In days gone by, simply having an online shop guaranteed you extra profit. Those days are gone. To be a viable competitor in today’s dynamic marketplace, you just cannot afford to overlook some things, no matter how small or insignificant you may believe they are.
Here are 8 great starting points to help you boost your business’ e-commerce success.
Landing Pages
When persons click on your ads, they don’t necessarily want to see all the products you offer or even learn about your business. They may just genuinely be interested in the product they see advertised. Therefore, you need to direct paid traffic to product landing pages, not the homepage. You may also want to direct paid traffic to categories matching the user’s intent. Landing page optimization is a must.
Speed
In this fast-paced world, people appreciate speed in everything and rightly so. If your website is not very fast in loading or responding, this can lead to page abandonment. Page abandonment is an annoyance for any website, but a disaster for sales-based sites especially if you can do something to stop it – and you can.
Ensure that your checkout process is fast and intuitive as well. Lengthy and overly complicated checkout processes lead to abandonment. After you have accomplished the tasks of grabbing the customer’s attention and stocking or sourcing the item(s) and the customer has already identified what he/she needs this is a total waste.
Choosing the least expensive defaults for shipping and other paid options, making sign in or resuming easier for returning customers, and using smart algorithms that eliminate a step are all ways to shorten checkout. An easy example is the credit card type. This can be determined easily using the number’s first few digits. Save your customers time by not asking for it!
SEO and Product descriptions
Ensure that product descriptions are original, engaging and based on what users normally search (ask) for.
For SEO purposes, search engines will return results based on its index and well-chosen keywords within your product description help you to be found and can also push your page high up on the list of results. Original product descriptions motivate persons to return to your site and also help to prevent search engines filtering your site out as spam.
Site-wide search
Being successful in getting customers onto your site is not all. Your site needs to be developed and designed in such a way that they can easily locate whatever product(s) they are looking for on your page. This is very vital for you to close the sale. The best way to get this done is using a search function that is simple, user-friendly and strategically located. Use every possible aspect of design to make it outstanding: cursor focus, color, placement, and don’t forget white space. Ensure that you complete your own on-site keyword analysis with a view to improving descriptions.
Avoid shocking shipping costs
Always let your customers be aware of your true shipping cost. Half of those who abandon their carts are repelled by shipping costs. This may be because shipping costs were excluded too long or the purchase doesn’t qualify for free shipping. Your customers are going to pay the cost anyway so why shouldn’t they see it before they decide to buy. Let them know the cost, and if you care that much do your best to keep them minimal.
Mobile Responsiveness
Mobile devices are being used more frequently than Pc’s and even laptops. Therefore, your e-commerce site must be optimized for tablets and phones. Ensure that your site is responsive to facilitate easy viewing and purchase on a mobile device.
Social Media
Don’t be afraid to use social media sites to drive sales on your site. Don’t just use the regulars like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can check out Pinterest as well. It has the highest average order value than any other major channel and is a source of many Shopify referrals.
Make your site disability friendly
You need to remember that your site is for everyone. This means that you will need to make the site so that those with special needs can use it. As you go along, you will find ways to make it easier for them to use.
Good places to start are using appropriate colors for actions to be taken eg. Red for cancel, green for ok and blue for a hypertext link. You can also allow for the sizes of text and images to be changed or zoomed without upsetting the layout. Keyboard shortcuts are great to aid navigation as well as to allow a visually impaired person to navigate. Using correct elements will make your site friendly to screen readers as well.
Being a viable e-commerce competitor is becoming more difficult, the consolation is that fortunes still can be made. Sometimes change is good. You must change to keep up with the current trends. The above tips will help you to capitalize where other sites may fall short.
