There’s a lot more to running a successful Ecommerce business than simply stocking great products! 

The way that your eCommerce website looks and, more importantly, works is crucial to your success. 

As the owner of an eCommerce store, you’ll want to do everything that you can to make sure that your site is as effective as possible. 

So, what elements go into creating the most effective and efficient eCommerce store website possible? One that ensures a high visitor-to-customer conversion rate and keeps those customers coming back time and time again? 

Read on to find out!

Is my eCommerce Website User Friendly?

Arguably the most important element of your eCommerce site design is that it’s user friendly!

For example, does your site work well across different devices or is it less effective on mobile than it is on desktop? 

Today, around half of all eCommerce purchases are made from a mobile device, making the user friendliness of your mobile site crucial to your company’s success.

Is It Easy To Navigate? 

Easy site navigation is crucial to securing high conversion rates and sales.

Not every visitor to your site is going to be looking for the same thing – especially if you offer a wide range of different products for purchase – so it’s incredibly important that everyone who visits your site can easily find what they’re looking for.

For that reason, it’s essential that your site includes:

• Easy-to-read menus
• Clear categories and sub-categories 
• Doesn’t try to stuff too much information into single pages

The number of steps involved in navigating from the home page to the sales page should be kept to a minimum. If your site visitors find themselves having to jump through hoops to make a purchase, they might just head to a competitor’s website, meaning that you not only lose out on single sales but also long-term customer loyalty.

The Importance of High-Quality Product Images

You’re proud of the products that you sell, so make sure that you show them off with the best-quality images you can!

An effective product image doesn’t just show the product, but actively makes the product look great and gives an accurate impression of what it looks like in real life. 

For example, if you’re visiting an eCommerce clothing store, wouldn’t you much rather see the item you’re interested in on a real model than simply photographed on the coathanger? Context is everything, and there are very good reasons for the growing popularity of augmented reality and great online shopping experiences in general.

It’s also important to make sure that the images are high-quality in the digital sense, too. 

Site visitors will be put off purchasing your products if the images used to advertise them are blurry or low-resolution – so ensure that the images are always optimised.

Excellent videos that show products in use should also form a big part of your content strategy.

Great Product Descriptions Get You Sales!

Effective product descriptions are key to securing eCommerce sales, whether that’s on your own website or a 3rd party marketplace like Amazon. 

In fact, this element of eCommerce is so vital to the potential success of your website and business that Chetaru (and other digital agencies like us) offers specific copywriting services that create product descriptions that really sell.

There are a few general rules worth remembering when it comes to your product descriptions, including keeping it concise, easy to understand – and, above all, compelling! 

One way to test out whether or not your product descriptions will be effective is to send the name of the product and the accompanying content to a friend who hasn’t set eyes on your product or marketing before – perhaps even a friend who isn’t completely sure what your product even is! 

Ask them what questions they would have to know and decide before making a purchase. Things like:

• How big is it?’
• ‘Is it worth the money?’
• ‘What is it made from?’ (is it ethically sourced?)
• ‘How is it better than similar products?’
• ‘Will it actually improves my life in some way?’

Also, keep reading the description back to yourself with this question very much in mind: ‘does this description really give me a good reason to actually want to purchase the product?’. If it doesn’t, then you need to rewrite your description.

Have You Factored In SEO? It’s Critical That You Do

What are your target customers searching for online? And will they be able to easily find your product if they search on Google or another search engine? 

eCommerce websites and businesses ‘live and die’ according to how searchable, visible and discoverable they are to search engine users. 

If your products aren’t appearing high on search engines for relevant terms, then you’re going to really struggle to acquire the traffic that will get you traffic and leads.

That’s why it’s so critical to build an SEO strategy that will get customers visiting your site in their droves – and, if you get the other factors right, making purchases! 

Easy checkout process 

It’s much easier to abandon a purchase online than it is in person – and it happens a lot more than you might like to think.

Did you know that around 88.5% of online shopping orders in March 2020 were abandoned? Hundreds of thousands of items placed in the ‘baskets’ or ‘carts’ of eCommerce websites and didn’t convert into purchases!

To make sure that customers aren’t abandoning their carts on your website, make sure that you’re keeping the checkout process as easy and as streamlined as you can.

Can users utilise their device’s auto-fill feature to input their payment and delivery details? Could you look at introducing a faster payment method, such as PayPal, to your payment process?

See What Chetaru Could Do For Your eCommerce Business

We eat, drink and dream digital marketing at Chetaru – and building fantastic eCommerce websites that attract traffic and leads is one of specialities.

Ping an email to [email protected] or call us on +44 (0) 1325 734 845 if you’d like to find out more about how Chetaru’s web design service could optimise your eCommerce store and help you increase sales.

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