When it comes to eCommerce website design it is important to understand exactly what you are getting yourself into, and what to expect. There are a lot of companies out there that claim to be able to build you a powerful money-making machine in a manner of days so you can instantly start generating cash. Although it is possible to make a lot of money with a website, it is not nearly as easy as many marketers make it out to be.
With a little bit of willingness and a lot of planning it is possible to create an online store that stays busy and generates a steady cash flow, but it will take some work. Here are a few words of advice when it comes to creating a successful online store that has room to grow.
Know Your Target Audience
Selling items on the internet can be a bit difficult at times. One of the most important factors that will contribute to the success of sales is to understand the people that are looking for the product.
- Age range
- Similar interests
- Attractions
- Able to spend money
The above factors are always details that a marketer should keep in mind. Depending on what you will be selling in your online store there will be differences in the tone of the content on the site and the language that the site will use in its content.
For example, an online store that sells pet products will be different than an online store that sells women’s clothing. Both of these types of stores will have different styles that are initiated in order to be more appealing to the type of person that is visiting it.
Design for Conversions
The ultimate goal for every eCommerce website is to convert browsers into paying customers. The more people that visit the website and buy things the more revenue the website will produce. Knowing the target audience is a big help in the way to design the site. The keys to producing higher conversion rates are:
- Attraction
- Engagement
- Interaction
- Ease
When the website is strategically planned out and purposefully created to easily attract, engage, and have an interaction with each visitor the odds of converting to sales are much greater than when the site is built on guesswork and assumptions.
Understand the audience. If you sell multiple types of products create landing pages that attract the audience of that specific audience.
Create pages that lead and entice visitors to move forward with the steps it takes to buy the product and spend the money.
Attracting the Audience
The website itself has to look attractive. That is the bottom line. If a person browsing the internet comes across the site and it appears shoddy or untrustworthy the odds of them actually providing their credit card information are pretty slim.
In addition to the site looking good, there has to be an element of engagement in order to keep the visitor on the pages and interested in what the site has to offer. High-quality content with easy-to-understand headings makes a world of difference.
People like things that are neatly packaged and easy to look at. A website that looks complicated and difficult to navigate will have fewer chances of keeping people on the pages or inviting them to look deeper into the site.
What many successful eCommerce sites do is place a header area with vibrant photographs coupled with attraction-grabbing headlines and calls to action.
Call to Action Placement
A call to action is a link or a button that directs a user to take an action towards a conversion. Calls to action come in many shapes and forms, but the ones that carry the most weight are the ones that are placed in the right place.
In most cases, the best place to put a CTA (Call to Action) is front and center to the user. Using direct language with bold letters helps to get the attention of the visitor.
The action can be to fill out a contact form, to download an eBook, to prompt a chat session…or whatever.
Websites that are built for eCommerce will typically have a store with several options of items that people can purchase from the site. One of the more effective strategies is to build a “best seller” page on the site and add the top-selling products to that page.
A well-placed call to action will sway visitors to travel to the best sellers page where they will have a menu of some of the best-selling merchandise. Compelling descriptions with options for “hot deals” are key elements for conversion generation.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is one of the most misunderstood concepts around. Many companies are under the impression that it is a low-cost, easy solution that replaces advertising costs. This is not the case.
Search engine optimization needs to have several factors in place in order for it to be fruitful.
- Correct website structure
- Understanding of keywords
- Researching best keywords
- Off-page SEO outreach
- Quality content
- Consistent management
There is no point in creating a fully-functional online store with stuff to sell if your website is not going to be visible in the search engines. The only other way people will be able to find the site is if you give them physical media, such as bumper stickers and matchbooks, with the site address on it.
Understand the keywords that will best benefit your products. For example, in many cases, if a person uses a plural version of the keyword the results will come out much differently than they would if they were to search the singular version.
Do the keyword research, understand your audience, structure your pages with keyword-rich headings and content without stuffing, and stay on top of your off-page blogging outreach. Organic search results are one of the best ways to generate unique traffic and encourage sales.
There’s Not Too Much Competition
One of the biggest mistakes people make is to assume that there is already too much competition in any market to try to compete. This is not so. Although there may be a lot of competition, if you build a good enough website with high search engine visibility you will have a much better chance at being successful than a company that does not invest time in search engine optimization.
The truth is that you could be selling the exact same thing as the next company, but if you make it look better to your buyers they will choose you every time. The way to make what you have look better than everybody else is to create your eCommerce website in a way that compels the visitor to make a choice to purchase a product.
It’s not easy. It will take a lot of work. You will need to study the competition and understand the market that you are selling in. However, building and implementing a successful eCommerce website gives you the opportunity to present your products to people all over the world.
Global reach brings forth unfathomable possibilities. Every website has an opportunity to present itself to the entire planet. Creative design and skilled planning combined are powerful weapons that can be used to dominate a market.