Website traffic & sales

printanddesign

We setup an e-commerce site for our business about 6 months ago. We're a print & design company, and the site offers upfront pricing on all of our range plus we have templates that users can fill in themselves. We user great paper stocks and guarantee quality and delivery time. We don't compare ourselves to the likes of Vistaprint, as we don't use digital print runs and/or light papers for business cards etc. Our prices are very competitive for what we're selling.

We've taken out a few ads in local papers and also ran a few campaigns on Facebook, nothing too big though. So far we've had 2700 visitors to the site in 8 months, with 11k page views and about 15 sales from that. This obviously needs to be higher. While the normal offline side of the business is going very well, we just feel that the site could be performing better without spending all the money made on getting them there.

I'm not looking for a magic bullet, but is there anything obvious that we could be doing to a) drive visitors without spending a fortune, and b) increase sales from the people that visit.

I don't want to post the site publicly, but can send by DM if that's ok. Prefer this post not to be in the google rankings!

Buttercake

printanddesign wrote: »

We setup an e-commerce site for our business about 6 months ago. We're a print & design company, and the site offers upfront pricing on all of our range plus we have templates that users can fill in themselves. We user great paper stocks and guarantee quality and delivery time. We don't compare ourselves to the likes of Vistaprint, as we don't use digital print runs and/or light papers for business cards etc. Our prices are very competitive for what we're selling.

We've taken out a few ads in local papers and also ran a few campaigns on Facebook, nothing too big though. So far we've had 2700 visitors to the site in 8 months, with 11k page views and about 15 sales from that. This obviously needs to be higher. While the normal offline side of the business is going very well, we just feel that the site could be performing better without spending all the money made on getting them there.

I'm not looking for a magic bullet, but is there anything obvious that we could be doing to a) drive visitors without spending a fortune, and b) increase sales from the people that visit.

I don't want to post the site publicly, but can send by DM if that's ok. Prefer this post not to be in the google rankings!

A lot of the time the issue is the website itself. Have you done a review of it?

Have you parsed out mobile/smart phone visitors? Is your site responsive or mobile friendly?

Peterdalkey

We are in this general online space, not printing, and it is a long slow road to build to a meaningful sales volume. Not to mention expensive! I would not think our sector has anything like the amount of competition that is in general print and online is very advanced in your sector already.

Our principle USP is that we have a huge range of product actually in stock and a well honed overnight national delivery service. Our online business would never have supported the investment/ cost of these, our traditional bricks and mortar operation marries in perfectly. Online is essentially just another sales channel, but one which will dominate in the future.

My advice would be to find a USP for your online activities that you can use to differentiate yourselves from the hundreds offering print online. Unless you can find such a niche, you are likely to spend a lot of time and money on the project for very little return. You should probably consider pointing your existing customer base towards you online offering as there may be an opportunity to sell them more new products/ services that they never even realised you offer! I could not tell you how many times I have heard customers of very longstanding say, oh I never realised you did these!

thecommander

Peterdalkey wrote: »

You should probably consider pointing your existing customer base towards you online offering as there may be an opportunity to sell them more new products/ services that they never even realised you offer! I could not tell you how many times I have heard customers of very longstanding say, oh I never realised you did these!

I know your company, and buy the odd item from time to time. I remember being directed to your site and having that exact comment!

Atomico

printanddesign wrote: »

We setup an e-commerce site for our business about 6 months ago. We're a print & design company, and the site offers upfront pricing on all of our range plus we have templates that users can fill in themselves. We user great paper stocks and guarantee quality and delivery time. We don't compare ourselves to the likes of Vistaprint, as we don't use digital print runs and/or light papers for business cards etc. Our prices are very competitive for what we're selling.

We've taken out a few ads in local papers and also ran a few campaigns on Facebook, nothing too big though. So far we've had 2700 visitors to the site in 8 months, with 11k page views and about 15 sales from that. This obviously needs to be higher. While the normal offline side of the business is going very well, we just feel that the site could be performing better without spending all the money made on getting them there.

I'm not looking for a magic bullet, but is there anything obvious that we could be doing to a) drive visitors without spending a fortune, and b) increase sales from the people that visit.

I don't want to post the site publicly, but can send by DM if that's ok. Prefer this post not to be in the google rankings!

What SEO work have you done to date? One of the biggest mistakes Irish businesses make when it comes to their new website is thinking 'we've built it, now surely they'll come'. It just doesn't work like that generally speaking.

Social media and offline advertising is all fine and well, but social media in particular is a poor driver of direct sales, and by far the biggest driver of online traffic is Google.

So if you haven't worked to ensure that your site is optimised for Google and other search engines, and you haven't worked on your SEO on a consistent basis, then that is likely the reason for the very sluggish traffic.

Then there are the conversion optimisation elements, i.e. is your site doing a good job of converting the traffic you do get into sales. That comes down to the site itself and how easy you are making it for people to buy, i.e. the calls to action to purchase, to request more info, the layout of the pages, the overall aesthetics of the site and much, much more.

Peterdalkey

Atomico is on the money, if your site or ad is not on the first page of the google search results, you are really going to struggle to gain any traction. Investing in good SEO and then having good in-house SEO practices for site updates are the daily fare of online vendors. The more competitive your sector, the more ongoing work is needed to shine at the top of the search rankings.
Once you get them click onto your site, you really need to have a compelling, easy to use, attractive site to keep their interest.