When you’re managing an e-commerce website, one of your priorities is to ensure the best performance. In addition, your website should be able to make your clients feel at home and guide them through the sales funnel seamlessly.
If you want to ensure the efficiency of your e-commerce website, it’s an achievable objective. All it takes is to organize your site during the initial stages of the design process. When you have a roadmap in place right from the start, you and your clients will know which direction to take. If you’re planning a complete overhaul or make significant adjustments to your website, checking out a professional website and digital marketing company such as Smartly Done and others would greatly help.
If you want your company to be a successful one, here are several tips for organizing your e-commerce website efficiently:
- Optimize and Refresh the Images on Your Site
When you use old images, it can make your site look out of date. You might even have pictures or pages of products you no longer offer. In such scenarios, you need to get rid of all outdated elements and refresh your images.
If you want the updating of your images to proceed smoothly, you need a naming system and perform regular updates. The approach will avoid the need to delete and upload images at once. In addition, routine updates can significantly help in preventing the task from becoming overwhelming.
In some cases, specific products you have can greatly benefit from additional images. For example, providing photos from all angles or a 360-degree view will allow clients to understand the product thoroughly. Additionally, make sure to optimize the size of the images, which will help hasten the loading time.
- Minimize Clutter
Today, e-commerce websites boasting a simple design usually have higher conversion rates. The best place to start is your homepage since it’s the first thing your visitors see. The call-to-action (CTA) button or products you’re selling should be the main focus of the consumers once they visit your website. Sadly, when there’s too much clutter, it makes it hard for them to pinpoint your CTA.
The priority of your e-commerce site is to gain sales from your visitors. You can make this process easy for them by getting rid of the clutter.
- Simplify the Menus
The menus in your e-commerce website help keep your products organized but keep it simple when redesigning your site. Having too many categories can be confusing, preventing consumers from finding the products they intend to buy. Instead, make sure your menu utilizes broad terms to categorize your products.
- Include a Search Bar
Once you remove the clutter and simplify the menu on your site, an additional change to consider is a search bar. When offering several products, you don’t want visitors to scroll through all the choices until they find what they’re looking for. Some don’t have the time to search through a lengthy selection of products. With this in mind, a search bar is an ideal solution.
Visitors can quickly type the product’s name they’re looking for and get the results they need. Additionally, visitors will get accurate search results if you tag all your products with the appropriate labels.
- Prioritize Visuals and Lessen Text
In the previous years, the majority of e-commerce websites showcase a vast array of texts, buttons, and links in different sections, along with product images and other unnecessary clutter. Although this approach was effective in the past, it’s no longer applicable today.
The best way to start is by adding white space to the pages of your e-commerce site. Make the most out of the page length and avoid adding a barrage of information. Prioritize images and visuals to make your site stand out along with the call-to-action buttons. Try to limit the amount of text and utilize slideshows, pictures, and videos to feature your products in detail.
- Minimize the Check-Out Steps
When a visitor uses a service or buys one of your products, the check-out process should be easy to complete. Remember that every extra step during the check-out process is likely to increase the chances for visitors to abandon the transaction. Some consumers typically leave a shopping cart during check-out since the process is too long and complicated.
The key is only to obtain the essential details from the buyer. Any other questions you might include during the check-out can be an annoyance. You only need the billing information and shipping address to process a transaction.
- Avoid Requiring Visitors to Create A Profile
Since your objective is to provide visitors with a hassle-free check-out process, you should consider offering a guest check-out option instead of requiring them to create a profile. However, you can still encourage visitors to create one if they prefer.
- Prioritize SEO
Generally, not all consumers will go straight to your website. In most cases, the buying process starts with the help of a search engine. When your e-commerce site isn’t on the top results, they’re likely to purchase from your competitors.
With this in mind, it’s crucial to focus your efforts on search engine optimization (SEO). Then, make the necessary moves to boost the ranking of your website to the upper ranks.
- Create Content Regularly
If you want to make your e-commerce site stand out from the competition, it’s best to write regular blog posts. When you include a blog in your site, it can effectively establish a good following since people have a reason to visit your site daily or weekly. Furthermore, once you have visitors on your site, they’re more likely to purchase something since they can learn more about your products.
- Provide Informative Product Descriptions
All the products on your website should have informative descriptions. As much as possible, try to avoid using large blocks of text. It’d be best to keep these descriptions brief and straight to the point.
Make it a point to clearly explain how your product works by highlighting the key benefits. Avoid explaining the complete history of the product or its development since these details will not drive sales. Additionally, you can use bullet points so consumers can quickly scan through the text and read the description.
- Create an Email Subscriber List
If you want a successful e-commerce site, you need to have a steady stream of visitors who are ready to buy. With this in mind, you need to find ways to drive traffic to your website. Building an email list for your site is one of the options worth considering.
When you have a list of your subscribers’ email addresses, you can contact them with special offers and promotions to gain more sales. For example, one way to add subscribers is to gather the email addresses during the check-out process. Additionally, you can offer incentives for customers to register for emails, such as a discount on their next purchase.
- Limit or Eliminate Advertisements
For some, they’re utilizing their eCommerce site as a platform to sell advertisement space to other brands. However, it might not be the appropriate move. Although you gain extra income, it’s not worth driving away your visitors in the long run.
When you have pop-ups and sidebar advertisements all over your site, they can appear as spam to your visitors. Most potential clients might be hesitant to explore your website, fearing they might go straight to a questionable location.
For most consumers, the presence of online ads can be disruptive to their shopping experience. With this in mind, it’s best to eliminate advertisements and leave available space on your site blank. Doing so will eliminate the clutter on your home page.
- Make the Most Out of Videos and Slideshows
In the past, a complex product usually includes a lengthy description. Although it was the trend back then, it’s a different picture today, and video presents a fresh opportunity. Utilizing videos in your e-commerce website allows you to readily engage your visitors while featuring your products at the same time.
Even on optimized sites, the technical specifications and descriptions can be troublesome for some consumers. They’re more eager to see what a particular product can do than read a lengthy explanation.
In most cases, when a consumer is in an indecisive phase on whether to buy a product, the next move they’ll make is to go to YouTube to check out a review. When you have a video readily available, consumers will no longer go to a different site to learn more about your product. Therefore, an advantage of providing a video about your products is better conversion rates.
Aside from videos, you can also make use of slideshows. A slideshow can effectively showcase a lot of information about your products in brief, understandable clips. The interactive element can help improve the overall customer experience. Additionally, using videos and slideshows reduces the text on your website.
- Determine What Consumers Need
Making changes to your e-commerce website doesn’t have to be drastic to maximize the results. Even minor changes can make a significant difference.
One way to make your site more efficient is to utilize heatmap applications to monitor the behavior of consumers and how they’re using your website. The information will come in handy in making the right choices. Another way to improve customer experience is to learn what your visitors think about when exploring your site. Find out if consumers can readily find what they’re looking for. One way to know for sure is to conduct a survey to gain a better perspective.
When you have long lists of links, it might be time to replace them with drop-down menus. The approach provides a positive impact in minimizing the clutter in your website.
- Provide Accessible Customer Service
There are instances in which transactions on your e-commerce website won’t go smoothly. A time will come when consumers will face problems or ask questions. When your consumers face an issue such as looking for a specific product, inquiring about the restocking of a product, or troubleshooting an item they bought recently, you need to ensure they receive timely assistance as soon as possible.
As part of organizing your website, providing accessible customer service must be a priority. Assure customer service support via email, phone, or live chat to offer several options for your customers.
When you have readily accessible customer service, consumers can get in touch depending on their preferred mode of communication. Aside from making your customer service accessible, it should be friendly. Avoid keeping your consumers on hold and ensure your staff has adequate training to fix issues efficiently in the quickest time possible.
- Improve the Other Pages on Your Site
Aside from the home page and product pages on your e-commerce website, consumers are likely to check out the other pages on your site for specific information. As a result, other pages might require further polishing so they’ll provide the information consumers might need.
Some of the pages in your site consumers might check for information include:
- About Us
This page is the best place to share the story of your brand. Although the page is about your business, you need to include your clients. One way is stating how your company makes an impact on your clients to establish a connection. Additionally, including images or bios for staff will make it easier for consumers to connect with than a brand logo alone.
- Contact Us
This page is crucial since it’s where consumers go if they have problems or concerns. The page must provide brief details, including several choices in case they have any concerns. It’s best to make the information clickable, so consumers can readily get in touch.
- FAQs
Provide your e-commerce website with a highly informative FAQ page which your customers and support team will greatly appreciate. When customers have concerns or questions in mind about your products, the page is where they’ll go for answers. If they find the solutions right away, it provides them with a positive experience and makes them more likely to buy. In addition, the FAQ page can save your support team the hassle of answering the same questions repeatedly.
Making your website efficient will require you to go through all the pages. However, making the proper adjustments will go a long way in ensuring better leads and sales.
Final Thoughts
When your industry is highly competitive, it’s crucial to make your e-commerce website stand out from the competition. However, managing a successful website will involve ups and downs. Luckily, with the help of these tips to organize your website efficiently, you can make the necessary adjustments to boost your chances of increasing sales and give a solid reason for your customers to keep coming back for more.
