Internet shopping is a lucrative business. Sales are growing at an exponential rate year on year, and ecommerce has now become many consumers’ shopping experience of choice. Yet still so many websites get it wrong – from broken links to dodgy navigation and an unclear value proposition, turning a customer away is far easier than you might think.
In this two-part article we’ll take a look at ways to enhance the user experience and drive sales. In part one, we’ll focus on improvements to help increase traffic and win new customers.
- What, where, why?
It may sound rudimentary, but is it actually clear what you are selling? What is your unique value proposition – in other words, why should someone buy from you and not a competitor? Perhaps most importantly of all, is it clear where the visitor has actually landed? Is it clear that your website is actually selling something from the home page, or is it just a fancy brochure site. Take some time out to get the basics right.
- Unique Value Proposition
A point worth covering in more detail. Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a standard by which consumers will measure you against your competitors. Understanding what makes your customers tick is the key. What is important to them? Is your product an everyday necessity, a lifestyle specific luxury or something else? Is there a loophole in your industry that no other competitor is currently exploiting?
- Video and Social Media Optimisation
Use of video to demonstrate product features and benefits is one of the fastest-growing and most powerful ways to boost business. Assuming you already have a social media presence for your business, strategic use of video should definitely feature in your strategy. Decide what approach best suits your product or service – technical demo or quirky, viral-style ad? It’s worth spending the time to plan a video presentation which enhances your credibility.
- Keywords and your products
Staying with the same theme for a moment, it is important not to neglect more traditional SEO methods, such as use of keywords in your product pages. Optimising your product pages will go a long way to improving your search engine results. Keep it simple and when preparing your copy, write it for a human audience, not the search engines.
- Show your can be trusted
In this digital age where information flows more freely than ever, people value nothing more highly than their own personal details. Never is this more applicable than in the world of eCommerce. Go out of your way to present your business as trustworthy, such as including a business address and full contact details, providing clear and honest information on your ‘about’ page and use secure pages where appropriate.
Once you have won your new customers, the next challenge is to keep them coming back. In part two we’ll look at five more improvements aimed at encouraging existing customers to make additional purchases.
If you would like help powering up your ecommerce site, call 0845 0740068