10 Tips For a Successful Ecommerce Website
If you’re in the process of designing an ecommerce website, then you’ll want to ensure that your site is a success, and that you attract visitors and convert them into customers.
Here’s what you need to know.
1. Your website will need to be easy to navigate, so that visitors can find the sections and products they are looking for. You don’t want to make people have to hunt for things they want to buy.
2. It should be easy for visitors to find the products they’re looking for. Make sure that your categories are what your visitors are expecting to find. Split your products up into sections to make it easy for visitors to find what they need. Depending on what products you sell, you might need to categorise by colours, prices, specifications, ages, sizes, manufacturer, and usage. The easier it is for people to choose what they want, they more likely they are to buy.
3. Your search function needs to work well, and be sophisticated enough to deal with spelling mistakes for popular products or brands. You might want your visitors to be able to search in various categories, or search by feature or other criteria too.
4. Using emotional text to appeal to your visitors will also encourage them to buy form you. You’ll want to explain why they need your products, and what benefits they offer, as well as the features. Everyone know what an MP3 player is, but do prospective buyers know that they can listen to any of their entire music collection whilst on the bus, watch videos on the train, or learn another language using a podcast whilst at the gym? A designer dress isn’t just more expensive than one from a high street store, it’s buying into a lifestyle, or living like a celebrity, for example.
5. Calls to action are important too so that your visitors know what to do next. Tell them to “buy now”, or “call for best price”, or “sign up for special offers”. Don’t just assume that your visitors will know what to do next.
6. Ensure that you use high quality images so that your visitors can see your products. You might want to be able to zoom in on your products, or show aspects in more detail, or have a 360° view.
7. Make sure that you include the details that your customers need to know. If size or weight is important then include it. What information do you need before you buy similar products? How much help do you need if buying unfamiliar products? Not everyone will know your products and industry like you do.
8. It needs to be easy to add products to the basket and to checkout. You might want to allow returning customers to buy with one click, or have the products sent to them on a recurring basis. Why not look at your Analytics stats to see what percentage of visitors abandon their sale at the checkout stage? You might be surprised.
9. Don’t forget to include other products to cross sell and up sell. You’ll want to encourage laptop buyers to purchase cables, cases and a printer, and TV buyers might want a stand, DVD player, or batteries for the remote control. Let people know what they can have for different prices too, “for just £50 more you can have…” to encourage people to get a better product for not much more, and to spend more on your website.
10. Ensure that your customers know that your website is secure, and that they can trust you. Make sure that your “About Us” page inspires confidence, and that your delivery information is easy to find, in order to inspire confidence and encourage visitors to buy from you.
Now you know more about how to improve your conversion rates and turn more visitors into customers, why not make sure your website is appealing to your target audience.…
6 Reasons Why Your Ecommerce Website Is Going to Fail
You’ve got the right product and the right price but for some reason your website isn’t producing the sales you thought it would. Take a step back, grab a cup of tea and take a look at these 6 points on why you’re not selling anything.
1. Your website navigation sucks
This is a biggie, If a visitor thinks its hard to find what they are looking for, they will leave; simple. Making visitors work hard is never a good idea; if you want your visitors to part with their hard earned cash, make sure they can find your products as quickly as possible. Functions like breadcrumbs, drop down menus, search bars and simple descriptive categories will make your website ‘easy to digest’ and keep visitors interested.
2. The website design sucks
Invest some time in looking at the design of your website, is it consistent throughout? Are the pages cluttered? Does it load quickly? In ‘s own tests they found that for every 100 millisecond increase in the page load time of their website, sales decreased by 1%, ouch! Making sure you strike a balance between design and functionality is not always easy but it will ultimately have an effect on how many sales you make.
3. What product descriptions?
Not having enough product information will cost you. Give as much detail of a product as you can, including; weights, sizes, shapes, colours, add ons, pros, cons and so on.
You need to be able to answer questions your customers have before they are able to ask them. Imagine you were buying the product, what information would you want on hand? Don’t forget, giving good and relevant content with your products will have a positive effect on your Search Engine Optimisation.
4. Poor product images
A picture is worth a thousand words – don’t underestimate the importance of good quality photography, you can convert a sale based on product imagery alone and the more photos the better.
Try and get the best out of your product by showing off its features and showing it in use. This will also increase your customer’s confidence in the product making them more likely to make a purchase. Using product galleries and thumbnails can help you get as many images in front of the visitor at the same time.
5. No one has ever heard of your website
You ticked all the right boxes, but don’t expect customers to come flooding to your homepage! Take a good look at what you are doing to increase the number of visitors to your website, both on and off the web. Is your website Search Engine Optimised, are people going to be able to find your site easily?
Being at the top of Google for a certain keyword can make a business, if you are getting a lot of traffic already you can use tools like Google Analytics to help you understand what your visitors are doing once arriving at your website. Analyse these statistics and make changes to improve your page visits, bounce rate and visit duration.
6. You’re not answering the right questions
By having an online shop, you are ultimately taking away a physical point of contact for your visitor. As such you need to have all the questions about using your site answered and readily available.
If they can’t find out how long the item will take to be delivered, or perhaps what payment methods are available before they hit the checkout, the chance of converting into a sale is greatly reduced. Try and make your visitors experience as pleasant and simple as possible.…