Attire Accessories - May/Jun 2019 (Issue 76)

SME LOANS 101 DRIVING SALES THROUGH YOUR WEBSITE Emily Relph, finance and marketing specialist for SME Loans, talks about how to improve traffic to your website More and more retailers are using online sales to complement in-store selling. Selling online allows businesses to extend their customer outreach and maximise sales. However, independent websites often drown in the unrelenting sea of big-name marketplaces that have enough cash to snatch advertising space from competitors and dominate the top of search engines. Successful marketing is pivotal to running any business, and there are certain steps you can take to drive traffic to your website. Volume of traffic is important, but your focus should be on the quality of traffic. You want to target customers who are actually interested in buying your product or service. PAID ADVERTISING The obvious choice is advertising. Paying for advertisement on Google or on specific blogs with high a following is an easy way to promote your website to a mass audience. However, this kind of marketing pays for high traffic numbers and does not engage directly with targeted traffic. Google retargeting, however, advertises to consumers who have previously visited your website, cutting through the unnecessary mass of traffic and providing you with an improved likelihood of sales. SOCIAL MEDIA Another great way to drive traffic to your website is through social media. The overwhelming popularity of social media channels opens the doors to selling your product or service to specific customers and the opportunity to network on a mass scale. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are valuable social platforms that can promote your business for free. You will need to create insatiable and eye-catching content that will make visitors want to come back. This requires adopting a consistent and active online presence. Businesses can tap into specific audiences through hashtags. As a consumer, hashtags are a useful way of streamlining content that you are interested in, and if used correctly, businesses can generate the right social media following and, in turn, boost online sales. Updating your social media feed on a daily basis is essential. This makes your website more appealing, as engaging with customers on a more personal level allows the potential for building long-term B2C relationships. Your customers become more likely to share your content on their personal channels, extending your outreach and doing the hard work for you by word of mouth. SEO A proven method of driving traffic to your website is through the reliable practice of search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO affects the online visibility of your website and can determine the quantity and quality of traffic to your website. Using keywords appropriate to what you are selling, creating well thought- out meta descriptions and providing internal links are pivotal to SEO success. By taking the time to research and create valuable content, you will boost your organic traffic and stand out above the noise of search results pages. EMAIL MARKETING You can nurture your clientele by utilising email marketing to optimise sales and increase traffic to your website. By email marketing, you can reach out to the individuals who have previously been customers or have shown interest in your products or services. It is a great way to maintain B2C relationships and drive traffic to your website. A simple welcome email and/or promotion of special offers keeps your customers in the know and gives your business a more professional appearance. By having an autoresponder in place, you are more likely to maintain your customers and engage with new ones. Be careful not to spam your email subscribers with information and simply aim to deliver a monthly newsletter or email promotions in a timely and appropriate manner. As an online and in-store retailer, you should invest your time into making your online presence a success. By utilising the online marketplace, you will clinch wider consumer interest and inevitably drive more customers to your online and high-street business. SME Loans is a business finance brokerage specialising in alternative funding solutions for small- and medium- sized enterprises. To find out more, visit smeloans.co.uk