Interview with Supadu

Supadu builds websites and online shops for publishers of all sizes, worldwide. They work with university presses, trade publishers, academic and educational publishers. Supadu is offering Publishers Association members an offer of a £500 gift voucher which can be used against any of their products or services.

Our first question – can you tell us what you do?

We build all our websites using our core Supafolio which enhances metadata, provides our customers with an industry-leading quality site-search and improved product discoverability on the web.

We also work with all leading distributors and integrate with leading eCommerce platforms, multi-lingually, across the globe.

That’s fantastic, and how do you help publishers?

We are 100% dedicated to publishers. If you are a publisher that is looking to improve sales, increase site traffic or improve your internal workflow, we can help. We’ve been specialising in websites for the publishing community for over 10 years. We are responsible for over 1,000 publisher’s websites.

It sounds like you have a wealth of expertise. So what are your top three tips for a publisher starting out with eCommerce?

1. There is an infinite number of possible e-commerce models. The key is finding one that’s the right fit for your business’s needs.
2. Make that users can checkout as fast as possible; customers are time-sensitive as well as price sensitive.
3. It is estimated that 40% of all eCommerce sales are made through mobiles. Does your site’s e-commerce platform run as smoothly on a smartphone as it does on a computer?

Great, that’s really helpful. So if a publisher isn’t selling as many products as they’d like to from their website, what can Supadu do to improve sales?

Supadu helps you to be found through user and mobile-friendly websites; we help you to enrich your metadata, which increases your online discoverability; and once users are on your website, our website search tools increase engagement and intent to purchase, resulting in an overall increase in sales.

But what if all of a publisher’s sales are through an online retailer? Why would they need a website?

By improving the discoverability of your products online, you have more chance of increasing visits and sales, even if you are linking directly to Amazon or another third-party retailer. This starts with your website’s product pages.

Okay so I’ve built a website and I’m ready to sell. What is SEO and how can I make it work for me?

Whilst Supadu does not sell SEO services our platform makes SEO possible.

1. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and fast.
2. Improve accessibility.
3. Dynamic site search.
4. Accuracy, matching content and meta-tagging.
5. Landing pages for key content.
6. Enriched product and metadata keywords.

Tell me more about dynamic site search. How important is it for my website?

Having a good site search is a critical component of any website’s success. Users who use site search are shopping with intent, and are twice as likely to make a purchase. A good site search results in higher conversion rates. It can also provide valuable site analytics to aid marketing campaigns.

What about backlist titles? Do you have any tips?

We work with backlists all the time. A famous press and study group took part in a backlist metadata challenge in 2017. They launched a website, and proved that by enriching metadata for their backlist, they could increase sales from their website by 20% in 12 months.

We hear this phrase a lot, but what does ‘metadata enrichment’ actually mean?

Enriching metadata is about improving the information around your product metadata, giving your content agility and providing title metadata with more dynamism. For example, you may add additional descriptions, audio files, video files, PDFs, keywords, linking with your website content, and so on.

That sounds like a lot of work – what about publishers that just don’t have the time to manage their own website?

We have many customers who are pushed for time. They have fully automated websites that update daily or weekly on the fly.

And what about publishers that have a limited budget for a new website?

We have very low cost templated solutions available. Email info@supadu.comfor more information on our packages and services.

What if I want to improve my website but keep the design?

We often have this request. It’s almost always possible to migrate to our Supafolio platform whilst maintaining the feel and design of your site.

And what if I already have title management? Why do I need Supafolio?

Supadu does not offer title management; we are the step after. We take the product metadata from title management/database and feed it into your website via an API. ONIX is not search engine friendly, and I’m sure many publishers will agree with this.

Do you only work with ONIX?

Not at all, we work with many structured datasets. Most publishers will have an ONIX feed, as it’s the most recognised format in publishing. But part of our job as a publisher’s site supplier is aggregating the data. This will often include other datasets outside of ONIX.

Thank you so much for your time, we’ve learnt a lot! If you’d like to find out more about Supadu and how they can help you enrich your product metadata, visit their website or get in touch via email.