10 Tips to make your eCommerce site drive more business

ecommerce-tips

 

 

Online shopping has become a part and parcel of our life, as large eCommerce websites increasingly become the focus of attention for delivery of quality products at cost-effective prices. You must have surely admired the way Etsy, Amazon, Fabletics, and such other big retail sites operate, and if you are a wannabe entrepreneur, you have already wondered whether you can be as successful as these giants.

Given this, it is important to note that as the marketplace becomes more and more mobile, visual and social, it brings in a twofold benefit. On one hand, these developments go a long way in enhancing the customer experience. On the other hand, it poses a challenge for business owners who constantly need to live up to the expectations of customers, fired by the latest developments in the eCommerce domain.

As many of the top retailers would tell you, there are a number of features that need to be added to the eCommerce site in order to make the website and in turn the business rock. Let us go for a brief study of some of the exclusive tricks.

Using Attractive Images for Your Services and Products

It might seem to you a bit strange but the fact is that the right images play a vital role in making a visitor decide whether to become your customer or to move over to a different website. You would also be astonished to know that many eCommerce websites do not have eye-catching images of their services or products.

It does not always imply that you need a professional photographer who can offer you brilliant images, but the thing is that with a proper blend of common sense and aesthetics, you can come up with the right photographs that are bound to incite your target audience.

So far as product photos are concerned, consider presenting a high level view of the product along with a detailed close-up shot and manifold angular views, so that the visitor can view the maximum possible portion of the product. Your customers would enjoy it all the more, if the entire website photography has a consistent look and feel.

Keeping the Search Bar Easily Accessible

A number of eCommerce website owners simply fail to realize the frequency at which the search bar on their website is being used. When the visitor arrives at the website searching for some specific item, and finds that the same is not available over the landing page, the most common tendency is to search for the item by typing in the requisite words or phrases within the search bar. Hence it is crucial to make the search bar the key focus of your website. This will help in keeping the users glued to the site, by tempting them to look around the site for more products and services.

Be Very Clear Cut with Your Call to Action and Sign-up Buttons

Do not go for lengthy sign-up forms which would take up a few pages or so prior to making the visitors successfully get registered to your site. In the process of running an e-commerce site, it would not be mandatory for you to know their phone number, address, the kind of profession they are in, and so on. All that is needed to get them started off is an email address along with a password. Moreover, it is also not advisable to ignore the call to action buttons since a properly designed call to action helps in enhancing the site usability. Make these buttons stand out and draw the attention of users.

Lay proper Focus on the Mobile Customers

As newer models of Smartphones and other mobile devices continually flock the market, internet shoppers are increasingly going mobile. A recent study has revealed that 64% of the mobile owners consider utilizing their mobile devices for online shopping. Given this scenario, if you possess a website that is not compatible with mobile devices, it is bound to turn off the usual Smartphone users.

For instance, just imagine that you get an attractive e-mail newsletter over your phone asking you to click and check out a great new set of products. But as soon as you click on the given link, you are directed to the desktop version, wherein scrolling becomes extremely difficult as nothing is optimized as per the screen size of your phone. Definitely you would not like to take the pain of zooming, pinching and scrolling just to make a single purchase. You would rather opt for another site that is optimized for the device you are using.

It has been seen that mobile users are more prone to go for quick decisions and instantaneous online purchases. Hence, ensure that your e-commerce website scores high on mobile compatibility. This will give you a more efficient online storefront along with a host of delighted customers.

Presenting a Wide Range of Products

Whether your eCommerce store deals in a wide variety of products or simply deals with a particular category of product, the vital thing is to offer a range of options to shoppers so that they have a huge selection to choose from. This increases the probability of conversion to a great extent. Let us see a couple of examples.

Cellularoutfitter.com, the site focused on selling cell phones, comes up with a wide array of wholesale phones as well as accessories to enable the potential buyers to select from a number of brands. As per Google estimate, the site has 150,000 results, something that is clearly indicative of the large inventory that the specialized site has.

Another instance is Flipkart, which began strictly as a bookseller, and then diversified into selling a range of goods starting from diapers to curtains and hand tools. The founders of Flipkart adopted the same route as Amazon, their former employer, which started off with books and then diversified into selling a range of kitchen and home appliances as well as apparels for men and women, amongst other items.

Optimizing the Website for Search Engines

Thank to search giants like Google, Yahoo and Bing, we all know by now that search engines enable people to find the requisite information by bringing up the most quality results that match with their searches. The most effective way to optimize an eCommerce store for search engines is to make sure that the structure of your website has good usability, there is the constant creation of blog content and the pages are being correctly named with the incorporation of accurate keyword rich titles as well as descriptions that are a good fit for the user and also the search engines.

For instance, if you are dealing in ladies handbags, your aim should be to rank your site highly for keywords relevant to ladies handbags in the search engine results. One of the most creative things is to enhance your search engine rank is to continually build exciting and original content for your audience. In this case, you may consider composing articles regarding the latest trends in ladies handbags, the different choices available, how to select the best one as per the wardrobe and personality, and so on. Such content creation enhances search engine visibility and also educates the consumers regarding the topic and relevant keywords.

Taking Social Media into Consideration

Although the fan following depends largely on the type of business you are in, social media plays a crucial role in SEO as well as backlinks. But remember that incorporation of social media links within the website is a challenging task. You are required to place them somewhere wherein they are not able to dominate the page. However, be careful not to hide them as the same will make them useless.

Going For A/B Testing to Identify the Best on Your Website

A/B testing involves testing two dissimilar versions of one web page to arrive at the features that your web visitors find the most appealing. Test the landing pages of your website on a regular basis, along with the home pages as well as various other features to understand the items that your site visitors are clicking on. This will also make you understand the aspects that are triggering more conversions, and those that are repelling visitors from passing through the sales funnel.

Begin by evaluating one variable at a time, as you keep everything else totally consistent for determining the actionable difference that exists between the variables. After deciding upon the features that require testing, define the goals that would spell success for this particular testing process. You may test click-through rates or conversions during A/B testing, but make sure to be fixed on one metric for success determination.

Maintaining the Shopping Cart

To render wholesome service, every eCommerce website must possess proper personal detail security as well as content management. In other words, your shoppers must feel confident about purchasing products at your eCommerce store. Hence, you must assure them that your site is a reputable one incorporating features for protection of privacy. In order to offer enhanced shopping security and evoke customer trust, you may obtain a trust certificate such as VeriSign or Hacker

Upselling & Clearity

Other ways of building an effective shopping cart include suggesting related items that save the customer’s time and clearly displaying taxes, process, discounts or shipping charges, so that buyers are not pestered by any hidden charges.

For a retailer, a properly operated eCommerce website can prove to be the gateway to huge sales and a soaring bottom line. By following these tricks, you can ensure that your eCommerce store has all the requisite features that would draw in the customers and well as engage them to look for more.

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