Once you finally get them there, wouldn’t it be nice if they stuck around for a little while?
Entice your customers to engage with your website by providing great content. Share your story, describe your process, show your work. Be sure to focus on what Liene Stevens of Think Splendid points to as a paramount issue in your marketing, “If you want your phone to ring, make sure your website is designed to build trust.” More often than not, people begin their relationships with your company online. Make sure you’re making the right first impression.
Once you’ve covered those bases, you’ll want your customers to go deeper. You’d like them to actually read what you’ve got to say. Instead of viewing one page, you want them to poke around for hours. One way to keep them engaged is to relate your ideas to one another; be self-referential in blog posts and link one page within your site to other helpful tidbits.
Another way to connect your content is to use tags. Within your R.W. Elephant inventory gallery, you can group inventory items by type. Tables would be under the table category, chairs are with chairs, lighting is under Lighting, etc. In addition, your inventory tags will help you group your products. You can tag all your blue products with “blue.” Your medieval pieces could have “medieval” and “renaissance.” Customers can find everything in your inventory made out of “metal” even if they are in separate inventory types.
By relating your inventory to other pieces in your collection, chances are you’ll retain your customers for a longer period of time. Connected items will come to the surface. Someone who is searching for a chair might find themselves drooling over your similar couches. A customer looking for snow skis might consider renting a ski rack for their car as well if they happened upon your “cold weather sports” tag. Inventory tags will help you keep the attention of your customers and increase your sales as well.
