There are over 2 billion Muslims in the world today, and 25% of them live in South East Asia.
Sales in the Muslimah market are estimated to hit the RM995 billion mark by 2020.
If you’re owner of Muslimah online store, you are in a tremendous market with huge potential.
That said, just because there is a lot of untapped potential, doesn’t make it easy to get into.
We often receive emails from Muslimah online store owners who want to know about how to generate more traffic and sales.
Another challenge is how to get returning customers to justify a high acquisition cost.
That’s why we have decided to make a complete guide about Muslimah ecommerce.
The guide has been separated into 3 sections, so you can skip to whichever section you feel fits your needs:
Table of Content:
Improving Business Efficiency
Increasing Website Traffic
Boosting Conversion Rate
Let’s get started.
Improving Business Efficiency
Here’s some choices and tools to help you rethink your business strategy:
Plan a Marketing Campaign at Least 6 Weeks Ahead of Holidays and Festivals
Think about when people make purchases and why.
For example, many Muslims start making purchases a month before the Hari Raya celebration.
When planning the campaign, consider the following:
- Research – Look up trends in products, colours, styles, pricing, and so on. What are the consumer habits of your target market?
- Inventory – Are you selling what people are buying? How much do you have in stock? Do you need to contact suppliers for additional goods? And if so, how soon can you receive the shipment?
- Promotional Type – Not all campaigns are created equally. Think about Google Adwords, social media sites, influences, promotional emails etc. to analyze which one works better for you.
Take Exclusive Product Pictures
Sure, you might want to cut back on the labour by taking images from Google, but that’s of no benefit to you.
You need to establish your own reputation and STAND OUT above the other competitors.
Therefore, you need to take your own exclusive product pictures, even if you are offering a product manufactured by someone else.
When taking product pictures, do the following:
- Ensure that the photographs are high-definition.
- Choose a place with good lighting and a plain colour background.
- Take pictures from several different angles to show off all the corners of the product.
- Once you have uploaded the images, be sure to fill out the image alt. This helps search engines “read” the images.
- Consider investing in lightbox.
Outsource Time Consuming and Complicated Tasks
Outsourcing has become popular in the ecommerce industry.
Not only is outsourcing menial tasks more cost efficient, but it frees up the time you need to do what matters most.
The best thing about outsourcing several tasks is that you are receiving specialist help.
For example, you might know little about graphic design, so you decide to hire a freelance graphic designer to create promotional banners for you.
Or, if you can’t write content that connects your audience, you can hire ghostwriters to do the job.
If you’re new to outsourcing, here are some well-known freelance websites:
The above listed platforms are internationally known and give you the tools needed to create a timeline, communicate effectively, and track your purchases seamlessly.
Use Google Analytics
An often underestimated tool for webmasters of Muslimah online stores would be Google Analytics, a free web analytics service that tracks and reports the traffic and conversions on your website.
By using this service, you get a better look at consumer trends and data, such as:
- Which traffic source generates the most revenue? Eg. you can see if that Facebook ad campaign or organic searches are working better for you. That way, you can make better marketing choices.
- Which page has the highest exit point? You can then improve the user experience to make it more appealing.
- How often your customers come back? Consider making a loyalty program to secure repeat buyers.
Find a Reliable Shopping Cart
Nothing is more crippling to one’s purchasing experience than an unreliable shopping cart.
So, what shopping cart should you use?
Million dollar question.
If you are using a WordPress site, you can use the WooCommerce plugin, which is a functional and user-friendly cart best suited for a simple Muslimah online store.
If you have a complex website and are in need of a complicated promotional campaign, Magento is another excellent choice.
Magento, though, can be difficult to figure out and has a steep learning curve.
Lastly, integrate common payment options into your shopping cart to enhance shopping experiences.
Increasing Website Traffic
Having continuous visitors to your website is an integral part of having a successful online store.
Here are a few simple strategies you can start right away:
Have Share Buttons on Product Pages and Blogs
Based on our experience with digital marketing, people like to share things that they like.
Product pages and blog posts are 2 important landing pages to have share buttons.
The more people you have clicking these shared links and blogs, the less you have to pay for customer acquisition while simultaneously boosting brand recognition and reputation.
Optimize Meta Titles and Descriptions
Meta titles and meta descriptions are html codes that aid search engines with understanding the content on your website.
In addition, having persuasive meta title and meta descriptions give you the opportunity to one-up the competition and, overtime, outrank them.
For ecommerce sites, meta titles and meta descriptions are critical pieces of conversion rate puzzle.
Here’s an example of a good product page meta title and meta description:
The good news is that with some technical knowledge you can create dynamic meta titles and descriptions for your product pages, meaning you never have to manually key in the information over and over again.
SEO-Friendly URLs
A mistake so often made by new webmasters and online store owners is a poor domain name and crazy URLs.
The ideal url structure is one that helps both the search engine algorithms and people understand what is on your website.
“Short and simple” should be your URL mantra.
Here’s an example of an optimized URL:
And here’s an example of a poor URL:
Use Keywords in Image Alt-Text
“image alt,” shows up when an image doesn’t load correctly.
Since search engines don’t have eyes to see the visual image, alternative text allows them to understand the image.
On product pages, you can simply use the product name as the image-alt.
Check if Your Site is Indexed or Not
“noindex” is a very uncommon tag but you need to make sure it is not in your site source code.
Because this noindex tag tells search engine crawlers NOT to index your website.
In other words, you won’t be getting any organic traffic from search engines, because your page isn’t stored in the search engines database.
This is a death sentence for your website.
To check whether or not your webpage has been indexed or not, you can use a noindex checker.
Note: The ONLY time you should ever consider using noindex for a page is that you wouldn’t want it in search engine results.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is a wonderful way to create backlinks.
A single well-written guest post can drive tons of traffic to your website and boost sales exponentially.
Find Muslimah industry influencers with websites and blogs and reach out to them.
You’re going to need outreach technique and useful content.
The chances of influencers collaborating with you is probably 10% or less.
Sound very low isn’t it?
Good news is, even 3-4 mentions are often powerful enough to drive organic traffic to your online store.
You may be thinking, “But I can’t write” or “I don’t have time for this!”
Consider hiring a ghostwrite the article for you using one of the aforementioned outsourcing sites.
Boosting Conversion Rate
This is it, what you’ve been working for: higher conversion rates.
There is no point to have tons of visitors but left your website without making purchase.
Now let’s see what you can do.
Badges
First, consider what gives people a sense of trustworthy.
When they know your online store can be trusted, they will be more willing to purchase your products or services.
Badges and icons are powerful visual representations of your reputation.
That’s why you should show off your trustworthiness by displaying badges or icons from 3 areas:
- Security – such as McAfee Security
- Press mentions
- Awards and prizes – Tripadvisor awards, BBB awards, Google Trusted Seller status, etc.
Reviews and Ratings
Having reviews, testimonials, and ratings on product or service pages is going to be the deciding factor in a potential customer’s buying decision.
The idea is to have customers post their REAL sentiments about the products and buying experience.
Follow the tactics listed below to ensure you are getting quality reviews and ratings:
1. Encourage verified buyers to post pictures of the product
Amazon uses this tactic. It looks like this…
And it works like a charm. Why?
You see the product in plain light.
Thus, you don’t question the validity of the purchase.
You don’t assume the review could be fake.
To motivate buyers to post pictures and reviews of their products, you can offer incentives like discounts or coupons towards the next purchase.
2. Video testimonials
Video testimonials are excellent way of persuading more people to buy your product.
A testimonial doesn’t have to be long. A minute is often more than enough.
Post them on important pages, such as your home page or testimonial page.
Website Loading Speed
Google has recently made loading speed a factor in website rankings.
Generally if your site takes longer than 4 seconds to load, you are losing potential customers.
Don’t let your website load speed lag.
Use the following two tools to check your load speed:
- PageSpeed Insights – Google’s load speed tool
- Pingdom – Monitors website loading speed and overall performance
PageSpeed shows you the loading speed for both mobile and desktop version:
These free tools will even show you the issues causing site slow down and give you recommendations for how to improve load speed.
Secure Socket Layers (SSL)
SSL stands for “Secure Socket Layer(s)”.
It creates an SAFE buying environment for customers on your website.
SSL has also become a Google ranking factor.
The quickest way to determine whether or not a website is using SSL is to look at the URL address:
SSL is designated by a green https:// instead of a http:
If you only see http, it means an SSL hasn’t been installed yet:
An SSL can be purchased from SSLs.com for a low price. If you need a free one, consider Let’s Encrypt.
Checkout as Guest Function
Isn’t it frustrating when a site forces you to sign-in in order to check out?
No one likes it, so don’t force potential customers into it.
Sure, there’s the argument that getting people to sign up for your site is a way to collect personal details and improve customer loyalty, but it is also a risk.
Someone might decide to take their business elsewhere if they don’t want to register.
Our recommendation is to allow for guest check out options.
Otherwise, make registering effortless, such as “sign in with Facebook or Google” functions.
Mobile Friendly
More than half the searches for products worldwide are happening from smartphones.
Prioritizing your mobile friendly website will increase sales.
Check your mobile site to make sure that there are no broken codes or errors.
About Us Page
The “About Us” page is an important representative of your business, yet it is often boring.
Most online store owners forget to include an about us page or overlook how important it is.
We can’t stress this enough: You need an influential about us page.
Why?
Because customers subconsciously look for reasons to support their purchase.
Curiosity inevitably leads them to look more into who you are and what your mission or objective is for opening a Muslimah online store.
The about us page is a chance for you to create a lasting impression that gains you loyal, repeat customers.
Use this section to define not only your business image but who you are as an individual or team.
For example, you can talk about what inspired you to start your brand, how you plan to solve a problem, or if you have achieved any particular milestone that might generate interest in customers.
People love stories that make them feel connected or motivated, after all.
The ideal about us doesn’t even have to be that long.
Shoot for around 150-300 words, especially if you don’t have much history.
Be sure to include pictures of your team for a personal touch.
Personalized Communication
The best product descriptions out there sound human instead of robotic.
Yes, product features and specifications are important, but they’re not the selling point.
Features are not the true reason people make a purchase.
People make a purchase because there is something about the product that benefits them and fulfils a specific desire.
For instance making their grandchild smile for their birthday, and compliments from friends after losing weight.
To persuade them to buy, you need to trigger their emotions about how the product can provide a solution for something in their lives.
Final Thoughts
Regardless of your niche or market, running an online store is a rewarding experience and an adventurous journey.
There is a lot to learn about ecommerce, especially when you are targeting the Muslim population.
However, if you follow the tips and tricks listed in this guide, you should have no trouble creating a foundation for yourself.
Remember, if you make an effort to be creative, helpful, and real, people will continue coming back.
More importantly, they will spread the word about your website and help you grow.
