E-Commerce Website Considerations

E-commerce Websites and Best Practice

There is a real danger when selecting a web design company that they don’t know what they are doing ! Harsh? Well possibly not.

Many companies are graphic designers first, which is fine as long as Graphic Design Agencies play to their strengths and develop effective partnerships with other online experts. A website of course should look great, but it also needs to get found on Google, Yahoo & Bing, it also vital that those designing websites, particularly e-commerce websites, design the website using best conversion practices, so that the traffic coming to the website is really maximised.

It is therefore incumbent on all web designers to know about:

• Usability & Conversion Strategy
• Web Analytics
• Business and Business Trading principles
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Social Media Marketing (SMO)
• A host of other good practice principles such as build quality, W3C Compliance, Accessibility

We’ll cover off many of these points later in the article.

So why is this so important, doesn’t a picture tell a thousand words? Well yes!! But it’s more than just great looking web pages.

So Why Should Your Web Company need to know about all of this. Well because a good website and especially a good e-commerce website should be more than just a vanity purchase, it should deliver a real return on investment and if done properly will represent possibly the best value for money marketing.

Usability & Conversion Strategy

Whether your e-commerce website is your main path to market or not, be sure not to leave “money on the table” by making simple usability and conversion mistakes. Some common mistakes include:

• Bolting an online shop onto an existing site. If you intend selling online, then that is what your site needs to be about, not just a single button taking the user to what may look like another site, not sure about this? well just checkout best in class sites like Amazon & Next.
• Small navigation with Products & Services buttons. nearly all low end websites have buttons for “products” or “services”. This tells your potential customers nothing, it tells Google even less. Instead, your left navigation should be persistent on all or most pages and be your main product categories.

When considering content for your website, you need the right amount of detail at the right time. For Landing Pages, the information needs to be direct. Top 3-5 key points, a great image or graphic with a call to action. the idea being to convert your visitor as quickly as possible making it as easy as possible to see your offering and move on to the next stage. Good practice is often honesty and good layout:

• No hidden surprises
• Clear prices
• Clear call to action
• Key information above the fold
• Uncluttered so as not to distract

It’s a good idea to offer comfort such as:

• A friendly customer service face
• Clear telephone help
• Live help
• Goody badges (showing your security standards, awards, service levels)
• Guarantees & money back offers

This will work very effectively with an allied Social Media Marketing Strategy, we find that of our customers that use us for Social Media Marketing experience conversion rates 2-4 times greater than those that do not use Social Media.

Web Analytics

All of our websites come with Google Analytics ready installed. We also recommend that functions like Goals and E-commerce tracking are set up as well, particularly if about to run a comprehensive marketing campaign. Analytics is the information system that can turn a bad campaign into a great campaign. Typical measurements we report include some obvious web statistics:

• Time on site
• Number of visitors
• Bounce rates (the number of people who stay for less than 5 seconds)
• Pages Visited / Pages Per Visit

We also track more complex information like

• Campaign ROI
• Brand mentions
• Social Media Traffic
• Keywords and pages that deliver traffic / goals / sales / bounces
• Campaign statistics

And countless more statistics can be extracted and derived from Analytics depending on what is required to be measured. Like all marketing campaigns targets should be set, key metrics measured and reported on. Once we know what works best then that is the best place to divert resources to. We are fortunate in having our own web analytics qualified consultant on staff.

Understanding Your Business Online

Pretty websites are great, but be sure your Web Designer or Internet Consultant understands your business. For example:

• Do they understand your products, is it highly customisable, does it come in different sizes and colours, are ther factors that affect the price?
• What is the call to action? Download a brochure?, Buy, Request a Quote, Request a Consultation? Call?
• What are the Checkout issues? Vat Exemptions, Different VAT Rates, Delivery Policies, Discounts?
• Delivery Policy Issues, Courier rates, Bulky Deliveries, Highland & Island Rates, Postage Rates, Integration with Label Printing and Despatch Systems? Integration with the Courier? Free Delivery Policy etc
• Marketing Discounts Policies, Free delivery above a certain spend? % discounts on spend, offer codes, vouchers.

It’s no good spending £5,000 or £25,000 on a website to find that what you take for granted has been overlooked. Make sure that your Web People ASK these questions.

Search Engine and Online Marketing

It’s important to get your web designers, your offline agency and your Internet consultants fully aligned to your strategy, to both avoid duplication and to ensure that they are complementing each other to your benefit.

Web Design, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, E-Mail Marketing and Social Media all work together. Make sure that your Digital Marketing Agency has expertise in all of these areas, this isn’t always easy for business owners and marketing departments, but here are a few pointers that may help when selecting an agency:

• Can your Internet Consultant explain Internet Marketing without getting overly technical. At the end of the day it is all common sense once you know how. If they know what they are doing, they will be able to explain quite clearly and easily.
• Do they understand business, most of all YOUR business, this should be reflected in their specification and proposal to you.
• Pick on one or two of your own competitors, see if your web designer can tell you why they do so well or so badly.
• Don’t accept broad generic answers and don’t be fobbed off with “It’s a trade secret”
• Ask for testimonials and ask them to demonstrate what they have done with other companies.
• Do they seem experienced enough to give you high quality professional advice
• Do their claims sound too good to be true? If so they probably are.
• Have they provided a comprehensive and comprehensible analysis of your website?
• Are they able to propose a coherent Internet marketing plan, that changes through time as results and analytics change? or are they a one trick pony just offering Google AdWords or just Link Building?
• Who will they be putting on your account? are they qualified? Will they appoint a qualified project manager?
• Are they Google AdWords and Analytics qualified
• Are they members of a body like SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation)

If they can’t or won’t answer move on to someone who will give you peace of mind, because they will probably give you results. 

About WSI In Huddersfield Yorkshire

We are a Digital Marketing and Design Agency based in Huddersfield West Yorkshire and part of the worlds largest network of Internet Consultants. We have specialists in the following fields:

• Website Design
• Website Development including Advanced PHP Programming
• Internet Consultancy
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Social Media Marketing, also known as Social Networking and Social Media Optimisation (SMO)
• Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC) also known as Paid Search and Google AdWords (we also run campaigns on Bing, Yahoo and also sites like Facebook and Linked In
• E-Mail Marketing

Talk to us about our no surprises site engagement policy and our customer testimonials.