1. Simple Navigation:
Try to limit the amount of clicks your customer has to make to complete their visit. Unnecessary, intermediate pages draw out the customers stay and gives them more chance to change their mind and leave your site. Making the buying process as simple as possible is a sure way to help your customer make their purchase easily and also make them want to return to your shop in the future.
2. No Advertisements:
OK, advertisements are god thing for information sites (like this one for example) but advertisements for other services or other sites are a big mistake in the world of ecommerce. Google Adsense ads may give you a small amount of extra revenue but you’re sure to miss out on real business when customers are leaving your site. Quick tip- the more adsense revenue you make, the more customers are clicking on your ads and choosing to leave your site.
3. No pop-ups!;
Pop-ups on any site are a major annoyance for most web users. A huge portion of online shoppers don’t understand how ecommerce sites are created and a lot of modern web browsers automatically block pop-ups by default meaning more extra interaction is needed by the customer. Put these 2 points together and you have one unhappy shopper. If your customer clicks on a link they want you to take them to that content, and the expect it in the same window.
4. SEO:
Search Engine Optimisation is the be-all and end-all of ecommerce success and there really is no excuse if you choose to ignore it. after all… it’s FREE! Taking the time to help Google understand your websites’ content makes your ecommerce site more easily found by your target audience. It’s not just what your customer can see that’s important, making sure all your meta data and heading tags are relevant will do wonders for your search-engine rankings.
5. Visuals:
Once you have discovered the importance of Search Engine Optimisation in an ecommerce website, don’t get too carried away with making your content too text heavy. Human beings and more accurately; the busy online shopper don’t care too much for masses of text. People like to be visually stimulated. Use bright colours and relevant images to help make your products stand out.
6. Site Speed:
Creating a successful ecommerce website is often about creating ‘happy mediums’. Adding lots of large, beautiful images may make your shopping site look fabulous but is likely to weigh down your pages and slow down the navigation of your site for your customer. If your customer has to wait even a few extra seconds for your pages to load, you risk the chance of the getting frustrated and go elsewhere.
7. Telephone Number:
Make sure that your customer can get hold of you easily. If a customer can’t see a way to contact you should there be a problem with their order then the will be reluctant to buy from you at all. Providing only an online contact form or just an email address can give the customer doubts that the ecommerce store is legitimate. Just because your ecommerce site is based online doesn’t mean that the internet should be your only avenue for your customers to contact you or to place further orders, your website is just your shop window.
8. Payment Methods:
Give your customer a real alternative to PayPal. Your potential customers wont all have PayPal accounts and making them register for one only increases the order process time, plus many people simply dont like or trust it. Offering a real payment gateway and accepting secure payments through your own ecommerce site not only makes it easy for your customers but also makes your site look more professional and trustworthy.
9. Email Your Customers:
Any questions that a customer has before their purchase should be answered as quickly as possible. Leaving emails unanswered is sure to lose you a few customers and many customers will let other people know of your poor communication. Don’t give anyone an excuse to leave a bad review of your business on a forum or potential gateway to your ecommerce site. And once your customer has placed an order with you, let them know that you have received it and if possible when its shipped.
10. Analyse:
The only way to see what’s going wrong with an ecommerce site is to see how your customers are using it. Take advantage of Google’s free Analytics account and track your customers’ movements. A few hours looking at Google Analytics can tell you which areas of your ecommerce site aren’t working as you expect as well as how and when your customers are visiting your site.
