Invizix:
@schoolboy
Thank you for the detailed information on what Structured Data is. User, mprough has a plugin available in the Zen Cart Plugin's area called Super Data Markup and it seems that it works well.
May I ask you one question? What methods did / do you use to market your websites that you've mentioned a few posts ago. This is something we've been struggling with for years and would really love to start having a decent income from our site. Any helpful and meaningful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Much depends on what you are selling, and the degree of "impulse" in the purchasing psychology.
By this I mean the following:
If you are selling Ferrari Cars, that cost upwards of $100,000 it is unlikely that this will be an "impulsive" purchase - even if the customers are rich. I don't think that there are many people doing Google searches - "Where can I buy a Ferrari", who then click on the first link they see, add a Ferrari to the cart, then checkout an pay 2 minutes later...
But there are also products at the other end of the scale that people do want to buy very quickly, and who don't really care if one shop is selling the item at a dollar or two more (or less) than some other store. These people have largely decided to buy what they are looking for, and will not spend hours and hours doing price comparisons. They will probably click on the first webshop link they see, and if the webshop looks good and professional, and the price is not too outrageous, they will buy from that webshop.
... and then there are all the products/services that fall between these two extremes.
Our biggest lesson (over many years) is that it is extremely important to DEFINE AND KNOW YOUR MARKET. And once you know who you want as customers, configure everything you do to attract those types of people.
Too many webshop owners try to be "everything to everyone"... they try sell cheap... then they try sell expensive... then they try being discount kings... then they try being up-market snobs... then they try being bits of all of these things at the same time.
Many of our websites sell EXACTLY the same products as lots of our competitors - and we are (in most cases, four to five times more expensive than our cheapest competitors (who are usually selling via eBay or Amazon).
We were a bit worried about this at first... until we discovered that there are large numbers of people out there who do not consider PRICE to be the most important factor. These are usually professional people who earn decent money, and who are happy to pay more if the USER EXPERIENCE on the webshop is FAST AND EFFICIENT. Afterall... professional people tend to lead very busy lives, so TIME is their most precious commodity.
If they can find what they want in a couple of clicks, then pay for it in a couple of clicks, they are not too worried if it cost them 10% or even 20% more. To them... the EASE and CONVENIENCE of an efficient website is much more valuable and important.
So we continue to sell everything at much higher prices than our competitors on places like eBay and Amazon, because we know that our target market does not use these sites to do most of their shopping... It is clunky, frustrating and very time-consuming to buy stuff from MOST eBay and Amazon shops - and in our core market (engraving services), it is even more difficult because eBay and Amazon do not have the capacity for customers to specify TEXT ATTRIBUTES against an given product.
Sure... many people will find what we sell, much cheaper on eBay... but we don't really want people who are buying mostly on PRICE. We want customers who buy for reasons of CONVENIENCE and SPEED - who don't really care too much about the price.
And there are lots and lots of those sorts of people - so we aim everything at them.
This starts with hyper-efficient webshops. We make them as "lean" as possible, and we use fast checkout and PayPal Express on all of them. This speed is what makes people like us, and as I say... people looking for speed and ease-of-use are usually busy professionals, who earn good money.
So... we have identified our market, and we have a site that keeps them happy. As they are not too worried about price, we focus on promoting other core advantages of our products. Our images are top-quality, and are unique... We spend many many hours building our own graphics. We do not use brand-packshots, or images that other websites may be using. This makes us stand out from the clutter. Our images are noticeable when seen in places like Google Shopping, and Google Images... We try to make them appear as part of our brand.
We do advertise heavily on AdWords, and this has to be done very strategically and with a thorough understanding of who you are trying to attract to the shop. So... like all of our marketing, we do not advertise on "price", and we have words like "cheap" and "free" in our lists of negative keywords. We do not want customers who are looking for "cheap" stuff... We don't sell "cheap", so a click from them on one of our ads is a waste. When someone searches for our products on Google, and the word "cheap" is part of their search phrase, our ads will not appear...
We have therefore configured our webshop to appeal to a market that we want... Professional, busy people on good incomes, who like to do things on the internet quickly and efficiently.
We have identified these "purchasing psychology" elements as being what are important to our business, and we have constructed our web presence around the market that possesses them.
