Adding value to your stores
Adding value to your store increases your SEO results and long-term profitability.
But what is value, and how does this apply to your store?
What is value?
In terms of an affiliate store, value is something that makes visiting it worthwhile. It might be great content, a carefully selected selection of products, useful reviews, or a great design that gives visitors a great user experience.
How does this affect SEO?
When it comes to SEO, not all sites are created equal in the eyes of Google. It all comes down to how valuable your site is.
How good is your site for a potential visitor? Does it fill the hole that caused them to search Google? Does it offer good quality advice? Would you be proud to recommend it to your friends and family?
Those who do the job properly succeed in an online world where everyone is looking to take shortcuts.
The Tough Questions
A good way to get in the right mindset for adding value to your store is to ask yourself these questions:
- Would you recommend your store to a friend or family member?
- Would you buy from your own store?
Your Store Structure
First and foremost, you should start your store on the right foot in organising and adding products. Build your store for the visitor. If your site's niche is “Power Drills”, don’t add other “Power Tools” in the hope that you might get sales.
Stay focused on your niche and plan your store categories. In this area, it helps to know something about your niche. For example, I run a Pressure Cooker store and know that my visitors like to browse products by their capacity. I make sure that information is available and the products are organised by capacity.
They also trust particular brands, so I have set up dedicated Brand pages for them.
Try to strike a balance between targeting good keywords for your categories and the usability of your store. In other words, don’t just create categories based on popular keywords.
Content
Adding content is the most obvious way to add value to your store. We recommend ensuring your store has at least five pages of unique content before making your store live.
You can add content to any area of your store. We recommend you start by adding content to your homepage, a few of your main categories and some articles as follows:
- Homepage: Add at least 300 words introducing your store and the products
- Category Pages: Add at least 200 words about the products in the category
- Articles: Add new pages with good quality articles – at least 300 words
- Products: Pick the most important products to start with and add some good information
Downloadable Content
In some niches, downloadable and/or printable content might be useful to your visitors. For example, product manuals, a shortcut guide to using the product or a poster that relates to the product.
Here are some examples:
- Pressure Cooker Niche: A downloadable PDF with some good recipes. Include your branding for the store for when the users will share it with other people.
- Digital Camera Niche: Manuals for the cameras (can be found online) or a “Cheat Sheet” pdf, which lists common functions and tips.
- Aquarium/Fish Niche: A poster listing chemical information and recommendations for cleaning aquariums.
Your Help and Advice
When your visitors ask questions via email or social media, list the answers on an FAQ page. Populate this page with common questions and promote the page on your homepage.
If some questions are more in-depth, you can turn them into full articles.
If possible, and if it's worth your time (i.e. you are promoting high-value items), consider making a phone number available on your site for advice. This will help you get valuable insights into your niche and the content you can create.
Further Ideas
Your specific niche will present you with unique ideas to offer value on your site. Spend some time thinking about your customers, what they need, what would be useful and how you can improve the experience for your visitors.
Analyze your competitors for more ideas on adding value.