Cross-border e-commerce DTC and independent station construction

Independent station marketing is divided into 3 modules

In a large proportion of e-commerce enterprises, a large number of sellers fail in the website module. Independent station marketing is divided into 3 modules: traffic acquisition, customer conversion, and customer value development.

Key factors in traffic acquisition

Traffic acquisition largely depends on advertising materials, positioning, and advertising optimization. Advertising materials determine the cost of traffic, while positioning and advertising optimization determine the quality of traffic.

Key points of customer conversion

Customer conversion largely depends on the website and its content. An excellent website conversion rate can reach 3% or even higher.

Choosing the right website building platform

For friends preparing to set up independent cross-border e-commerce websites, choosing the right website building platform is the first issue. Currently, commonly used platforms include Shopify, Bigcommerce, Wordpress+Woocommerce, and Magento.

Wordpress is usually used with Woocommerce, offering highly customizable and rich plugin functions. Magento is suitable for sellers with technical development capabilities and those with special customization needs, but it requires strong technical skills. Shopify and Bigcommerce are relatively easy to get started with and are suitable for beginners to quickly build websites.

Recommend beginners to use Shopify, which can be completed by a small number of people. For sellers with development capabilities or Amazon best sellers transitioning to independent sites, it is recommended to first use Shopify for quick website construction and optimization. When the site funnel is more mature, further optimization can be done by the development team to save testing costs.

Methods for deciding on a website construction platform

Studying the platforms used by sellers who perform well in corresponding product categories is one method. Tools like Similartech can monitor the technical usage of websites, including website construction platforms, payment technologies, and marketing platforms. Research and analysis can help determine which platform to use.

Using tools like Similartech can easily identify the website construction platform and other optimization tools, which is especially important for independent sites.

Website key point analysis

After selecting the platform for an independent site, the content and copywriting of the website become crucial factors in determining the conversion rate. Each module, from the website homepage, landing page, navigation bar, shopping path to content copy, needs to be carefully analyzed. Website construction is not a one-time process but is achieved through continuous testing and optimization.

Importance of Content and Copywriting

Content and copywriting play a crucial role in every module of a website, similar to the language used in hotel menus and by service personnel. If website content fails to attract or resonate with users, they are likely to leave. Therefore, when creating website content, it is essential to think from the user's perspective and produce content that captures user interest.

Avoiding Exaggeration and Technical Orientation

Some sellers tend to use exaggerated headlines or excessively emphasize the technical performance of products, which can often create a negative impression on users. Users are more concerned about product experience and actual results rather than complex technical terms. Therefore, website content and copywriting should focus on the experience products can bring and points that users care about.

Describing Products from the User's Perspective

Taking the well-known brand Bose as an example, most of their website content is written from the user's perspective, describing the experiences and perceptions that the products can bring. This user-oriented copy is more likely to resonate with users and increase conversion rates. Therefore, when creating website content, it is necessary to start from the user's perspective and create engaging copy.

Writing resonant copy

Copywriting is a profession that requires experience and expertise, not just language skills. When engaging in cross-border e-commerce, it is important to understand what kind of content can attract users and entrust the task to a professional copywriting team. With the help of user research and professional writers, the attractiveness of website content can be enhanced.

Continuously optimize website content

Whether users make purchases depends on whether the website content can resonate with them and convince them to meet their real needs. Through continuous optimization and testing, conversion rates can be increased, making users more willing to purchase your products or services.

Homepage

The homepage of the website is a very valuable "real estate", primarily targeting warm traffic and hot traffic. Normally, we redirect cold traffic to the product details page or landing page to reduce the user's purchase path and increase conversion rate. The homepage is often the starting point for direct traffic and organic traffic, which are mostly warm or hot traffic for us.

Therefore, when designing the homepage, the following points need to be noted:

Key Points for Homepage Design

1) The first screen of the homepage is usually the most important space. According to Ogilvy's research, 75% of users will only pay attention to the headline and not to any other content, so it is important to conduct extensive testing on the Hero Image and its accompanying headline.

2) Use a static Hero Image [Homepage First Screen] instead of a rotating banner. Avoid using Stock Images for the Hero Image, and try to use customized images.

3) The focus of the title is to write to 25% of good users, not to write to 100% of all website visitors. There is no such thing as a title that caters to everyone, which can also lower the overall conversion rate. A good title usually has the following three elements:

Focus - simple and clear, direct to the point, not ambiguous.

Relevance - should match your ad or the offer provided by your product.

Benefits - do not introduce your product/company, directly tell users how it can help them or what problems it can solve.

4) Display a catalog of popular or core products on the homepage, such as Explosion, Hot or Key Products.

5) If there are few SKUs, or focus on a specific vertical product. You can add 2-4 brands on the homepage to show the main effects or benefits they bring to users.

6) If using pop-up mode on the homepage, do not use full-screen pop-ups, and clearly describe the benefits that the pop-up can bring to users [Benefit Oriented].

7) Include social proof, add evaluations of products or brands by users, media, KOLs, etc., on the homepage.

Landing page

The landing page is the first step to promote user orders and also the most important part. The reading length/dwell time of the user landing page and the sales conversion rate are positively correlated. Whether the users brought by the advertisement have a low bounce rate, high conversion rate, largely depends on the landing page. A good landing page consists of multiple elements, such as Hero Image, 2-3 main benefits brought by the customers, user cases, Key Features, What’s in the box, Review, other related product recommendations, etc.

Only with a structural landing page can we have a direction for optimization, we need to systematically find out the reasons for poor performance such as bounce rate/conversion rate/Time spend on site. In the process of creating or optimizing the landing page, we need a certain amount of data accumulation (this is also why I said most new sites start at a loss because there is no traffic to test data).

When the budget is sufficient, we can create 2-3 different landing pages for core or hot-selling products in the early stage. These landing pages can be different in terms of structure, content, copywriting, logic, etc., and then conduct split testing to find the model with the best conversion rate. This is also why Shopify is recommended at the beginning, as sellers can quickly and easily test different landing pages to quickly find the right website sales funnel. Here are also recommended 3 suitable monitoring tools to help optimize: Vwo, Google Optimize/360, Hotjar. Vwo is a tool that helps websites conduct A/B testing through multivariate testing, allowing users to create different page variants to experiment with website visitors to determine the best performing version of the website.

But it is suitable for large and medium-sized enterprises, and it is relatively expensive for small and medium-sized enterprises. Google Optimize is divided into a free version and a paid 360 version. The free version can be used by most small and medium-sized customers. Although the features are not as complete as Vwo, it is a good website A/B testing tool because it is free and can be perfectly combined with Google Analytics.

Hotjar is a widely used tool. It can help websites reduce bounce rates and improve the conversion rates of target web pages through heat maps, behavior recordings, replays, conversion funnels, and user surveys. Because of its simple use and affordable price, it is liked by many marketers and sellers, but Hotjar does not support A/B testing.

CTA is the key point for triggering customer purchases on e-commerce websites. A Landing Page can only have one goal [purchase, registration, email address, etc.]. In the Landing Page, we can try different CTA copies, think about what value users can get from purchasing, rather than the product. Most importantly, the CTA must be easily accessible to users anytime, anywhere.

1. Website internal linking structure optimization

Optimizing the website internal link structure can provide a better crawling path for search engine spiders, promote page indexing, and pass on weight. Avoid having a website hierarchy that is too deep to avoid affecting page rankings.

2. Website Speed Optimization

Website speed affects user experience. Studies show that a loading time of over 3 seconds will lead to 40% of users abandoning the visit. Purchasing high-performance servers, compressing images and code, and using caching can improve website loading speed.

3. Keyword Deployment

When selecting keywords, consider relevance, search volume, and competition level. Proper keyword deployment can meet user needs and increase page conversion rate. Key locations for keyword deployment include URL, title tag, description tag, article title, and paragraph titles.

4. Implementation of Structured Data

Deploying structured data helps search engines understand page content, enrich natural search result displays, and increase click-through rates. For example, deploying Product structured data can display product prices, ratings, and availability.

5. Checkout Process Optimization

The shopping process is a critical factor affecting conversion, and a good checkout process can improve user purchasing intent. Suggestions include: providing an option to checkout as a guest, allowing social media account login, simplifying checkout steps, displaying logistics and payment information, providing multiple payment methods, etc.

6. Final User Experience

In the operation of an e-commerce website, user experience is crucial. Good advertising promotions, marketing materials, product services, and after-sales guarantees are key to attracting and retaining users. To leave users with a good first impression, promise and provide high-quality service and experience, continuously improve products and services, and establish a long-term trust relationship with users.

Through the above on-site SEO optimization techniques and checkout process optimization, an e-commerce website can enhance brand visibility in search results, increase organic search traffic, improve user experience and conversion rates, and bring more benefits to the enterprise's development. It is essential to always focus on user needs and experiences, continuously optimize the website and services to remain unbeatable in the fierce e-commerce competition.