by dawh | Jul 25, 2016 | E-commerce
As more and more people go mobile, a lot of work goes into getting your visitors to convert. It’s not just a matter of having quality products.
One of the mistakes you can make, as an Ecommerce owner, is to deliver a poor Product Page Design to your customers. A balance between User Experience and Content Optimisation is what you want to achieve.
If your Product Page Design doesn’t make it easy for customers to check and buy the product, then they will simply leave your website altogether.
We at Handyweb are working with more than few Ecommerce websites, so we thought we should share few tips, coming from experience. Of course, one or more of the following may represent no secret to some of you. Still sometimes they are overlooked, therefore we thought we should mention them.
Optimise your Product Name and Product Description
Good Content is part of your Product Page Design. Make sure to give your customers a clear idea of what the Product is and that it is what they are looking for. How?
1) Do your research
Know your audience – Being a shop owner, you may already know why customers should look for your products instead of others’. Find long-tail keywords you could use to attract your targeted audience.
2) Be descriptive, original and precise
Use descriptive terms and words that value the product – “Victorian China Tea Set, 7 pieces: 3 cups and saucers, teapot” is a better Product Name than just “Tea set”.
Write original Product Descriptions – Whether you are manufacturer of your own products or not, don’t just copy-paste descriptions coming from similar products you find online or from the manufacturers’ websites.
Include all valuable informations – If you think that a piece of information is valuable to your customer (Product Size, Product Weight, etc.) be sure to include it.
If you use WooCommerce as an Ecommerce Platform, it’s not difficult to provide all this information.
3) Think SEO
Include long-tail keywords – For a better Search Engine Optimisation, use long-tail keywords related to your audience in both your Product Description and Product Name.
Mind Page Title’s character count – If your Product Name is included in the Product Page Title, make sure that its character count remains between 50-60 characters.
Optimise your User Experience for Conversion
Update: since November, 2016 Mobile and tablet internet usage has officially exceeded desktop worldwide. Now more than ever you should think about mobile-friendly design for your online business.
4) Show good (lightweight) quality images
Provide clean looking images – Your products should have clean, crisp images, preferably original.
Be consistent – Keep your display images’ style consistent throughout the website. Consistency often inspires reliability. Reliability often reinforces your Brand Awareness.
Always think about Page Speed – Be sure to choose images that are “lightweight”, optimised for Web Broswing. It is known that slow loading times are bad for both SEO and conversion rates.
Here is a thorough article: How to Optimize Ecommerce Product Images for Faster Pages, High Conversion from Practical Ecommerce.
5) Focus on speed and ease of use
Avoid slideshows and animations – Focus on speed. If your Product features more than one image, make the first image as descriptive as possible. Then let the user decide whether to look at other images.
Provide easy interaction – Make sure your main Call to Action (the “BUY NOW” button, if you will) is easy to interact with. If your Product also considers Quantity, make Quantity Selection easy to increase and decrease.
Iterate – Have people test your website from a mobile browser and ask them for feedback. Fix what has to be fixed and repeat.
Update 2017: Consider AMP – For a further focus on speed and ease of use, consider Accelerated Mobile Pages for your Ecommerce. As of July, 2016 Ebay started testing AMP for their website.
6) Keep your customers engaged
Wishlist – Maybe your customers are interested in your Product but want to wait for a discount or simply come back later. Consider including Wishlists in your Product Page Design, maybe including an easy email reminder.
Related Products – Maybe your customers are looking for a different but similar product and didn’t know it beforehand. Put this section at the end of the page, as it shouldn’t distract customers from the Producty they’re looking at.
Up-sell – If your customers are looking at an MP3 Player with 8GB of storage, for instance, showing them the same MP3 Player with 16GB of storage could move them towards that.
Cross-sell – Once your customers have chosen the right MP3 Player for their budget and needs, they could be interested in a pair of headphones to buy along with it.
Customer Support – Be always there for your customers and visitors. Live Chat, phone, email, online forms. Make it easy for them to reach you from any part of the website, and to ask for help about a specific Product. This will make it easy for both of you.
Social Media Share Icons – Allow Social Media Share Icons (in a non-intrusive way), if you want your customers and potential customers to “work for you” by spreading the word about a Product to their peers and followers.
Phone: +353 (0) 44 93 45145
Email: info@handyweb.ie
Services: Web and App Consultants, Ecommerce, Responsive Web Design, Search Engine Optimisation, Digital Marketing, Social Media, App Development, Online Payments, Online Business Automation
by dawh | Aug 1, 2015 | E-commerce
We have quite a few Ecommerce websites in our Portfolio, but also have team members who run their own. We asked them to share a few tips for Starting an Ecommerce Business.
9 things to consider when thinking about starting an Ecommerce Business
Design – Ask yourself: what is my online store about? Is it design lead? What type of design will be best for my shop? Can the design change in the future, without losing my content? Try to Imagine if you have 2000 items in your online store and in 3 years time you would like your website to move with the times.
In case you are asking, the answer is: yes! We take all these into consideration.
Responsive Web Design – This is an absolute requirement for new websites. It simply means that your website will rearrange itself according to the size of the screen it will be viewed on. This means that it works as well on Mobile devices.
We also provide Responsive Web Design
Payment Options – What’s the best way to facilitate my clients’ payments? Many are the available payment solutions: credit cards, debit cards, cash on delivery, collect and pay. We are happy to advise on options and costs as well as security issues in relation to accepting online payments.
When gathering customers information, you should definitely think about SSL certificates to ensure your customers’ privacy.
Shipping Options – What countries will I sell to? Are there places I dont want to deal with? Will I charge by item? Will I include shipping costs per weight and location or shipping cost for total purchase? Will I offer free shipping for certain products or if the client spends more than a specific amount? Flat Rate or location based shipping options should be considered.
Product options – Will my products be digital downloads, physical goods or both? What range of options do I need to display to clients? Can I quickly put items on sale and show discounts and feature discounted items? Can I show related items to encourage upsells during the purchase process?
Stock Control – How do I manage stock control? How big an issue is it for me? If I sell out of a product can I replace it in 24/48 hours or is it “when it’s gone, it’s gone”? Can Stock Control systems can show actual stock or limited stock or show stock always available and even can show order now even if an item is out of stock.
There are different ways to approach this. Talk to us for further information.
Integrated online and Offline shop – Will it be possible to have both a Retail and Online Shop? Should I prefer Online over Retail? Can they coexist and be compatible without hurting my business? Can I handle them both using the same stock?
Handyweb.ie offers a unique package, particularly geared at new startups, which allows them run their offline shop and online shop from the same Ecommerce.
How much time to put into your Ecommerce management – If your Ecommerce site is well planned, you will automatically get notified of each order that comes in. This way you can quickly print out the order requirements, place them ready for fulfillment and, dispatch the orders sending an instant notification to your customers. You can have your orders area set up that a single click will email the client. This basically means that you will end up into a daily routine of checking your orders. With a proper Stock Control System and a well planned Ecommerce, you will have very few tasks to do everytime.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – How do I get my products out there? How do I attract more customers towards what they’re really looking for? The design of your online store should go hand in hand with Search Engine Optimisation
Handyweb offers SEO Services as well. Get your Free SEO Audit
Summary
Don’t feel overwhelmed by what you need to consider. Do ensure this list is on your agenda no matter who you talk to about delivering a quality Ecommerce website. Do ensure that whoever you choose will be there to help and assist on the longer term. A well planned website will make it easy for you to monitor which products are selling well (good reporting), a well thought out order system will make it easy for you to deal with orders and your stock system will ensure you keep your stock levels up to date (or expire products that are no longer available or temporarily unavailable).
While building your website, keep Search Engine Optimisation in mind, and consider integrating Social Media Marketing tools.
Phone: +353 (0) 44 93 45145
Email: info@handyweb.ie
Services: Web and App Consultants, Ecommerce, Responsive Web Design, Search Engine Optimisation, Digital Marketing, Social Media, App Development, Online Payments, Online Business Automation.
by martin | Jan 14, 2015 | E-commerce, News, Responsive Design
If I told you that over 10% of all shopping by Irish consumers will be done online within the next two years – you wont be so worried. Maybe you think its only 10% of a big cake or maybe you think is it eating more than 10% of my industry cake and each year after this will take bigger slices?
What if I told you that this year the online spend by Irish Consumers represented €5.9 billion and is projected to reach €9.3 billion by 2017 ( thats just about two years from now!). If I judge by my own home over Christmas I can say that over 40% of all shopping was done online ( and this % is much higher from the two single young adults in the house!). Even I was astonished to find that my youngest had completed her Christmas Sales shopping on Christmas day ( yes, online!) as many sales stores opened online as soon as the retail premises closed on Christmas Eve. ( Was Nero eating Christmas cake while Irish consumers burned their credit cards).
The research stats* are that 59% of Irish adults shop online at least once a month and your business needs to be online to ensure your business gains as the growth in broadband speeds fuels this spend not just amoung the younger generation who are already more than happy to transact their business online.
Its time for Irish businesses to wake up to the continued growth of very substantial sums online and be ready. No, it is not about you closing your retail or wholesale premises and going online. Handyweb.ie offers a complete web consultancy service from small and medium size businesses to ensure they are geared up to deliver a quality online business. With handyweb.ie your website is designed in a user friendly manner, so that you provide a professional quality service that reaches out to these consumers. From user friendly websites with responsive design that works fluidly across laptops, ipads, smartphones, tablets and desktops , matched with a quality easy to use management system, shipping and voucher systems – and this is only the foundation stone. Our expertise can advise on and deliver packages that will drive your website marketing forward through Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media marketing and other effective ways to reach out to that fast growing spend.
Talk to Handyweb.ie today to find out more. The future of your business may depend on you acting now to start growing your online presence. Inquire here
Your business may also be in a position to benefit from up to 50% funding for your new website.
*For further information on the online spend figures quoted above (apart from my own family stats above) please view the Report on Irelands Digital Future
