Clever Tools for Online Retail Websites

Updated October 2019 – Read the Retailers Guide to Ecommerce 2019 Today!

Insight and interpretation has long been at the very core of retail excellence. Understanding your customer, identifying their needs, behaviours, challenges and obstacles and ensuring your retail store can effectively cater for these individuals has set many a retail outlet apart from it’s competitors. The same criteria for success hold true for online retail. The best (and most profitable) online retailers are continually reviewing and interpreting real time data and feedback from customers to help develop a more immersive and enjoyable online experience.

Developing a rounded approach to online retail has delivered success to a cross section of industries and has proved a minefield for many small and mid-level retail companies. However, there are a range of tools that can help you embellish your online offering, help your company grow online and most importantly,  deliver much more than just a “best practice” experience for your customers. In this blog, we rate just some of the tools that are of benefit to Irish Retail Companies in pursuit of online success.

Google Analytics

The Old Reliable

How It Works

Google Analytics is a powerful and free tool from Google that works through the addition of a unique piece of code to your website. This code includes a unique UA code that determines where information is sent when a visitor visits your website

What It Does

Use Google Analytics to find out pretty much everything you could want to know about your website visitors. From the mobile device most frequently used by your visitors to how long they spend on site, Google Analytics gathers an incredible amount of data.

What You Can Learn

Practically everything. There is simply too much too learn, however below are some of the key things that retail store owners could and should be interested in learning though Google Analytics.

Marketing Channel Revenue Return – How much revenue is my website generating from my digital marketing efforts. Now a newspaper advertisement can’t do that for you.

Unique Users – How many unique visitors have come to my website? A very similar trait to a footfall metric for your bricks & mortar store.

Cart Abandoners – How many people have thought about buying something, only to leave it back and walk back out the door.

Visitor Demographics – Understanding the age profile of your online customers can help you make better sales promotion choices.

These are just 4 of the plethora of information, that retail stores can learn through a Google Analytics account.

Dmac Media Score: 6/10

Google Analytics power is immense. However, it’s held back by its complexity for people not using it every day. Don’t get us wrong, we highly recommend that all websites utilise Google Analytics. Just don’t be expecting to grasp it all at once.

Hotjar

The new kid on the block

How it Works

Hotjar works in exactly the same fashion as Google Analytics – simply add a small piece of code to the website.

What it Does

Essentially Hotjar records how your website visitors interact with your website. From your Hotjar Dashboard, you can watch up to 300 website visitor videos and determine the user pathways of choice as well as any barriers to conversion that might be negatively impacting your performance. In addition, Hotjar’s Heat & Click Maps can provide real insight into the navigation elements most frequented by your website visitors as well as user drop as they scroll through your content.

What can you Learn

Hotjar is a incredibly powerful tool for digital marketers. We’ve used Hotjar to various degrees and have helped us identify a range of issues and improve websites from a user experience. As we’ve already mentioned, you’ll identify the user pathways most frequented by your visitors which you can then use to enhance user experience. Pitfalls or barriers to conversion also become glaringly apparent following a Hotjar review, enabling business owners to take action and become more successful online. We’ve also used the click and scroll maps to empower call to action placement as well the positioning of key website content, to provide users with next steps ands keep them engaged.

Dmac Media Score: 10/10

Hotjar’s ease of use coupled with simple rollout puts it the top of our list. The wealth of information and interpretation gives unrivalled insight into how your visitors interact with your website.

Keyword Planner

An oldie but a goody

How it Works

Keyword Planner is a tool associated with Google Ads, which can be off putting for business not looking to engage with paid advertising. However, this free tool gathers genuine keyword search data from Google, that can be subsequently used to develop organic keyword strategy.

What It Does

Keyword planner aggregates a range of keywords as entered by the user offering real time averages from the previous 12 months data and help you forecast future search volumes. You can use Keyword Planner to gain insight into keyword search volumes from any country in the world, helping you identify new markets beyond the boundaries of Ireland. You can also use it to help generate keyword ideas that you might not have thought about through the clever “Find New Keywords” option.

What You Learn

Essentially, keyword planner can provide key insight into the search volumes for potential keywords. This can help you build an SEO map and develop a strategy that will maximise your websites organic reach and potential. In addition, Keyword Planner can help you plot the seasonality of products meaning you can develop your sales promotion & pricing strategy to coincide with in-season products.

Dmac Media Score: 8/10

An invaluable resource for both pay per click advertising and organic strategy, keyword planner is an integral part of a Digital Marketing arsenal. Yes, there are other keyword research tools, but we’ve found that real keyword insight for the Irish search market can be gained through Keyword Planner.

Moz

The SEO Partner You’ll Want

How it Works

Moz SEO Software is the brainchild of Rand Fishkin, a leader in the world of Search Engine Optimisation Tools. Moz is an easy to use SEO tool that essentially looks at your website from Googles perspective and tells you what can be improved to “Keep Google Happy.” Moz uses crawl technology, the very same as Google, however unlike Google, Moz feeds back any issues negatively impacting the websites organic perspective to you, the user.

What it Does

In effect, Moz sends a crawl bot in the very same way Google does and identifies a range of website issues that are impacting how search engines interpret your website. The issues it finds are then collated in an easy to use site crawl interface, so you can make the relevant improvements. In addition, Moz reviews the strength of your domain, pages & even details how your website ranks in a weekly report, so you can see just how well your website is performing in Google Search.

What You’ll Learn

The power of Moz is really harnessed through its easy to use and interpret interface. Data from Moz is categorised into 6 primary headings, which will tell you everything from how your websites ranks in Google Search for a specific keyword, to how your website stacks up against competitors. We regularly use Moz’s site crawl tool to improve overall website efficiency and performance from Google Bots perspective. This incredibly useful tools direct our both our manual and technical SEO efforts for clients. We also use the links tool to great effect, examining our clients domain and page authority regularly to evaluate our link building efforts.

Dmac Media Score: 8/10

Get on top of your technical and manual SEO efforts with Moz software. It’s easy to use interface coupled with insightful data can help your website climb the ladders of Google and gain real traffic.