Q&A: JBN Congress Speaker April Trigg on successful ecommerce websites
22 Aug 2021
Ahead of her talk at the NAJ JET Business Network’s annual Retail Jewellers’ Congress on Monday, September 13, we spoke to April Trigg, Marketing Manager at Brace Creative Agency, to find out more about successful ecommerce strategies, pitfalls to avoid when trading online and the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO).
Trigg is one of many speakers who will be taking to the stage at the NAJ Summit 2021, including Nicholas Wainwright of Boodles and Dale Parmenter of DRPG. Join your fellow independent retail jewellery business owners for a full day of talks, inspirational ideas and innovative thinking.
Book NAJ Summit 2021 Tickets
Download NAJ Summit Brochure
Your talk at the NAJ Summit will focus on running a successful ecommerce website - can you share some of the most common issues you encounter?
When we take on new clients for ecommerce SEO and perform our initial audit, we tend to find that the websites are lacking detailed product descriptions, titles, images and other potentially important information. As a rule of thumb, it is best to pad out product pages with any and all the information the potential customer would like to know before deciding to purchase.
Due to the higher page count and added functionality for ecommerce websites, they are prone to having more technical SEO issues. This could include the website architecture being particularly poor, along with duplicate pages, duplicate product data and poor loading speed, all of which can negatively impact the visibility of the site in the search engine result pages.
We also find that most clients do not have ecommerce tracking set up in their Google Analytics account. Ecommerce tracking can provide valuable data, such as how much revenue is generated from a specific traffic source like social media or Google Ads. This additional data can help to pinpoint the return on investment generated from any digital campaigns, outlining which online marketing efforts are profitable and which could benefit from further improvement. Ecommerce tracking can also provide actionable data, such as the number of abandoned carts recoded, average order value, your purchaser’s demographics and even the hour of the day that users are making the most purchases.
Many small independent retailers have invested heavily in ecommerce but are yet to see the volume of customers they had hoped for - what areas of their site should they focus on to address this?
We recommend investing in SEO as part of a long-term visibility strategy. Working on improving SEO will often lead to a website with higher visibility, better user experience and higher conversion rates. Following on from this, it’s important to market to potential clients on any platform they might be using in their day to day life, rather than relying on them to search for your product or service. We advise running cross-channel campaigns targeting users when they are browsing the web, using social media, watching videos using platforms such as YouTube and using apps.
What are some of your top tips for ecommerce success?
Product reviews can be your best friend. Product reviews induce trust and provide valuable insight, promoting impartial views on the quality of the product and service directly from those who have previously purchased. Product reviews can also lead to increased visibility on Google Shopping and ultimately highly reviewed products can result in a higher conversion rate.
Are you monitoring your site's search function? Your site's search function can provide valuable insights on what products your users are interested in, helping you understand the demand for products you could potentially add to your inventory. Additionally, if your site’s searches and sales aren’t matching up, this could outline a potential issue such as a lack of relevance in the results, product pages lacking vital info or high prices that could be putting users off.
Are you using Google Analytics to monitor points in your customer journey with a high drop off rate? Analysing where your users are dropping off without converting could highlight a long-winded user journey, high demand out of stock items, poor product data and much more.
Are there any areas of ecommerce that you think are continually underappreciated or undervalued?
A website with a pleasurable user experience can lead to customers returning time and time again. User experience plays a vital role in the success of an ecommerce store, this doesn’t only refer to a nice design. Intuitive features such as website personalisation (eg. a ‘you may also like section’), product promotion (such as a ‘similar products’ section), a simplistic purchase journey and added user functionality (such as an ‘add to favourites option’) can all lead to a favourable user experience that customers will be happy to return to.
What words of wisdom do you hope to impart at the NAJ Summit 2021?
Don’t neglect category pages, category pages are an ideal opportunity to optimise for more high volume, generic search terms, rather than specific product searches. Having relevant and optimised category pages can make the user’s journey to purchase a much easier one.
Add schema markup/structured data to your website. The search engine giant Google is continuously adding aspects to the search engine results pages to better answer users’ search queries, such as FAQs, review ratings, video, how tos, and product schema. Optimising for these features can all increase your likelihood of appearing on page one. We recommend optimising for all aspects of the search engine result pages for increased exposure.
Follow and adhere to Google's latest updates or hire a reliable SEO who will manage this for you. If you are looking to futureproof the success of your website, understanding Google's algorithm and working to stay informed with upcoming updates is key to your website’s success. This can also help in avoiding any detrimental ranking drops, the results of which can be tremendous on your bottom line. The recovery of a ranking drop can also be a long painstaking process when compared to updating the website in preparation.
About Brace Creative Agency
Brace Creative Agency is a creative agency based in Gloucestershire, providing a diverse range of digital marketing services including SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, blogging and more. Whether you need help getting off the ground, or soaring for the skies, our team of digital marketers are here to take your marketing to the next level.
With over a decade's worth of expertise on improving the digital footprint and online reach of businesses across the UK, Brace is a quality choice for SEO. Our skilled team of SEO’s are always keeping up to date with the latest algorithms to ensure that your online presence is brought to the forefront. As a recognised Google Partner and Squared Online/ Google Analytics qualified marketer, your digital footprint is on the right path with Brace.
Image: April Trigg, Brace Creative Agency
Book NAJ Summit 2021 Tickets
Download NAJ Summit Brochure
Source: The NAJ