5 tips for building a successful online store

1. A Responsive Website
It  doesn’t matter what kind of products you intend to sell, or how much marketing money you have put into your business, if you don’t have a responsive website then your online success rate will be drastically reduced. A responsive website is a website that adapts to the size of the device that it is viewed on. It universally looks the same whether viewed on a large screen or a small mobile device.

Only a few years ago you would have needed to have two versions of your website, a desktop version and a mobile version. These days you just need one responsive website. Modern websites are ready to be viewed on all devices.

Mobile traffic from 2013 to 2019.
There are still some websites that have both a desktop and a mobile version but this number is being reduced every day due to companies upgrading their online presence. There is nothing more frustrating for your customers if they visit your website and it doesn’t work correctly on their device. The average customer will leave your website and most likely never return if they have a bad experience the first time that they visit your online store.

A responsive website is easier to manage and can reduce costs for you in the long run. It is much easier to manage just one version of your website. Imagine if you were trying to manage two different versions. The cost of this would be double the cost of trying to manage one website.

In 2019 Google announced that they would be focusing more on mobile indexing. Google take a number of factors into consideration when they are indexing your website. Page load speed is one of these factors. If your website is not responsive on different devices then it will load slowly and Google will not rank your website very highly. All of my websites are responsive and SEO friendly. If you are interested in getting a quote please look at my homepage to see what packages I have available.

2. Tell Your Story
Let your customers know who you are. A great About Us page is a great way of telling customers your story. You should be aiming to tell customers how the business started, the people involved and why you are better than your competition. If you are a start up business then a good about us page is a great way to introduce people to your business.

It is one of the most important pages on your website and you should take time and put in extra effort when creating content for this page. It could be the difference between closing a sale and a customer leaving and going to a more well known company. The price of the product is sometimes not the most important factor when a customer is choosing which website to buy from.

The About Us page on your website is your way of showing the customer that you are a great, trustworthy company. You should first introduce the company followed by a little bit about yourself and how the company was founded. You should link to your terms and conditions page as well as your postage and returns page. This will help you to build a rapport with the customer.

3. Make Social Media Your Friend
Advertising and engaging with your customers on social media is also a very important part of developing your brand identity online. You can set up your advertising campaign to target certain groups of people and it is a great way letting people know what you have to offer and what the business is all about. You can keep track of your site visitors through Google Analytics. Google Analytics will tell you where your customers are coming from and what social media platform they are using.

Social media and website design go hand in hand.
Social Media and a good website go hand in hand. If a customer visits your website then most of the time they will also search for you on social media. Your social media pages should be rich with products, high quality images and really you should be aiming to post a couple of times a day to keep your customers and followers engaged. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways of advertising. Social media is the modern word of mouth.

4. Reviews
Reviews and ratings will immensely boast your trustworthiness online. Allow your customers to post to their own comments and customer reviews on your products. Happy customers are happy to leave good reviews so make sure that you encourage your customers to leave a review. There is also a great website called Trust Pilot which you sign up for and link up with your online store.

89% of customers read reviews. Think about it, have you purchased anything on Amazon recently. I bet if you have, you have read the reviews before purchasing the product. You should always be aiming high and trying to emulate what other websites are doing along with your own original ideas for your store.

5. Do Your Research!
Your success will be ultimately down to how many products you can sell! Before you decide on creating an online store, you should look into what other websites are doing. What kind of services are they offering? Have a look at the layout and design of some of the most successful online stores. They are simple and they make the user experience enjoyable, quick and easy. There is nothing worse than going on a website and adding lots of products to your cart, only to find out that the cart is not working properly or it is difficult to navigate around the website.

When designing a website I always try to keep it as simple as possible. I like clean coded websites that are fresh and catch the customers eye the first time they visit. Have a look at my about me page to find out more about Design My Website.