How to use Pinterest to promote your online store

You must have been living under a rock if you haven’t heard of Pinterest, the “scrapbook” website that lets its users collect images in themed albums called ‘boards’.

It’s a very powerful social network that’s inspired people all over the world to share their interests and ideas through images, and connect with others by liking, commenting and re-pinning to their own boards.

Pinterest was launched in 2010 and has been growing at a mind-blowing rate. It now gets around 1.5 million unique visitors a day and boasts nearly 73 million monthly active users, making it the fourth most popular social media platform in the world.

Pinterest is a gift for retailers

Because Pinterest is so visual, it’s a great promotional platform for companies selling products like yours.

If you’re looking to get more traffic, exposure and attention for your Spiffy store, tap into Pinterest’s enormous popularity. A US RichRelevance Shopping Insights study has found that Pinterest users deliver a bigger average order value on retail sites than those coming from Facebook or Twitter!

Get ready to pin your wares

Before you dive in and start pinning your goodies up for all to see, ensure your website content is optimised. You’ll be pinning product images directly from your Spiffy store, so you’ll need great quality photos and clear descriptions (these encourage Pinterest likes and “re-pins”, which will widen your audience).

> Make sure your product photos are high quality, well lit and appealingly shot. I can’t stress this enough. Images are the currency of the Pinterest community so if your images aren’t great, you won’t attract attention or sharing!

> Give your product pages clear, specific descriptions and tags containing that product’s keywords so that Pinterest can index them easily. Think about the words and phrases people would type into search engines when looking for products like yours and use these when you write.

Once that’s taken care of, it’s time to set your brand up on Pinterest. This is the fun part! Pinterest have put together a simple guide to pinning to explore to get to know the platform better. In addition, I’ve made a few notes to get you started.

Set up your account

Jump onto https://business.pinterest.com/en  and click “join as a business” to sign up for a free business account.

Fill in the requested fields in the sign up form and make sure you read their terms for business use and are willing to comply with them.

Pinterest will then ask you to choose some board categories to follow as a starting point. It makes sense to pick ones closely related to your business.

Next, you’ll be offered the Pinterest browser button. Take it! It’s the easiest way to pin images you find all over the web to your boards. Once it’s downloaded, it’ll sit patiently at the top of your browser window waiting for you to click it and send an image you’ve found to one of your boards.

Once Pinterest has had a few seconds to digest all the information you’ve just given it, you’ll find yourself in your homepage – a visually rich scrolling page full of images. These images have come from the category choices you made a few minutes earlier.

The next step is to customise your page.

Brand your profile

At the top right of your page, you’ll see your user name (it should be your business name) in a button. Click it and you’ll be taken to a page where you can design your profile for you brand. Add your logo and fill out the other fields available, not forgetting to add your business keyword term in the description.

Have a good snoop around

Before you start creating your own boards, I suggest you do some simple research. Type your keywords and your competitors’ names into the Pinterest search box at the top of the page and see what comes up. Notice how products like yours are shown, how others title their boards and what’s popular. These insights will be helpful as you set up your own boards.

Create your own boards

Once you’re more familiar with Pinterest, start creating your own boards. You can do this by clicking the ‘create a board’ box on your profile page and filling out a few details.

Click on the board to choose an image to pin to it.

Don’t limit your boards to just your product categories; play around with different themes such as Christmas presents, best sellers and cocktail hour etc. Have fun with the board titles too – clever titles seem to attract more attention!

Social networking is all about authentic connections, so you might like to also set up a couple of boards on your own interests. This will help personalise your brand.

Pin images to your boards

Pin your product images directly from your online store to your boards so when a visitor clicks on the image, they’ll get sent directly to your website. Once you’ve pinned your images, you can edit the board cover to show the image that best reflects the board’s content.

When you’re exploring the web, use the Pinterest browser button to pin images you like to your boards. See, I told you it would come in handy!

Don’t just stick to standard pictures of your products – make your images as unique as you can. Try including photos or videos showing different uses for your products, or photograph them from different angles and in different lights. Files can be uploaded directly from your computer so they don’t have to be on your web store already.

Create detailed descriptions for each of your pinned images. Include your keywords when you write and put them in #hashtags at the end of the description. Add the link to your website product page and the price.

And there’s more!

Become an active member of the Pinterest community – it is a social network after all! Repin content you like that fits your brand, follow other people’s boards and comment on other pins. You can use the @ in front of a username to address them personally in a comment. This is not only fun but it’ll increase your exposure and number of followers.

Place Pinterest sharing and follow buttons on your product pages so that visitors to your Spiffy store can follow you and share your things on the network.

Install the Pinterest App onto your smartphone so you can browse boards, take snaps and pin on the move.

When you’re set up and have some good content, invite your connections to visit your board. Send out an email to your mailing list, and compose a tweet, blog or Facebook post that links to your Pinterest page and ask what they would like to see more of.

And finally, keep it up!

Keep pinning. People are more likely to come back if there is new content and it’ll widen your appeal.

Keep exploring and engaging in Pinterest. Continue to repin and engage with others on the network. Short but regular activity on Pinterest is better than a big push once in a blue moon.

Keep up with how others interact with your content. The number of likes, repins and comments you receive will reveal what the customers want from you.

As with all social media, you will have to devote time and effort to keep it fresh and interesting. But in return you’ve got a free promotional platform for your online store that can reach millions of people.

So go forth and pinnify!

 

Get to know SEO so you don’t get ripped off!

learn seoWe’ve all had those uninvited emails.

The ones kindly telling you that you’re not ranking well on search engines like Google, and their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services will bring you lots of web traffic and a position on the first page of Google results.

Tempted? Take a deep breath and think again.

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”

 How do I know? Cause that quote is taken directly from Google’s support website.

A brief history of SEO

Search engines like Google want to be able to show you the most valuable and relevant web pages for your search query. To be able to do that, they first crawl web pages and use very complicated algorithms to rank them in an index.

Very early on, people started gaming the system using tricks known as ‘black hat’ techniques to try to outwit the algorithms and jump up the rankings.

These tactics included:

  • Stuffing the keyword phrase into the page (both visibly and invisibly) as many times as possible
  • Buying and swapping links, or listing on poor quality web directories, to get as many backlinks as possible
  • Spamming the comments section on blogs and forums just to get a backlink
  • Spinning low quality versions of an article onto lots of different sites
  • Technical trickery like doorway pages, cloaking and redirects

As a result, Google began to update its algorithms to reward top quality content and filter out pages that used dubious methods to try and win their attention.

And it’s got very good at it.

Play nice or face the consequences

Many dodgy SEO tactics are still being used by unscrupulous companies, even though the Google algorithms have been updated numerous times to recognise and penalise these tactics.

These methods are useless at best and downright dangerous at worst. And who gets penalized for these actions? The website owner. That’s you.

So if you want to steer clear of a Google penalty that bombs your search rankings, you need to make sure any SEO activities for your website are best practice.

What is good SEO?

Good SEO is about giving Google what it wants. Which is all about giving the user what they want…

> top quality, helpful content (web pages, video, pdfs etc)

> relevant to the search query

> on an easy-to-use website (technically sound)

> that other people recommend (through quality, earned backlinks)

So what are your options?

Firstly, do yourself a red hot favour and learn some SEO basics.

>>> Start with this article, or this one, by yours truly, written as a simple intro to SEO for people with little or no prior knowledge.

>>> Read up about SEO. There are a huge amount of free resources online like this SEO guide from Google itself.

>>> Take an introductory online SEO course like the one run by my pal Kate Toon called “The Recipe for SEO Success”.

When you’re up to speed (it doesn’t take much to learn the basics!), you’ll have a choice to either pay an SEO specialist to do the work for you, or do it yourself.

Use your smarts when you pick an SEO supplier

If you’re going to employ a specialist, please don’t randomly pick one (or reply to one of those unsolicited emails). Speak to other business people to find out who they use and recommend, and search online for good reviews.

A legitimate SEO company should be able to

  • explain the SEO techniques it uses
  • show you examples of their work
  • put you in touch with happy customers
  • provide detailed reporting of their work and the results it’s getting

Their services should include

  • keyword research for your specific niche
  • an SEO audit of your current website with advice on what to fix to make it more SEO friendly
  • a strategy and support to build quality backlinks
  • help with content development

With a good understanding of SEO at your disposal, you should be able to weed out any dodgy dealers.

The takeaway?

Don’t waste your time and precious cash trying to outwit Google. Understand how to work with them, not against them.

Whether you choose to hire an SEO specialist or DIY, maintain a good quality website and you’ll enjoy a stream of visitors who want to be there.

 

Seattle Ecommerce Theme. Now mobile friendly.

seattle-ecommerce-theme-responsiveJust a quick post to let everyone know that the Seattle theme has now been updated in your Theme Gallery. The update includes quite a few new features, as well as the addition of mobile compatibility and new customer templates.

The new version of the theme is now available in the Theme Gallery section of your store. You’ll need to download a backup of your current theme before applying the new theme to your store.

Once you have updated your theme, it’s likely that you’ll need to update your settings in your theme editor. We have a guide below on what has changed in the theme so you can be better prepared for the update. If the version of your theme is quite old, you might find that there are also some nice surprises!

Continue reading

19 ways to promote a new product on the web for free

free-signSo you’ve got some pretty cool new stock for your online store – bonza!

Once you’ve got that sparkly item beautifully photographed and loaded safely in your Spiffy Store, it’s time to go to town with your marketing.

You don’t have to have a big marketing budget to promote your new product online.

Here are 19 ideas that will cost you nothing but a little bit of your time.

  1. Post a photo of your new product on your Facebook page, linking directly back to the product page on your store
  2. Tweet that cool photo and link out on your Twitter account
  3. Post the image and link on your Pinterest page
  4. Post the image and link on your Google+ page
  5. Make a creative photo on Instagram
  6. Write an update for your LinkedIn company page
  7. Take a short video of the product on your smartphone and load it onto your YouTube channel
  8. Post the video out on your other social networks too
  9. Use a #hashtag on social media whenever you mention your new product. For example, #shoes or #goldsandals.
  10. Post on social media more than once. If you do it just once, it may get lost in the noise of the newsfeed.
  11. Feature the product in your next newsletter
  12. Mention it in your email signature with a link
  13. Write a blog post about it. If it’s something to wear, you could discuss different ways to wear it. Remember to use the product name in the page title and headline.
  14. Write a traditional press release and post it on PR sites like Newsmaker. If you’re not sure how to do that, check out my post on how to write a press release.
  15. Monitor sourcebottle.com for free publicity opportunities and giveaway requests that would fit your product. You can sign up for alerts on the site.
  16. Search for popular blogs in your niche (fashion, lifestyle etc) using Google Blog Search or Alltop and send the blogger some information about your product along with some nice images. They might feature it.
  17. When you ship your new product, invite your customers to post a snap of them using it on social media with a #hashtag so you can follow the activity
  18. Slip a note about the new item into the package when you ship other goods
  19. Add a note and link in your automated emails to check out the new product in the store

There you go. A bunch of online marketing ideas for you that don’t cost a cent!

Updates to email notifications

gmailThis is just a quick update regarding the email notifications that are sent out from your store.

Until now, all notifications sent out from your store were sent from our “noreply@spiffyserver.com” address.

We have now updated the notifications so they are sent from the Store Email Address that you set in the Preferences -> General Settings section of your store’s Toolbox.

Unfortunately, this can’t be the case for emails sent from domains that don’t belong to your store (for example gmail or hotmail).  If you’re using another email provider and want to use that address, you’ll need to set up an email forward from an email address that belongs to your store to your other email account.

You can the update your Store Email Address to the one on your domain, and all future emails will come from an email address that belongs to your store, and is less confusing for your customers.

Affected email notifications include the following…

  • Order confirmation emails sent to your customers
  • Shipping confirmation emails sent to your customers
  • Shipping update emails sent to your customers
  • Auto-responses sent from the contact us page of your store

Other emails sent out, such as order confirmation emails will still be sent from our “noreply@spiffyserver.com” address.

 

 

How to advertise on YouTube

video advertisingDo you know you can run display and video ads on YouTube? Cool!

If you want to run video ads, you’ll need your own YouTube channel. That’s where you’ll store the videos. To find out how to go about setting your business up on YouTube, check out my post “Grab some YouTube action for your online store”.

The ad formats

There are a number of different ad formats on offer on this mother of all video channels. Before you begin creating your ad, it’s worth checking the AdWords policy page to understand the video specs you’ll need to adhere to and their advertising regulations.

In-stream ads – these are short video ads that play before or during a YouTube video, or on a Google Display Network video game or app. As the viewer can skip the ad after the first 5 seconds, you’ll only be charged if your ad’s watched for 30 seconds or more (or in its entirety if it’s shorter). That’s up to 30 seconds of free advertising!

In-display ads – these ‘static’ ads generally appear next to YouTube videos, in YouTube search results or the Google Display Network. They’re made up of a preview image and text. You’ll only be charged when someone clicks on the ad to view the video, so again, a certain amount of free advertising is available.

If you’re unsure what to make as a video, or how to go about it, read my post on creating video for your online store.

Set up YouTube advertising in AdWords

YouTube video ads are managed through Google AdWords. If you don’t have an AdWords account, head on over to our step-by-step guide and find out how to set one up. It’s not difficult.

To run YouTube ads, first link your AdWords and YouTube accounts via the ‘AdWords for video’ side navigation menu on any AdWords for video campaign page.

Set up a video advertising campaign in AdWords

To create your first video campaign, follow the simple step-by-step set up. Click ‘New campaign > Online video’ above the campaign table. Give the campaign a name, set the daily budget and choose your target locations and languages.

Create your ad

Next you get to create your video ad. Pick the video you want to use (remember it needs to be in your YouTube account), choose the format – in-stream or in-display – and fill in the ad details as requested.

Choose the type of people you want to see your ad

You can target your YouTube ads so they’ll only appear in front of the audience you choose. That way you’re not wasting money on people you don’t want to attract.

Select your target audience by typical demographics like age and interests. There’s also advanced targeting features like the contextual keyword option, so you can choose to show your ads near content relevant to those words.

If you want to ensure, or avoid, your ads appearing on specific pages in YouTube, the Managed Placements option will let you do that. It’s handy for targeting channels where the audience may be particularly tempting to you.

Once you’ve set up your ads, you’re good to go!

Check what’s working and what’s not

Just like text or display ads, AdWords offers you performance reporting on video ads. The reports reveal key data like which ads are the most popular and how much of the video is being watched.

By combining these insights with YouTube analytics reports, you’ll get a good picture of what’s working and what’s not so you can work on getting the best bang for buck!

 

Grab some YouTube action for your online store

man watching video wallHere’s something that may surprise you. YouTube is the second most popular search engine after the almighty Google. It gets more than 1 billion visitors a month looking for news, entertainment and answers.

If you want to create attention for your store and show off the cool things you sell, putting short videos on YouTube can open up a whole new audience for you.

It’s also worth mentioning that Google owns YouTube. You do the maths!

Setting up a business presence on YouTube

If you already have a Google account (ie: you use any of Google’s products like Gmail, AdWords or Google+), use those log in details to sign in at www.youtube.com.

If you don’t have a Google account, go to YouTube and click ‘Sign in’ on the top right of the page. Click ‘Create Account’ and fill in the required information.

Once you’re signed in, you’re free to watch the videos, but you need to create a ‘channel’ (like a profile page) to be able to load your own.

NB: YouTube accounts are linked to a Google+ page. If you don’t already have a Google+ page as you set up your channel, it’s going to make one for you! Don’t worry, I’ve got a great post about using Google+ to promote your business too.

Create your YouTube business channel

These steps apply to desktop or laptop users, using a browser. Some of the options are different for mobile/app users.

Once you’re signed into YouTube, click on the profile image top right, and then on the cog next to the ‘Creator Studio’ button in the drop down box. This will take you to an ‘overview’ page.

On the overview page, click through the ‘Create a channel’ link next to your email address. On the following screen, click ‘To use a business or other name, click here’. If you have a Google+ business page, you’ll see this as a channel option on the following page. If not click the ‘Create a new channel’ button to make a new one.

Now you have a new channel and you’re ready to make yourself at home!

Customise your channel for your brand

Just like other social media profiles, you can customise the content of your YouTube channel to reflect your business and brand personality.

Your main channel page contains a number of menu items including ‘Home’ and ‘About’. If you can’t see them, click on the ‘My Channel’ menu item to the left of your screen.

Your small square channel icon feeds in from your Google+ page (you need to go there to change it) but you can add a big image as your channel header. Colourful images are great for attracting the eye so use it to show off your product ranges or another image that supports your brand.

To make changes to the channel header area, hover over the cover photo area to reveal the pencil icon to the right. Click on it to change the image, or add links to your website and any other social media accounts you have.

You can also add ‘Featured channels’ you like in the box to the right.

Next, head over to the ‘About’ tab and write an interesting description for your users in the ‘Channel description’ box. It will take up to 1,000 characters.

Upload your videos

YouTube lets you upload videos in any of the following file formats: .MOV, .MPEG4, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, .3GPP, .WebM. If you want to change the default settings for the videos you load, go to your ‘Video manager’, click ‘Channel settings’ and then ‘Default’.

To load a video onto your channel, click the ‘Upload’ button at the top of the page and browse for the file you want to upload. You can even create videos here!

To make the most of web searches, use appropriate keywords in the title and description of your video and use the tags facility.

When you’ve chosen your video, select the privacy setting and hit ‘Publish’, ‘Done’ or ‘Share’ (it’s different for each privacy setting) to send it to your live channel.

To learn more about making video for your business, check out my last post.

Promote your YouTube presence

Your hard work’s not over yet! To get the most attention to your new channel, add a link to it on your Spiffy Store, in your newsletters and other social networks you play in. And keep making those videos!

 

Want your store to stand out? Start making videos!

video playerEven with a unique product and an enticing web store full of tempting goodies, you still need that little bit extra to stand out online.

Video is fast becoming the favourite way to add that extra bit of personality to a business and help increase sales. Search engines like Google rate web pages with video highly, so they can also bring you more search traffic.

Without too much effort, you can harness its power for your online store. Yes you can.

Why does video make a difference?

The education industry has known for a long time that audio-visual materials help you understand content better than just words on page. It’s just the way our brains are wired. Video stimulates the visual learning part of the brain, making it easier to soak up information. And with our subconscious love of storytelling, video is a great way to get your message into people’s minds.

If you’re still not convinced, here are some more figures that might interest you!

> Shoppers who view video are almost twice as likely to purchase than those who don’t

> Retailers cite 40% increases in purchases as a result of video

> 71% of consumers say that video is the best way to bring product features to life

> Video has been seen to help attract two to three times as many monthly web visitors and increase organic traffic from search engines by 157%

> A web page with video is 53 times more likely to come up in the first page of a Google search, compared with a text-only web page with the same content

Excited by the possibilities for your business now? Thought so.

Let’s look at some of the cool stuff you can create in a video format.

Live action or animation?

Video doesn’t mean just live action filming in real life. You can create an animation like a cartoon to get your point across too. It’s very effective!

Which one you choose will depend on the purpose of your video, the audience and the content. If you’re showcasing your products, you’d choose live action. If you want to explain a concept or tell an entertaining story, animation is an entertaining way to go.

A third style of video is a screencast, you can see an example of that as the Feature Tour video on the Spiffy Stores homepage (yes, that’s me in the voiceover!) Unless you’re making a tutorial of an online process, you’re unlikely to use it much, so I’ve not covered it in this article.

Where to start

A professional video made from scratch can cost thousands of dollars, so why not make one yourself? There are heaps of tools now available for hardly any extra cost (you already have a camera in your smart phone for a start), so it’s well within anyone’s reach. Turning your hand to it can be lots of fun and you’ll learn a lot!

And once you’ve made it, you’ll have a valuable piece of marketing material you can use as long as you want.

Here are 10 steps to get you started.

  1. Set your goals

As in all things marketing, decide on the goal for your video. Why are you making it and what effect do you want to have on the viewer? Keep it clear and simple. Once you have the outcome you want in mind, you’ll be able to focus the content more effectively.

  1. Define your audience

Who are your target audience for the video? A broad range, or a specific group of people?

  1. Brainstorm ideas

With your goals and audience in mind, jot down lots of ideas for the video. You could:

  • Create an entertaining introduction to your business, showing what you do and why it’s important/unique
  • Sit in front of a camera and talk about your blog subject instead of writing about it
  • Show off new products you’ve just received
  • Take your viewers on a sneak peek behind the scenes of your business
  • Announce a special sale or promotion
  • Answer a customer question you’re often asked
  • Demonstrate the various features of your products in video product guides
  • Create a ‘how to’ tutorials. If you sell scarves, for example, a short video showing the different ways to tie them would be really useful!

You could even ask happy customers if they would mind making a video testimonial (get written permission from them to use it online).

  1. Write the script

Whether you’re producing live action, a screencast or an animation, most videos need a script.

The key to this type of writing is to be conversational and write like you talk. As a guideline, 150 words will take about 1 minute to speak (you need to speak a bit slower for video). Get someone to read it back to you once you’re done to make sure it sounds OK and it’s the right length.

As attention spans online are short, try keeping your video under 2 minutes long. If you’re preparing a tutorial or video blog though, you may need to go longer.

  1. Create the storyboard

Unless you’re intending to just sit in front of the camera and talk, you’ll probably have a story running through your mind as you write your script. Once you’ve got the script down, turn that ‘mind movie’ into a storyboard to map out how the audio and the visual will come together. It doesn’t have to be fancy; I make mine as a two-column chart in Word – script to the left, matching screen action on the right.

  1. Create the video – Live action

Recording

If you don’t have a video camera, your smart phone or even your laptop is a good substitute. If you’re using a camera or smartphone to record you talking to the camera, you’ll need a tripod to keep it steady.

Make sure you have decent lighting for your filming, the more natural the better. If you’re filming a ‘talking head’, keep the light source coming from the front (like a window) and watch out for shadows. If you want to be really polished, use an external microphone to get better sound.

If you make a mistake, just record it again – you can edit the goof out in the next stage.

Wistia have a great library of short video tutorials that go into more detail. I recommend a look.

Editing

Once you’ve created your video footage, you’ll need to edit it to get rid of any mistakes and add things like music or titles. Download your video to your laptop or desktop (if it isn’t on it already) and you’re ready to begin the edit.

Both Apple and Microsoft offer free video editing software for your desktop or laptop. If you use a PC, it’s Windows Movie Maker, if you’re on a Mac, it’s iMovie.

If you want to edit online, there are plenty of options, like WeVideo or Wideo.

Whatever your choice, make sure you check the video format you export when it’s finished works with the hosting platform where you’ll keep it (see below).

  1. Create the video – animation

If you’re after an animation, there are a growing number of online animation tools that makes it really simple to create your own cartoons. Check out the fun stuff you can do at GoAnimate, PowToon and Wideo.

  1. Hosting

Your fabulous video is going to need to live somewhere that’s Internet accessible. From a quality and control aspect, use a video hosting platform like Wistia or Vimeo. They both have several pricing options, including a free plan. Some online video editors also offer hosting as part of the package.

From a search engine and traffic perspective, it’s a good idea to also load your video on YouTube too.

  1. Put the video on your website

Once you’ve made your video and loaded it onto a hosting platform, put it into a page on your website. You can easily copy ‘embed’ code from the hosting platform and paste it straight into the editor of your Spiffy Store web page where you want the video to appear.

  1. Get the word out

Once you’ve got the video on your website, you’re ready to promote it! Post the web page link on your social media channels and let your email subscribers know it’s arrived.

Go on, have a crack at it. Let your inner Spielberg or Disney shine!

(statistical sources: Invodo, Multichannel Merchant, MarketingSherpa, Forrester Research)

 

Customer accounts now available

customer-accounts-now-availableNew feature! And it’s free!

We have been working on major improvements, and we’re delighted to announce that we now have full customer login and management available in all stores. This update includes the following features…

  • Make customer accounts optional or required.
  • Apply credits to your customer’s accounts, so they can purchase using their store credit.
  • Enable wholesale prices for specific customers.
  • Customisable search filtering of your customers for easy management.
  • Group your customers using tags for easier management.
  • Create shopping cart-based discounts using customer tags to give your special customers a discount… without having to remember a coupon code.
  • Customers can log in using their email address & password, or skip the hassle of remembering a password and log in the easy way with social login using Facebook or Google.
  • Full mobile compatibility in responsive themes.
  • Customer login allows the customer to view the order history and fulfilment status of their orders, update address details and any account credit.

Whilst the new features are awesome, this update does require that you update your theme to support the new customer functionality.

We have added several new templates to our themes to provide the new customer functionality. The first themes to receive the updates are the Vintage, Minimal, Georgia, Antiqua and Fresh themes. New versions of these themes are now available in the Theme Gallery section of your store. You’ll need to download a backup of your current theme before applying the new theme to your store.

Once you have updated your theme, it’s likely that you’ll need to update your settings in your theme editor. We have a guide below on what has changed in each theme so you can be better prepared for the update. If the version of your theme is quite old, you might find that there are also some nice surprises!

Continue reading

10 ways to promote your store using LinkedIn

You might not think it, but there are plenty of ways to promote your online store using the professional network, LinkedIn. Here’s 10 for you!

1. Set up a Company PageLinked Laptops

Just as you can create a personal LinkedIn profile to showcase yourself, you can do the same for your business. They’re called Company Pages and they provide you with a free and easy way to promote your store online.

Before you can set up a Company Page, you need to have your own personal LinkedIn page (if you don’t yet have one, head over to my previous post on LinkedIn profiles for some tips on getting started).

It’s quite easy to launch a Company Page, but there are a few requirements you need to meet before you can go ahead, so read through those first or you may quickly get frustrated!

When you’re ready, here’s how to make it happen. Continue reading