Are you implementing M.R.A in your eCommerce strategy ?

I want to give you 3 simple tips and strategies that will definitely help your e-commerce store sales. Typically we just don’t see them implemented with most of the sites we look at and they are very straightforward.

Manufacturer

Tip number 1 is M for Manufacturer. Most e-commerce stores are obviously selling a physical product and most physical products. Most products are bought from a specific company either manufacturer or distributor, or potentially a reseller. Ultimately that product has been sourced from a manufacturer and those manufacturer will have a websites with a “where to buy” section.
Visit a manufacturer’s website for a product you sell. Click on the “where to buy”, and typically there’s three, four, five website links linking off to their web suppliers who supply that product. If you supply that product and aren’t lited here why aren’t you listed?
It’s quite straightforward to get on the where to buy with a lot of manufacturers. Now, what that does is two fold:
It obviously positions you as an authority in your niche in terms of gaining your referral link and referral traffic directly from a manufacturer, from a brand. In terms of direct referrals, you’re obviously going to get more business from that. Also, it’s positioning your business as one of the key suppliers of those products. If you’re selling a green widget and you’ve got a link from a manufacturer of the green widget, Google’s going to like that link. There is no doubt, whether it’s follow or no follow. Think about the products that you sell, think about where you buy those products from, and ultimately where they come from in terms of manufacturing. Talk to your rep, your sales agent, etc.

Rel=Author

The 2nd tip, R for rel=author. We see this time and time again not implemented. It’s so simple to implement and it will help.
Rel author is very easy to implement.  For example, if you were to go to Google now, type in SEO Lincolnshire, you’ll see a picture of this face, and that’s because we’ve got rel author set up. Now if you’re selling products, you must do the same.
Setting up rel author is very straightforward. It’s linking, basically, a Google+ account, a Google profile to a blog. You also need to get a blog set up. If you’ve not got one already, there’s obviously all sorts of reasons why you should have a blog. We won’t talk about that in this particular video, but in terms of linking that blog to a Google+ account, it’s very straightforward.
Go to your Google profile, your Google+ profile. Click on the Edit Profile, go to the Contribute section, and you basically fill that in with the blog URL and the blog name. Take that Google profile, and you need to basically place that in your WordPress set up. This can get a little bit messy if you’re not familiar with code, but fortunately if you’re using WordPress blogs already, you’ll know how simple some of these things can be. We use a plug in called Yoast. Insert your Google+ profile ID, and basically the two will sync. There is also a Structured Snippets tool where you can basically test that’s working. Basically, you’re telling Google that you’re linking the two together. So when it’s looking to rank sites, potentially, you are becoming more of a trusted advisor. When somebody does a search into Google and there’s a list of listings, and an image associated with it, it’s been proven that the listing typically will get a higher click through than it would if it didn’t have the profile picture.
You may have seen profile pictures in a lot of Google searches. That’s rel author.
When using a Search engines where are potential visitors going to click? There’s a picture, there’s an image of a person, of you, ideally, or you as the person that’s authoring that content. This sign of authority will increase click through.

About Us

Tip 3 is your about us page. Most e-commerce stores have an about us page now. This is something that normally gets created very quickly.
Most people aren’t too keen talking about themselves. A short paragraph or two, maybe an image of their brand is normally where it ends. This is  a big mistake. If you look at your Google Analytics, I can guarantee you that your about us page will be getting some traction, getting some traffic. People want to know who they’re buying off. Who are people behind the business?
It’s important that you craft a very strong about us page, which normally just doesn’t get done. Use the history of the company. If you’ve been established for quite some time, you need to show that on that page. Demonstrate where you started and where you’ve come from, and how you’ve grow the business, potentially. People are interested in that.
Look at displaying social proof of happy customers. The fact that you are a real bricks and mortal store as well as the e-commerce store, should be shown in your about us page. It really does work wonders if you’ve got pictures and images of the staff in the business, working in the business, potentially even video. This is definately something we would recommend.
I’m sure the 3 tips we’ve given you there can be implemented and you can make effective changes.
Any questions at all, please leave a comment below, and I’ll happily answer them.
I’ll see you soon. Thank you.