5 best practices to improve your E-commerce Website

All websites are unique in their own way. We’ve seen trends in e-commerce website design like animation, 360-degree product previews, advanced filtering, and dynamic product search. However, trends don’t guarantee conversion rates or robust user experiences. There are certain elements that every e-commerce site should have to stay relevant and competitive.

Here are five best practices for improving your e-commerce website and taking your business to a new level:

1. Ease of Use

Simplicity should be a goal in good design and you don’t have to sacrifice elegance to achieve it. As a matter of fact, studies show that 76% of consumers say the most important characteristic of a website is ease of use.

The objective is to help shoppers get to what they want, faster and without running into unnecessary complexity that can clog up the path to purchase.

Online sellers have minutes, if not seconds, to make a sale. Focus on the user experience by providing shopping categories, filters, and comparison capabilities. Consider easy-to-find customer reviews and FAQ information to help buyers make decisions more quickly.

E-commerce sites should be a competitive advantage instead of a troublesome experience.

2. Use Beautiful Photography for Your Products and Services

It may seem like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised by the amount of companies that don’t have appealing images of their products and services. Having the right images of your offerings could be the difference between someone becoming a customer and deciding to move on to another website.

Having beautiful photography doesn’t mean you need to hire a really expensive photographer, but it does mean a time investment in capturing the right photos of your various products or services to help incite people to look through your offerings and buy.

Product photos should give a high level view of a product, as well as a close up detail shot, as well as multiple different angles of the item to ensure a person can see as much of it as possible since they are shopping online. Try to create a consistent look and feel across all the photography used on your e-commerce website to help make the experience of browsing and shopping more enjoyable.

3. Optimize Your Website for Search Engines

The process of driving more traffic to your website from the search engines is known as search engine optimization. The search engines work to help people find the information they are looking for on the web by matching their searches with the most quality results. The best way to approach SEO for your e-commerce store is to ensure that your website structure is usable, you’re constantly creating content for your blog, and that you’re correctly naming the pages of your website with accurate keyword rich titles and descriptions that work for both the user and the search engines.

For example, if you sell running shoes you would want your products to rank highly for keywords related to running shoes in Google results. The best thing a business can do when it comes to optimizing their website for search engines is to continually create original and exciting content for your audience. For this example, writing articles about your latest running shoes or the industry of running shoes could help increase your visibility in the search engines as well as educate your customers about this topic and related keywords.

4. User-Generated Reviews

Shoppers read reviews. About 92% of them, in fact. The star rating on a product is the number one factor used by consumers.

You might think that having negative reviews is a sale killer. The opposite is actually true. Having negative reviews can often be a positive. It’s shown that products without negative reviews are seen as censored and, in turn, shoppers will assume the positive reviews are fake.

Depending on website functionality, e-commerce sites can use plugins from the most popular review platforms including Yelp, Foursquare, and Facebook.

5. Advanced Payment Options

In the world of Apple Pay and PayPal, advanced payment options are a must-have feature for an e-commerce site. Just consider the ease of use associated with Amazon one-click shopping. Shoppers with registered accounts can literally buy with the click of a button.

There are many popular online payment options. The key is understanding who the buyer is and implementing the most effective solutions. If a website is limiting payment options, make sure to explain why.

For example, an e-commerce site may not offer Bitcoin as a payment option after determining its value isn’t reliable. If buyers are technology-savvy individuals who tend toward this payment method, it’s important to be transparent as to why it isn’t an option. This transparency establishes that the brand understands its buyers and builds trust.

6. Return Policy

Return policies are an essential feature of any e-commerce website. The stats below really speak for themselves, but a return policy should be clearly visible and well-written or illustrated. This is another trust-building feature of online selling. It reassures buyers that if they are unhappy or just need a different size, the brand is there for them.

A 2016 info graphic and surveys show:

• At least 30% of all products ordered online are returned.
• 92% of consumers will buy again if product return process is easy.
• 67% of shoppers check the returns page before making a purchase.

These must-have e-commerce site features could be grouped into categories like Duh, DOH! and Ahhh. Marketers and web designers might say “duh” when it comes to incorporating ease of use, high-resolution photos, security features, and contact information. As they are best practices and trademarks of good design.

There are others who would say “DOH!” when considering elements like special offers, user-generated reviews, and social sharing. They know they should be using these features but just haven’t gotten around to implementing them. It’s never too late!
Finally, the “ahhh” moment when you get excited about planning for robust related items, shareable wish lists, and find-in-store features.

No matter what category you’re in, e-commerce sites have an incredible opportunity to use tried-and-true features blended with innovative new elements to create fantastic shopping experiences.