Make your website sell more
You have a great looking website, and a fantastic product range but your site just does not sell enough. Why?
An e-commerce store has many similarities to a traditional "bricks and mortar" shop and there are various rules that can be applied to both.
- It is important that people easily find your store (marketing and search engine optimisation)
- It is important that your products are easy to find (usability)
- It is important that your store is easy to access (accessibility)
- It is important you understand how people find and use your store (measurement)
It is easy to see that all of the above rules apply to both online and offline shops, although they are all too often overlooked when an e-commerce store is built.
Finding your store
It is important that your site is attractive to search engines. There are hundreds of millions of websites in existence, most of which are indexed by search engines. Small changes can be made to your site's structure and content that will help it to achieve a higher ranking within search engines. This can greatly increase the number of visits your site receives. Other marketing activities, both online (such as Google adverts) and offline (such as PR) can achieve high returns on investment.
Usability
Just as in a real shop, it is important the customers can find what they want easily and quickly. The architecture of your site can greatly influence this. Small changes can be made to your site that can increase your visitor/sale conversion rate.
Accessibility
As well as being a legal requirement, making your site accessible can bring important advantages. Accessible sites are generally much more attractive to search engines and are much faster to load. Having an accessible site does not mean that it is a boring site. A good designer should be able to create a good looking website whilst ensuring it is accessible to all.
Measurement
As with all marketing activities it is important to measure the success of any campaign that you carry out. You may have 3 marketing campaigns running and see an increase in visitors to your site but it is important to know to which campaigns this increase can be attributed and thus determine your ROI for each campaign.
Advanced software such as Urchin or Webtrends can allow you to measure precise revenue that is generated from particular campaigns as well as allowing you to examine exactly how your customers use your site. Without this measurement, there is no way of you knowing what works and what doesn't.
To discuss how Foresite could help you with improving your site's return on investment, email info@fsite.com.
