Stylaquin vs. Pinterest: The Shopping Showdown

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Stylaquin vs. Pinterest: The Shopping Showdown

Why Women Love Pinterest
Pinterest is a treasure trove of inspiration. Whether it’s planning a wedding, decorating a room, or finding fashion ideas, it’s where women curate their dreams and explore new ideas. With the ability to save and organize pins, it’s the ultimate mood board for any project or interest. But Pinterest often leaves you with a “pin now, buy later” dilemma, offering lots of ideas but little action.

Why Women Love Stylaquin
Stylaquin takes things up a notch by turning inspiration into action. Women love Stylaquin because it doesn’t just showcase products in a fun, engaging way—it makes them immediately shoppable. Its Look Book and Idea Board features allow women to explore, browse, and then buy what catches their eye without hopping between multiple sites. Stylaquin combines visual discovery with a smooth, no-fuss shopping experience, bringing Pinterest-like inspiration to life with a purchase-friendly twist.

Does Your Site Do This?

It can with Stylaquin! Stylaquin is the easy to add Shopify app that transforms your website. Stylaquin makes shopping faster, more engaging, and more fun. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view over 85% more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

Let’s be real: both Stylaquin and Pinterest get that women love to browse, dream, and click their way to the perfect purchase. But here’s the thing—while Pinterest is all about inspiration, Stylaquin is where the magic happens. Pinterest is on a whole other site, while Stylaquin is on YOUR site. Making shoppers leave your site to buy? Big mistake! It’s like inviting them to a party, then telling them to go next door to get the snacks—by the time they get there, they might lose interest. It interrupts the shopping groove, adds extra steps, and erodes trust. Worse, they might never come back! The last thing you want is to make shopping harder. Keep them on your site, keep them engaged, and make it easy for them to click “buy now.” That’s how Stylaquin turns browsers into buyers.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

The Stylaquin Idea Board keeps customers engaged in two ways: it’s an interactive styling board where shoppers can collect and curate all the things that interest them; and it also acts as a wishlist that shoppers can return to. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

Pinterest gives you endless boards of ideas but leaves you hanging when it’s time to buy. Stylaquin, on the other hand, lets you shop the look, right then and there! It’s like Pinterest’s cool, go-getter sister who doesn’t just show the outfit but puts it in your cart.

Pinterest: “Pin now, maybe buy later.”
Stylaquin: “Browse, dream, and buy—without the wait!”

Stylaquin’s Idea Board is the evolution of your Pinterest dreams—why wait when you can turn your vision into reality with just a click?

So, who’s winning this fashion battle? Both are fabulous, but Stylaquin is your ultimate sidekick for seamless, stylish shopping.

What is the impact of discovery on engagement?

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Discovery is a big part of engagement

Discovery is when customers find new things they are not actively searching for. It’s that “Oh wow, cool!” moment of shopping. When you look at your customers’ journey, how much time do you spend on discovery?

Let’s dig in a bit. First, we’ll go over eight ways you can increase discovery, and then we’ll look at what any improvement does to your SEO scores and Ad costs. It’ll be a happy discovery for you, I promise.

Personalized Recommendations:
There are several Shopify Apps that will make product recommendations based on customer behavior. The Achilles heel is that new customers don’t have any previous data. You could have a best-sellers collection that would probably make the same recommendations.
Special Collections:
Think about what would interest customers and create collections to pique their interest. “Sale” is always a party favorite, but “Tops under $30” might get more attention. Is there a seasonal play? Can you do something with color?
Curated Collections:
Retailers create themed collections or curated lists (e.g., “Summer Essentials,” “Top Picks for You”) that highlight specific products, helping users discover items that fit within a certain context or trend is an invitation to check things out.
Search and Filtering Options:
Advanced search tools and filters allow users to explore products by category, Honestly, while Google considers this a part of discovery, search tools are designed to help shoppers find what they are looking for fast. They are less about discovery and more about narrowing options They can be important, especially if you have a lot of products with purchase-relevant specifications, think appliances and tools.
Social Discovery:
Social media integration and user-generated content, such as reviews, ratings, and social shares, can guide customers to new products that are popular within their social circles or the broader online community.
Content-Driven Discovery:
Blogs, videos, and articles on the site can feature products within a story or how-to guide, introducing customers to new items in a contextual and informative way. This is not really discovery while shopping, but they are an opportunity to show products off in new ways and sell shoppers on things they may not see in the thumbnails or the first few pictures in the image carousel.
Interactive Tools:
Tools like virtual try-ons, and quizzes can help users discover products that are tailored to their preferences or needs. Virtual try-ons are pretty limited at the moment and school’s out on whether quizzes have real impact on sales. They do increase dwell time (time on site), which helps tremendously with SEO engagement scores—more on that later.
Stylaquin:
Discovery starts with an experience. Stylaquin uses your site’s images to create visually interesting layouts for each product. Shoppers can flip through a site like they flip through a magazine. Shopping is faster and more fun. Stylaquin shoppers view 3X more items when they shop. Stylaquin is easy to add to any Shopify site, very affordable, and comes with a free 14-day trial.

Does Your Site Do This?

Impact on Sales

Discovery plays a pivotal role in online retail by enhancing the shopping experience, increasing time spent on the platform, and driving impulse purchases. By making it easier and more enjoyable for customers to find new and relevant products, retailers can boost engagement, foster customer loyalty, and ultimately drive higher sales.

Impact on SEO

Because AI is driving a surge in online content. (Thank you for giving a human-written post a read!) Google is altering the way it ranks sites. Remember when keywords were everything and we all worried about site tags? The sheer volume of AI-generated content is making engagement the big winner in SEO. When Google and the search engines (that could be a band name) look for the best site to send searchers they still use keywords, but the volume the site has in less important than the total events, dwell time, and repeat visits the site generates. I invented Stylaquin to make online shopping more fun for women, but it also solves the SEO problem created by AI-driven content—a happy accident.

Impact on Ad Spend

In case you need one more reason to focus on engagement—sites with better Google ranking pay less for ads. I’m not shining you on. Sites with higher scores get a boost in the bidding wars. Google and the search engines (Doo Wap, doo wah.) are happy to give up a few pennies to send searchers to a site they’ll be happy with. Getting a few cents off oevery ad view can save you a nice chunk depending on your ad spend.

What Is Your Website’s Personality? Snooze Or Sensational?

Posted on June 17, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How do you get your website's personality to shine?

Have you ever been to a website and thought, “Oh this is so me!”? That is the moment when you had the internet equivalent of a cute meet with a site that shared your personality.

You won’t love everyone and no site will be loved by everyone. Think of the Spice Girls, Posh Spice, Sporty Spice, Scary Spice, and Baby Spice. There was a Ginger Spice in there somewhere… Each had their own personality and everyone had their favorite Spice Girl. You can’t win a loyal following if you don’t stand for anything. Bland is not a viable marketing strategy if you want to stand out in the insanely crowded online space. So tell them what you want, what you really, really want!

In case you are too young to remember the Spice Girls and you have spent virtually no time in supermarkets, or elevators recently, here’s a link to fill you in on their glorious time in the spotlight.

In this post, we will take a look at why developing a website personality is so important and give you tips to get you started on uncovering yours.

What is Website Personality?

A website personality is the same as any personality. According to the American Psychological Association, personality is defined as “Personality refers to the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns.” Okay, that’s more than most websites can take on, so let’s knock that down to the basics.

Elements of Website Personality:

Visual elements
Visual elements like images and videos are the main characteristics of a website’s personality. What do they say about your site?

Design aesthetics
Is your site chic, cheap, funky, fun, country, cool, chill or a jumble?

Tone of content
Do the words on your site read like a particular person? One of the best examples of copy with personality is Duluth Traders. From product names to DIY info their copy is funny, snappy, and unmistakably them.

User experience (UX)
Is the experience one that goes with the personality of the site? This one is harder because other than sites with Stylaquin, the user experience is pretty much the same on all sites. There are some variations, like adding filters or how the menus are set up, but in general, all sites work the same.

Does Your Site Do This?

Why Personality is Key to Customer Engagement

First Impressions Matter: Most Shopify websites have a 25-45% bounce rate. They came, they saw, they bounced. Sigh. Getting the first page right is a big driver for success. Making sure that visitors who come in through search end up on a page that answers their questions is vital. Making sure the home page shows who you are and who you serve is equally important.

Emotional Connection: We all love who we love. If you love Harleys, have full-sleeve art, and a big beard. I can try to sell you emo chic suits all day and you’ll just laugh at me. People are who they are—embrace that and be who you are. Some folks will walk away, but the ones who get you will be more loyal because you get them too. That emotional connection is the basis of all successful brands.

Brand Differentiation: You can ride along on another brand’s coattails. Safe, Sound, Sure, and Second is a time-honored strategy and many brands have used it to get part way up the mountain. Developing your own niche is easier for small brands and it has the fastest growth trajectory because it differentiates you from your competition right from the start.

Trust and Credibility: Being yourself also creates trust. If you care about your customers, it shows. If you understand who you are selling to and what you are selling in a way that creates that connection, you also build credibility. We all have choices in everything we buy. We are all more likely to buy from someone we trust and believe understands what we need.

The Role of Personality in Shopify Websites

Customization and Flexibility: Shopify gives websites lots of ways to customize websites for very little money. When you are deciding which apps to add, put yourself in your customer’s place. What will make their experience on your site better? Women shop differently than men. Men are more likely to be item shoppers who know what they want and just need to find it. So if your site sells to men you need to make sure that it is easy to find things quickly. Women shop differently, they are more likely to be browsers who want to see all the options and compare them before making a purchase decision. If your customers are women give Stylaquin a look. Stylaquin transforms the shopping experience so that browsers can shop faster and gives them an Idea Board where they can collect all the options they are considering before making a purchase.

Shopify Themes: Themes are a quick way to get the look you want without having to do any coding. Shopify has several free themes and an abundance of options if you want to get fancy. Be sure to choose a theme that is up-to-date and from a reputable developer. All Shopify themes should be based on the free Dawn theme according to Shopify developer guidelines.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

How to Assess Your Website’s Personality

The first step to assessing your website’s personality is to determine who you want it to be. Here are some questions to get you started.

If your site was a singer, who would it be?
If your site was a dog, what breed would it be?
If your site were a place, where would it be?
If your site were a food, what would it taste like?

Another fun exercise is to take one of the online personality tests and answer as your website. Be honest, have fun, and remember that no one changes overnight.

Ask your customers for feedback. I guarantee that you will be surprised by the info you get back. We always are. 😉

If you are thinking, “But I don’t care who I am, I just want my customers to be happy and buy more”, you are not targeting a specific customer. No one wants to spend time with a bland kiss-ass, you’re better than that.

Tips to Transform Your Website from Snooze to Sensational

Know Your Audience: Your target audience is the key to developing a winning personality.
Consistent Branding: It isn’t something that happens overnight, but keeping a consistent look and voice will allow your audience to get to know you, and more importantly, trust you.
Engaging Content: Be the friend they love to spend time with. Think of it like dating, what would be a great date?
Interactive Elements: Google and the internet gods love interactive elements like quizzes, polls, and live chat to enhance engagement. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view more items, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Stylaquin is the easiest way to create engagement there is. Check it out.

Conclusion

Whether you are a big site that has lost its mojo, or a small site just finding yourself, taking the time to dial in your personality, and yes, this is also called brand, is well worth the time. When you know who you are, and your customers get you, it’s all marketing gravy.

Site lost it’s oomph? When everything old is just old.

Posted on May 20, 2024 by Stylaquin1

It's easy to lose your mojo when everything looks the same

I just got back from vacation in Paris. It was beautiful. It was delicious. It was different. Do Parisians see it with the same wonder that I did? Truth is, It doesn’t matter where you are, familiarity breeds contempt. The same goes true for our online world. Everything gets old. What once thrilled you is now a bore. What was so very IN is now tragically out, Out OUT!

When I was an Art Director for L.L. Bean I had a delightfully huge photo budget. The ADs could basically do whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t go crazy and hire a supermodel or rent a cruise ship. It’s hard keeping things fresh on any budget, but tighter budgets require some added creativity. The magic isn’t really the money spent, it’s the ideas that make the magic.

Does Your Site Do This?

Creativity is a muscle that needs to be used

There’s a myth that creative people are born and not forged. The truth is that the people who say they aren’t creative just don’t like the process of being creative. I don’t like the process of accounting, but thankfully there are those who do. If you don’t enjoy being creative you won’t spend a lot of time honing your skills. Ten thousand hours to mastery is also true of creativity. One of the biggest killers of great creative is not giving it enough time. How often have you heard a nature show say “Play is nature’s training ground for the hunt.”? Play is creative’s training ground for the killer idea that sells. Giving yourself, or your creative team, time to come up with multiple ideas is the fastest way to get fresh ideas.

So how do you keep your website fresh?

Embrace change. You need to change things. There are things you can change easily: Images, colors, copy, and apps. There are things that are harder to change: Branding, themes, and target audience. Start with the easy stuff.

New images

Just changing images can help. If you are on a Shopify site, change the order in the carousel. Be sure to keep an eye on how different images perform. Some images just sell better than others. If you can figure out what about the image made it better you can really dial in how you show products. A good example of this is when we figured out that showing a hand on rolling luggage increased sales by about 11%. Just the hand.

New images are getting easier to make all the time. With AI you can take an image with a model or product in one location, and with a few awkward sentences, probably move them to a new location, hopefully with all their parts intact. Even without AI, it’s pretty easy to swap out backgrounds or create new ones.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

New colors

Change site colors with the season. It’s an easy way to show that your site is evolving and vibrant. If you just stick with your brand colors, that’s fine, but it’s harder to keep fresh. When we were designing the Stylaquin App we made it easy to change the colors of the bar so folks could play with color.

New Copy

It’s really easy to set it and forget it online, but revisiting copy can be an easy way to keep things fresh. No one reads copy until they are considering buying, then everyone reads copy. The tee shirt that sells all year round will still sell better if the copy changes with the seasons. Basic items may be used differently in summer than they are in winter. Refreshing product copy from time to time keeps products relevant.

New Apps

One of the great things about online shopping platforms like Shopify is that you can add new things easily. While adding too many apps can slow down a site, letting apps transform your website is easy and affordable. The Stylaquin App adds a new way to shop that transforms any website without changing much. Sounds impossible, but it’s almost magic. Stylaquin is easy to add and has a 14-day free trial.

How much change is enough?

There’s a cognitive bias called the Status Quo Bias where we prefer to keep things kind of the same. If you color outside the lines, the group think will be that you are doing something wrong. But if nothing changes then, well, you’re back in the same boring rut you started out in. So we need to keep things fresh, while not changing much, in order to get anything changed at all. Oh, the joys of being creative! Seriously though, evolution versus revolution is easier to manage and, if you make it part of the normal product cycle, it’s not as daunting as a total overhaul done in a panic.

Help them love you. Get online shoppers to stay longer!

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Getting shoppers to stay longer has four main areas you can leverage

The longer a visitor stays on your site, the more likely they are to make a purchase. Google also counts this as part of your engagement site rank. Google calls staying longer “Dwell Time”. It used to be just “Time on Site”. I assume they want to differentiate between the active time when shoppers are live on the site and the time when they just walked away or opened a new tab. That’s a pretty important distinction when you think about it. But I digress. How do you get shoppers engaged with your site so they stay longer? First, let’s look at how they got to your site.

New visitors may have very different journeys.

New visitors are experiencing your site for the first time and they’re the bulk of your site traffic. Let’s look at where they started and why.

Search: They were looking for something and your site came up in the search as a good place to find that something. Getting your SEO dialed in is the only way to make sure organic visitors come to you when they ask Google for anything. These visitors came with the expectation that they would find what they were looking for.
Ads: They saw an ad and it sparked interest. Either they were already looking for what’s advertised or they became curious. Either way, they also came with an expectation that they would find what sparked their interest.
Referral: They were at another site and they saw a reason to go to your site. They clicked on a link because they needed more information or were curious. They came with an expectation of finding whatever the link promised. (I know this sounds repetitive, but it’s important.)
Recommendation: Either they saw something you sell and want to learn more, or they know someone who said you were a place they should visit. These customers are probably the most flexible about what they find.

Four different paths to your door—groovy, but how do you get them to stay longer? The first thing to do is, and this is obvious, make sure they find what they are looking for. You need to meet their expectations, after that, you can show ’em a good time.

Does Your Site Do This?

How many times have you seen an ad and thought “Cool!” only to click on the link and not find the thing you thought was cool? You end up at the home page or a general landing page and then you have to dig for it. The journey you sent them on went from interesting to frustrating. Just getting someone to your site isn’t the same as giving them a good experience on your site. If you want them to stay longer, you have to give them a good experience. Think of it like being a good host. If you go to someone’s house for a party and they make you look for the other guests, track down a beer, hunt down a place to sit, and then don’t talk to you. Do you stay? Do you come back? I mean, maybe if the beer’s cold and the view’s nice…

Show ’em a good time!

Once you have earned their trust and attention by meeting their expectations, then you can have fun with them. The folks who love shopping will usually poke around a bit. How do you intrigue them? You know I love showing off a best seller or three. Hard to miss by offering to show new visitors what everyone loves.

Create intriguing collections

Collections are easy to create and don’t need to appear in the top nav. Say you create a collection of accessories that look great with jeans, you may not want to gum up your top nav with that, BUT you could add it to the bottom of every jeans copy block. Think about the things that could go with what you’re selling and what other interesting things you have to offer. The new customer journey begins when a new visitor comes to your store for a thing, then what?

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Repeat visitors are money

Once you get a visitor to come back, you’re in clover. You got a second date! They liked you and came back for more. Chances are they had a good experience on your site, and now they are more likely to buy from you!

If you want an easy way to get more repeat visitors to your Shopify website, give Stylaquin a try. Stylaquin engages and delights shoppers so they have a fun and memorable experience. Stylaquin shoppers are about 3X more likely to come back than non-stylaquin shoppers, and they have a significantly higher conversion rate when they do. It’s the easy and inexpensive way to create online engagement.

What is the value of a repeat customer?

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How much more is a repeat customer worth?

There are a few things to consider when you look at the actual value of a repeat customer. Why they came back is important too. If you had a going out of business sale and you had repeat customers, maybe they’re not so valuable… just saying. From a more practical standpoint though, repeat customers are easier to keep, worth more to the bottom line, and will do wonders for your SEO and advertising costs. Let’s get into a bit more detail to understand why.

Lower acquisition costs

Acquisition costs are simply how much it costs to get a customer. When you look at the amount you spend on advertising, and then divide the number of new customers that advertising brought in, you get a simple acquisition cost. Repeat customers, even if they only come back once, are half the cost of new customers. If they come back multiple times, the acquisition cost drops with each visit. So the first value you get from repeat customers is lower acquisition costs.

Does Your Site Do This?

Improved site rank

While it’s easy to do the math on acquisition costs (not getting into attribution here), it’s harder to put a firm number on benefits like site rank because the search engines won’t tell you how their algorithm counts them. The best way to quantify this is to track it. Here is a list of sites that will rank your site.

Semrush for overall functionality
SEO Tester Online for an all-in-one SEO suite
Ahrefs for keyword analysis
Nozzle for data visualization
Advanced Web Ranking for reporting
Moz Pro for integrations
Rank Tracker for unlimited keyword tracking
Mangools for low-volume keyword tracking
Keyword.com for free keyword analysis

Why does having more repeat visitors improve your site rank?

Google’s customer is the person searching, not the ad revenue it earns from advertisers. In order for Google to keep its place as the top search engine it needs to make its searchers happy by sending them to sites that meet their query, and then sends them to a page they’ll like.

So how does Google decide which of the millions of sites are the best choice? It starts by finding sites that have what the searcher is looking for. Then it determines if geography is important to the search, like “best pizza near me”. Say the search is for “jeans with pockets”, well honey, there are a whole lot of sites that have jeans with pockets. Sites that have made a point to add “pockets” to their product copy will rank better than sites that just have Jeans listed. But that still leaves a lot of sites that Google needs to rank. They have a secret formula that looks at several factors. How much traffic does the site get? How fresh is the content they provide? How relevant is the content provided to the person searching? AKA is the site showing expertise in jeans? Google also looks at engagement. That is, how engaged are visitors to the site?

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Repeat visitors signal engagement

Repeat visitors tell Google that your site was so good that the searchers they sent there, came back. Google wants its customers to be happy and repeat visits are their most reliable signal that the searcher was happy with the result. It’s like getting a gold star on your book report. There are other factors that go into a site’s engagement score, like dwell time (time on site) and the number of events they trigger. Events are things like clicks and drags. Basically, the things you do while on a site.

How does more engagement translate into value?

In terms of money, the better your site’s rank, the less you pay for ads. Google discounts ads for stores with better site ranking. It’s a way to encourage sites to step up their game, and it also makes spammy ads more expensive. So, if you’re running ads on any of the major search platforms, getting more repeat visitors is also getting you a discount on your ad spend. Who doesn’t like free money?

Brand value is the big bonus

Money is always nice, but when you’re building a business, brand loyalty is priceless. There are millions of websites out there selling what you sell and getting customers to pick you first is a huge boost. That’s when customers sing your praises. That’s when the media starts to notice. That’s when the magic happens!

The easiest way to get repeat visitors is with Stylaquin

If you’re a Shopify site and have traffic that isn’t coming back, give Stylaquin a try. It is easy to add, inexpensive, takes no work to maintain, and increases repeat visits like no other app we’ve seen. Here’s a link to the app store where you’ll find a video and lots of helpful information.

How to boost your Shopify conversion rate

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How do you increase your Shopify conversion rate?

Once an online store has gotten over the first hurdle, which is getting traffic, the second hurdle is conversions. Getting shoppers to visit your store is different from getting them to buy things from your store. Crazy stunts and amazing sales can bring in traffic, but if what you’re selling doesn’t match up with the type of customer you’re attracting, your conversion rate is going to be crap city.

Start with your target customer

Are they cheap, or chic. All shoppers fall somewhere on the curve below.

Chic shoppers

Chic shoppers want beautiful images, plenty of white space, and no mention of savings or pricing. Prices don’t scare them because they expect to pay for the best. Chic shoppers may buy less, so the conversion rate may be lower, but they are willing to spend more when they find what they want. Chic shoppers are interested in trends, and name brands. They like to be a little ahead of the curve and see themselves as trend setters.

Cheap shoppers

Cheap shoppers don’t want to see you spending an extra dime, they want you to give them the best price possible. They will sort through a mountain of offers if it means winning the best price for an item. They live for sales and come armed with discount codes. They convert when they feel they’ve found the best available deal. Cheap shoppers are not necessarily short of cash, they just love to save money. It’s as much of a lifestyle choice as being a chic shoppers is. Cheap shoppers are just as happy telling you how they saved $10 on a small item as they are saving thousands on a new car.

The great middle

Shoppers in the middle are looking for a balance of chic and cheap. They’ll spend more for things they value, and you can still entice them with a sale or coupon. We all see ourselves as a little younger and a little chicer than we actually are so, unless you are going for rock bottom prices, try to make your site a little prettier and a little cooler than your basic target customer. Shoppers in the great middle convert when they see themselves in a brand, and feel confident in the value they’re getting.

Does Your Site Do This?

So how do you increase conversion rates?

You can increase your store’s conversion rate by making sure the customer you’re marketing to is the type of customer who will see themselves in your store’s brand and products. If you’re attracting chic traffic and offering lots of cheap or discounted products, they will not see themselves in your brand and they’ll leave. Same goes the other way. If you’re attracting cheap traffic and offering high-end products, they’ll bounce lickety-split.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

The magic of best sellers

If there is one secret weapon you can deploy that will help you win any type of customer it’s your best sellers. They are best sellers for a reason. If you have Stylaquin on your site, you can easily find your best sellers, most viewed products, and more in the insights panel. Make sure your best sellers are shown on your site’s home page and are featured in the site’s navigation. New shoppers are statistically more likely to buy best selling items than they are to buy anything else you offer.

Sale items

Unless you’re attracting the very chicest of chic shoppers, having a sale area is smart. If shoppers see that they are in over their heads price wise, they may still check out the sale pages. Unless you are specifically targeting a cheap customer, don’t put sale items on the home page. Promoting sale items tends to build a cheap customer base. That’s only a good thing if selling on price is a part of your strategy.

Try Stylaquin

An easy and inexpensive way to increase your conversion rates is to add Stylaquin to your site. Stylaquin engages and delights shoppers so they stay longer, view more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Stylaquin shoppers stay over 3 minutes longer and view more than 4 additional items when they shop. The conversion rate is over 1% higher. The real kicker is that Stylaquin shoppers are over three times more likely to become repeat visitors, and the conversion rate on repeat visits is up to 9% higher. Not bad for an app that starts at just $29/month.

Make an amazing shopping experience a key competitive advantage

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Is the shopping experience one of your key competitive advantages?

Key competitive advantages are what sets you apart. They’re often things like a tight market niche, wide selection, exclusive products, or low prices. Take a moment to ponder your current key competitive advantages. When you look at the landscape of your competition, what makes your online store stand out? Seriously, take a minute. I’ll wait. Are they obvious, how do customers know about them, would they make prospects come back? Retailers spend a lot of time, energy and money on making the in-person shopping experience memorable and a whole lot less on the online experience. That’s not because they don’t care, it’s because it’s hard to significantly differentiate a store beyond changing the images, brand colors or theme. The actual experience of online shopping is mostly the same no matter what store you shop at.

Does Your Site Do This?

Major brands use the shopping experience as a competitive advantage

When you walk into an Apple store, the first thing you notice is how different the shopping experience is. Visit any IKEA and you walk along on a journey that is totally different than other stores. Every major department store is constantly working to engage and delight shoppers so they will have a memorable shopping experience that will make them want to come back. Then you get to online and it’s all largely the same.

When online shopping got going I had lots of people assuming that I would head for the web, or become “dot gone” as we dubbed it. The web was new and cool, but it wasn’t fast enough to be really interesting. Online design was in it’s infancy. Years later it’s fast, but still not all that interesting. This is truly remarkable because the actual shopping experience has ALWAYS been a huge differentiator and key competitive advantage for brands that understood how to leverage it. It’s especially important for brands catering to women shoppers who are more likely to shop for fun, and who look for and appreciate beauty.

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So how do you make the online shopping experience one of your key competitive advantages?

If your store is on Shopify, creating an engaging and memorable shopping experience is as easy as adding the Stylaquin app to your site. Shoppers who use Stylaquin when they shop are three times more likely to come back. What would you pay to have 20% of your visitors come back three times more often? What would that do to your SEO and Google rank? What would that do to your sales, especially since those repeating customers are 9% more likely to convert. That’s the power of being remarkable. That’s why big brands are putting so much effort into their shopping experience. That’s why Stylaquin can be your key competitive advantage.

Stylaquin is leveling the playing field for Shopify stores. Stylaquin transforms the online shopping experience. Shoppers who know what they want, and just need to find it fast, can shop the old fashioned way. Shoppers who want a different experience, one that’s faster, more visually interesting and that offers additional tools to make the experience more engaging, can use Stylaquin. It’s easy to add, takes about fifteen minutes to set up, and depending on which Shopify plan the store is on, costs less than a dollar a day.

Your key competitive advantages are what sets your brand apart and creates customer loyalty. Being remarkable is a key competitive advantage. So go ahead and be remarkable. Stylaquin makes it easy!

How many images do you need to sell a product?

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Do more images sell products better?

While Stylaquin is my current focus, I’ve been a catalog Art Director for over 30 years. In catalogs, you pay for every inch of space so understanding which images sell, and which don’t sell, is vital to success. The online world is a little different. There’s no extra cost to adding as many images as you want to any product. Does that mean more is better, since it doesn’t cost any more? No. In this post I’m going to walk you through how to find the right number of images to show for any product.

What makes a good image?

The first thing you need to consider is what the image is for. Images explain the product. Let’s start with clothing. If it’s a shirt, It just needs to look great, right? It’s a little more complicated than that. There are model shots, and pin shots. Pin shots are also called lay downs, and they show the product flat, without a model wearing it. Pin shots cost less to create than model shots, so they may be the only option available. When I worked for L.L. Bean, one of the things we tested was whether it made a difference if we showed model shots or pin shots. The answer was that having a mix was the best. All model shots was too expensive and visually cluttered. All pin shots looked empty, and sales went down. Mixing a few model shots in with the pin shots delivered the most bang for the buck.

Adding model shots can be expensive, but a great model can sell the heck out of a product. They can add excitement and movement that brings images to life. So if you have a great model shot, put it front and center. Once you have your primary shot selected, focus on explaining the product.

Does Your Site Do This?

How do you visually explain a product?

Start with the product features and benefits. Is it waterproof? Show it with water beading up. Does it have pockets? Is there a shot with the model’s hand in a pocket? Does it stretch? Is there a pose that shows the fabric stretching? Understanding what the product offers the customer let’s you choose images that quickly show customers what they’re getting. A picture paints a thousand words.

Having multiple images of the same model showing the same garment in the same basic pose isn’t going to help customers choose to buy it. I see this a lot with drop shipping sites. The vendor offers multiple images of a product, and rather than taking an extra minute or two to decide which will answer the customer’s questions, the site just adds all of them. While this saves time in choosing images for a product, it wastes the customer’s time in choosing to buy, or not to buy that product.

What's the downside of adding lots of images?

There’s an old axiom in the Art Director world. When you confuse, you lose. Let’s say you have a product with lots of images that all kind of look the same. The first question customers will have as they flip through is “What are they trying to show me?” You know they’re all pretty much the same, but the customer may assume that there are features or things they aren’t seeing. This adds the dreaded confusion element to the purchase journey.

Another thing to consider is the customer’s time. You’re always fighting with life for your customer’s attention. If they have to choose between shopping at your store or a child that wants attention, or a dog that needs to go out, or dinner that needs to go on the table. You lose. You want to get them hooked and ready to buy as quickly as possible.

One of the things that Stylaquin excels at is getting shoppers to look at more items. It does this by making shopping faster. Shoppers only have to drag a product onto the Stylaquin bar to see a layout with most of the images available. Shoppers typically view about six more products per visit. That’s a huge improvement to a site’s engagement stats and bottom line. Think about how much faster you can shop if you can see everything in a magazine style layout, rather than flipping through a carousel of images.

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What about other products?

For the most part, the same strategies that work for clothing, work for everything else. Let’s say you’re selling a shovel. Would it help customers understand the shovel better if you show a model using it? That depends on if it is very light weight and designed for women, or has a unique handle that makes it easier to use. It may be more helpful to add a simple image of the shovel on a plain background with callouts to features. Creating a single image with the front, back and side views would be more helpful than having three images they have to click through. What won’t be helpful is to have: Front, back, left side, right side, front with slight angle, back with slight angle, shovel with the blade up, shovel sideways and so on. Show customers why it’s worthy of their consideration as quickly as possible.

So how do you choose which images to show?

Choose the main image that represents your brand. Then add any images that help explain the product’s features or benefits. Try to limit your images to no more than five. If you have a lot of colors and options, think about grouping them so you aren’t asking customers to scroll through endless options. There’s something called “The Paradox of Choice” where tests have shown that offering too many choices reduces sales. You can improve sales by grouping in ways that help customers self select from fewer choices. Say you have a shirt that comes in multiple colors and patterns, could you offer the patterned shirts as one product, and the solids as another? Think about what is going to be the best experience for the shopper. What will help them see what you’re offering quickly without overwhelming them with choices. Let me know if you’ve found a better way to select images.

How to create interactive content Google loves!

Posted on March 18, 2024 by Stylaquin1

What does having "Interactive" content mean?

Google sees Interactive content is any type of content that requires active engagement from its users, more than just reading or watching. This can include quizzes, polls, calculators, interactive infographics, and other forms of content where the user’s input directly influences their experience or the outcome they see. From an SEO perspective, Google values interactive content because it can significantly enhance user engagement, dwell time (how long a user stays on a page), and user experience. Not surprisingly, all of these are factors in search rankings.

Google’s mission statement is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Beyond that Google is a bunch of nerds who love the web and want to make it more fun. To that end, Google is rewarding sites with cool things that people enjoy interacting with. It makes them feel that they are helping to craft a better online life for all of us. Kind of like your mother helping you become a better person. (Sigh.)

Sites that are developing interactive content are ranking higher than sites who are just sticking to the same old things. So in order to rank better, you need to be more interactive and engaging. Google now requires this of you. If you are a site owner, I feel your pain. If you’ve been in business for more than a few years, you will remember when social media was the new must have thing and brands went from needing to post once in a while, to needing to post three times a day. (Stylaquin can actually help you make Instagram posts and reels in under one minute, read about it here.) Now Google is requiring you to add things that visitors can play with. We’ll look at some options for this, but first let’s dive into how Google measures interactive content.

Does Your Site Do This?

How does Google measure interactive content?

The truth is Google can’t really see what kind of interaction you have, it just counts events. Google defines events as user actions or browser actions that can be detected and responded to with JavaScript. These include actions like clicks, double-clicks, page refreshes, mouse movements, form submissions, key presses, and more. Google counts events to determine which sites and web pages are the most interactive. Here are some of the events Google looks for:

Click events: Detected when a user clicks on an element on the page.
DoubleClick events: Detected when a user double-clicks on an element.
Load events: Detected when a webpage or an element on the page, such as an image, has fully loaded.
Unload events: Detected when a webpage is being unloaded or refreshed.
Mouse events: Include mouse movements, mouse over (hovering over an element), mouse out (moving the mouse away from an element), and more. (Stylaquin drag events each count as an event.)
Keyboard events: Detected when a user presses a key on the keyboard.

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What is the best kind of interaction to have?

If you are looking from a purely SEO perspective, the answer is the interaction that creates the most events. More events means Google is happy, job done. From a brand perspective, the best interaction to have is the one that will actually engage your customers in a meaningful way. If you are selling services, then polls, quizzes and calculators are probably the best bets.

If you’re selling merchandise, the answer isn’t as simple. You can use the spin to win apps, It creates at least two additional events, but you have to give up margin to do that. You can add quizzes and polls, but they are interrupting customers while they are on the purchase path. Anything that distracts from the purchase path is not ideal. You can add AI recommendation apps, which can increase the number of items viewed, which often leads to more sales. Using AI for product recommendation shows real promise. Product recommendations can be annoying and clutter up the page, but they do create events, if customers see something they like, and that’s a good thing.

If you’re a Shopify store, you can add Stylaquin. Stylaquin makes the shopping experience more fun and engaging, so shoppers stay longer (increased dwell time), view more items (extra events), come back more often (the ultimate engagement metric), and buy more when they do (Bonus!). Stylaquin transforms any Shopify site in about fifteen minutes with no additional work for you and your team. Check it out in the Shopify App Store.