Living in contemporary times leaves no doubt in one’s mind that Ecommerce is not a fad. It is here to stay and evolve further, gradually unearthing new facets pushing the world into the realms of perpetual progress and efficiency.
But what is eCommerce, and how can people lay a foundation of their business, making them proudly boast of witnessing the growth and popularity? To make the otherwise bumpy road easy and smooth, the curated methods below introduce you to the making of your online retail store so that you too can feel the immense pleasure of watching your business grow from a scratch to the heights of the sky!
A Lowdown on The Basics of eCommerce
Anything that begins without proper research is bound to either face hurdles or fail at large. You need to understand the business structure since it is not a one size fits all thing. If you are willing to plunge in with a lot of products, you must remember that it is very time and energy-intensive where you have to be vigilant at all times as a single mistake can cause you trouble. There will be heavy investing with a warehouse model.
Another method involves narrowing down the list of products to choose one and supplement it with an affiliate site. A single product allows you time to focus on branding and marketing so that you can monetize the traffic.
How Can Niche Affiliate Site be a Stepping Stone?
To circumvent the risks involved in the eCommerce business, a niche affiliate site serves as the first step towards success.
Searching for a Niche
The first step you take to set up a niche site is to pick a niche. Even a single product demands extensive research with many rules to be mindful of. If you are dreaming of being the next Amazon in one night or one go, hold your horses!
This requires patience along with interest for the products you plan to choose. Your interest can breathe life into your site with the extensive knowledge you have of the niche. Also important is the fact that the product should be a competitive one, which would mean that it has market and value. Don’t go for a niche that is overly crowded or taken over by major brands. You can pair up with business owners to cross-promote, become an affiliate, and give a boost to your customer base.
Putting Together Your Niche Blog
Your search for the niche gives you an idea about the products and their respective demands in the market. There are numerous ways online to help you get your site up, and some are free of cost without compromising on the quality. The three simple steps are:
- Pick a domain name
- Get a hosting account
- Install WordPress
No need to dole out a lot of money, get a premium WordPress account, get a freelancer to do the logo and you are halfway there to a perfect site. Make sure you install the items below as they play a crucial role in the entire set up of a site.
- Google XML Sitemap: A google sitemap will help search engines in finding and categorizing your site.
- Yoast SEO Plugin: The more traffic your site has, the greater the chances of your success. Being the best SEO plugin, it helps you to find out whether your pages are optimized or not without you being a pro at SEO.
- Sumo: having an email list is of immense importance. Sumo is one of the best marketing tools out there to help you with it.
Engaging Content To Attract Audience
The heart of the site is its content. To get maximum traffic, you have to make sure you don’t do it the spammy way, or you end your eCommerce journey before it even begins. You have to craft content that is:
Shareable: The material has to have that spark, which makes it extremely shareable. It will be this content that will generate links for you, so make sure you hone up your creativity skills well.
Gets You Ranking: Write content which is easy to comprehend and is meaningful, this way, you get your rankings.
Should sell well: Since the purpose of your content is to make your audience to buy a product, it should serve that purpose.
You have several options at your choice when it comes to content. You can either go for informational content or commercial. However, your path to an eCommerce business involves a lot of quality commercial content.
Commercial Content
You typically write detailed reviews about the products available on Amazon. This is what drives traffic to Amazon from your blog and help you earn a commission.
- Single Product Reviews: You pick a product and write a detailed review covers everything under the sun about that product and leave a verdict.
- Roundup Post: You pick multiple products in the same category, compare, write detailed reviews, talking about the design, features, what’s in the package and whatnot. Eg: Best Gaming Laptops Under $2000
Informational Content
This content focuses on how-to or listing content. You can write such content as well, but from a business point of view, the commercial content is very important.
Link Building for SEO
Link building is treading hot waters. It is a controversial topic, yet it is very important for the life of your niche website. As much as keywords and quality content play an essential role, link building is also a huge factor.
To build quality links, there are a few strategies, which include:
Private Blogging Network (PBN):
The private blogging network is one of the ways to improve links for SEO. They can be bought, or you can create your own PBN to improve the authority. Since Google is strict with its regulation of PBN’s, make sure you naturally use them. Don’t point a site-wide link to your website.
Guest Posting:
Guest posting is a great way to get links to your website. Search for relevant sites where you can post quality content that backlinks to your website.
Content Clusters:
Content clusters is a method which many small niche-focused websites follow. Here you create a content pillar listing all the details you will cover in your cluster. Content clusters attract links naturally, and even if they fail to do so, they still get a higher ranking on the search engines.
Skyscraper Techniques:
It is a very natural and easy way to get links from other websites and blogs. In this technique, you write on a trendy topic using all your writing flair to make it luring. With the content done, you email it to top website owners who write on similar niches.
Leveraging Social Media
You can make use of social media to bring people to your site. Facebook, twitter, snap chat, or any other social media platform can be utilized to garner attention to your niche website easily. This is one of the ways. However, your focus should be on on-site marketing and search engine marketing.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) for Growth of Your Site
CRO serves as the portal taking your site visitors to the Amazon Product site, provoking them to buy the product, generating revenue for you. Get a maximum of two above-the-fold-links to Amazon, give them a reason to purchase the Amazon Product by putting up catchy slogans, and always make sure that every time the user opens the product page, he gets directed to the Amazon page.
Ramping up Your Niche Site
You don’t stop once your site is up and running. It is a consistent effort that requires you to work hard so that your site grows instead of becoming stagnant or worse failing badly. Add more valuable commercial content to your site so that there are always new things on your site that interest the readers. Remaining within your niche, you can still broaden the product categories. Focus on more products that are in demand, and you might have missed them before.
Do not quit your link building efforts. Work on it with the same enthusiasm as you did on day one. Reinvest your earnings on improving the design of your site, so that it becomes better every time.
Time to Make Money
There are two methods of monetization: long term and short term. Being wise, you should always go for long term methods instead of myopic short term strategies. Long Term methods include:
- CPC ads such as Adsense
- Direct Advertising
- Affiliate marketing
- Selling services or Products
For those who are new to niche sites, the easy method of generating revenue is through list building and selling products.
Embedding Private Label Affiliate Sites To Generate Revenue
Private Labels give you an edge in a fiercely competitive affiliate marketing space. Once your site is running smoothly, you need to introduce private label products to your review sites. This will send your profits soaring.
Check Out: How Affiliate Marketing Boosts eCommerce Traffic
Your Path to a Successful eCommerce Business
Your eCommerce startup requires strategic thinking on your part. You have to be crafty with your affiliate sites and the content which will open doors to lucrative buying and selling. Know what sells best and is popular without overcrowding, and you will be able to generate higher commissions and profits. With huge profits made, it is up to you to either continue with the same model or you can open your eCommerce Store.
Jeff Finder is a Digital Nomad who travels around the world and blog about technology, gadgets and specifically laptops at Laptop Cut Blog. He’s also an international speaker and love to persuade youth to find their voice online and make it count.
