Small and large multinational business have decided to take their operations to online platforms due to the available technology and support, and the increased number of people using the internet to buy goods and services. Companies are using e-commerce platforms where a client can purchase a product through the use of his or her personal computer or smartphone and expect the products to be delivered to their doorstep. However, for your business to be profitable, your e-commerce site needs to attract significant traffic which can quickly be turned into customers. If your site is not attracting colossal traffic, there are some important factors that it might be missing, let’s review them.
1. Mobile Optimization
The most crucial factor today (without boring you with numbers) is the mobile experience. In most cases people will first interact with your brand on a mobile device. Your site needs to be not just mobile friendly, it needs to be fully mobile optimized. The content and navigation need to be easily accessible, visible and readily available form any mobile platform (Phone, tablet etc).
Ignoring mobile, is not only ignoring mobile users, it’s ignoring the possibility of these users ever coming back to your site even from a desktop.
2. Quality Pictures
Quality pictures help attract a large number of people to your site. You should ensure that the products or the services you are offering have been captured in professional and captivating pictures that talk more about your organization. Quality pictures are shared by people on the social platforms which in turn increases the number of people getting to know what your business is offering. When possible, you should ensure that you get vector images that can easily be adjusted without losing their resolutions. Using vector images will ensure that their quality is maintained when your e-commerce platform is accessed through smartphones and a personal computer or any size of the device.
3. Website Navigation
An e-commerce platform should be organized in such a way that visitors can easily navigate from one page to another without challenges. We’re in 2018 and no one has patience, what people want is to find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible. If a user perceives that your e-commerce platform is not easy to navigate, they will opt out and go to other similar e-commerce platforms that they can quickly navigate. Your website should label various pages so that a visitor can access what they want without spending much time. If your site is easy to navigate, a visitor might spend much time there, and they are likely to purchase the products on offer.
4. Blog Content
People will only know about your e-commerce platform and the products or the services you are offering if you tell them. Therefore, you should devote some time and resources to write highly optimized blog content with the necessary keywords to help in attracting people to your site. You should ensure that all the information you are presenting to your audience is informative and based on proven research studies. It might be difficult for you to write optimized blog content with the necessary keywords positioned at strategic positions but you can consider outsourcing the services of an experienced writer. As people get to read about your platform and the product it’s offering, they will visit the site as they will have a perception that it cares about them and that you will assist them to meet their desires.
5. Don’t Force Registration
Your e-commerce platform might be forcing people to register before they can purchase any product. To compound the matter, your registration form might be too large and require many details. Most of the customers do not want to be bothered, especially when you want them to provide personal details. They will move to another platform that is friendly. To avoid this, you can develop alternative registration methods such as using a short form where one fills a few details. You can as well offer an opportunity to your customers to register by the use of their social media accounts. This strategy has been known to increase the number of customers by more than 45%.
6. Use Visitor Segmentation
The problem that your e-commerce platform is experiencing could be treating all the online shoppers as the same, which they are not. You should treat each customer differently and endeavor to create a segment of similar customers as you continue. You should implement a strategy that helps you to understand what specific customers want depending on differentiating factors such as age, location, and gender. By doing this, customers will directly go to the page that they can relate to where they select the product or the service they want and move on to the next page. You should avoid bringing all the customers to a similar page where all the products have been listed such that a customer spends time before they can see what they want to purchase.
7. Encourage Customer Reviews
Your e-commerce platform might be lagging behind because your customers don’t have a way to leave their feedback or ask a question about the platform and its products. You should understand that customer reviews and recommendations are becoming weightier as compared to traditional advertising, especially in online platforms. Recent research studies indicate that about 65% of online shoppers consider product and company reviews before purchasing a product. Therefore, you should ensure that your customers have an opportunity to express their views about your products which will, if favorable, attract customers, and, if contrary, help you to improve your products and services.
You can now understand some of the critical aspects that your e-commerce platform has been missing. It is far more comfortable for you to understand why you have been lagging behind similar e-commerce platform that offers services in your industry. By incorporating the strategies highlighted above in your platform, you will detect results within a short period.
