When you’re just getting a new online store and running, your immediate aim is to win over new customers as soon as possible. To that end, you need to make sure that you make the best impression possible.
Being in complete control of your store allows you a great degree more say in what kind of impression you make, but you have to think about the various different ways that customers can form that first impression and make sure that you’re active in shaping it every step of the way. Here are a few tips to help you do that.
Create the right brand
You get to shape so much of the visuals, the language, and the feel of the online shopping experience that, before you even start building your website, you should make sure that you have a good idea of what kind of impression you want to give, and how you can do it. Creating a set of brand guidelines can help you do that, ensuring that you’re both able to stand out from the crowd while also effectively communicating what you want about your brand. Whether you want it to look friendly and welcoming, professional and serious, environmentally conscious or otherwise, shape the brand that effectively communicates that.
Make sure the site is right
Of course, having a great-looking brand that effectively communicates what your business is about isn’t going to matter as much if people can’t use your website without issues cropping up. To that end, make sure you’re working with the right team such as custom magento development specialists to create a site that provides as smooth a user experience as possible. Keeping the load times reasonable, ensuring easy navigation through the site’s many pages, and keeping an eye out for dead links, missing images, or other assets that don’t work properly should remain a consistent priority. You also want to build the site so that you can easily update it with new content and new product pages on a regular basis.
Position it with search engines
The first impression you make isn’t always going to be on your own website. Sometimes, that impression will be made on search engines. If your site is way down the list, or even on page 2, 3, or 4, or the search listings for any relevant search query, it does not communicate as much confidence and trust as you would have if you were in the top or even second top spot. As such, learning about search engine optimization can ensure that you’re able to benefit from the level of trust that search engines like Google convey to the average shopper. You have to learn to play Google’s game if you want to benefit from all of the extra traffic that can come from it.
Ensure a good social presence
It’s not just your website and search engines that you have to worry about. Social media has become one of the most valuable marketing tools for many a business for a good reason: it works. You can build a real community of support and positive social proof that your business is one worth supporting. However, you have to make sure that you have a set of social strategies to ensure good customer interactions. Using your channels to connect with happy customers is good, but being able to use them to provide support, especially to those who did not have a good shopping experience, can be a lot more important. Mindful use of language and advertisements on social can make sure that you don’t step on any toes, as many brands have done before.
Make use of word of mouth
You might not get to make the first impression for your business. Sometimes, others will do it for you. This is especially true of past customers, whether they have positive or negative things to say about your business. You can manage the reputation of your business by ensuring that you’re incentivizing those happy shoppers to spread the word, whether it’s asking them to write a testimonial or to leave a review on one of the sites where your online store is listed. You can even set up a referral scheme which can reward them for recommending your business to a friend, giving them extra motivation to spread the good word.
You can’t be in 100% control of the impression that your customer develops of you. However, you can take the steps above to increase the chances that it’s a good one.
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