Designing E-Commerce Websites For Search Engines & Users
Designing E-commerce Websites For Search Engines & Users
Creating a successful e-commerce store
takes thorough planning and involves a strategy on how to achieve the
goals you've set for your store (which could be monetary goals or
even growth targets among others). Getting a good website designer
which understands your needs and visions is just as important because
you can't succeed unless you've developed your web foundation
correctly.
Here are a few points to consider when building a website e-commerce store.
Is your website designed for speed
I believe that at least 90% of the
websites on the web are designed poorly (if not more) and while
design is not the only vital factor in determining success or
failure, it does help to communicate your brand in a positive
refreshing manner.
Once you know you have a graphically
capable web developer, the next thing is to find a developer that can
implement functionality to the highest degree – this is where
speed comes in. It's well know that Internet users are very impatient
and need their information delivered to them instantaneously or else
they move on, so optimizing your website to load fast is a really
good starting point.
Online stores are built on Content
Management Systems generally so inform your website designer to find
a good speed optimization plugin that will help with load times.
Visual Aesthetics
Following on from the above point,
design your website to incorporate speed and include visually
appealing elements into the design so as to promote your brand and
make it memorable. Knowing which colors to use and when to use them
is another important topic on it's own but to be brief, make sure you
have a distinct call to action color that you continually re-enforce
throughout the website.
Social Media Integration
Make your social profiles visible
throughout the site and encourage users to join you on social
networks by having the correct like/follow buttons on your site (most
sites keep the buttons in the top right hand side or bottom left –
it's your choice). I would probably keep it at the bottom but also
put it in a user's face once they've completed an order because
they've trusted you enough to buy from you so who's to say that they
wouldn't want to join you on a social network.
Building Your Mailing List
This is another big part in determining
success in the future and I don't know if you know but books have
been written on such topics. The books are generally written by
marketers and they have catchy titles that claim to teach you how to
make large sums of money in a modest to short amount of time but the
gist of the book is that the money comes from building an email list
that you can continually contact and market new products to.
Needless to say, build your email list
by making it visible and get users to join by possibly giving away
something for free – such as a PDF guide on saving money while
shopping online or maybe give users a discount on their next
purchase.
Online Website Promotions & Offers
A great way to encourage sales is
through special offers and new promotions that come with the changing
seasons such as Christmas promotions that will come about at the end
of the year. Some people may wonder if you make less money when you
offer discounts but the truth is that you most probably will make
more (provided you do it right). Make sure you have recommended
items at the bottom of all the product pages because this will
encourage users to look at your other offerings (provided they're
relevant).
Also, try to incorporate discounts when
people recommend new customers to you because even by giving a small
discount to one customer, you gain a life-time of business from their
new referrals.
Get in touch with our web development team and see if we
can help at Website Design Cape Town. Those were a few tips to keep in mind
when designing your e-commerce store and I hope they helped, just make
sure your website design is up to scratch and can convert visitors
into buyers.
