Factors to Consider While Setting Up an Ecommerce Website

Today’s population prefers using mobile devices to access websites rather than desktop computers. This makes optimizing your website for mobile devices incredibly important. It helps provide improved user experience, regardless of which device customers use to access your site. There are many tools you can use to implement a responsive design. Regardless of the platform you use, ensure that you keep mobile users in mind when it comes to all aspects of design ranging from checkout and payment to basic navigation.

The single most important purpose for running an ecommerce website is to increase sales. Search engine optimize is a must for anyone who wants to outdo their competitors with better sales. It basically works by making your site visible to potential customers when they search for merchandise. A higher ranking on search engines like Google and Yahoo increases the number of potential customers.

Other benefits of having a good SEO strategy include better site credibility and help you beat the competition in a cost effective, measurable way. More advantages of SEO for small business enterprises are further explained in this post. Start by investing some time to defining the top relevant keywords. Tools that will help with your strategy include Google Analytics, Google WebMaster Tools, MozBar and WooRank.

One of the most important aspects of ecommerce websites is the level of cyber security. The last thing customers need is their credit card details and other vital information ending up in the hands of a third-party organization. The lack of proper protocols exposes customers and ecommerce site owners to the risk of payment fraud. Some of the ways of preventing such a breach include monitoring all transactions, updating software on a regular basis, requiring card verification value (CVV) as well as stronger passwords.

It is also important that you ensure that customers’ addresses are verified. Conducting a risk assessment every now and then goes a long way towards protecting you and your customers from fraud. In addition to financial consequences also harms a business’s reputation. There are many platforms like Shopify that offer all of the above features and more to ensure maximum cyber security.

The checkout process is where the money is at because motivated buyers come here to finish their order while a whole of them leave the site before they make it to the checkout funnel. A small increase on this step goes a long way towards increasing the bottom line. While the tactics for getting more people to go through with the checkout ultimately depend on your site, there are few measures you can implement to move things along.

The first involves avoiding a long checkout process that confuses your customers. No one likes jumping through ten pages before they can confirm their order and checkout. A survey conducted by The Big Picture cited that more than 10% of consumers abandon their shipping cart due to a complex checkout process. That’s many customers to lose, especially for a small business enterprise.

According to E-Consultancy, up visit e-commerce websites with the sole purpose of using the search function to look for products. Making the site search function available is, therefore, incredibly important. Ensure that it is easy to use with features like auto-complete to help potential customers what they are looking for as well as popular and related products.

Faceted search is a functionality that allows visitors to narrow down their search based on various criteria including price range, size, brand and department just to name a few. Providing this functionality goes a long towards giving customers more power when it comes to limiting their search to specific parameters.

Keeping the above factors in mind when designing your e-commerce website will help you ensure that you provide a great user experience for your customers. However, an e-commerce website is about more than just user experience. Security and search engine optimization are also crucial. Of course, you can always consult an expert if you hit a snag.