Top 10 eCommerce Website Improvement Tips
- Published on Saturday, 15 October 2011 21:35
eCommerce website is one of the best avenues of earning money online in today's IT-savvy world, however, many people, despite having spent the time and effort in setting up their online shop which is beautiful in aesthetic design and rich in features, are not able to bring in the traffic and sales. Stated are some pointers which might just help you improve your eCommerce website's overall usability and bring in more traffic at minimum cost:
- Site Navigation: Is your website easy to navigate around and are your users able to find the product that they want to purchase from your site easily? The number one reason that a potential customer leaves your site without a purchase is because they are frustrated with navigating your site. There should also be an on-site search function as well to aid customers in finding what they want.
- Website Optimized for Search: Is your website properly setup and optimized for searching by major search engines? Appropriate keywords and description should be setup for every important pages in your website that is related to your core business.
- Blog: Having a blog that talks about your business and service offerings is crucial to creating awareness and traffic to your website. It can also be a great for you as the business owner to interact with your customers or potential customers.
- Newsletter: Based on eCommerce research, a typical web user normally does not buy from a website the very first time they come into contact with. It takes at least three contacts with an online business before they are comfortable and confident enough to make the purchase. Having a newsletter will allow you to further increase your chance of keeping in contact with the first time vistors, enabling you to convince them to make that desirable sales.
- Submit to Search Engines: Pretty often, people just register for a domain and create a few webpages, expecting to be able to search for their domain name in search engines and get results immediately. In reality it takes awhile for search engines to know of your new website, and it might not even find your site in years if no other sites are linking to your's. To solve this problem and expedite the process, be proactive and submit your site to at least the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing).
- Online Directories: Do remember to take the time and effort to submit your eCommerce website to the online directories, preferrably starting with those that is local to your business. This not only expose your business to people searching for your products and services in the directories, it also serves as great way to have backlinks to your website, which will improve your ranking in search engines.
- Informative Articles and Resources: Provide your customers with useful information and resources that is related to your products and services. This not only position you as an expert in your business domain, it further helps to improve search engine rankings. For e.g. if you are an online pet shop, you could be providing articles on how to care for your pet's fur and hygiene, how to handle a pet which is sick etc.
- Social Media: Sign up for these new media channels to further interact with your customers. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter has been known to be able to propagate news extremely fast, imagine you have a hot promotion of your products, it could be spread within minutes to thousands of users.
- Paid Advertising/PPC (Pay-Per-Click): If you have a limited marketing budget, this method could be a very cost effective manner of getting instant traffic to your promotions or events. This marketing method allows you to set a strict budget without overspending.
- Display your Domain Name Whenever Possible: Especially useful for a new business, put your domain name everywhere that is sensible. Place them in your email signatures, business cards, flyers, brochures and banners. This will maximize your website's exposure.
