Here at eTrader we deal with SMEs and their websites as our bread and butter. A website is the main resource required to succeed in virtually every industry and the garment decoration one is no different.

It is a difficult thing to get right – which is often what throws businesses off the straight and narrow and down two paths.

Firstly, a quick fix for their businesses, producing some sort of site online to merely get themselves operating online dealing with all the problems and glitches as they come. Secondly, the polar opposite over-complicating and over-working the wheel, a time consuming process which produces a flash modern website on the outside offering some sort of functionality but ultimately it is what it is.

A complex approach to building your website often leads to pitfalls (pretty much every step of the way) and forgets what the main purpose of the website actually is – TO SELL! 

The garment decoration industry struggles to find the fine balance between functionality versus design with customers often walking down either the first path or second path. Ideally, SMEs and business owners need to take a step back, remember the basics - I want my businesses website to sell, I want a functional website that actual sells my businesses goods.

It’s all about getting the basics right, making sure your business delivers online. Then the rest will come naturally whether it’s Responsive Design, Improving your User Experience (UX), revamping your website with new features, your site develops as your business develops. Our approach to it is to put your customers at the heart of the online experience, think what do they want from your business and how do we give them as simple an experience as possible.

Here’s a few of our top tips for Small Businesses looking to succeed online:

Make Ordering as Easy as Possible: A big gripe of ours we continue to preach!Sales are what keeps your business alive, make your customers shopping trip as straightforward as possible. Have them checked out in a few moments. See an example of one of our sites www.mygarmentfactorycardiff.co.uk to see how we focus on easy ordering.

Keep it Simple: Don’t over-complicate your website and burden your customers with features that bluntly delay your business selling online. Something the industry calls ‘Featurecreep’.

Personalise your Customer Experience: A huge point in the garment decoration industry, offering features to retain customers and keep them away from prying competitors. Offer potential large customers a personalised experience, private login, private shop and whatever it takes to secure the sale. Perfect for both B2B deals and B2C dealing with sports clubs, schools or any other club/organisation you can think of.

Going online doesn’t have to be Capital Intensive: Creating a website to do exactly what you want can be a very expensive process, especially in the garment decoration game (at least upwards of £10000). Product Data as far as the eye can see, an ordering process so complicated to produce effectively for your customers… but you don’t need to break the bank to make your businesses website work.

eTrader offers small businesses in our industry the simplest way to succeed online. For more information simply email info@etraderwebsites.co.uk or give us a call on 029 2075 5733.

eTrader Websites gives businesses the perfect opportunity to compete in the industry, marketing and sales tools aimed at generating new leads and potential new customers but most importantly tools to retain existing customers!

Why use Customer Shops?

Most of our customers deal with large customers from different backgrounds, organisations, businesses, schools, sports clubs and so on. These larger customers make up a large proportion of trade for SMEs in the industry and garment decorators are working hard than ever before to retain these customers as competitors put the squeeze on and undercut in an attempt to gain new business.

Our websites ‘Shop’ function allows your customers to have their very own bespoke shop on site. The shop function makes ordering as simple as possible and can have your customer checked out in just a few moments – Another satisfied customer!

Click here to view our How To: Create Customer Shops

A Two-Way Sales Tool

Both our website as a whole and our shop feature works in a two-fold way, with over 25 years’ experience in the industry we understand the demands of competing in the garment decoration industry. Your business should consider all its potential customers, how it can benefit new customers and how it can appease and retain existing ones and that’s what features like our shops do.

Your future business is safer than ever before using a private/public shop function. Simple to create, easy to use and a variety of options to make each customers experience bespoke we help take businesses online sales to the next level using our wide range of tools and online facilities.

Create personalised products to buy in just a few simple clicks….

eTrader makes ordering for your larger customers as simple as possible!

Retaining large customers couldn’t be easier, click here to view our simple video tutorial. You can have a shop set up in just a few moments!

For more information don’t hesitate to get in touch on 029 2075 5733 or email info@etraderwebsites.co.uk for more on how we can help your garment decoration business.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your businesses rankings on search engines for organic searches that your business wants to be found for.

How does it affect my Business? 

On average 69% of your websites traffic comes from organic searches online which accounts for a large percentage of most online businesses sales. Sites with good SEO & prominent rankings perform much better financially in the long term. 

How do I get my website to rank?

There is a combination of factors to consider when it comes to how your website ranks online. There is no set magic formula for SEO (as nobody will ever be able to pin down the exact algorithm) but here are some simple tips to get you on your way:

1. Set up your Businesses Google Accounts Properly: Set up Google Analytics, Google Places, Google Webmasters for your business to best track your online businesses traffic.
2. Keyword Research: Putting it simple think ‘What will I have to search for to find my business?’ Consider the level of competition for each term and pick out keywords to build your content around.
3. Content is King: Create relevant content for your website's pages built around your targeted keywords. Creating content is time-consuming so work on it gradually starting with main pages and working towards the less important pages. For more on Content check out our Blog dedicated to it.
4. Use Social Media: Not an obvious one, who’d have thought Social Media & SEO go together?! Businesses that use social media to good effect are much more likely to outrank businesses not using Social Media. For more on this click here.
5. Blogging for Business: Sites that create high-quality blogs also stand a higher chance of ranking well in search engines. It’s also an easy way to both promote your business and build in some keywords. To read more click here...

Mobile-Mad SEO

A growing percentage of your website's traffic is coming from portable devices (smartphones/tablets). The latest SEO update from Google ‘Mobilegeddon’ focuses on mobile-friendly websites and makes it a bigger ranking factor than ever before. Websites with responsive design are more likely to outrank websites that are not mobile friendly. We wrote a piece on this recently and it proved popular... click here to see it for yourself!

One Final Thought…

SEO is a tricky thing for small businesses, our top tip is to plan a natural approach that works for you - you don’t have to waste £1000s with ‘experts’. Create a realistic plan/strategy that works for you & your business!