the public is searching for.

Google Trends is a platform that allows you to track the number of searches on a topic over time through what has been searched on Google.

Enter your keywords with a date range and you will see the trend in searches for the keywords over time.  This could indicate an increase or decrease in demand but can also indicate if interest in your product may be seasonal in nature.

Select a Business Name and Register it With the Government

Again, consulting with your accountant or a legal professional may be the best start to determine whether your new business will be a sole trader, a limited company, or a corporation.

Each of these structures may require registration to operate in your state.  You will also need to consider whether you need an EIN with the IRS or any other registrations required to operate your business online.

Do your local laws require you to register for sales tax or any other specific registration required for your business.

Choose an eCommerce Platform

There is a wide range of eCommerce platforms available on the market each with its pros and cons, and a wide range of monthly and startup costs associated with each.

You need to select a platform that you are confident will scale with your business as you work hard to grow sales over time.

You also need to consider your (or your team’s) technical ability and how easy or hard the setup process may be for the platform you are selecting.

Sometimes the simple platforms don’t provide the flexibility to perform the customization that you want and the fully customizable platforms may have a steep learning curve.

If you already have a WordPress blog, then you can easily add a product like WooCommerce to your blog to have a fully featured online store system.

Other choices include open-source alternatives like Magento or OpenCart, or you may want to select an integrated online platform like Shopify, BigCommerce, or Wix.

ecommerce platform

If you plan to market some of your products through third-party marketplaces like Amazon, eBay or Etsy then make sure your selected solution has the tools to connect easily to these marketplaces to save you duplicating your work.

Each of these platforms has costs and benefits so research hard into the best solution for your product and proposed marketing offer.  If you try hard and get a minimal package you can start your online store for as little as $100 a year.

Many of these solutions include a credit card payment gateway or you can choose an external Payment Gateway Supplier like Host Merchant Services that will work across all of these platforms for you.

Create your site

In much the same way as you would open a traditional storefront on a particular street or neighborhood, or in a shopping center, your online eCommerce business has a place and a look and feel.

Your physical shop storefront has signage outside to attract customers to enter and a certain look and feel once you enter the store.

Your online eCommerce business needs to cover all your brand artifacts as well so when customers are dealing with your brand, they are happy to buy.

Your selection of colors and styles for your online site is important to reflect the values of your brand and what you stand for.

Your logo, themes, and images are also a reflection of this brand.

It’s important to ensure you cover a couple of legal requirements on your site to show your customers you care about doing business with them.  Your privacy policy, shipping and returns policy and other data retention policies (that may be covered by law in your area) will communicate with your customer how you will deal with their data and any issues with the transaction.

Load your Products

Now that you have selected your products and market and determined where you are going to source, or manufacture, your products it’s time to start loading products onto your site.

As part of your brand style that you determined when setting the site up all your images and colors must be consistent across your site.  Depending on your product range it’s generally better to have all your images with the same background color and image style.

A site with a mixture of landscape and portrait images all with different colored backgrounds can look as unorganized as a dress shop without any clothes hangers.

This guide to eCommerce photography may help.

Launch!

With your site live in the world, don’t sit and wonder where the customers are.

Depending on your chosen platform you should have access to analytics for the visitors to your site.  Sites like Google Analytics can give you lots of data on how many visitors you had to your site, where they live, how many products they looked at, and more.

Analyzing this data can help you target your marketing efforts and make modifications to your site.  You will enjoy watching the visitor numbers rise over time.

You’ve early determined your target niche market for your site so now is the time to connect with them on their favorite social media network and let them know you are open for business.

Marketing Your Business

As part of your preparation plan, you should have put together a business plan that outlines what your business brand stands for and how you want your customers to view you.

Taking this data, you need to craft marketing for your business and start driving traffic to your eCommerce store.

You can pay for ads on Google and other search engines that will appear alongside people’s search terms when looking for your goods or services.

The amount you pay per click or per impression will be determined by how competitive your keywords are.

If your product fits into the demographic then have it seen with social media influencers that align with your brand values.  This can lead to easy exposure for your product, sometimes at a minimal cost for the exposure that the influencer can bring to your brand.

You should run organic traffic and paid campaigns on social media like Facebook and Instagram.  By its social nature, the idea is to get a viral message spread through these mediums and reach more people through their contacts and their contacts, contacts.

Most of the eCommerce platforms outlined above have an element that will allow you to collect email addresses from potential clients through a popup signup form or contact page.  Also, look at getting people who buy to opt-in to future email marketing so you can retarget them in the future.

Email marketing is also a great way to make an offer to people who have already purchased to encourage friends and family to purchase from your store with a coupon or discount code, thereby increasing your customer base further.

And all through this marketing journey, you should be constantly working on organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is the least expensive method to drive customers to your online eCommerce business.  Every time they search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo and you appear on the first page of the results you are going to increase your traffic.

Therefore, it’s important to make sure that your products and blog posts contain the keywords that people are searching for online about your business.

Your blog posts should reinforce your product keyword strategy to ensure you are seen as an authority on the topic that your business is about.

Your eCommerce Store Online

ecommerce store online

Once you have your store up and running how successful it is is determined by how well you market your goods or service to your target market.

Your marketing doesn’t need to involve a huge monetary outlay, but it does need to be targeted and consistent.

Most eCommerce stores take around 18 months to 2 years to see results or even think about making a profit so don’t let the small hurdles set you back and keep pushing through with the enthusiasm that made you want to start your eCommerce Business in the beginning.

Once you are at the right point you can scale your business and take it to the next level.

Frequently Asked Questions

small business growth strategies

Top 10 Best Small Business Growth Strategies 2022

2021 was a remarkable year for most businesses across the world. It ushered in a period of healing and recovery from the impact of COVID-19, and economic instabilities that rocked the world in 2020.

After the pandemic, many small businesses were devastated.Someentrepreneurseven got confusedabout the next step to take as regards growing their business to the next level.

Moving into the year 2022, things are gradually taking a new shape.So, small business ownersshould understand that before they can stay above their competitors in this new era, they need a working business strategy.

In this article, we have compiled a comprehensive list of 10 suggested business strategies that can help small businesses grow in the year 2022. Let’s briefly look at them:

Revamping of Business Model to Suit the Current Market

Truly, the year 2020 changed many things in business today. It affected the way most businesses do things, including their product offerings.

For customers, life has never been the same. People’s views about life have changed, thereby affecting their attitude when shopping for products or services.

So, this is why every business should take time to survey the new prevalent demands in the market today. And, identify how to modify their product or services in these new directions.

Today, customers prefer businesses that provide effective virtual-based services to business that gives more attention to one-to-one services. Understanding the prevailing market conditionsand how to adapt to themremains an integral factorinboosting business performances in 2022.

Revamping of Business Model to Suit the Current Market

Of course, every business should reintroduce its servicesto customers at the beginning of each business year. This fosters good relationships between businesses and customers.

At the early stage, customers should be updated on new policy changes and modifications in product offerings. Hence, this can help boost the customer base.

Re-familiarizing with customers maintains a business’s relevancy within the customers’ minds. It also boosts customer engagement. Know this,when a business is not careful enough to engage its customers, it might lose them to other competitors.

Additionally, this process can also serve as a reminder to potential customers who have not patronized the business. Reconnecting with them can help them make up their minds.

So, getting to know customers again and understanding the new demand in the market today are crucial processes every small business cannot afford to miss in 2022. If you can solve their needs at this time, you have won their trust for the rest of the year.

More Flexible Marketing Approach

Conventional digital marketing methods are now gradually becoming ineffective due to congestion and evolving regulations in the area. Therefore, the need for small business ownersto get more creative in their marketing approach.

Marketing is very crucial to a business’s success because without it, there’s no way to convert prospective clients or engage recurring ones. However, in 2022, small businesses should learn to adopt a more flexible marketing approach. Give your customers something different from what they are already used to.

We also recommend that businesses should expand their target market. Only draft interesting marketing campaigns or promotions that are quite realistic.

And then, if you haven’t considered marketing automation, now is the best time to do so. If you already have one, endeavor to revisit them and make necessary changes.

Essentially, approaching marketing campaigns with an open mind should be the goal this 2022. Also, if necessary, brainstorm about what your competitors already have and see what you can come up with.

Grassroots and Micro-Influencing Approach

One of the most effective marketing approaches in business is grassroots marketing. This is where businesses get to interact with prospective customers one-to-one.

In grassroots marketing, business targets a smaller group of people with hopes of them spreading the message to a larger audience. This is most effective if you are providing services to the locals.

Moving over to micro-influencing. This is the type of influence marketing that does not involve a celebrity. Of course, getting a celebrity to promote your business is expensive.

Now, the idea is to hire individuals that have a larger social media presence than a normal person but lesser than a celebrity. They are called “Micro-influencers”. The number of followers might be about 1000 to 100,000 followers.

With this level of social media presence, they can attract a reasonable level of attention to a business model, once they promote it on their page.Another great benefit of micro-influencing is that they cost much less than involving celebrities.

Introducing a few of these micro-influencers can help extend your marketing coverage to a wider audience on social media. Thereby, boosting your online visibility in return.

Introduction of Technology

Most businesses are now modifying their product offerings to suit the continuous technological advancements prevalent in our society today.

The great thing about technologies isthat they can perfectly fit in with any business model, irrespective of the size, design, or objectives.This is why every small business needs to incorporate that into its model.

For instance, most companies now prefer virtual meetings to physical meetings whereas others have completely shifted their offices into the clouds.

Technologies are great for small businesses because they are good at saving time and costs. Imagine how much it will cost to rent a physical office space to set up a virtual space online.

Currently, cloud-based technologies arenow gradually taking over the business world today. Interestingly, theyhave also made business management easier. A business owner can now monitor the progress of their business from the comfort of their homes with just a few clicks.

All these are made possibleviaERP and CRM software tools. Technology has simplified business integration and customer management.

Businesses today can communicate with their customers via social media platforms or live chats. Technology has also made marketing automation easier.

So, if you haven’t introduced technology to your brand, 2022 is the best time to do so, as the world is gradually tending toward technology. It’s never too late!

High Priority on Risk Management

2022 is too long for small businesses to waste time and money. For any business to succeed this year, they need to prioritize risk management in their processes.

Risk management does not mean avoiding risks entirely. No! Of course, risk-taking is an essential part of a business process. In this context, risk management means taking calculated risks and not getting involved in big swings that can only waste time and effort.

Interestingly, it also prevents businesses from rushing into things unprepared. Learn to test and analyze strategies before they implement into your business model.

Analyzing strategies in businesshelps to identify what works better and what doesn’t work at all. Hence, you won’t be engaged infutile ventures. Under risk management, policies or strategies that do not look promising are scrapped while the promising ones are optimized.

On the other hand, prioritizing risk management enables businesses to adopt an effective business approach. Hence, placing them ahead oftheir competitors.

So, as a small business owner, if you haven’t paid much attention to risk management when taking business decisions. Now, it’s the best time to do so.

Be Flexible and Creative in Your Hiring Process

In November 2021, the National Federation of Independent Business stated that about 48% of small business owners were unable to fill up their job openings, passing the historic 22% in the previous years.

Interestingly, many reasons could have led to this. For instance, qualified candidates whoare supposed to fill up these positions might be looking for better flexible options. Especially now that people are more concerned about the pandemic.

Generally, if an advertised job opening seems to have harsh working conditions, prospective workers might shy away from such openings.So, for every small business owner, if you want to attract experienced and qualified candidates to your business, you will need to be open-minded with the hiring process.

Never take negotiation off the table. Don’t be too afraid to adjust your hiring budget or reveal the incentives. Note, if adjusting the budget is not favorable, then devise another means to attract the right professionals.

Most importantly, invest in business reputation. Top talents only love to be associated with companies that have good reputations as this can enhance their CV.

Additionally, small business owners should consider the possibility of working with freelancers and contractors as this approach has proven to help businesses save money. And remember, cost-effectiveness should be part of your approach this year.

Make Your Current Employees Happier

Usually, workers are always at their best whenever they are happy with their current position. Now, how can a business keep its employees happy?

 Simply, byproffering conducive offers that accommodate their needs. It could be via incentives or ensuring flexible working processes.

For instance, after the pandemic, people now prefer to work from home rather than come to the office because of fear of contracting the virus. So, if your business is lucky enough to allow employees to work from home. Then, you might need to consider this option.

Alternatively, you can proffer dutyroosters that show when each member of your staff can work from the office or their respective homes. Of course, only do this, if it’s favorable to your business.

Interestingly, hybrid work styles are now becoming norms in business processes since 2021. A virtual workforce can save businesses the cost of renting a physical office space.

Another aspect to consider is, allowing your workers to enjoy holidays and their due vacations. Taking a break from work allows one to rejuvenate their strength and energy. 

Also, alwaysconsider the personal welfare of your workers. Show them that you care about them and not just about work. This will help build better working relationships at the office.Create tasks, set clear goals, and ensure your team always meets the deadline. This can help make them focused and also boost their productivity within a given time.

Also, create time for leisure to ease tension in the office. Encourage your team to socialize more amongst themselves via text messages, social media group chats, videos, etc. This can boost their team spirit.A healthy working environment remains one of the biggest secrets to boosting your team’s productivity in 2022.

Think Big Mentality

Yes, it can be very intimidating if you have ever competed with top companies. Of course, you might have even ruled out bidding for large governmental contracts due tofear of losing to them.Well, don’t fear them! It’s okay to start small but it’s not okay to stay small or think small.

According to the Department of Defense, about 43% to 60% of small businesses are not seen within the federal government space. Suffice to say, small businesses are not fully represented in government contracts.

Now, before you lose hope again about bidding for big contracts this year, remember – you are new! Hence, you are flexible and can easily tweak your processes to fit a new demand.

This is what most big companies lack. Many of them are unwilling to modify their business approach to accommodate the changing market conditions. The only advantage they have is that clients go to them because of their big names. But if any small business can capitalize on these faults, they can make millions from it.

Also, most big companies are not interested to shift their business online or adopt trending new technologies to suit the market. Hence, providing an advantageous loophole for small businesses to exploit. Bid for big contracts with flexible offerings that will be irresistible to prospective clients.

To boost chances, offer quality services that are better than most big companies offer at affordable pricing. Introduceecommerce technologies, this might be the right solution to combating low sales in 2022.

Adopting new technologies has a way ofmakinga business model look modern and more user-friendly.Therefore, we urge small business owners to not become hesitant to compete against big companies in large contracts. You never know what the client is looking for.Besides, participating in processes like this can boost a business’s popularity or recognition in their industry.

Adopt Video and Local SEO Strategies in Marketing Approach

At the level video content get responses on social media platforms, it has been estimated that videos will contribute to about 82% of customer traffic to businesses by 2022.This is why small businesses are advised to start prioritizing video SEO. Incorporating short videos into website posts can improve organic traffic from search engines.

Another factor to consider is local SEO optimizations. Local SEO strategies are designed to target customers who are living within your neighborhood.

For instance, if you provide business consultancy services in Tallahassee, a good local SEO strategy should boost your website’s tendency to appear as top search results whenever someone types“business consultant companies in Tallahassee”.

Also, update your Website and Google Business Page. Hence, prospective customers can easily get to know more about your services via your company’s listing and the website.

Adopting video and local SEO strategies remains one of the trending strategies in business today. Companies are now becoming more direct with their marketing approach.

Do You Need Help Getting Started?

If you are confused or have more questions on how to implement some of these strategies in your business. At HMS, we are always available to help. Get in touch with us today.

conversion rate in your woocommerce store

How to Increase Conversion Rate in Your WooCommerce Store

Bounce rates and high cart abandonment rates are an inevitable part of the e-commerce experience. There will always be visitors who will leave your WooCommerce store without buying anything. 

That can be a huge problem for your online store’s conversion rate. As a WooCommerce store owner, optimizing conversion rates with the right strategiesis important as the e-Commerce space is getting more competitive every day.

There has been a steady increase in online shopping over the last few years, especially because of the pandemic. As a result, the competition in e-Commerce has become fiercer than ever. If you would like to make a mark and increase sales, you will have to boost your conversion rate.

Although SEO optimization will certainly help, optimizing your WooCommerce store requires a combination of internet expertise and marketing to create an ideal and appealing storefront for your customers.

One of the best ways to increase the sales of your WooCommerce store is to improve and streamline the overall browsing and shopping experience for your customers. This way, customers would like to return for another purchase based on their positive and memorable experience with your online store.

Conversion Rate Defined

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who find your e-commerce website through a search engine and then take the desired action, such as completing a form to become a lead. Conversion rate optimizationentails enhancing your e-commerce store to increase the number of leads you generate.

In other words, the conversion rate of your WooCommerce storeis a measure of how many people purchase your services or products out of the total number of visitors.

For example, if 1200 unique visitors go to your WooCommerce store but just 30 unique visitors purchase your products, the conversion rate for purchase action is (the number of customers purchasing ÷ total number of visitors) * 100 = (30÷1200) * 100 = 2.5%.

Tips to Increase WooCommerce Conversion Rate

Here are some practices and tips to help you increase WooCommerce conversions and sales across your store.

Use Plugins Judiciously

Some websites tend to use plugins for nearly every need on WooCommerce, which is not advisable. Mixing and matching these plugins may have an adverse effect on your e-Commerce site.

For example, these plugins could make too many HTTPS requests, slowing down your store, and you don’t want that.

Across your WooCommerce website, make sure that:

  • All your plugins are cross-functional
  • You download and install secure plugins that are verified on the WooCommerce product page in order to minimize the risk of security threats
  • Uninstall all current plugins that you are not usingto free up valuable storage

Personalize and Customize Your Pages

Customers now demand a high level of customization from online stores. Personalizing your pages increase engagement rates. For example, you can use a translation plugin to display content in your target audience’s language. 

Some other tips for personalizing your WooCommerce site include the following:

  • Segment your visitors based on location, age, sex, and past interactions
  • Show related products or items to cross-sell and upsell effectively
  • Align website navigation to reflect visitors’ interests. Show them product pages that they have shown an interest in during prior visits

Optimize Product Descriptions

Another crucial thing is to focus on product descriptions. You must edit a few key areas, including product description areas, metadata, and slugs. While you may include metadata for your product images and keep them fast-loading, make sure that you do not neglect some key aspects of product descriptions to increase conversions.

Long descriptions usually do not win you sales. This is because customers tend to spend only a few seconds on product descriptions. As a result, use simple words and a few sentences to describe the function and benefit of the product.

And you should create relevant,concise, and informativeproduct meta descriptions while making sure that they contain your keyword.

Use High-Quality Images

Your potential customers willlearn about your products from product images and features. So, if your images aren’t good enough, you will find it hardto sell your products regardless of how good they are.

Images not just add life to your e-commerce website, but they make it convert better as well. People don’t liketo browse a website anymore – they want to experience it. And using the right product images can boost your website’s conversions, helping you connect better with your target audience.

Clear, fast-loading product images, contrasting colors, and seamless navigation help sell your products. 

Add a Quick Buy Button / Direct Purchase Button

Did you know that every extra step at check out increases the likelihood that apotential customer will leave? The good news is that WooCommerce has one-page checkouts and simple guest checkouts, so your customers do not need to fill out several pages of information every time they buy products. 

So, a simple way to increase your WooCommerce conversion rate is toadd a quick buy button on all your WooCommerce products. You may add a direct checkout button or link that will take your visitors directly to the checkout page rather than taking them to the cart.

This is important as it makes the purchase process faster. On the other hand, you can also use WooCommerce Direct Checkout or othermeans to integrate a quick checkout button for your customers into all WooCommerce products.

Optimize for Mobile

It is essential tooptimize your WooCommerce store for mobile,given thatmobile e-commerce sales keep increasing each year. You should always test the user interface on mobile and ensure the speed is adequate. Alternatively, you may have a separate desktop and mobile version of your e-commerce website. 

A simple way to optimize your e-commerce store for mobile is toadd a lazy loading feature to your website. You can also create mobile-friendly navigation,like adding a hamburger menu icon and using accelerated mobile pages.

Final Thoughts

In today’s competitive market, if you do not put your customers first, they will likely go to your competitors. However, with these tips, you can easily increase the conversion rate of your WooCommerce website.

liquor store point of sale

Essential Features for a Liquor Store Point of Sale in 2025

liquor store point

Source

Owning the best Point of Sale (POS) system is important to the success and growth of any retail business, and a liquor store business is no different. Over the last few years, the number of liquor stores in the US has grown by 0.9 percent, and the market is thriving.

However, liquor store retailers in the US face unique challenges and issues. For example, your inventory is inherently complicated, and you have to track thousands of cans and bottles of alcohol from different parts of the world.

 Also, you have to comply with regulations and laws and manage inventory and labor so that you can still turn a sizable profit. Moreover, running a sale involves offering several types of promotions simultaneously, which can complicate things.

This is where a reliable liquor store POS system can make running your business simpler by helping manage several aspects of your business, such as your sales, inventory, and staff. However, most importantly, it will help you deliver a seamless and pleasant customer experience, which is important in the hospitality industry.

Liquor Store POS System – Essential Features

A liquor store POS system is important as it does much more than accept payments and ring in sales. The best liquor store POS systems track your inventory and organize vendor orders, ensuring you don’t run out of stock.

Did you know that many also include security integrations and physical inventory counting tools to track potential theft?

Liquor and Bar Inventory Management

How much liquor do you have on hand? What is your profit margin? It is important to have this knowledge at your fingertips. This is the reason inventory management is an important feature of any good liquor store POS system.

The best systems have robust liquor inventory tools that can track your inventory as you sell it, and update your in-house stock in real-time, which is convenient. When it is time to resupply, you can easily create purchase orders using these tools.

Most high-quality POS systems for bars and liquor stores facilitate third-party integration with many powerful inventory management platforms. The best thing is that these programs allow you to track your liquor and beer inventory, suppliers, units, and prices on your device.

Age Verification

Selling age-restricted products should not expose your business to fines and penalties. Unfortunately, employees may forget to check IDs or try to cut corners during peak times by judging a customer’s age from their appearance.

You probably know that the penalty for selling items to underage customers, such as teens, is steep. This is why owners should protect themselves by using a liquor store POS with integrated age verification.

The best systems support several ways to prompt age verification. For example, you can set the POS system to prompt your cashiers to enter a valid date of birth before processing a transaction.

Other systems have functionality that prompts cashiers to scan the buyer’s ID with the system’s barcode scanner and validate their age before proceeding with the transaction.

Some systems add age verification prompts by product sector. This means that you don’t have to assign age restrictions manually to individual products. You just have to ensure that they are categorized correctly in your liquor store POS.

Scanning IDs is valuable as it protects your business by lowering transaction times, ensuring regulatory compliance, and eliminating the margin of error.

Promotional Pricing

A liquor store business is seasonal, with sales peaking at specific times of the year. For example, customers have to stock up on spirits at various times of year—particularly around major sporting events, holidays, or BBQ season.

You can benefit from promotional pricing as it increases sales, especially if your customers already have a couple of bottles in their shopping carts.

People are likely to buy more when they see a sale price on an item. As a result, they just might get a bottle of that dill pickle vodka or cookies and cream whiskey if the price is right.

However, unlike standard retail pricing, liquor store and bar POS should incorporate many types of promotions, such as:

Mix and match: Customers are entitled to receive a discount for purchasing a specific number of bottles. They may mix different kinds of wine and beer and sizes, with some preset restrictions on brands or sizes.

Quantity Pricing: Bulk or discounted pricing should be available for your customers or a large event.

Mobile Accessibility

More bars and liquor store businesses are leveraging cloud technology. As a result, cloud POS adoption is increasing at a significant rate.

A cloud POS system for liquor businesses stores data in the cloud and gives you benefits, such as remote accessibility, real-time data accuracy, and cost savings. Also, make sure that your liquor store POS is mobile-friendly and can be run on any device.

Regulatory and License Tracking

There is no doubt that preventing underage sales is a huge and complex undertaking, and unfortunately, some employees and staff tend to accept under-the-table payments from underage patrons. An excellent POS solution will help you put this practice to an end.

Reporting will quickly and easily show who isn’t conducting proper ID checks at your retail establishment and will allow you to rectify the issue immediately because of advanced alerting abilities.

And that is not all; you will get the ability to track any appropriate licensing that your business must remain compliant with, and prevent late fees, fines, or temporary shutdowns. 

User Access Rights

You will likely have multiple employees. This means your liquor store POS should be able to identify different system users and give them tailored access based on their specific role or designation. 

User access rights are also important as they enable liquor store and bar owners to limit permissions on specific features in their POS.

Multiple Payment Processing Options

Besides traditional payment methods, like cash, and credit card, the POS system should be able to support the latest payment processing options as well.

Final Thoughts – Liquor Store POS 2025

Liquor store POS systems are the need of the hour and can make managing your liquor store business easier and hassle-free. Features like age verification and inventory management make it simpler for employees to ensure your business complies with applicable laws and you never run out of your diverse inventory.

An excellent cloud-based bar POS system also offers insights into your business performance in real-time, from anywhere.

Essential SEO Tips

Essential SEO Tips for E-commerce Stores 2025

While getting more online traffic to your e-commerce website or store is one of the most effective ways to get your brand in front of new customers, growing your online traffic is easier said than done, especially with new search engine feature updates and frequent algorithm changes.

The importance for e-Commerce websites and online stores to rank at the top of various search engines, such asGoogle and Bing, continues to grow.  Although paid searches may lead to quick success, you probably know that they are very expensive, especially in the long run. And this is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into the picture.

SEO comprises tactics and measures that help e-commerce shops or online stores to appear as high as possible when relevant search terms and phrases are entered on search engines.

Why SEO is Important for E-Commerce Stores

Did you know that 44 percent of people begin their online shopping journey with a Google search? Also, keep in mind thatthe number one result on Google gets more than 31 percent of all clicks. This is why ranking at the top of search engines must be one of the toppriorities if you manage or own an e-Commerce store.

The advantages of e-Commerce SEO are almost endless, from creating brand awareness and helping to drive traffic to boosting sales, an SEO-optimized site can help you achieve your business goals. However, with changing trends and practices, the e-Commerce landscape has evolved.

While you should focus on making your WooCommerce or Shopify-based e-Commerce site aesthetically appealing, you must also focus on e-Commerce store SEO to draw more customers to your website to increase sales. 

Here are a few expert SEO tips to consider when optimizing your online store.

Conduct Comprehensive Keyword Research

You may know that the foundation of any effective and efficient e-Commerce SEO campaign is thorough and savvy keyword use. So, you should start with a round of careful keyword planning and research to get off on the right foot. 

Also, remember that a big part of keyword planning and research is intent. You have to ensure that your keywords and phrases align with what the shopper or buyer truly wants. If you’ve a few primary key terms in mind, use these as a jumping-off point.

However, if you do not, you canstart by listing four or five broad topics that are important to your buyers. It is best to put yourself in your buyer’s shoes and consider the terms and phrases you may use to find products like those listed on your online store. 

Avoid Duplicate Content

Regardless of how you look at it, duplicate content is bad for SEO, including across product pages and categories. 

However, it is one of the common problems in e-Commerce. This is whyit is essential to make sure that your content is as original or unique as possible.

While internal content duplication within a single website is not as big a deal, you do not want your copy to be too similar to anything else on any other website. Did you know that the quality of your content considerably impacts how high your e-Commercewebsite ranks in search engines? Similar or duplicate content reduces your search engine rankings.

 This is particularly true if you tend to use content that’s also found elsewhere, such as manufacturer’s product descriptions. It’s a big no-no that you must avoid. You should always post relevant,unique, andengaging content. Another crucial thing to consider is to make sure that you post other types of high-quality content, like videos and pictures.

And ensure that these pages are adequately optimized for bothusers and robots, with their unique keywords, internal and external links, keyword count, and structure.

Improve Trust by Increasing the Authority of Your Webpage 

Similar to unique content requirements, the trust and authority of your page play an important role in the off-page SEO aspect. Backlinks -links from external pages- are important indicators for search engines that your page is trustworthy and more authoritative than other pages with fewer backlinks.

As trust andauthority of a page impact search rankings, pages with a better backlink structure are usually preferred over pageswith fewer backlinks with comparable content.

Focus More on Your Product Descriptions

Many e-Commerce stores and online merchantsdo not adequately optimize each of their product pages as well as the detailed sections within them. If you make the same mistake, you will end up with boring and dull product pages with uninteresting content that no onewill read.

This is why each product page must have more than merely a price, image, and title. Your product pages should also feature a detailed and engaging description that “sells” the product — to online shoppers and search engines.

By crafting creative, unique, and optimized product descriptions with the right keywords, you will be able to create a more effective and simpler-to-rank product page adequately. This will help you achieve higher rankings, especially for long-tailed keywords, driving qualified online traffic with high commercial intent.

Improve Page Load Speeds

Here is an interesting stat; nearly 70 percent of online consumers claim that page load speeds directly affect their willingness to purchase from a specific online store. And most people are willing to wait about 4 seconds for a webpage to load, but the average loading time is much higher. 

If your e-Commercewebsite speed isn’t up to the mark, you cando the following: 

  • Minify the codes, including CSS,HTML, and Javascript
  • Minimize the number of redirects 
  • Optimize the images or photos on your website 
  • Activate browser cashing 

Refrain from cluttering your online store with too many unnecessary applications, and avoid sliders where possible.

Make Your E-Commerce Site Mobile-friendly

This is essential to any SEO strategy for an e-commerce site. Why?  This is because people love shopping on their smartphones. According to mobile commerce stats, mobile commerce, or m-commerce, is projected to be almost 70 percent of all e-Commerce sales, and mobile payment technology will improve.

As Google is moving towards a “mobile-first” index, all e-commerce websites and online merchants should ensure their websites are optimized for this major change.

Final Thoughts

Streamlining your online store using the above essential SEO tips is a great way to propel your e-commerce store to the top of the SERPs. By following these tips, your e-Commerce website will rank higher in the search engines, generating more prospects for your conversion rate optimization efforts. A fully-optimized and well-maintained online store is the key to boosting conversion rate, winning your customers’ trust, and turning your online brand into a household name

secure payments

How to Know Your Payments are Secure

There are a few different dynamics related to the secured payment environment that are presently shifting simultaneously. The most significant shift that has been in the making for nearly a decade but has recently accelerated is consumer preferences for both eCommerce andmCommerce, short for mobile commerce. This has also resulted in an increase of cashless payments, emphasizing the need for secure payment mechanisms.

The second shift is the unruly environment of cybersecurity. It is believed to be the most significant form of fraud risk that businesses are preparing for. Recently, 38% of companies surveyed are increasing their technology spending for cybersecurity to ensure secure payments. This is especially relevant since the US government recently warned that businesses will be susceptible to cyber-attacks.

As a result of these ongoing changes and new trends, it is essential to know how businesses ensure secure payments. Below we look at how payments are secured and a further review why this is important now.

What are secure payments?

A secure payment is when the payment information used in a transaction is protected via cryptographic encryption while being transmitted for payment processing. The credit card number or the debit card number, expiration date, and the three or four-digit code on the backside of a card are hidden from view and free of unauthorized access throughout the entire process.

A secure payments system ensures that personal and financial information is safe and helps builds trust in the platform on which it is used.

What are ways to ensure your payments are secure?

When customers process payments online on an eCommerce platform or any other site from which they conduct a transaction, those sites have to demonstrate how customers’ financial data is secured.

One form of security measure to check for on a site is SSL, short for Secure Socket Layer. SSL is an encryption method that ensures the security of the financial information that passes between various parties while the transaction is being processed. Customers can check if the website they’re on has an SSL certificate by right-clicking on the payment section of the website and then clicking on Properties and then Details. If the site’s list of encryption certificates has included SSL, then the website is protected by SSL encryption.

Another option would be a next-level proactive filter to detect fraud. These filters let you monitor and set limits of specific transaction thresholds and filter out certain geographical regions culpable of the higher fraudulent activity. An excellent example of one such tool is the Advanced Fraud Detection Suite from Authorize.net.

Finally, there is authentication another layer of security used to verify the cardholder’s identity by having shoppers enter the three or four-digit code on the back of their credit card, known as the Card Code Verification service. (CVV2). An alternative to CVV2 verification is the Address Verification Service (AVS), which will require the cardholder to verify a portion of their address on file with the issuing bank.

Within the authentication process, there is also the popular 3D secure optoin, which all the major card networks have adopted. 3D secure generates a one-time code sent to the cardholder to enter into the payment gateway during a transaction to verify the user’s identity. The 3D Secure protocol is considered to be a strong customer authentication security layer by many regional jurisdictions such as the EU.

Why do you need secure payments?

Security protocols have been applicable to merchants accepting card payments online for nearly two decades. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) introduced its first security protocol iteration in 2004, including numerous security control mechanisms and data encryption guidance.

Meanwhile, online shopping has been around since the early ‘90s. Consumers’ shopping habits via the web really started to grow over the past decade with the advent of smart devices that let them quickly look, scan, search, find, and pay for items. That adoption has further accelerated during the past couple of years, and just eCommerce alone is now expected to grow to as large as $500 billion globally[MF1] .

However, as the opportunities have grown, so have the risks. Businesses consider cyber-fraud their most significant fraud risk. Even government bodies are more vocal now, identifying the risk cyber-attacks pose to companies. Just the eCommerce industry alone is expected to lose as much as $75 billion between 2019 through 2023 globally, according to Cybersource[MF2] .

According to an American Express Digital Payments Survey, 77% [MF3] of the business surveyed have been a victim of some type of fraud relating to digital payments.

Regardless of the risks posed, consumers are increasingly more comfortable with online payments, feeling it is okay for merchants to store their payment details on their systems, and feel that additional security measures may be too cumbersome. The title theme of the 2021 American Express Digital Payments Survey was “Digital Convenience Is Here to Stay.” The survey results found that merchants are increasingly cognizant of the trends and are looking to draw a balance between that convenience and the need for enhanced security efforts.

We’ve experienced a complete paradigm shift in how we interact, do business, learn, work, shop, and pay in the past couple of years. All of these are not a foreign concepts that were suddenly introduced to us but ones that have accelerated with great intensity during this time.

As a result, the security around these behaviors has become paramount, specifically those that track our identity, finances, and spending habits. Payments is that one domain that intersects all those areas and where we should exercise great caution to ensure that there is a robust mechanism for secured payments. It is essential to understand what secure payments are, how they are achieved, and why they are crucial.

 [MF1]https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-04-19-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-public-cloud-end-user-spending-to-reach-nearly-500-billion-in-2022#:~:text=Worldwide%20end%2Duser%20spending%20on,to%20reach%20nearly%20%24600%20billion

 [MF2]https://www.cybersource.com/content/dam/documents/en/cybersource-ecommerce-fraud-explained-ebook-2020.pdf

 [MF3]https://network.americanexpress.com/globalnetwork/dam/jcr:09c34553-b4a2-43ca-bf3e-47cbc911ea51/American%20Express%202019%20Digital%20Payments%20Survey_Insights%20Paper.pdf