Although it got off to a relatively slow start, ecommerce is
now the largest retail environment growth area in the world. Everything from
gifts, books and perfume through to the weekly grocery shopping can be bought
online. If you’re selling a product or service, an
ecommerce website is your virtual ‘shop window’, letting
your visitors see your products from the comfort of their own home. So what do
you need to make an ecommerce website effective?
Bringing in the customers
For any ecommerce website to be effective there are a few
things that need to be in place before you ‘open for business’. Like any shop
window, an ecommerce website has to be eye-catching, effective and offer
potential customers what they want. So the first thing that has to be right is
your SEO or
search engine optimisation. Without a good page ranking,
your shop will remain empty and the customers will be spending their money on
your rivals’ sites. An
effective ecommerce website should be vibrant, easy to
navigate and well laid out, just like any other ‘real life’ shop. Ecommerce is
all about the user experience, and your shop has to give your visitors the best
user experience it possibly can.
Security – the number one issue
The reason that ecommerce websites took a while to gain
precedence is that many people were worried about typing in their credit card
details into the Internet because of the fear of fraud. So your site has to be
secure. Offering an https checkout page is a must. Https notification indicates
that the site is protected and that visitor’s card information will be safe
from hackers or scammers. The advent of PayPal has also made things more secure
online, so accepting PayPal payments is now a necessity if your ecommerce
website is to be successful.
A site that’s easy to navigate
If you walked into a high street shop that was a mess of
piled up clothes, lose shoes or unmarked goods, you would quickly walk back out
again without buying. You want to go into a shop where everything is laid out
and easy to see, clearly marked and attractively arranged. Your online visitors
are looking for exactly the same experience when they visit your virtual shop,
so a good ecommerce website has to be easy to navigate. Sitemaps are vital,
letting your visitors find their way around your virtual shop easily. However,
there also has to be a clear roadmap that guides them gently (without the hard
sell) towards the end goal, namely a checkout cart filled with your products.
Good ecommerce websites have a strong call to action on every page, encouraging
the visitor to convert that click into a cash buy.
Integrate the pages
Following on from your roadmap, consider how the pages work
together as a whole. Think of a sales website as a department store, where one
page can quite easily lead into another through a simple and tempting link.
Advertising special offers on various pages through the use of banners or links
encourages the visitor to explore your site rather than just sticking to one
page.
Giving people what they want
Ecommerce websites are designed specifically for one purpose
– selling. Visitors will want to know three fundamental questions when they
visit your site:
• What’s for sale?
• How much is it?
• How do I buy it and can I use the site safely?
Keeping things simple, concise and clearly laid out is the
art of
ecommerce website design. But if you want them to come back,
encourage your visitors to interact with the site through comments, blogs and
other two-way processes. Unique visitors are great, but the aim of an ecommerce
website is to keep your visitors coming back for more. Fresh, engaging copy,
content that encourages interaction and unique special offers all help to keep
your website open for business.
No comments:
Post a Comment