If you are planning to launch a new E Commerce website (or even if you have an existing online store), it really pays to take the time to have a good long think about how much work is required to make your venture a successful one;
With so many factors to consider, it is important to prioritise what aspects of your website need further development and which areas can be dealt with further down the line.
It is all too easy to become concerned with the minutiae involved in designing a website: Deciding upon which fonts to use, fine-tuning the colour-scheme, pondering how many categories you’ll have, etc… But if you fail to nail the fundamentals, all of your work on fine adjustments will be for naught!
Let’s take a look at three of the most vital items which should be on your checklist to success…
1: Make sure that people can find your site (and products) easily
You could have a slick website, stunning branding, high quality products and customer service that is second to none…but if hardly anyone ever comes to visit your E Commerce store, you can’t expect it to be a success.
By investing in an effective online marketing campaign with a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) specialist, it is possible to refine your website and the way in which it is promoted into a finely-honed ‘customer-magnet’;
A professional SEO company will:
- Research your target market and help you to identify effective key-phrases for optimisation.
- Provide you with a diagnosis of your website, to pinpoint its strengths and weaknesses.
- Help you to ‘keep your finger on the pulse’ of your website by setting up analytics.
- Gather and analyse data relating to your online competitors, to allow you to adapt and stay competitive.
- Offer a wide range of services designed to help you to increase your online visibility and market your website, products and services to your target audience.
2. Ensure that your site is designed to be as user-friendly as possible
Getting traffic onto your site doesn’t mean that you can sit back and let the money roll in (and even if your site turns out to be successful, there is always room for improvement!): Converting site visitors into paying customers is a feat which requires careful analysis and refinement of your website, with an emphasis on user experience;
By employing the services of a usability expert, it is possible to identify – and remove – barriers that stand in the way between your customers and the items they wish to purchase;
Of course, many other factors are at play here, like your pricing, promotional offers, products on offer: but without a user-friendly website, you may be turning potential customers away from your store!
3: Provide a high degree of support to your customers
Whatever the nature of your business may be, this step should come as standard: If you provide professional, helpful support to your customers: A) They are more likely to give you repeat business and B) They’ll have positive things to say about your brand, which could result in more business coming your way through referrals.
On a website, ‘a high degree of support’ means providing plenty of helpful information to your customers at every step of their interaction with your company, from visiting your homepage, through to browsing your products, making a purchase and beyond, into the after-sales support stage;
By including an FAQ section, helpful guides (for example, if you were to sell clothing on your site, a guide to choosing the right size of garment linking off from your product pages) and other useful information pages, you can help to pre-empt and answer any questions about your products or services which your customers may have without the need to answer direct queries;
It should, however, be possible for your site visitors to easily contact your customer support team via your website, for example, by using a simple contact form.
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- Does Google care if your website is responsive or not? - August 11, 2015
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