From time-to-time, we invite friends to post on the BTM blog. This post we welcome Natalie Christen from HostingClues with tips to avoid a “failure to launch” situ with your ecommerce site.
Thanks to the range of available website builders, building a website have become a fairly easy task. However, when it comes to creating an eCommerce site, there are many hurdles you need to cross to get the site up and running in this crowded market.
These hurdles include: choosing the right platform to build your website, researching & devising a business plan, and selecting a quality/reliable hosting company, as well as, having a sustainable budget to run an eCommerce site successfully, among others. Thus, let’s take a look at some of the eCommerce mistakes you need to avoid. This will ensure that you are off to a great start, which will help improve the return on your investment (ROI).
1.Domain Name
A domain name works as your brand identity online. You should seek to select a domain name that is relevant to the service or products you are offering. For instance, if you are selling office furniture, then a domain name like officefurniture.com will likely bring you more targeted traffic.
Likewise, you also need to ensure your site is domain name is easy to spell, and short enough for quick recall (officefurniture.com). This will go a long way in creating a brand name for your business and will help you rank higher on the search result for targeted keywords.
2.Non-mobile-friendly Website
This is one of the top eCommerce mistakes that website owners make: a website that is not responsive or mobile-friendly will affect your conversion rate. It will also affect your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). More importantly, as society becomes more and more mobile, there is a high chance of potential customers going to your competitor’s site because you don’t have a mobile presence. Thus, build a responsive website that is accessible on all devices and platforms.
3.Slow Website Speed
An eCommerce website needs to be fast, or else it will lead to a high bounce rate. No customer is going to wait around if your website loads at snail’s pace. As such, make sure you buy a hosting that offers great speed, and ensure your site is well-optimized. This will help convert potential leads into sales.
4.Lack of SEO Strategy
To well-optimized your website, you need to invest in search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization helps drive organic traffic to your site for targeted keywords. It helps improve your site’s ranking position on the search result. It also helps in accurate indexing of your website. More importantly, the impact of SEO is long-term. Therefore, ensure you have an actionable SEO strategy in place for your eCommerce site.
5.Lack of Social Media Presence
Not having a social media presence for your site is the biggest eCommerce mistake. Social media helps improve the visibility of your brand and helps you reach a wider audience globally. It helps you to communicate one-on-one with your customers and helps resolve issues quickly. The best part, social media helps increase customer engagement. Hence, you must have a social presence for your brand across all relevant social media platforms.
Conclusion
Building a sustainable eCommerce website is surely a challenge, but not an impossible task. You just need to be aware of the best practices that’ll help you ace this crowded market. Above are a few things you need to get right. Likewise, there are other eCommerce mistakes you need to be aware of so that you can avoid them. Thus, here is an in-depth infographic that’ll help you with it.
19 Mistakes To Avoid When Launching An Ecommerce Website [Infographic] by the team at Hostingclues
.
