Online Orders 2009 End Of Year Up by 50% on 2008!

Year end surveys spotlighting a 50% online trading increase on 2008 clearly demonstrate the unassailable power of eCommerce and the vital importance of ensuring your business website is tuned daily for maximum visitor reception!

Findings show that online sellers in the SME market had put in an impressive performance with many weathering the recession and reporting healthy increases in both order volumes and revenue. Only time will tell if this was mainly attributable to customers trying to benefit from the 15% VAT rate before its return to 17.5% in January.

With the positive increase in revenue turnover figures, the trend highlights the online marketing wisdom of grabbing tough times by the horns and not cutting back on advertising and marketing because potential customers shop around more during hard times, and sales opportunities can continue to be maximised.

There are obviously lessons to be reminded of here and key web business tips to jot down!

First off, when it comes to website design, the overwhelming stats and analytics prove that you must ’ …keep your site clean, simple and most of all, provide clear information on deliveries, payments and contact details…’.

Every day, and during those periods when business is slow, use the time to work on the online brand design. Your design agency should be frequently adding unique visual and written content. They should be making improvements to product details and descriptions and sharpening up SEO keyword phrases by regularly researching and testing, especially focusing on your niche market.

At the same time, relook and forward plan your existing PPC campaigns! Don’t forget to tighten up your email marketing strategies and customise your approach according to who you are trying to reach. It may be even be time for you to finally get round to exploring social media possibilities for expanding awareness of your business, say through Facebook advertising.

The biggest lesson of all is always to keep customers interested! Ensure you maintain repeat visitor traffic by marketing strategies which offer subscriptions to newsletters containing free offers, affiliate purchasing and all your company’s latest exciting and informative news!