Anyone who has ever shopped online will know that it takes more than just a piece of shopping cart software to be able to succeed in the online retail game. It also takes more than eye-catching web design or an impressive collection of product shots. A good e-Commerce website should have all the pertinent information readily available, and easily update-able. Whether you decided to do it yourself or work with a web platform developer, you should ensure your website contains the following elements.
Easy Accessibility
This is an absolute necessity. Your e-Commerce site should be accessible from various types of web browsers – Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, mobile browsers, etc. You wouldn’t want to lose potential customers to utter frustration at having a page not load properly or fast enough.
Credibility
We’re all wary of scams on the web, and it’s an interesting fact that people tend to equate quality of graphic design with quality of product. There is a certain level of graphic design sophistication that seems to convey credibility. The chances are if your design was “homemade” then it also looks that way. I’d always suggest using an experienced graphic designer when putting together any marketing materials.
Know What Your Customers Want
The first and foremost thing your e-Commerce site must do is to give the customer exactly what they’re looking for. People generally don’t spend their time browsing online; they already know what they want and they’re never more than a few clicks away from looking elsewhere.
So keep it simple. Clean, crisp looking sites, with an appropriate image and a 7-12 word headline, tend to work well. Try to keep your landing pages short so that no scrolling is required.
All the bells and whistles should be secondary. Sure, talk about how brilliant your products are, how your prices are the best in the market and how you’re experts in our industry. But make sure customers don’t get bogged down in all this, when all they want to know is if they can get a scripture tote in blue.
Easy Navigation
You have to make it as easy as possible for your website visitors to find a specific product he or she is looking for. So you’ll need a good Search Box and Logical Product Categories. Your web design and navigation should be a guiding element, for if you lose your visitors, you lose your sales. Try to keep you navigation to a product to 2 clicks as much as you can.
Get the Right Information on the Page
All your product information – price, size, etc. – has to come from somewhere. For a dynamic e-Commerce website, it’s all stored in a database and retrieved when someone views a product. A custom-designed database lets you choose exactly what information is loaded, be it extra pictures of the product or ’recommended items’. Your database is the heart of your e-Commerce site and should be built to specification depending on your needs.
Showcase of popular and related products
You’ve seen Amazon do it: provide a showcase of popular and related products that may stir or sustain the visitors’ interest. It’s a classic sales tactic that not only helps you promote whatever you have to offer; when properly done it also gives visitors the impression that you’re sincere in helping them find what they’re looking for.
Easy-to-use shopping cart and checkout
A visitor may have arrived at your site after specifically setting out to search, browse, and buy your products. Don’t let them down with complicated shopping carts and checkout areas. Guide them throughout the whole sales process, and give them the confidence that they’re doing it the right way.
Always show the full correct billing price. If Discounts, Coupons, Tax or Shipping are not displayed this can be confusing and misleading for your customers. So always make the full price clear.
Multiple ordering and payment options
Not everyone feels comfortable with shopping online. Which shouldn’t be surprising: security breaches on the Web are not uncommon, and a number of your site visitors may thus feel apprehensive about having to request orders, give out their credit card information, or make payments via the Internet. This is where multiple ordering and payment options come in (i.e., mailing a check, pickup in store, etc.). They reassure potential customers that they can shop however they please.
Privacy
Online retailers understand the importance of including privacy policies in their sites. These assure visitors and shoppers that whatever information they give away to you will be kept private. These also provide reassurance that you are not going to use private details, transactions, IP addresses, tracked cookies, and other similar sensitive information for malicious purposes.
Safety and security
Regardless of the shopping cart software you have chosen, prioritize the use of a secure transaction environment – or an SSL (secure socket layer) system – that renders encoded data unreadable except for the actual customer the data was meant for. It’s also highly recommended that you partner with security companies in order to come up with vulnerability scanning and secure certifications, both of which can minimize the risks of you and your visitors getting exploited by malicious hackers.
Guarantees
Guarantees aren’t just promotional in nature. Because online shoppers can’t hold or actually see and feel the product until it’s been shipped to them, they respond more positively to e-Commerce sites that provide after-sales, money-back guarantees. These help your visitors feel more confident about their purchase decisions as well as about the quality of products and services that they get from your online store.
Customer Support
Highlight the availability of customer support – be it online or by phone – and respond in a timely manner to customer queries.
Manage Your e-Commerce Site
Your products might have a high turnover, or you might have special offers you want to add to the homepage each week. Whatever your needs, you’ll use a content-management system (CMS) to update your static pages (like the homepage) and your product database.
A good web developer will build your CMS to specification so you can do exactly what you want with it, from adding to your blog to updating product ranges. For ongoing website management, a good CMS is essential.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The What & Why
If you could think of the person whom you would most want visiting your website, who would that person be?
Traditional advertisers might describe this person in terms of their demographics: 18-24 years old? Male or Female? Even just LDS? Well in the “world of searching,”
The person you most want to find your website is the person who is searching for what you offer!
The trick is to figure out who those people are, develop an extremely targeted message for them, and put it where they will notice it.
Enter SEO.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. i.e. Google.com, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, etc.
Why do I need to worry about SEO?
There is no other marketing channel that matches the return on investment that SEO provides. Most of your investment will be time, rather than money. Your return will be a constant stream of people who are specifically seeing the products and services you provide. They went to a search engine in “buy mode,” ready to buy a solution from anyone they could find there. All you need to do is turn up in the front of them.
There's is a lot more to SEO - this just skims the surface. Remember this:
"He who has a thing to sell and goes and whispers in a well is not as apt to get the dollars as he who climbs a tree and hollers."
SEO is like "Climbing a tree and hollering"
Now it's your turn -- Besides the things listed above, what else would you like to have on your e-Commerce Website?
