How we can help you?
India’s leading digital marketing agency specializing in branding, search engine optimization, social media marketing, pay per click, content writing and community management. Netilly is a one stop solution to your digital marketing needs. Give us a chance to prove ourselves.
Establish Strategy
We work with you to create a customized online marketing strategy for your specific business needs.
Create Marketing Plan
The strategy needs to be broken down into tactical short term action plan that can deliver the desired results.
Execute as per Plan
Our team of specialists will work with you to execute the defined action items as per the documented plan.
Drive Online Traffic
Using digital marketing techniques we help you drive organic and inorganic traffic to your website.
Generate Leads Online
Every visitor to your website is a potential customer. Digital marketing can help you generate more leads for your business.
Improve Conversion
More traffic and leads means more sales. Improved engagement can result in better conversion.
Who we've worked with
Prameeth Prabhu
, Springs Car Care
The experience of working with Netilly, has been a wonderful one. They have a passionate, responsible and competent team, very thoughtful and hardworking, and always reliable in delivering the results. We treat each other as business partners, rather than just clients.
Saurabh Sethi
, Interactive Trade Solutions LLP
We have been using Netilly’s Services for over five months now. We have used their web development, social media marketing & lead generation services. They are meticulous, diligent and trustworthy in their approach and drive result-based initiatives for ITS LLP. Their sincerity and dedication is commendable. We look forward to a long-term engagement with Netilly and would highly recommend them as a trustworthy digital partner
Dr. Jitender Gupta
, MBBS, MD (Medicine)
Netilly team have demonstrated a great sense of commitment as they stretched to make this happen at such a short notice. My experience with their team has been highly satisfactory and I recommend them for online solutions that business owners & professionals are looking for during this tough time.
Vikas Rakheja
, The Lavva Bar & Kitchen
Netilly is a 360-degree creative agency that has helped two of our group businesses with branding, web development, social media marketing and paid ad campaigns. They are very thorough and meticulous with their work, and I am extremely happy with their efforts. They have a very talented team and the approach is very professional. I highly recommend Netilly to any business that is planning to leverage digital marketing to grow.
Kuldeep Pandit
, Home Jiny
Netilly helped build a very coherent digital strategy spanning social media and PPC. The execution of the strategy was well coordinated with adequate emphasis on critical parts.
Mona Billing
, Sun Waves Immigration
We have engaged Netilly for their branding services and the design & construction of the website for our immigration business. I must say the Netilly team is very accommodating, flexible, and go out of the way to deliver what we want. They provided multiple options for the logo until we arrived at the final version. Also, they have done an excellent job on our website. They are very proactive, professional, and kept us updated about the progress at each stage.
Our Recent Blogs
Digital advertising is a targeted advertising strategy on online platforms that is aimed at advertising and promoting a brand and improving sales. Advertising has always been one of the basic business segments that directly contribute to sales. Digital advertising is no different.
Instead of placing banners on the highways, you place banners on websites and social media pages. Instead of creating advertisements that run on the television, you create video ads on social media. While the idea behind digital advertising may be similar to that of traditional advertising, the way you target people, the kinds of advertising content that you create, and the effort you take all are completely different.
Here are some of the best digital advertising tips curated by the experts from Netilly.
11 Digital Marketing Strategy Tips
1. Creative Elements
Creative elements make the most important part of your digital advertising strategy. Elements are logos, images, videos, banners, themes, mascots, and other elements you use in all your advertising.
These are a part of digital branding too. Here, the more creative your visuals are, the better they will grab online people’s attention. Creative elements start from the logo you choose and extend to the everyday posts you make on social media.
In a day, an average user sees thousands of posts from brands across the world. The creative elements you use will decide whether or not your posts are intriguing enough to click on them.
You must hire a content marketing team to put together amazing creative elements for your brand. Remember, such content is the face of your brand on a digital platform. You need to get this right.
2. Do Your Research
Spending money on digital advertising is cheaper than traditional advertising but can still pinch your pockets if you don’t do it right. One of the most important digital advertising tips and tricks is to research before you spend any money.
Here are some of the questions you need answers to.
Who is your target audience?
Which online platform do your audiences use the most?
What kind of content does your audience like watching?
What is the aim of your digital advertising strategy? Do you want more leads, brand recognition, or engagement?
Market research is a very important preparation process you have to get right before you advertise. If you have an internal market research team, you can make use of them, and not, there are market research brands that dedicatedly do the task for you. If you work with a digital marketing agency, they conduct market research too.
3. Target the right audience
Targeting the right audience is going to directly decide how many leads you get and what the Return On Investment (ROI) is for your digital advertising expenditure.
Let’s assume you sell funky t-shirts with fun quotes. Who are your target audiences?
Age – The product interests the younger generation, probably teenagers and adults younger than 30.
Gender – Both men and women like such T-shirts
Geography – Targeting tier I and tier II cities may prove beneficial. They have more disposable income and are interested in unique products
Where to find the audience? – Facebook and Instagram are two platforms these youngsters frequent more.
Create a brainstorming session with your team to get an idea of who you will sell to. This will make your digital advertising efforts pay more. When you spend ₹10,000 on Pay Per Click advertising, by filtering out the target audience right, more potential customers are going to see your ad, and the chances of them checking out your website and making a purchase is higher.
When you don’t filter out your audience, a chunk of people who are shown your ads are going to be middle-aged folks and the elderly who have no interest in what you are selling. Netilly’s eCommerce promotion service will help you pick the right audience and improve your ROI.
4. Optimize your landing pages
Now, this is another of the most important digital marketing tips you have to take seriously. What does optimizing landing pages mean?
A landing page is a page your visitors land on. In the digital marketing world, this is a page created exclusively to convert leads into sales. The page encourages your visitors to take the next step towards buying your product or your service.
When you advertise on social media platforms or the internet in general, you leave the onlookers a web link they can click to check you out. Let’s say your digital advertisement was made well and was interesting enough to get more people to click on the link.
What happens when they click on the bait? They are taken to the landing page. If the landing page does not offer them something interesting, they are going to close the tab and walk away. Customers are also going to close the tab in the following circumstances:
The landing page looks badly designed/cluttered/filled with ads
The landing page loads very slowly
The images on the page are not interesting enough
The page is not optimized for smartphone screens
5. Clear Call-To-Action (CTA)
What is call-to-action? It is a piece of content that tells a viewer what to do exactly. One of the digital advertising tips that businesses don’t take seriously is to make things easier for the customer. When you tell them what exactly to do, they will probably do it without much thought!
Here are some very compelling CTAs that can give you some inspiration.
6. Compelling Messaging
Is your digital advertising message compelling enough for your visitors to check you out? This is a question you should be asking yourself every time you create new content. A compelling message is additive to the audience. They cannot help but click on it. This is going to be your success.
Spend a lot of time creating messages that are compelling and interesting. There are so many online digital advertising tools – emails, personal messages, coupons, videos, and social media posts. Create interesting messages everywhere to improve your click-through rate.
Analyze the results of each of your advertising effort. Did a particular message get more clicks and leads than others? What was different in this ad? Why did people like it? Can you create a similar ad and see if it received the same interest?
These strategies will help you over time to know what your audiences like and want and tweak your advertising process the right way.
7. Testing and monitoring
One of the most effective digital advertising tips is to do the A/B testing and monitor the results. A/B testing is also called an experiment. Here you have two groups – a control group and a test group. You conduct experiments on these two groups to understand what strategy works better. The A/B testing is very commonly used to build responsive and professional websites that users love to come back to.
Here is an example. Create two different email advertising content. Share it with the same audience during the same time of the day, for the same number of times a week. Now analyze the results of both the email advertisements. How many clicks did they receive? Who received the email turned into leads and later buyers? How many responses did you get for these emails?
The content that received maximum engagement is considered the better of the two here and you should be structuring your next few email marketing ads the same way.
You can use Google Ads to set up an experiment. Give it a try. This is one of the most interesting digital advertising tips and tricks.
8. Imagery Matters
A picture is worth a thousand words. Despite what your goal is for your digital advertising campaign, using the right images matter. Here is Netilly’s take on image optimization. We have also put together a list of image optimization plugins you can use.
Don’t use images with high pixel ratios. These don’t load fast enough and cause lags when people open your website. Use the right image names and pick the right sizes. All these matters.
When your images tell a story rather than just sell a product, that improves user engagement and helps you reach more audiences. Here are some of the top brands on Instagram that are slaying with their images.
Don’t these images make you want to stare at them a little longer? Imagine having a call to action button with one of these beautiful images. You will get more engagement with these.
9. Analyze data
You might have the best creative and advertising team and maybe putting together awesome content out on the internet. However, how do you know if the efforts work? Another of the most basic digital marketing tips is to analyze your data regularly. Keep making a note of your website traffic, conversion rate, click-through rate, and other such analytics. See if your rates are improving or declining. If it is the latter, then maybe your advertising strategies are not working right.
10. Track conversions
You need to use an analytic tool to track your growth graph. You could have gotten away with manually checking how many people bought from you and how many people clicked on your ad. As you grow, this is not going to work. Invest in a paid analytic tool and ensure you track data right. The reports that these tools generate can go a long way in helping you create focused advertising strategies in the future.
You can start with Google Analytics and then go on to invest in more customized tracking tools in the future.
11. Focus on Return On Investment (ROI)
At the end of the day, nothing matters more than how much you have sold. You could have the best images, awesome videos, and great marketing content. If they don’t earn you profits, they are not of any use.
Sometimes, really basic ideas can get high click-through and conversion rates. As much as you try, you cannot fully gauge what clicks with the users. Keep trying, measure your return on investment for the money spent on digital advertisement and ensure you don’t spend more than you can afford to.
Conclusion
Digital advertising is the future of the advertising industry. Most, if not all of your customers have come online now. It is time for you to take the leap too and enter the digital market. If you are new to the online medium, then this list of top digital advertising tips will help you make the right steps. If you want to get help from a professional, do not worry. We are here to guide you through the process. Our group of expert digital marketers and advertisers will ensure your brand is recognized, loved, and sought out by online users. Get in touch with us for a free consultation right now. [...]
What is WhatsApp?
WhatsApp has become the single most popular messaging platform for the global population right now. In 2020, WhatsApp had 2 billion exclusive users. That is about 30% of the world population. This cross-platform messaging and voice-over-IP can be used to make video calls, audio calls, send texts, images, videos, and voice messages to anyone in the world for zero charges. The fact that the messaging service is free has made it immensely popular.
WhatsApp was founded in the year 2009. It was bought by Facebook in February 2014 and since then, the platform has grown more popular.
If a large chunk of your present and future customers use a particular messaging platform, isn’t it one of the best places to market your products and services? This article will take you through the various WhatsApp tips and tricks to help make it a profitable marketing medium.
Why Should You Use WhatsApp Marketing for Your Business?
In 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone app that was made especially for small businesses to reach out to customers. This app has the following features.
Ability to create a business profile
Making labels for your customers so you can find them easily
Sending automated messages
Sending messages and marketing ads to a large group of audience at once
WhatsApp created a new policy upgrade at the beginning of 2021 much to the criticism of various tech experts and common people. The up-gradation will give business owners an easy way to know a common man’s tastes and interests and customize offerings through the WhatsApp platform.
WhatsApp asked its users to accept the new policy to be able to use the platform in the future. Though this policy has not been implemented yet, it clearly shows that the platform is getting business-centric and wants to impress business owners. You can check out details about this new WhatsApp policy change here. Netilly had created a detailed blog about the same sometime back.
According to App Annie data, an app analytics and data brand, an average WhatsApp user in India spends close to 21.3 hours a month on this platform!
This is the platform with the highest number of hours logged. Other social media pages like Facebook and Instagram come behind WhatsApp. What other reason do you want to get into WhatsApp as a business owner?
If you are a small business owner, chances are that you would be using the platform informally for business connections and reaching out to customers anyway. Streamlining this process with the below WhatsApp tips and tricks will help make use of the platform as a free and flourishing marketing medium.
Benefits of WhatsApp Marketing for Your Business
One-to-one engagement – Is there a better medium than WhatsApp to reach quickly to your customer and engage one-on-one? Most customers are always active on WhatsApp. It means you don’t have to send emails or messages on social media platforms and wait for the customer to respond after several days. As of now, there is no better engagement medium for businesses than WhatsApp.
Ability to create free marketing surveys – Want to know if your customer will be interested in a particular scheme or a sale? Want to know if your customer will like a new feature in your product/service? Send out a survey on the WhatsApp marketing app. Make sure you give a discount link or an offer code for customers who fill the survey. The chances of the survey getting filled are higher here than through emails and other survey apps.
Ability to get real-time feedback – Want to know if your customer liked the recent order? Ask away on WhatsApp. It is easier for customers to provide feedback here than by going to the website and filling up reviews. With your customer’s permission, you can upload such feedbacks from WhatsApp to the website easily.
Free marketing – Sending a WhatsApp message is free. You can send videos, audio, images, and texts to market your products and services. If your customers are all on a business WhatsApp group with your team as the admin, a single marketing message sent will reach up to 256 members at a time.
WhatsApp Marketing Strategy
Identify your goals
Goals are results that you aim to achieve as a result of following these WhatsApp tips and tricks and creating a WhatsApp strategy. Your goal could be any of the following.
Getting more customers
Getting your customers to spend more money on your business
Introducing new products/services to clients
Broadcasting new offers and schemes to customers
Being in touch with your new and old customers
You will have to design your marketing strategy based on the goal you have.
Reach the right target audience
Reaching the right audience is a trick that every marketer needs to do right. Imagine spending time, money, and efforts on marketing just to find that the efforts are being wasted on people who have no interest in your product/service?
You can analyze your current customer group and identify common factors like age, gender, tastes, interests, geographical location, etc. that bring them together. Use this to create new criteria to choose your target audience.
If you are broadcasting messages to customers, ask them in advance if they will be interested in receiving messages from you. A handful of customers who wait for your updates and are genuinely interested in your products are better than hundreds of customers who put your WhatsApp messages on mute and don’t show any interest.
Get the business app
As mentioned above, the WhatsApp business app is the best way to use this platform for marketing. One of the most result-providing WhatsApp tips and tricks is to use this platform professionally. You may have been sending random messages to friends and family on WhatsApp about your business. However, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to act like a serious marketer.
Here are the steps to start using the WhatsApp business app.
Step 1: Download the WhatsApp Business app on your phone. It is available for both Android and iOS platforms.
Step 2: Create a business profile. It includes giving a name for your business, adding your business description, mentioning your email ID and your website address.
Step 3: Create a catalog with the different products or services you offer. This makes it easy to send customers pictures and relevant details when needed.
Step 4: Start creating broadcasting groups. Send requests to customers to add them to the broadcasting group and start sending marketing and regular information.
Step 5: Be active on WhatsApp. Be ready to answer multiple queries and handle order requests all over WhatsApp. Have payment apps through which you can send payment requests and receive payments all through WhatsApp.
Create your own WhatsApp brand identity
Have your own identity on WhatsApp. You can be a fun-loving brand, a professional brand, or a brand that concentrates on personal relationships with customers. Whatever persona you have, do not let automated messages rule your WhatsApp business. Know small yet significant personal information about customers and be ready to constantly keep in touch with your customers even if it not for a business order.
Comment on the display picture of a customer if you like it and ask about the health of the family. All these are ways to create your own familiar brand identity.
You can get in touch with an expert to build a brand identity. This will help you in the long run.
Build Contacts
This is a very important part of this list of WhatsApp tips and tricks. You need to constantly build your contact list to reach out to more people. With WhatsApp marketing, you can only market by sending information and messages over the WhatsApp group. How will you do this without a contact list?
Be ready to talk to potential customers and encourage them to join your broadcasting group. Add a link to your WhatsApp customer group in all your social media pages and on your website too.
Whenever possible, try getting the contacts of new, interested customers.
Decide the format of your communication
How would you feel if a random brand kept bombarding you with messages multiple times a day, all 365 days a year? How would you feel if you keep receiving irrelevant spam messages regularly?
This is how your customers would feel too when you don’t think twice about what kind of messages your customers will like to receive from you.
Keep your communications short and to the point. Add images and videos wherever relevant. Some media companies send 3-5 messages daily. Sometimes, this can get overwhelming. Industry experts mention that sending 5-10 messages in a week is the best strategy. This helps you reach out to customers daily without sounding like a spammer.
Concentrate on the customer service
Customers like quick service and responding to messages is the easiest on WhatsApp. Once you have set your business app and created a contact list, be active on the platform all through the day. One easy WhatsApp marketing strategy is to respond as quickly as you can and send personalized messages instead of responding with automated messages.
With smart strategies, your entire business process, starting from getting leads to receiving payments can be done over the WhatsApp platform.
WhatsApp Marketing Ideas and Examples
Petpal
Petpal is a Hyderabad-based pet care brand that was launched in 2016. The brand offers all kinds of products and services for pets including food delivery, accessories delivery, and connecting with vets. The brand has always used WhatsApp as a major marketing medium. Customers can order products and avail of vet service online through WhatsApp. Check out the brand’s website. The WhatsApp chat option is available on the home page.
Let’s Learn Together
Let’s Learn Together is an affordable way to prepare for competitive examinations in different regional languages. This startup exclusively uses WhatsApp to share information about different competitive exams, send and receive books for these exams and answer queries. The startup uses WhatsApp as it is compatible with all platforms, can be used to share videos, audios, text, and documents easily, and more importantly, is free. This brand has grown into a 600-student, 30 faculty group in just one year.
Netflix
Netflix also reaches out to customers via WhatsApp. You can choose to receive updates about the latest movie, series updates, and other account-related information. You can enable or disable Netflix updates on WhatsApp.
Craft Trade
Craft Trade is a growing home décor that is a 100% Indian growing brand. Thanks to its WhatsApp business app, the brand started as a small home business in 2016 and has now grown to an international brand. The brand sells products to customers in the United States, Europe, and Canada.
Check out their WhatsApp messaging link on the website. All you need to do is click on the WhatsApp logo and you can quickly chat with them.
Takeaways: WhatsApp Tips and Tricks
All these WhatsApp tips and tricks will definitely help you use WhatsApp as a serious marketing medium instead of just using it as a personal chatting forum. Here are four marketing strategies you can use to build your identity and networking on WhatsApp.
Make use of WhatsApp broadcasting – In a WhatsApp broadcasting list, you can bring together a group of audiences and broadcast messages to them. The advantage is that the members will not be able to see each other’s identities or numbers in this group. This is like Bcc-ing people on group emails.
Make use of WhatsApp statuses – Some so many people regularly check the WhatsApp statuses of people and businesses on this messaging forum. Promote your products and services here too. Remember that all your contacts can see your status. This is the best free marketing you can do.
Make your product catalog interesting – Create different types of catalogs, some with only product images and prices and others with product images, descriptions, sizing details, and prices. Send them relevant catalogs to help them choose the right products. Remember that the easier accessing your catalog is, the faster will your customers place an order.
Still, confused on how to handle WhatsApp business marketing? Get in touch with us and we can help create a strategy that will keep you active on this messaging forum. [...]
In today’s blog, we are sharing the WooCommerce tutorial. Creating an online business is a challenging affair. In an industry with millions of websites and thousands of competitors, creating a site that attracts customers and adds value in multiple ways is something not all brands can achieve.
One of the basic needs for an online business is an eCommerce website. This is the online platform where you sell your product or service. Just like how a physical store is a basis for any offline business, your website is what is going to pull people in to try your offerings.
You can always get in touch with expert designers to create your website. This is easy but is going to cost you. Larger businesses and businesses with financial backups prefer outsourcing website creation to those who know the process right.
For small businesses and those already struggling with the financial burdens of starting up, this can be slightly challenging. In such cases, many business owners opt to use free tools to create their websites, at least in the initial stages. WooCommerce is one such tool to help build a website and maintain it. This article will take you through a detailed WooCommerce tutorial with steps and explanations to help build your website on WooCommerce.
What is WooCommerce?
A lot of businesses are interested in creating their own websites now using one or more of the tools available in the market. One such tool is WooCommerce. This is an open-source platform for building and managing a website that runs on WordPress.
Established in 2008, WooCommerce has come a long way from just having a handful of themes for website builders to offering thousands of customizations and end-to-end solutions for small and large businesses alike. The brand calls itself the ‘most customizable eCommerce Platform’ in the market right now.
Is that true? Check out this WooCommerce tutorial and you can find out for yourself.
What features of WooCommerce make it special?
Comparison between WooCommerce and Shopify
All over the internet, customers who have used WooCommerce have left behind reviews and feedback for this platform, and here is a list of features that most of them have liked.
WooCommerce is a completely open-source platform and this means that if needed, you can create a website and run it fully free. The only things you need to pay for initially are the hosting charges and a domain name. It is definitely much cheaper than its competitors like Shopify.
WooCommerce lets you customize like crazy. You can make changes to the themes and their coding. You can use a variety of paid and free plugins available on the platform to create a website that looks and works like nothing else in the market.
WooCommerce needs basic designing skills and technical knowledge to get it right. You, at least, need to have the patience to learn if you are using it all by yourself.
There are umpteen numbers of paid and free add-ons that integrate third-party services and improve the features of your website on WooCommerce
It is not impossible to create a professional-looking and exclusive website all on your own when you follow the right WooCommerce tutorial.
Shopify is the closest competitor to WooCommerce and at the end of the day, customers end up choosing between the two. Here is Netilly’s blog on a detailed comparison between WooCommerce and Shopify. You will be able to compare the pros and cons of both these platforms easily after reading this.
Basic requisites to create a WooCommerce store?
You can either create a new website using WooCommerce or extend and add more features to your existing website using the plugins this platform offers. You will need WordPress hosting to build your store. This has to be paid for. You also need a domain name of your choice. This also has to be paid for. If you want an SSL certification (HTTPS:// instead of HTTP: //), then that has to be paid for too.
Once all these are done, you can set up your store easily.
Steps to set up an eCommerce website with WooCommerce tutorial
Step 1: Getting started with WooCommerce
Visit WooCommerce’s website and look through the features offered, the kind of add-ons you can use, and other factors that may interest you. Before you decide to narrow down on a platform to build your store in, knowing the basics is important.
Let’s go through this WooCommerce tutorial with an example. We will try and build a jewelry brand on the platform. Different website hosts can help your startup. WordPress recommends the following.
BlueHost
DreamHost
SiteGround
With BlueHost, there are a variety of plans to start with.
Choose your preferred plan. You will be asked to choose your domain name next. You can check what domain names are available easily on BlueHost. While a lot of extensions are available, the .com extension is preferred.
Next, create an account and make the payment based on what package you have chosen. Once all this is done, your hosting website, BlueHost in this example, will give you a dashboard from where you can install WordPress and WooCommerce.
Step 2: Setting up WordPress
You will have to log in to WordPress to start setting it up. If you use hosting platforms, they automatically install and give you access to WordPress. If not, you need to sign up on WordPress.
Once you have access to WordPress, you can go to the Dashboard>Settings and edit the general settings.
Browse through the rest of the settings and make relevant changes wherever needed.
Step 3: Installing and setting up WooCommerce
Once your WordPress installation and setup are done, you need to install the WooCommerce Plugin. In the WordPress dashboard, click Plugin and choose WooCommerce. You can also search for WooCommerce in the search tab.
Install and activate the plugin. You will have to have a business account to install plugins.
Step 4: Access the Setup Wizard
Once you install WooCommerce, you will be taken through a series of setup processes. You will be asked multiple questions to identify the kind of store you plan to start. You can change certain key settings here and it is recommended you complete this without skipping.
Step 5: Choose Details
Choose the Industry Choose the Product Type
WooCommerce will next ask you for details about your industry and product type. We will be choosing jewelry here.
The next question will be about the type of product you sell. We will be choosing ‘physical products’ here.
The next question will be how customers will pay for your products/services. We will choose one-time payments.
The 5th step is how you want to install WooCommerce. We will be getting WooCommerce pre-installed.
Complete installation and the first step is set.
Step 6: Choosing a WooCommerce template & theme
There are thousands of themes on WooCommerce for you to choose from. This is one of the most fun parts of the WooCommerce tutorial. You can choose between three kinds of themes:
Free themes
Storefront themes
Responsive themes
If you want a really professional website, skip the free themes and opt for the responsive ones. These look great on all operating systems and devices.
Step 7: Adding products in WooCommerce
It is very easy for you to add products to the WooCommerce dashboard. All you need to do is click on Products>Add new.
You can enter the product title, product description, category, and other details like inventory, shipping, sale price, and other attributes.
Step 8: Installing WooCommerce plugins and extensions
If there is one step that makes a difference between a mediocre and an amazing website, it is this point. In this WooCommerce tutorial, this is a step you need to spend a lot of time researching on. There are thousands of extensions and plugins for WooCommerce and some of them totally change the look and efficiency of your website.
You can use plugins and extensions to add payment options, ask for feedback, manage images, help with SEO, add pricing tables and so much more. Here are some of the best WooCommerce plugins for you in 2021.
Google Analytics
WooCommerce Shipping
HubSpot
Google Ads
Square Payments
Paypal
Step 9: WooCommerce Resources to grow your online store
Once your website is all set and you have added products and made it live, here are some resources you should start building to get more conversions and to stay busy selling your products and services.
Encourage your customers to sign up and give their email IDs. A majority of people will abandon their carts and leave halfway through. Connecting via email will help get better conversions.
Use market research to identify the right target audience. Make sure you are reaching out to these audiences in multiple ways to encourage them to try out your website.
Create campaigns and sale giveaways to get more customers. You can install some good Campaign Monitor plugin to automate plugins and get repeat customers.
Step 10: Setup Payment Gateway
There are so many types of payment gateway extensions and plugins you can use to set up your payment gateway. WooCommerce Payments is a one-stop solution for you to collect payments, track cash flow, manage refunds, and check your revenue.
Apart from this you can install the below top payment gateway plugins on WooCommerce and make use of them to collect and manage payments.
Amazon Pay
PayPal
Stripe
Square
PayFast
Step 11: Set up Shipping
Again, WooCommerce has its own integrated built-in shipping plugin called WooCommerce Shipping. You can install this and the plugin will take over most of the shipping processes starting from creating labels to printing shipping summary and identifying exact shipping rates. While WooCommerce Shipping is fully integrated for the US, it will soon reach the rest of the countries.
WooCommerce is also an excellent dropshipping platform. Dropshipping is a process where the business owner neither maintains warehouses nor ships from his end. Once an order is processed, sellers take over the order shipping.
Step 12: Check That WooCommerce Is Configured Correctly
Once your website is up and running, try visiting the website like a customer and order products/services. See if the website is reactive and if the payment gateway is smooth. Check for potential bugs that can disappoint your actual customers.
Once you place an order, go backend and process it. See how efficient the support and plugins are. Do this a couple of times until you get the confidence that the system works seamlessly.
Step 13: Extend Functionality Using Plugins
Even after your website is successfully running and getting you orders, you have to keep check out this WooCommerce tutorial regularly. You have to especially check the plugins. Plugins keep getting upgraded and new plugins are added every day. Some of these may be game-changers for your business. Make sure to keep a lookout for good plugins on the WooCommerce forums and other discussion boards.
WooCommerce FAQs
WooCommerce is an absolutely exciting platform to create an eCommerce store and run it successfully. Here are some additional questions that you may have about the platform.
Can you customize themes?
The basics of changes in themes like adding your logo and changing font sizes can be done in all free and paid themes. However, if you want to tweak the platform or the basic settings, then you should have knowledge of HSS and CSS. It is definitely possible to make endless customizations though.
How can you get help?
Since WooCommerce is open-source software, you cannot expect someone to handhold you all through the process. What you can do is check out the massive amounts of documentation and video helps available.
You will also be able to chat with someone from the WooCommerce team if you need further help.
Are plugins and extensions a one-time buy?
No. Most times, these are subscription-based charges and you will be billed for them annually. WooCommerce will get back to you in advance when your subscription is up for renewal.
What if you don’t like an extension from WooCommerce?
Most of the extensions come with a 30-day moneyback guarantee and you will be able to get your money back if you are not happy with the product.
Who are WooCommerce’s competitors?
Some of the close competitors of WooCommerce are Shopify, WPForms, BigCommerce, and Magento Open Source.
Wrapping Up
This WooCommerce tutorial must have given you complete steps and details on how to set up an eCommerce website easily. If you have been waiting to build your own website and have the time and energy to do so, definitely use WooCommerce. If you want some handholding, then there are experts who can help take over this task for you. Get in touch with us and we will help you build the best website in the market. [...]
Services and start an eCommerce business ideas in a day’s time! You can also send a social message to your potential customers and market your brand in a matter of minutes. All this has made the e-commerce domain lucrative for potential businessmen, businesswomen, and entrepreneurs.
Between the years 2020 and 2024, the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of India for e-commerce sales is projected to be 13.1%. We are going to grow faster than countries like the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of CAGR.
If you are caught up in the eCommerce wave too, then here are the top 9 business ideas you can try out in 2021.
9 eCommerce Business Ideas to Try
Health & Beauty and Personal Care Products
Two of the top industries that are going to do amazingly well in 2021 and in the years to come are healthcare and beauty products. The Indian healthcare sector is set to grow to $ 372 billion by 2022. It is to be noted that the government of India is aiming to increase healthcare spending to 3% of the total GDP in 2022. This is going to open up newer avenues for online healthcare brands.
Did you know that between March and May 2020, about 5 crore Indians opted for online healthcare? The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a lot of people to switch to online consultations and online purchases of medicines. The trend will keep increasing.
The beauty and personal care segment in India will be valued at $ 26,853 million in 2021. Out of these, 13% of the revenue will be generated online. That is about $3,490 million! If you are starting a beauty and personal care brand this year, you can grab a chunk of the sales out of this.
Clothing
The clothing industry is thriving despite the current pandemic situation. People have more time working from home right now and that’s encouraging them to consider online shopping. Most high-end apparel brands invest heavily in digital marketing to get people to buy their products online. According to RedSeer consulting, the fashion market is set to grow at 11%. The online fashion market will grow at an even higher rate of 32%.
According to this report, the online fashion market occupied 6% of the total fashion sales in 2019. In 2024, it will grab 14% of the market share.
More than 50% of the online fashion market sale is apparel. Both branded and unbranded apparel companies will do equally well in the coming years. You could be a clothing manufacturer or a distributor. Either way, this is a good time to reap profits and grow online with these eCommerce business ideas.
Home Appliances
Another category of products that is projected to do really well this year is home appliances. Thanks to people staying home for the last year, appliances like vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, and cooking and baking devices have been in constant demand.
The consumer electronics industry, especially the entertainment section will also do really well in the coming year.
According to Mordor Intelligence, the home appliances industry is the largest in the Indian market. The report also mentions that the online home appliances channel is one of the vital spaces for growth in the years to come. Products like air-conditioners are largely untapped in the country with penetration of just 4% and will grow well. Do your research on the home appliances industry and see if you want to create an eCommerce business in this area.
Kids Games
Another category that is doing great and will continue to do well in the future is kids’ games. With online schooling right now and the fear of stepping out, kids are confined within the four walls of the house and have nothing productive to do. As a result, screen times at home have increased tremendously. This is the reason parents are ready to spend good money on toys that will keep the kids engaged.
Starting from indoor sports to educational games, all sub-categories will do well and if you are going to exclusively sell kids’ games, you will definitely reap profits.
Online gaming is also going to be a profitable business to look into. India has the highest youth population and slightly older children, teenagers, and youngsters have started depending on gaming consoles to pass their time.
The market value of the gaming industry is forecasted to be ₹250 billion in 2024. You could sell gaming consoles, games, or even develop gaming software this year to make profits.
Baby Products
If there is one category that will never dip low, it is baby products. Babies and their safety and comfort remain the utmost priority for parents across the world and this keeps this industry booming and growing.
According to Data Bridge, the Indian baby care products industry will be growing at a CAGR of 16.9% between the years 2020 to 2027. Some of the categories under the baby product section are:
Baby cosmetics and toiletries
Baby food
Baby convenience
Baby clothing
Baby toys
Baby safety and convenience
Baby shoes
You can manufacture baby products or simply resell them. You can also be an eCommerce platform to sell products from different vendors. These eCommerce business ideas will definitely take you places.
Wearable devices
Wearable devices are one of the top bought products on all eCommerce sites. These devices include smartwatches and fitness bands that are equipped with various kinds of sensors and other features to make people’s life easier.
In the next five years, the wearable devices market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 40%. That is an impressive figure and this industry will open up a lot of opportunities for manufacturers, distributors, and resellers. The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology will directly affect this market.
While expensive and branded smartwatches and fitness bands have their own set of loyal followers, affordable wearable devices from newer brands are going to be sold in huge numbers in the coming days.
Online Courses
Have you heard of Udemy, Coursera, and UpGrad? These are some of the most popular websites offering online courses for the global population. These are platforms where mentors, universities, and students come together to teach and learn. In India, brands like the IIMs, IITs, and other premier institutes also offer online courses on these platforms.
You could be a mentor in one of these places or create a similar platform and offer a space for students and mentors to communicate.
Here is Netilly’s list of must check-out list of digital marketing online courses.
Online e-books and audiobooks
When Amazon Kindle was introduced in 2007, people laughed at the idea of reading a book online. Right now, the e-book industry in India alone is poised to grow to $205 million in 2021. The user penetration will also increase, and the average CAGR between 2021 and 2025 will be 5.06%.
Globally, the e-book market will reach $28.73 billion. You could be a writer, a publisher, or a seller. All ways, this industry will help your business grow by leaps and bounds.
Another eCommerce business ideas you can give a shot is audiobooks. Like how people read books online, many people have started listening to books too. The global audiobooks market will grow to $20 billion in 2030. The Indian audiobook market alone is worth $1 billion.
Thanks to the COVID pandemic, people are looking for sources of entertainment staying at home and one can only watch movies and TV series for so long. Audiobooks are also used by fitness enthusiasts and those who walk and jog to pass time when they work out.
There are many audiobook production companies in India like Reado, Nirali Prakashan, Kannadhasan Pathippagam, and Prabhat Prakashan Private Limited. Apps like Audible, Spotify, Gaana, LibriVox all offer audiobooks to customers too.
Dropshipping
Thanks to continuous lockdowns and curfews, eCommerce has become the most common way to buy things. Your customers may need a specific ayurvedic oil from a vendor in Kerala or Khakras from a Gujarati home seller. You can be a platform where people order stuff from. Dropshipping is a business model where you will not be required to have stocks of products in your warehouse. All you need to have is a website where different vendors and customers meet. Once an order is placed, the responsibility of fulfilling the same gets transferred to the seller. You will only be on the middle platform and receive commissions for each of the orders placed.
Though Amazon and Flipkart have their own warehouses, they operate via dropshipping modes too. Dropshipping is becoming the most common fulfillment method as the capital is not intensive and starting a business is a quick affair. Dropshipping business model can be scaled really quickly too and is definitely one of the most successful eCommerce business ideas to try out this 2021.
Final Thoughts
There are hundreds of eCommerce business ideas existing in the world. These 9 are just a few good ones that are projected to do well this year and in the years to come. You could be starting a business that is unheard of. However, if you have the right passion to take it forward, you could become a business innovator.
Think about your passion. What kind of products and services interest you? What business idea do you believe in? What idea do you think you can take forward for years together without wavering passion? Only these ideas will work for you.
If you have the time and money to invest, get in touch with a market research team and understand the current market trends before you invest in an idea. We will be happy to listen to your eCommerce idea and give you a free consultation too. Mention your business idea in the comments below or drop us an email. [...]
Image Optimization, Images are vital to any website. This is a fact and is certainly something you have been hearing over time. When you enter an apparel store, you end up choosing a product that looks nice to your eyes. The same is true for websites. Images end up converting visitors into buyers and you need to spend a lot of time and effort picking the right images for your website.
If the quality of images matters, then websites that use HD images with high pixel ratio should be doing great, shouldn’t they? That’s where things get interesting.
When you use really high-quality images, your website may look great, but the overall size of the website will increase and the loading speed will come down. If you use smaller and average-quality images, your visitors may not be impressed but your website will load very quickly. So where is the balance?
What is Image Optimization?
Image optimization is the process of optimizing images so they are of the smallest possible size but also are of the right dimensions, resolution, and pixel ratio so that their quality is not compromised.
In simpler words, you try to get a balance between image quality and image size so that the visitors experience great images that load quickly too.
Importance of Optimizing Images on Website
Brings down page size
Page size or page bloat is the total size of a particular web page. Let’s say your user browses your website from a mobile phone with a limited data plan. If each of your web pages has multiple high-quality, large images, then the person’s data usage is going to get very high.
According to HTTP Archive, images make up to 75% of a web page’s size. When you optimize the images on the pages, the page bloat will certainly reduce and this is a positive factor to the website.
Improves Page Load Speed
According to Moz, image optimization is one of the top ways to improve load speed. When you have graphics with more than 16 colors, Moz advises you to use PNG files for the images. When you are uploading photographs, choose JPEGs.
This SEO expert also recommends using CSS Sprites to put together all images you may use frequently like different buttons and icons. CSS Sprites will load all these images at once and this brings down page load time.
You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to check your website’s speed.
Improves SEO Ranking
In many of our previous blogs, we have already mentioned that Google considers page load time an important factor to rank your website. Hence, the more optimized the images in your website are, the quicker the pages load and the better will be your ranking.
It is also important to use responsive images. Responsive images need to look the same on larger laptop screens, small tablets, and really small mobile screens too.
Boosts Conversions
Conversions are the heart of any online business. You could be getting thousands of visitors every day. However, if none of these visitors buy from you one way or the other, the business cannot sustain itself.
With image optimization, your website will load really quickly and also look well-designed and attractive. Both these are vital for increased conversion rates.
According to Portent, website conversion rates drop by about 4.42% for every second of website load time. This graph shows you the average dip in conversion rate based on the page load time.
Enhance User Engagement
Users get bored if you have no images and just a lot of content on your website. The same users close the website tab if your website takes a lot of time to load. Optimize great images and make sure they load quickly on all platforms. This is a sure-shot way to enhance user engagement.
How to Optimize Your Website Images
Choose the Right File Format
Three file formats are important when it comes to image file format.
JPEG
PNG
GIF
JPEGs give you the best quality when you compress files. The loss in quality after compression is manageable in most cases. PNGs give you the best quality images and compression is lossless. Compression also gives you really small sizes of the images with not much disruption in quality.
GIFs are perfect choices when you use animated images. Large GIF images occupy a lot of page size though. Always ensure your GIFs are small thumbnails or decoratives. Many of the free and paid image editing tools can convert one format to another easily.
Compression Quality vs. Size
Compression is one of the most important parts of image compression. Here, your original file is compressed or reduced in size to prevent increasing your website bloat. If you download high-quality photos from your digital camera, they can be several megabytes in size. Imagine having hundreds of product images all about 10 MB in size weighing down your website?
Compressing an image can pull down its size to a couple of kilobytes.
Experts say that your landing page should not be more than 2 MB. Your landing page also should consist of the best product/service images. So the only option here is to compress images.
As long as you use the right tools to compress images, you will not notice a dip in the quality. Here are some of the good image compression tools you can use.
Shutterstock editor
io
Optimizilla
TinyPNG
JPEG Optimizer
io
Find Out The Maximum Display Size Of Your Images
When it comes to websites, the size of your image is not measured in terms of width and length. It is more about the pixels. The better the quality of your camera, the more will be the pixel size.
Let’s say you have an image of 5800X3800 pixels. Multiply the numbers and you get 22,040,000. It means the image was captured in a 22 MP camera. Photos that you click on average mobile cameras may look great on the mobile screen. Since their pixels are low, these end up getting blurred or don’t show details when you upload them on your website. You get the drift.
Really large pixel sizes will increase your page bloat. Check the platform you are building your website on to identify the right size for banner images, product images, and thumbnails. Use a resizing tool to bring down the pixel size before you upload them.
Make sure you don’t blow up smaller images to make them bigger on the website. This will make the picture fuzzy and blurred. Always pick larger images and compress them.
Crop and resize Images
Once you identify the correct size of an image, you can crop and then resize them to get the right final dimensions.
Start by cropping the image to remove unwanted parts out. Now, resize based on the dimensions that you want. Here is how you can crop and resize on iPiccy, an image editor tool. We will try and crop and resize a 1920X1112 image into a 500X500 image. You can use any similar tool for cropping and resizing.
(Original Image)
(Image cropped to 1112X1112)
(Image resized to 500X500)
Set Image Optimization on Autopilot
If all these above tasks sound really time-consuming and intense, then you can try setting image optimization on Autopilot. This can be achieved by using some of the popular WordPress plugins. These plugins do all the above tasks like resizing, cropping and compressing on autopilot based on the specs you have decided on.
Doesn’t that sound amazing? Here is a list of worthy WordPress plugins you can use for automating images on autopilot.
Image Optimization Plugins You Can Use
Shortpixel –This is one of the most popular WordPress plugins that people use to edit images in bulk. The plugin helps you achieve lossless and perfect compressions and resizes in a matter of minutes and you can edit multiple pictures all at once. The plugin can also convert one format of the file to another seamlessly.
Smush – Smush is another popular image optimization tool that is super friendly and easy to use. This comes with its own dashboard that will tell you how many images have been edited and how many remain. You can bulk compress or resize images through the plugin and also convert files from one form to another.
Optimole – If you are a professional who wants more features in your editing tool, then Optimole is the perfect option for you. Optimole ensures images are resized correctly based on the platform they are viewed in. It means the image size automatically changes for laptops, tablets, and mobile phones to ensure the quality is perfect. Optimole is so smart that when it detects your user’s network is slow, it further compresses images so the load time will not be affected. It works efficiently and offers excellent image optimization features. Definitely check it out.
Wrapping Up
Image optimization is not something you can take for granted. Check the current speed of your website and identify what kind of lag the images are causing. Talk to a UI/UX developer and see how well you can optimize the images on your website to make the site load faster.
Neither search engines nor your users like slow and unresponsive websites and the wrong sized images can bring down your conversion rate and make your website dull and boring.
You can both manually optimize images or opt for auto optimizers. Either way, do check the final website look and speed on different platforms. If your existing website is slow and you have no idea if the images are the problem, talk to an expert. You can contact us and we will schedule a free consultation for you from our end. This is a good way for you to get some clarity on what to do to upgrade your website. Get in touch with us right away. [...]
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