Your ecommerce site has to make a great first impression. Otherwise, shoppers won’t stick around to see what you’re selling.

Without some vital features, shoppers tend to get disappointed and move on to the competition. Luckily, a few tweaks to your website is all it takes to give consumers what they expect and more.

While having wonderful and useful products does help, your website determines whether anyone sees those products.

1. Simple Shopping Cart

No one likes a complex checkout process. Imagine if you had to fill out multiple pages of long forms before you could pay for your items in a brick and mortar store. You’d likely leave instead of dealing with the hassle. The average shopping cart abandonment rate is over 69%. While part of that is because shoppers just aren’t ready to buy yet, 37% abandon because they don’t want to create an account and 28% believe the checkout process is too complicated.

Keep things simple and offer a guest checkout option. Those two things will boost conversions.

2. Fast Loading Pages

Online shoppers aren’t the most patient. After all, they shop online because it’s faster and more convenient. If your ecommerce site takes too long to load, they’ll move on. This includes product pages that are full of images. According to Google, two seconds or less is the optimal page loading speed. The faster your pages load, the happier consumers will be.

3. SSL

No one wants to enter their personal details on a site that doesn’t make security a priority. If your ecommerce site isn’t using SSL, shoppers will look elsewhere. They just don’t want to risk compromising their identity. SSL certificates are an easy way to encrypt data on your website and keep shoppers safer.

4. Easy To Use Navigation

Navigation is a crucial element for any website. With ecommerce sites, it’s important for helping consumers find exactly what they’re looking for. This includes having an obvious search function. If your menu is buried or has too many sub-menus, it could be too difficult to use. The idea is to make it easy and enjoyable for shoppers to find products. The easier it is, the more likely they are to buy.

5. Noticeable CTAs

Far too many ecommerce sites have a beautiful product page that goes into infinite detail on features and benefits. However, that page is missing something – a noticeable call to action. The “buy” button might be tucked off to the side or blend in with the background.

If there isn’t an obvious way to add something to an online cart, shoppers aren’t going to stay on your site. They want it to be obvious at first glance on how to buy the product(s) they’re viewing.

6. Clear Product Images/Videos

A single product image isn’t always enough. Ecommerce shoppers want the digital version of a brick and mortar shopping experience. This means they want to see products from every angle. Add multiple, clear images of every product and allow shoppers to zoom in to see details clearly.

You could even add videos that show products in action. This helps consumers see if the product is right for them. Just be sure that videos and images are compressed for the web to avoid long page loading times.

7. Responsive Design

Your shoppers aren’t just coming from desktops and laptops anymore. The majority may be shopping from their phones and tablets. Is your ecommerce site ready for that? If your site isn’t ready to support a mobile audience, you could be losing customers. Many WordPress themes are designed to be mobile-friendly. Use this to your advantage to create a site that works on any device.

8. Personalisation

One of Amazon’s best features is personalisation. It’s also how they keep consumers coming back. If possible and relevant to your site, incorporate personalisation to recommend related products. If shoppers are logged in, add a welcome message to the header and recommend products based on past purchases. It’s a simple feature, but highly effective.

9. Simple Design

Intricate designs might sound good on paper, but in reality, they’re difficult to use. Complex designs often create cluttered pages and make it impossible to see navigational elements, product images, and shopping carts. It’s better to use a simple design with ample white space to ensure consumers are able to interact easily.

10. Engaging Product Pages

Finally, shoppers expect engaging product pages from your ecommerce site. This means uncluttered pages filled with product images, videos and details. Place the most important details and images near the top. After all, an infinite product page is just annoying.

Are you ready to give your customers everything they expect from your site? Contact me today to learn more about my website development services.

Image: rawpixel.com

If you want to boost your mobile conversions, you have to help your customers shop easier.

Everyone wants their online shopping experience to be straight-forward, quick and of course, easy. The more difficult and time consuming it is, the less likely a customer is to go through with a purchase.

Making a few changes to your WordPress website turns an awkward shopping experience into an incredible one. And remember, if your customers are happy, they’ll spread the word, leading to more new customers.

1. Use A Responsive Design

It should go without saying that you WordPress site should be responsive by now. A mobile friendly design is the first and most important step to help your customer shop easier on mobile devices. Imagine being a customer for a moment. Would you want to zoom in and out to see product details? What about scrolling side to side just to see the entire page? It’s frustrating.

A responsive design optimises your site to the screen size. You never know if someone’s using a tablet, phone or desktop. With this design, you’re always ready.

2. Improve Page Loading Times

Page loading times aren’t just important on desktops. Customers don’t have long attention spans and 57% of shoppers abandon sites if they don’t load within three seconds. With mobile now surpassing desktop, you can’t afford to let your slow loading mobile site send visitors to your competition. Reduce image sizes, clean up code, limit plugins and do anything else you can to speed up your site.

3. Include All Important Elements

If you really want to help your customers shop, include all the most important elements on your mobile site. It might sound obvious, but 21% of customers reported having to still go to the full site to shop, ask questions and complete transactions. Think about everything required to view products, contact support, view FAQs and make a purchase. Are all of these available easily on the mobile version of your site?

4. Think About UX

The user experience is critical on mobile. You want the design to be as easy to use as possible. When surveyed, 33% of customers said they had to zoom in just to read text and click in the right places. Even if text and images are large enough, what about your forms and navigation? Getting from product to checkout on mobile should be as easy as it is on desktop.

Another UX problem is entering information, such as contact details and payment information. Using WordPress plugins to ensure forms are easy to use and the right type of keyboard appears, such as numeric versus qwerty, drastically improves the overall experience.

5. Offer One-Click Call Support

Calls to businesses are expect to reach 73 billion by 2018 and that’s just from search alone. Customer support is key if you want to help your customers shop online. What if they have a question during the process? Filling out a contact form is cumbersome. Adding a one-click call button or link gives customers direct access to the support they need immediately.

6. Provide Mobile Payment Options

An overwhelming 56% of customers abandon their mobile shopping carts. While some of that is just a change of mind, part of it is difficult or security concerns during the checkout process. First, make the checkout process simple. The fewer steps, the better. Second, offer alternate payment options that don’t require the user to enter a credit card, especially as they may be shopping in public. Making it more convenient leads to more conversions.

7. Integrate More Images And Video

Mobile means limited real estate, so videos and images make it easier to explain products and services than pages of text. With 98% of millennials watching videos daily on their mobile devices, it’s easy to see that video on mobile is popular. Integrate it as part of your mobile site to make the most of the limited screen space. Quick videos also work well with the average customer’s limited attention span.

Bonus: Consider A Mobile App

Apps are becoming increasingly popular. If you want to give your customers an even easier way to shop on mobile, consider a mobile app. With an app, you could even offer location based discounts or use push notifications to encourage transactions.

Help Your Customers Shop From Anywhere

Mobile shopping continues to rise with the popularity of mobile devices. It’s easy and convenient. Help your customers shop wherever they are by ensuring your site is even easier to use than the desktop version. Optimise your site for mobile and it’ll work to drive conversions 24/7.

Does your WordPress site need a mobile makeover? Contact Darren today to ensure customers fall in love with your mobile website.

Image: Cristian Baron

Predictions of mobile overtaking desktop for search started the moment mobile search hit the mainstream.

Today, those predictions are a reality and getting your website mobile friendly is more important than ever. In the past, mobile friendly was more of a suggestion to be cutting edge, but today, it’s a requirement to stay competitive.

If you’re still on the fence about making the switch to a mobile or responsive design, consider all the benefits and what your audience prefers. You’ll easily see why making the change is the best decision for your website.

Improve Search Rank

If you haven’t already heard about Google’s mobile algorithm, Google added in a mobile component to its search algorithms in April 2015 to rank mobile friendly sites higher when users search on a mobile device. While some sites didn’t see much of a change, others saw their traffic either rise or drop, depending on how many of their users preferred mobile.

Google’s updating the mobile aspect again in May 2016. Google promises websites that are already mobile friendly won’t be affected, but others could see a negative impact following the update. Why take the chance? Google’s going mobile and just getting your website mobile friendly could boost your rank.

Reduce Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate doesn’t help your site rank well. It’s also an indication that your site isn’t impressing visitors, either with the design and/or your content. There are nearly 2 billion mobile users and over 1.7 billion desktop users. As you can see, mobile has overtaken desktop. With more users preferring mobile, especially for comparison shopping in stores or browsing while on the go, it’s vital to make sure your site provides an optimal experience.

No one wants to have to zoom in and out just to see the text on their screen. In fact, many users leave sites if they’re not mobile friendly. As your bounce rate rises, not only does your search rank start to fall, but you’re missing out on important conversions.

Improve Conversion Rate

Whether you’re selling products, building newsletter signups or trying to get customers to contact you about services, a high conversion rate is always the goal. A mobile optimised site sees as much as 160% increase in conversions. One study even shows UK retailers are missing out on £6.6 billion by not getting their websites mobile friendly.

If you’re targeting millennials, mobile is even more important. A poor mobile experience could leave at least 48% of your UK millennial audience dissatisfied with your business and that number jumps to 54% globally. A better experience leads to a higher conversion rate and skipping out on mobile could send customers straight to your mobile friendly competition.

Reach Your Audience Everywhere

Your audience is on a mixture of different screen sizes. You never know when someone may visit from a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. The top two devices used to search online are desktops/laptops at 91% and smartphones at 80%. If your website isn’t optimised for these screen sizes, you’re missing out on a large portion of your audience.

UK users spend two hours daily on average using their smartphones, which is twice as long as other devices. The reason for the increase is the ability to showroom shop, browse sites no matter where they are and quickly make purchases with a few taps of their finger.

Even if you have a brick and mortar store, a mobile optimised site allows visitors to check out products or the store itself before visiting and 43% of UK users have used their phones for just this purpose. If you want to reach your audience everywhere they are, getting your website mobile friendly is a must.

Mobile’s The Present And Future

The days of thinking mobile is just a passing fad are long over. Mobile is here to stay and now is the time to adapt. A responsive design gives you the best of both worlds – a mobile friendly site and a desktop friendly site. You can ensure your visitors are receiving an optimised version of your site, no matter what their screen size.

Ready to make the change to a mobile friendly site and reap the benefits? Contact Darren at StuartMedia today to get started.

Image: Josh Felise