Contributed article in our business series. Enjoy! – Kimberly
When it comes to ecommerce, your website is your most important tool. When your site has been designed and planned well, it should provide a seamless experience for customers and site visitors all day, every day.
For every minor fault on your site, you limit its effectiveness and ability to work for you. Many ecommerce businesses make the simple mistake of not ensuring that they have the basic essentials of an ecommerce store, but this can be easily rectified.
This list of basic pages that will benefit your ecommerce site could make the difference to your business venture in 2019.
1: Home Page – This your storefront and as such it needs to be perfect. It needs to contain an explanation of your business, highlight deals, and provide links to your secondary pages. Many entrepreneurs assume that this is always the page that visitors will visit first, but this is not always the case. However, it needs to be present, and as reflective of your branding as possible.
2: Product Pages – Your single most important pages, your product pages, can be what makes or breaks your ecommerce venture. Look at the relevant ecommerce product page best practices and ensure that you have the essential components of the perfect product pages. Having the best product pages can improve sales, so you should always spend time on creating the perfect content and images to complement your products.
3: Search/Search Results – One of the major failings of ecommerce businesses is the lack of a functional search option. These can be complicated to get right, but if you want to prevent potential customers from having to search through your products manually (making it less likely that they will find what they are looking for), then getting your search options functional is vital.
4: The Shopping Cart – This is a page that will often be the one with the highest bounce rate, so it’s important that you make the process as smooth as possible. Not only should your shopping cart have a full breakdown of costs, it should also have a variety of payment options. Look at your market research and consider which payment methods will suit your target audience — the fewer roadblocks to a purchase, the better.
5: Feedback – It’s always a good idea to have a feedback page. Not only will this make it easier for you to understand any of the issues that customers may have had when dealing with your business, but it can also be a good source of positive testimonials. Those testimonials can also be used as part of your marketing and branding strategies.
6: About Us – The important thing to remember about your ‘About Us’ page is that it may be about you and your team, but it’s also about your customers. Your ‘About Us’ page should highlight your worth and experience so that your customers understand that you know your product and industry. Look at the best ‘About Us’ page requirements and ensure that you match your content with the rest of your branding and tone of voice.
It’s never been easier to start your own business, and ecommerce is accessible to anyone with a plan and the right motivation. It is much harder to make your ecommerce business work long-term. Consider the importance of these basic requirements of an ecommerce website, and you will be in a much stronger position.
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