As an e-commerce specialist, you would have experienced a high online website bounce rate. A good website design is critical. Needless to say the attention span of visitors, today, is growing dim; therefore, it’s critical to address this ecommerce website issue
In this pervasive online world of innumerable products, packaged and marketed with much zeal, customers have an upper hand. Your customers can be likened to the king on the chessboard. An army of retailers or manufacturers may promote their products, yet customers won’t budge an inch unless they “need to” or “want to”. If your ecommerce website doesn’t cater to their preferences, then they second guess your whole suite of offerings and move on to another ecommerce provider.
To capture the hearts of your prized people – your customers, here are a few ecommerce platforms strongholds you could pay attention to:
Landing Page Banner
Eye-catchy graphics and a strong message must harmoniously coexist in your website. Ensure that it is optimized for mobile usage as well.
A Prominent Search Bar on Online Shopping Platform
You can’t overlook this very basic element in a good website design – it’s the gateway to get to know your brand. Appropriate positioning of the search bar, so that it’s viewable throughout a customer’s browsing time, is essential. Look at the websites of ecommerce giants to incorporate an ideal-sized search tab.
See Retail Web Design Portfolio designed by FutureLab Digital.
Accuracy & Relevancy
Precision is indispensable. If your search functions are programmed flawlessly, customers can be saved from the frustration of poor search experience. Rest assured, you can breathe a sigh of relief. A research study done by 37signals emphasises the relevance of search results as one of the key criteria to avoid bounce rate. Exactness of results is of prime importance. Check out Dogpile Search Engine.
If the search results are appropriate, then you’ve mastered a critical dimension of the search quotient. Throwing irrelevant information only compels visitors to form a negative perception about your ecommerce website; as a result, they won’t return.
Emotional Quotient
EQ is significant, even in eCommerce. When a user types certain attributes or words that relate to what a brand conveys, your website search feature should be able to capture characteristics linked to brands and then offer suggestions. This involves an extensive, laborious effort in coding and testing in order to enable emotionally-triggered search results.
Auto Select
When the user enters a keyword that is remotely linked to products, your search engine must be equipped to connect the dots, ultimately pointing to relevant products. Amazon is known for effective keyword search features and an optimized search engine.
Refer to the best search engines before you implement one. Furthermore, even if words are misspelled, the search engine should be able to complete the phrase for your customer. You could leverage the Auto-Complete feature, which behaves like a catalyst that is designed to help users further, decide and complete their search exercise.
A La Carte Only
As opposed to an abundant buffet of items, you have to present only what would catch your customers’ fancy. In addition, an appropriate number of results per page is advised. This could be subjective, and depends on what kind of a page view you want. If you choose to have a grid view, 4-5 items per row would be ideal. However, this could vary across industries. Not too much nor too less—it’s your prerogative to decide. Know your customers in detail before you plan your web design. Houzz applies a grid view feature – and it’s wonderfully made.
Keyword Play
The essence of product/service description lies in how well articulated your content is. Ensure that you include all the relevant keywords that would influence the buyer in his or her decisions. Walk the buyer journey to understand what are the features and benefits a user is looking for, in order to present the same in your description. Succinct, clear copy incorporated with relevant keywords amounts to something. Bonobo Jeans is an award-winning website for superior browsing and navigation features.
With Google Keyword Planner, you can identify the relevant keywords that must be added on your ecommerce platform. Furthermore, the URL should contain relevant search keywords, to enable better access to your ecommerce website.
Distill and Serve
The sorting and filtering options are of utmost importance to manoeuvre effortlessly, and reach your ideal online product destination. Poor and limited navigation promotes a claustrophobic feel to the shopping experience—whereas useful features enable a superior customer experience. The “filter” options should line up a host of products in the specified order and pattern as the user chooses. The most common filters are: price, popularity, customer review and new items etc. However, this varies across product categories. Try not to over-complicate. Check out the sort filters of Kohls.
Note this is the time when the visitor has more or less decided to buy a category of product—especially if the user has already spent a considerable amount of time on a page. So, appropriate sorting will aid the user in quicker decision-making by comparing different parameters to make the best choice. The sort feature must present a multi-dimensional, holistic view of products.
Respond Speedily
When you create an ecommerce website, the faster the loading and processing of search queries, greater the attention span of customers. High-speed processing is absolutely necessary and incredibly important for optimised web performance. The ability to cater to diverse queries requires much thought in order to embed such functionality within the search engine. Be sure to expedite website performance and processing speed while also choosing the best online store platforms.
Test Test Test
Leverage A/B testing for optimised ecommerce platforms’ performance. Almost every component of your online sites can be tested and compared to find the ‘perfect fit’ for each of the digital elements. A/B Testing offers you the option of testing various components of websites for a certain time period to understand which version offers better results. Lure the traffic to your website using compelling copy, eye-catching graphics and an easy-to-navigate user interface. The online channel is no different than entering a physical store—customers demand a superlative web experience.
Bid Adieu with Joy
An easy checkout process on an online ecommerce website is crucial to seal the deal. Try not to make it cumbersome by demanding customers to input too much information, who could potentially abandon your site. The bare essentials would suffice.
These are some of the key ingredients to produce stellar website features and an inimitable shopping experience. Needless to say, like all recipes of success, you could incorporate select ingredients, features and benefits that support your buyer journey.
And the Search Engine tactic goes to…
Having detailed key factors that contribute to a superlative ecommerce website experience, it’s really up to you to carry the baton to victory. Explore various permutations and combinations, assess their benefits and implement the best.
Understanding customer behaviour is what you must master. It’s never too late to revise plans, so begin to light up your brand with a right mix of web optimisation strategy and tools. Setting up an online store
The journey to ecommerce platforms success with minimal bounce rate is just a few decisions away. Talk to the website designer in Auckland about your web development project!
FutureLab Digital specialises in creating wordpress ecommerce websites, ecommerce integrations, online shopping platform, stock management systems and a host of other web services to help businesses stay successful online. Get started with a fascinating online site today!