Telescope: Everything You Need to Know About Search
Welcome to this edition of Telescope on Search, our monthly newsletter devoted to
search. Our goal is to offer a regular, quick-browse e-newsletter with useful
information, tips, and news of the latest developments on Site Search, Search Engine
Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, and site usability. If you have any feedback
or questions please direct them to newsletter@sli-systems.com.
In this issue:
Spruce Up Your Storefront to Meet Holiday Shopping Demand
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Shaun Ryan
CEO, SLI Systems
As we head into the busiest ecommerce season of the year, we’d like to offer some tips for how you can be fully prepared for the onslaught of holiday shoppers by delivering the best possible online shopping experience. Below are a few pointers that can help you get started.
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Create a “gift finder”: A gift finder is a useful tool that helps online shoppers find just the right gifts for the various people on their holiday lists. It’s easy to deploy, and can be promoted throughout your site. Generally, gift finders let people narrow their search by certain criteria, such as price, recipient (kids, friends, co-workers and so on), or gift type. They’re then presented with a list of all the products that match those criteria. You can find an example of a gift finder at the Vivre site.
Prepare your site for holiday traffic: Make sure your site infrastructure can cope with all of the additional holiday shoppers – you don’t want the site to perform slowly or even crash just as everyone shows up to buy. This is one area where it might make sense to use hosted ecommerce technology solutions, so your site performance won’t drag during peak traffic times.
Make sure your site search results are relevant: The holidays are a great time to gain new customers, but if people can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll quickly move to one of your competitors – and possibly never come back. Try searching your site yourself. Does your site search deliver results that are relevant? Can it account for spelling errors? Can you provide results for those “long-tail” terms that aren’t as commonly used but have higher conversion rates?
Show off holiday specials: Promote holiday merchandise or holiday-related items with banners or other highly visible promotional tools. And be sure to use search terms visitors use on your site in these banners, so your messaging resonates. If you offer free shipping for holiday purchases, heavily promote that benefit as well.
Put keyword data to work: To improve the chance that your products will show up on the first or second page of search engine results, review your site search activity and create landing pages related to the consumers’ likely search terms. Since customers may not be familiar with the brand names of your company's products, optimize your site for the terms your visitors actually use – those they enter in the search box on your site.
Are you doing anything differently this year than last, or did you try something last year that worked so well you’re going to repeat it this year? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com.
SLI Systems Now on Twitter!
In keeping up with the ever-increasing shift to social media for communications and idea exchanges, SLI recently started using Twitter to share our ideas and thoughts on the happenings of the search and ecommerce industries, as well as post links to our blog, newsletter, podcasts and other newsworthy items. If you’re on Twitter, follow us at http://twitter.com/slisystems. (And if you’re not on Twitter, you should be – your customers are likely already there! Sign up today!)
SLI Systems & Customers in the News
Below are links to recent press releases, news articles, blog posts and podcasts highlighting SLI’s Learning Search service:
Press Articles:
We saw quite a bit of coverage from the press and blogosphere of our recent ecommerce trends survey. Here’s a sampling of some of the write-ups:
Email Marketing Preparation for the Holidays – posted on StartupNation blog, October 15, 2008
User-generated content 'could attract consumers to direct marketing' – Business Strata (UK), October 13, 2008
Email marketing 'being used more as economy slows' – Digital Response, October 9, 2008
Majority Of Retailers Rely On Site Search And SEO – WebProNews, October 7, 2008
SEM, site search and e-mail key technologies for retailers, survey finds – Internet Retailer, October 6, 2008
SEO, Site Search, and Email Marketing Ranked as Most Important to Online Retailers – SearchEngineWatch.com, October 6, 2008
Site Search, SEO and E-Mail Rule for Online Marketers – Catalog Success, September 30, 2008
Press Releases:
WEBS: America’s Yarn Store Casts On Search-Engine Success with SLI Systems – October 28, 2008
Jelly Belly Sweetens its E-commerce Site with Hosted Search Solutions from SLI Systems – October 15, 2008
Site Search, SEO and Email Marketing Ranked Top Three E-commerce Technology Tools of Choice by U.S. Retailers, Reports SLI Systems Survey – October 6, 2008
New On-demand Commerce Consortium Unveils Ecommerce Whitepaper at the 2008 Shop.Org Annual Summit – September 16, 2008
Blog Posts:
What impact is the economy having on on-line retailers? - October 30, 2008
On a completely different thread - October 29, 2008
Omniture to buy Mercado – October 16, 2008
What does the future hold… – October 13, 2008
A call to Mercado Software customers – October 10, 2008
Beyond the firewall… – September 22, 2008
Podcasts:
Jason Marrone from Jelly Belly – October 13, 2008
Larry Becker from The Rimm Kaufman Group – September 26, 2008
Upcoming Events
Watch our Events page to keep up to date on conferences in 2009.
If you have any comments or suggestions for future issues please email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com.
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