11 Strategies to Help Rank Your Online Comic Book Store

Some may argue that television and online platforms negatively impact printed media like newspapers, magazines, books, and comics. However, this assumption has never been further from the truth. The allure of holding that first edition comic book and smelling the paper pages will never fade.

Digital platforms play a significant role in broadcasting the availability of products like comic books, and stores should implement different strategies for a more recognized presence online. Stores have become somewhat redundant with the advancement of online sales, and setting up a good store where customers can peruse in their own time is an online store’s primary goal.

Customers generally prefer a hard copy of their favourite comic, but these days they’d rather search for it online than visit a store in town. This is why working on your online presence is paramount.

There are a few strategies that online comic book stores can implement that would help them rank well in search engines. These include: 

1. Improve SEO

SEO is crucial to a website’s success. Without optimizing your website’s on-page and off-page factors you run the risk of poor rankings. On-page and off-page optimization techniques can include, but aren’t limited to: 

On page:

• Content optimization: Updating metadata, title tags, or writing blog content. 
• Internal linking: Setup internal linking between relevant pages 
• Mobile friendliness: Create a mobile-friendly version of your website. 
• Scheme markup: Create a snippet that shows in search results. 
• Loading speed: Check the loading speed of your website. 

Off-Page 

• Link building: Building quality links back to your website.
• Social media marketing: marketing on social platforms
• Influencer marketing: marketing with the help of online influencers 

Finding reliable SEO Partners that offer white-label SEO packages or services is key to the success of your comic book store’s online presence. 

2. Optimize Your Social Media Presence

Social media is a tool that many marketers use to promote services and products. People tend to browse for hours on their social media accounts. This allows brands to extend their reach to a vast audience.

Online platforms make marketing online easier for comic book stores. Social media marketing techniques include: 

• Scheduled advertisements
• Insights about posts
• Sharing relevant content
• Running cross-channel campaigns

Social media plays a large role in delivering traffic to a website and helps build trust. Try to set up a social media marketing campaign to help benefit your comic store. 

3. Make Use Of Business Listings

Directories with listed businesses and their contact details are a quick and efficient way for potential clients to find the store they’re looking for online. These directories could ask for a small fee for the website’s upkeep.

It’s also beneficial to set up a Google My Business account to help showcase your comic store’s information at a glance. Google My Business is a great way to help with your overall marketing efforts online. 

4. Invest In Designer Advertisements

Graphic design has become a booming business for online advertisements and marketing. A well-designed visual representation could boost the image of an online store and improve its ranking as more visitors visit the site. 

Hiring a professional to design the logo, pictures, and other photos could have an expensive upfront cost, depending on who you’re commissioning. However, good impressions last, and effective marketing visuals are always worth it in the long run.

5. Have Multiple Online Payment Options

Clients don’t like limited options at checkouts.  They want quick, clear solutions with different options that suit their preferred payment methods. Different payment methods you could include are: 

• Credit card
• PayPal
• Bank transfers 
• Cryptocurrency payments 

Online stores should be easy to navigate and offer multiple solutions to attract more customers, which is good for the bottom line and their online presence. 

6. Provide Good Customer Service 

Online stores that regularly interact with their customers gain more trust. If your comic book store earns more trust via reviews, new people are more likely to visit your online store.

The same effect occurs when potential customers have queries about a product or service, and they receive a quick response. This shows you’re a client-first comic store which cares about its customers. This could improve the way people see your comic store, and they may choose you over the competition.

Ways to provide good customer service include: 

• Set up a chatbot on your website and have staff monitor it throughout the day. 
• Set up a phone number for people to call if needed. 
• Train staff to know the ins and outs of your comic store’s process and products. 
• Train staff to be polite no matter the tone of the customer.

These are just some ways to provide good customer service. 

7. Increase The Page Loading Speed

Customers prefer websites that are quick to load over others. No one has time to sit for minutes while waiting for their information to show on the screen. Especially when another site may give them the same info in seconds.

But what causes a website to slow down? There are a few different things which include: 

• Images too big 
• Hosting plan 
• Large websites – ecommerce 
• JavaScript issues 
• High number of flash content (videos/gifs)
• Not using cache version 

If your website loads over 3-4 seconds, then you may need to look into why it’s loading slowly. 

8. Clearly Define Products By Adding Detail

Many online stores don’t provide updated product descriptions. Being a comic store is no different. It’s important to write clear and well-detailed product descriptions of your comics, so customers know what they’re getting. Some tips for doing this includes: 

• Clearly writing the title, year of creation and which movie/tv series the comic relates to. 
• Add number of pages and pricing clearly on the page. 
• Write specifications using bullet points 
• Use 2–3-line paragraphs to help break up blocks of text.  
• Provide a detailed description of what the comic is about. 

These key details and ways to write a description can help make you a real standout. So, make sure your descriptions are updated. 

9. Write Exciting Articles About Comics

Blog posts with fascinating topics and information give customers more reasons to revisit your website. Setting up a content calendar is a great way to organize your content, what you need to write about, and when to post it. When setting up a content calendar, here are some things to consider. 

• Organize topics based on popularity. Using tools like Ahrefs can give you ideas on keywords around your comics that are more popular than others. You can then use these targeted keywords to get ideas to write about. 
• Always write about what’s hot at the moment. If there’s a new Star Wars movie being released, then write about Star Wars comics. This is just one example of what you could do. 
• Organize to post an article or blog regularly on your website. Set up to post on the same day each week. Those who enjoy your blogs will look forward to the new upcoming content. 
• Share on social media after you post your new content on the website. This will also help to gain you some traffic. 

By keeping a routine, you can help to improve your content offering and your website rankings. 

10. Word Of Mouth 

Asking friends to share adverts on their social media, referring customers to the website, and even wearing promotional material like t-shirts that would lead potential customers to the online store are great ways to help create visibility for your comic store.

Friends and family can be just as proud of the business as the owner, making it easier for them to spread the word without coming across as pushy to someone. Comic stores with many credible advocates increase their trust levels with potential customers. 

11. Put Effort Into Doing Trade Shows

Online stores don’t have a physical store that clients can visit and interact with the products. For this reason, a trade show is a perfect opportunity to provide customers with hands-on experience that would showcase the excellent service they can expect from an online comic book store.

Direct the stall visitors to the website with phrases like: ‘Please read our blog post about that’ or similarly, ‘Find more information on our website.’ Give them a business card or pamphlet with the details of the online comic store.

Another fantastic perk of setting up at a trade show is networking with other business owners and influencers that could collaborate with your brand. These joint ventures could lead to more customers making purchases. 

It doesn’t take a superhero to see that a few adjustments and additions to the marketing strategy for your online comic store can lead to better results. Increased digital footprints and clever funnelling techniques are essential if you want to improve the traffic to your website. Do you own a comic book store?