How to Set Up the Ideal Website for Your E-Commerce Business

E-commerce is one of the most effective ways to conduct business, with sales numbers exploding every year (see below). Unlike a brick-and-mortar store, you aren’t tied to a specific location, so that you can attract customers from a wide geographical area. Even small companies can become global by taking advantage of the internet. But that also dramatically increases the amount of competition you face and puts a lot of emphasis on setting up the ideal website for e-commerce.  That’s a tall order, but we’re here to help you with everything you need to set up the ideal website.

Importance of the ideal website

When you run an e-commerce business, your website essentially becomes your storefront, salesperson, and store all at once. This means that it’s vital to make sure your website is fit for the job. Otherwise, your business won’t attract customers or make the sales you need to. Some businesses are run entirely online, while others have a hybrid model where they sell in-person or online. Even service-based businesses that operate locally often have websites to provide more information and allow customers to get in touch with them and use their services.

How to build the ideal website

Obviously, you can’t build the ideal website without taking the right steps, taking your time, and spending the resources necessary to end up with a website that helps you reach your goals. Below, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to how to build your e-commerce website.

Planning your website

The first step is to plan your website. Think about what you want out of it before you start designing it and investing money in it. Start by understanding your target market and competition to determine what features you need and how to create your e-commerce platform. Create your website on paper or, as below, on a whiteboard. Bring in members of your target market to gain feedback before you start developing the website. It’s fairly inexpensive to make changes now compared with having to scrap your website because it doesn’t work once it’s live.

Some business websites need different features than others. If you sell from the website, for example, you will need e-commerce capabilities. It would help if you also thought about website scaling and growth potential so you build something that grows with you. Will the website stay small with just a few web pages? Or do you intend to develop it as time goes on? Will it be easy for you to tweak and potentially expand your website, or is it locked to a specific form? Different features and scalability might cost more money to design and implement, so it’s worth planning and creating a budget now.

Web design and development

Once you know what you need from your website, it’s time to move on to web design. There are a few options to help you create a good website.

If you have the time and coding skills, you can create a custom website yourself. In the early days, that’s how all websites were built. Today, your job is much easier and doesn’t require writing a line of code. Using a CMS (content management system, like WordPress), a solid template, and a few plugins, you can build the ideal website that’s professional and customized to fulfill your needs.

Another option is to use a web design company to create a fully customized website that suits your professional needs. A web designer can help you achieve what you need out of your website, and it won’t look like every other e-commerce website out there.

Website hosting

Once your website is planned, designed, and ready to launch, you need to consider how it will host the content. You’ll find lots of options when it comes to website hosting and not all are created equal. Making the wrong decision is costly, and it isn’t easy to change hosts midstream. It would help if you considered the following when choosing a good hosting company:

• Price, although this shouldn’t be the overriding concern
• Speed
• Performance, in terms of percentage of uptime — look for 99+% uptime
• Security
• Additional features, such as an SSL certificate (which is required for all e-commerce websites to ensure user security)
• Support

Most companies start with shared hosting, as it’s less expensive. Choose a hosting company that allows you to switch to dedicated hosting as your needs grow easily. Cloud hosting is also reliable, as it relies on more than one server to function.

Marketing

Marketing is a tool that supports your sales efforts. A few marketing techniques work exceptionally well when it comes to attracting more customers. First, it’s essential to employ modern SEO (search engine optimization) techniques. When most consumers are in the market for a product, they go straight to a search engine like Google and look for the most relevant products that solve their problems. SEO techniques take advantage of how search engines work to make your website more likely to appear on the top of the search engine results pages related to your products. You can use commonly searched keywords, backlinks, social media engagement, and valuable content to help your website rank well.

Another critical marketing technique is social media. Not only does social media engagement help with SEO, but it also acts as a tacit endorsement from other consumers that encourages users to consider your products. Like word-of-mouth, these shares, likes, and comments help spread the good word about your products.

When promoting your brand, remember that the customer journey is a long, circular process like the one depicted below.

Your promotional efforts supporting your ideal website must focus on each stage of that journey, not just on gaining sales. In crafting social media posts or blog content, focus on providing value to customers and prospective customers. That means you don’t spend every effort talking about your products, including promoting discounts. Instead, talk about your people, help consumers learn to get the most from your products, and show your company’s support for the values shared by your target market.

Paid digital advertising is a great way to promote your products because, when set up correctly, the targeted ads show only to those in your target market. Many paid advertising platforms also only charge for clicks, which makes them very affordable and offers a high return on your investment.

Product descriptions and images

Promotions are just part of the battle when it comes to making sales. You also need to ensure that your products are appropriately displayed and described on your website. SEO techniques are an essential consideration in product descriptions, but the most important thing is that your descriptions are accurate and complimentary. Include details like the size and materials used for your product, and make sure that you have good pictures that show your product in the best way possible.

This is important because people don’t like to be unsure about what they’re buying. If they’re buying online, they are already putting some trust that the product will be what they expect. If you give them more information, you’re more likely to get sales because people will know what they’re buying. This also means you’re less likely to have to deal with returns and complaints if the product doesn’t meet expectations.

Checkout process

The checkout process can sometimes be the final hurdle that prevents your website from making a sale. Abandoned shopping baskets and carts are not a good sign, especially if they’re prevalent. Below are some reasons why users abandon their shopping carts.

One thing you can do is contact people who abandoned something in their carts and offer a discount using retargeting ads or sending an email to folks who left something in their cart. Some people do this deliberately, but it often means they aren’t sure about making a purchase. If you offer a small discount, they are more likely to come back and finish the purchase.

Another option is to make the checkout process easier and less frustrating. While it’s good to get a buyer’s contact information for marketing purposes, don’t make this a necessity if people want to buy anonymously. Also, provide easy payment options so they can buy the product easily and without too much hassle. The easier you make it for people to buy, the more likely they are to go through with it. People value convenience more than you might expect, especially in a busy world where everyone expects immediate gratification.

Gain repeat customers

Once you’ve made the sale, the hard work isn’t over. One of the best ways for a business to succeed is by building a base of loyal customers who keep coming back for more. It’s 5X cheaper and easier to market to existing customers rather than to keep trying to find new ones.

Loyalty schemes and options are a great way to encourage customers to return, follow you on social media, or sign up with their email addresses. This allows you to send promotional messages letting customers know about sales and other deals that they can benefit from. Another good idea is to incentivize customers to tell others about your product. You could offer discount codes for people who recommend your products, or you could offer codes and gifts if people leave reviews on your website.

Analytical data

Once your website is up and running, it’s important to monitor its function and customer behavior. Your website will automatically gather information about what people do when they visit it and how many people visit it regularly and after certain promotional campaigns.

In addition to collecting this information, it’s important to analyze it so you can use it to improve your website. For example, if you notice that a lot of people leave products in the checkout process, it tells you that the products and pricing are probably fine, but your checkout process is flawed or too complicated. This allows you to constantly meet your customers’ needs and, hopefully, increase your website’s sales and profit.

Conclusion

Your ideal website should constantly grow and change, so don’t be afraid to update it as and when it needs it. This will build relationships with your customers and ensure that they’re more likely to come back for more. Ideally, it might even net you new customers, as word of mouth is one of the most effective ways to market a business.

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Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.