ShopSite Case Study:
This store selling audio books depends on ShopSite's "Search Engine Friendly" pages and meta tag editing to help customers find their products in search engines.
Company Background
Larry Bohen, founder - After retiring from IBM in June 1993, I was visiting with an elderly, eyesight-challenged friend who was listening to audiobooks. This friend is no longer with us, but my visit with him planted a seed that has blossomed into Audiobooks Online.
WYSIWYG HTML editors and affordable shopping cart software were not available in 1994, so our first Web presence was created by another company and consisted of just a couple of pages with a list of audiobooks and contact information. Needless to say, sales were quite low. I had decided that the Web was the place I wanted to grow our business and that I did not want to enter the traditional printed mail-order catalog mode. In early 1997 I realized that, if Audiobooks Online was going to grow, I needed a way to catalog our growing list of hundreds of audiobook titles, and a simple way for visitors to find and order them online. It wasn't until we purchased ShopSite, an SSL certificate, and server space from GoSite in July 1997 that our Web sales really took off. We currently use ShopSite SC Pro 6.2 and have over 7300 audiobooks catalogued at our Web store.
We currently do all of our non-ShopSite pages (homepage, testimonials, shipping, how to order...) and search engine optimization in-house and have our Web store hosted at LexiConn. LexiConn's superb service and competitive hosting plan have allowed us to concentrate our limited resources in other areas. They are experts in ShopSite and keep our store running smoothly.
Key ShopSite Features
ShopSite has allowed us to present our thousands of products in an organized format so that they are easy to find and easy to order. Adding to and updating our products is a breeze, and its customization and flexibility continue to improve. In fact, we are continually challenged to take full advantage of all of ShopSite's capabilities.
We consider the initial investment and subsequent upgrade to the Pro version to be miniscule compared to the sales it has allowed us to make. The developers of ShopSite -- particularly now that the original folks have control again -- listen to their users and frequently make enhancements in the software's ability, allowing us to operate more efficiently and to offer our visitors and customers a better browsing and shopping experience.
E-Commerce Tips
Our primary means of marketing is to rank high in the major Search Engines by optimizing our domain name (audiobooksonline.com), our page titles, Meta keywords and descriptions and our Web pages. Our ShopSite product pages are "Search Engine Friendly" due to their static nature. Many customers find us by inserting the title of one of our audiobooks into a search engine.
We have intentionally stayed away from "cutting-edge" Web technology (frames, Flash, pop-ups and animation) which can be Search Engine Unfriendly and annoying to visitors.
Trust is a major issue with visitors and becoming more so (IMHO) because of all the SPAM and SCAMs on the Web. We clearly state our address, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses on our homepage as well as many other pages. In addition, we prominently show our membership in BBBOnline and display a "Hacker Safe" icon (purchased through LexiConn) on most pages.
Although we discount most audiobook retail prices, our real value to customers is our personal service. One of our tag lines is "Real People - Old Fashion Service." Every ShopSite order we receive is reviewed and processed by conscientious personnel who are on the lookout for unusual situations in customers' orders. For example, if we spot a mixture of cassettes and CDs in the same order, we contact the customer and usually find that they meant to order all in the same format. Customers appreciate this attention to detail. We sell a product, however, our value add is the personal service we provide.
- Larry Bohen
www.audiobooksonline.com