I have designed, directed and built over 350 websites in my career. I would like to share with you some of the key elements of ensuring a successful ecommerce website. You can have the best website in the world, but there are a couple of key elements that need to be in place before you launch your website.
First, evaluate how good your customer service is. You may be wondering “what does building a great ecommerce website have to do with customer service?” Everything. Many of the customers in the B2B industrial space use the web to search for products, but often use the phone to place the orders. Whether the customer is placing the order online, through email or fax, or just making a phone call, the customer experience needs to be great. Customers go to your website to learn about you and the products that you are selling. The customer user interface for your website needs to be easy to use and functional.
Second, your customers need to find you. With the introduction of the internet, the competitive landscape expanded significantly. With smart phones, IPads, tablets and other web searching devices, access to the internet, the competitive landscape is even larger. Your company must be found through all of the internet noise. Your ecommerce website needs to be search engine optimized. Customers tend to take the path of least resistance. They can find whatever they want by going to Google, Bing or other search engines. When they are searching for companies that sell the products you sell, you need to come up on top of the search results. Make sure your site has search engine friendly URL strings, alt tags, meta tags and is loaded with keywords that show the search engines that you are a valuable resource for your customers for the products that you sell. Also, leverage social media, online and print advertising. The more your customers see you, the more likely they are to visit your site and purchase from you.
Third, along with SEO, a solid search engine marketing strategy is important. Using Google Adwords, for example, to make sure your top products are showing up on page 1 of search results is very important. When your site is optimized, you can show up on page 1 through organic search and PPC. Now you are giving the customer a couple of views of you on the same page.
Fourth, your search and navigation on your site need to be easy to use and provide optimum results quickly. Customers are busy and they don’t want to dig for the products they need. They want to find what they are looking for fast so they can move on to other things. If they can’t find what they are looking for quickly on your site, they will turn to your competitors. I like to use the “3 clicks or less” rule. If the customer takes more than three clicks to get what they are looking for, they will probably go elsewhere. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How would you find what you are looking for on your site? Don’t assume that you know. Ask your customers. At one place where I worked, we totally rebuilt a brand new website based on customer feedback and the results were fantastic.
Fifth, make sure your product content is rich. Search engines love rich content. The more relevant the search is for the customers, the more money the search engine companies make through advertising and repeat customers.
Finally, make sure that your pricing strategy is competitive. I have visited great websites that were easy to find products, but their prices were out of line. You may find desperate customers who might pay the unreasonable price, but don’t expect them as repeat customers. Do some pricing comparisons with your major competitors and negotiate with your suppliers to improve your margins.
Customers want easy to use sites, good user experience, fantastic customer service and competitive pricing. With those core elements in place, you can drive traffic and increase sales by launching a synchronized marketing strategy using search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and print, online and email marketing.
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gregpalmer7 