Ecommerce Must-Have’s of 2010

Many Ecommerce website owners are redoubling efforts this year to convert as much visitor traffic into conversions as possible. This isn’t anything new, of course, as conversions have been the goal of Ecommerce sites since, well, the beginning. Despite that fact, Ecommerce companies around the world are getting it wrong when it comes to a well-rounded strategy to convert as much traffic as possible into sales.

It’s easy to talk about all of the 101 things like having your contact information above the fold on all pages or providing enough information about your products and services, but there are some very powerful and effective tools out there that can make as impressive an impact on sales as the major factors. Here are just a few of the tools and services your Ecommerce website will need to make a big fat revenue splash in 2010:

Be Accessible or Get Bounced

If you increase your level of customer service, odds are your revenue will increase as a result. Of course, your customers can’t sample your service if they can’t contact you. Remember, just because you have a website with all of the information doesn’t mean your visitors will know what the hell you’re talking about, so provide means of contact! I would absolutely require your Ecommerce website to enlist as many of the following as possible, if not all:

• Online Chat Support allows you to engage your customer within the website which is perfect for providing information via links, or communicating with customers who simply prefer not to be on the phone. Like me.
• Online Help Desk Systems are another important way of engaging customers in a medium that will allow you to assist them in ways their telephone’s can’t provide, such as attaching files or providing link information or prolonged communication during off-business hours, much like email but in one designated location. Additionally, help desks create a knowledge-base which can be tapped for product ideas or customer feedback.
• Abandoned Cart Recovery processes should always be utilized to reach out to customers who have left your store for whatever reason. Executed appropriately, Ecommerce sites can recover upwards of 40% in lost revenue that would otherwise be lost forever. But really, anything better than the 0% you’re currently getting is better, and worth the effort.

Improve Your Website Usability

Websites are like snow flakes in that you’ll never find no two that are exactly alike. This is true for a variety of reasons, but the best reason is because website owners should be constantly changing and improving website usability. This isn’t the case most of the time as you may well imagine from all of the websites out there that seem frozen in the late 90′s. A lot has happened since then, people! If your Ecommerce site isn’t at least attempting to implement some of the following additions to your website, then best of luck because you may well need it:

• Does your website navigation make sense or are you sending your visitors through a maze of accessory pages that will do little to convert the customer into a sale, and actually work against that conversion? Categorize and organize your website content so that your menu and page navigation make the most sense possible. There are all kinds of different people on your website so it needs to be as universal as you can make it. However great you think your menu and navigation may be, it can always be improved!
• How does your conversion funnel look? Once you get a customer to bite, you need to put some thought and strategy into nudging them down that purchase path. Pay close attention to how your visitors react, on which pages they abandon, and try to find out why. Split testing is an effective means of testing slight variations in the funnel so that it can be optimized for your traffic.
• Adding video content relevant to your products or services is one of the more effective ways of turning an interested customer into a paying customer. Product walk-throughs, user tutorials and video testimonials are a significant factor in leaning a visitor in one direction or the other and it’s important to cater to that slice of your traffic that may prefer to watch a video rather than read. You can shoot video with a camera and upload it for viewing on YouTube, your website or elsewhere and you can also take video of whatever you’re doing on your computer, which is ideal for software tutorials or walk-throughs.

Search Marketing, Anyone?

With all the online competition these days, your Ecommerce business won’t survive the year without at least a semi-organized and thought out search marketing strategy. If you can’t afford to hire an internet marketer and need to do it yourself but don’t have the time, sticking to the basics is the most fundamental recommendation. Here are some of the major basic factors you’ll want to consider when promoting your website:

• I don’t care how intuitive you claim to be or how well you think you know your industry. If you’re not researching keywords relevant to your online business then you not nearly as smart as you think. There are free, effective keyword research tools readily available online, but it’s a good idea to round out your research tools with a paid subscription to WordTracker keyword research tools, one of the leaders in the field.
• Are you watching your competition? If another website in your niche has the search engine ranking that you want, check out that page. Take note of the keywords they’re targeting, how their pages are laid out, etc. You don’t need to copy your competition, but it can provide a path in the right direction to surpassing them.
• Whether your Ecommerce site is new or has been online for years, paid search is one of the most effective and easily-tracked forms of advertising online. Keyword research tools come into play pretty heavily with paid search also, so your subscription to WordTracker could be beneficial on a variety of fronts. If you don’t have the time to get involved with paid search, there’s plenty of PPC software available that can automate much of the process with results you can take home to your Mom. If you simply don’t have the budget or the time to set up paid search campaigns for your Ecommerce site, at least consider setting up one campaign to bid on keywords related to your brand name so your competition isn’t stealing those easy conversions from you.

This list is a tiny sliver of a much broader search strategy for improving your Ecommerce site and keeping up with the times, and nowhere near what you need to do to be at the best of your game, but it’s a good start to cover some of the more important bases. There are plenty of other things you can do to improve your website ranking and increase traffic to your website and we’ll look forward to examining more of those throughout the year. Until then!