How To Make Your Online Store Stand Out From The Competition

How to differentiate your online store from the competition

It’s a tough world out there. Between the hordes of other online retailers, new competitors popping up daily, and a dearth of funding for most of us, it can be difficult to find the motivation for going above and beyond. Yet it’s that very motivation that can make the difference between a mediocre business and an excellent one.

There are plenty of businesses out there doing things like offering unique products or high-quality customer service, and you may have your own idea about why you think your business stands out from the crowd. Maybe it’s because you’re better funded than other retailers, have more branding or marketing experience, or have a special focus on customer service and relationships.

What’s crucial to remember is that if you don’t talk about your unique qualities, no one else will.

So why should you make an effort to stand out? There are a number of reasons, but here are the three that I hear most frequently:

1. You want to build a reputation: The most successful businesses in the world have built reputations for providing excellent products or services at great value. This is particularly true when it comes to customer service.

Why would you want to stand out?

Because if no one knows that you offer outstanding customer service, then why should anyone expect it? You want to be the go-to store for a particular product or market niche, and word of mouth is the best way to achieve this. When people see positive reviews about your business, they’ll trust you more than your less than stellar competitors, and they’ll be more likely to buy from you.

2. You want to attract the best talent: The best businesses in the world share one thing in common: they know how to attract and retain top-notch talent. This is doubly true for small businesses, since you only have a handful of employees to make or break your business.

Why would you want to stand out?

Because attracting talent is a challenge any small business faces, but it becomes even harder if your employees aren’t proud of working for you or if they can’t see where their contributions help the company grow. When you stand out, you’re showing potential employees that your company is a good place to work.

3. You want to increase sales: By attracting and retaining top-notch talent and making people proud of working for your business, you’ll inevitably see a rise in sales from all of the great employees you attract. But the best businesses go even further than this, building loyalty by consistently offering something new each year that makes them stand out.

Why would you want to stand out?

Because a large portion of your customers’ purchases are made based on what they’ve experienced from you. If you’re consistently changing the way you do things, and people are happy with your service and products, then you’re bound to see that impact on profits.

Tips for improving your online store visibility and success

If you’re looking to increase your online store’s visibility and success, you should take a look at the following tips to see what they can do for your business.

1) Optimize your website for Google searches

By choosing high quality content as well as utilizing keywords, you’ll be able to improve how easy it is for potential customers to find you through a search engine.

2) Take advantage of social media

Create a profile on each of the most popular social networks and use them regularly. After a little time, you’ll be able to market yourself and your business to a massive audience without even leaving your home.

3) Create a blog for your business

This is one of the best ways of promoting your company’s name and any new products or services you offer. Simply put, blogging can help increase traffic to your website and improve customer retention.

4) Advertise your company’s name on other websites

There are a lot of other websites which are willing to pay for advertisements. So, you should consider using this method to attract new customers and make money.

5) Create an email newsletter

By offering an informative newsletter to your customers, you’ll be able to increase their trust in you and retain more of them.

6) Show off your company’s history

Customers are always interested in knowing more about the people and companies they do business with. So, you should think about creating a timeline on your website that shows dates and events related to your business’ history.

7) Offer an incentive to customers who give feedback

You can create a small incentive for customers who fill out feedback forms or answer surveys. This can be as simple as giving them a special discount or coupon code.

8) Make it easy for customers to return items

Often times, customers may not be satisfied with their purchase, so they can easily return it to you. So, you should always make sure that all of your products are in good condition and easy to return.

Throughout these tips, you’ll see how much online store visibility and success can improve. These techniques don’t require a lot of money or resources, so they’re perfect ways to increase the amount of profit your business generates each year.

How to improve your ecommerce website security

There are many aspects of e-commerce website security. It’s not just about preventing scams or keeping transactions safe, but also about protecting your users’ personal information and protecting yourself from the legal consequences of fraud. The internet is a scary place, and that’s no different for your business. There are more than enough ways both hackers and scammers can harm you online as it is, so hopefully this article has taught you some tricks to keep them out.

Anthony Ciucci is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles. He has been featured on such sites as eHow, Chron and WiseGeek. When he is not writing, Anthony enjoys playing guitar and watching movies.

Ecommerce website security measures are often confusing, especially for those that are not well versed in IT terminology. The best way to approach your ecommerce site’s security is to keep everything simple by following basic procedures. Since you are the only one who knows your business and how it works, you’ll need to take extra steps in protecting yourself against website security problems.

It’s very pricey to launch an online store, so make sure to protect it from financial losses. Implement the following security measures and your site will be secure for years to come:

Back Up Your Website Regularly

Since we’re talking about website security, no plan is complete without a data back up. You should backup your website on a regular basis. One of the best things you can do is to have a complete back up in the event something goes wrong with your site. There are no guarantees that your site will be safe online, but regular backups can go a long way in making sure you don’t lose any data.

Make sure that if you are creating a new site, you copy over your past experiences and use them to guide you through the creation of this new site. Once you finish creating your new site, make sure to test it out.

Seek Professional Advice

Most people think of website security on the wrong end of their keyboards. They should be looking for more proactive measures that will keep their site from getting hacked. Because many companies have high-level IT personnel and websites that can’t be compromised, there are still many ways for hackers to gain access to your site and steal information. A better option is to seek professional advice.

The best resource with which to seek advice is a trained security expert. These experts not only understand the intricacies of website security, they can also give you tips on how to prevent hacking and minimize potential breaches.

Ensure Your Data is Secure

Another step towards strengthening your site’s security is to ensure that all of your data is secure. It may seem like a small step, but it will help your ecommerce site from being hacked.

The most secure data is encrypted, and the easiest way to do this is with a WYSIWYG editor in WordPress. These editors are available for both HTML and PHP, so you can easily include them into your website’s code.

In addition to making sure that the data on your website is secure, you should also make sure that nobody has access to your server. Ensure that every employee of your company is aware of the potential dangers, as well as any outsiders who may have access to your server.

Install Firewall Software

Another layer of protection against hackers is to install firewall software on your servers. You can do this by adding an additional level of security for your website. Some ecommerce businesses have already implemented this additional layer of protection and it has worked for them.

The firewall software uses both software and hardware to filter unauthorized requests made by malicious codes. By adding this extra layer of protection, you’re not only minimizing your risk of being hacked, but also protecting your business against the legal issues that could arise should a breach occur.

Antivirus Software Should Be Installed on All Computers

It’s very important that you install antivirus software on all computers. This includes desktop computers, laptops, servers and any other devices connected to your network. If a virus infiltrates your website, it may also infiltrate other computers on your network that you don’t even realize are compromised. These computers could be infected by hackers and used to spread malware throughout the world.

In order to combat against the possibility of viruses, you should install antivirus software on all devices you use regularly. This includes computers and laptops that are used for work, as well as any device connected to the internet like your iPad or smartphone.

Keep Your Website Updated

It’s important to keep your website updated at all times. This means not only keeping plugins and themes updated, but also the application programming itself. If you don’t stay on top of the latest updates to your website, it will become vulnerable to potential breaches and hacks. This can compromise your users’ data that is stored on your site, as well as network security.

You should make it a point to update all of the software on your server as soon as you can.

Online users are constantly exposed to new threats, and they will continue to get more and more powerful as time goes on. Therefore, you should always be updating your software every time there is a new update or patch available. If you fail to keep your website updated, it will become easier for hackers to gain access.