E-commerce Website Development
E-commerce has revolutionized the way people shop. Traditionally, you’d walk into a store, make your purchase, and walk out with your items. E-commerce is when a customer buys goods or services online and their payment is securely processed through the website. Instead of walking away with purchased items, the entire transaction takes place virtually.
Whether you’re looking to expand your current business or you’re just starting out, an e-commerce website may be the most valuable option for you. According to Statista, retail e-commerce sales worldwide in 2019 have amounted to 3.53 trillion US dollars, and that number is expected to grow to 6.54 trillion dollars by 2022. There is no sign of e-commerce sales slowing down. Here are some of the main advantages your business can achieve with an e-commerce website:
- Wider customer reach. By making your products or services available to purchase online, you’re opening your business up to a huge audience that you probably wouldn’t reach without an e-commerce website. Local business is very important, but casting a wide net creates more opportunity for your business to attract people from across the country or even around the world.
- Increased hours of operation. An e-commerce website gives you the ability to be open 24/7, which makes it easy and convenient for customers to shop with you. This will lead to increased sales. Being open around the clock also speeds up business operations. In some cases, an e-commerce website can replace a physical store. Not only is it easier to set up a virtual business, it’s a lot cheaper too. Professional website developers and management companies like JRS Mar/Com can set up and run your store for a reasonable price.
- Increased conversion rate. Some people may be visiting your website in order to get more information or to do research before making a purchase. With an e-commerce website, your visitors are more likely to make a purchase simply because they are given an immediate chance to buy. You can encourage the impulse to buy through the use of digital marketing tactics. Plus, you can give shoppers a more personalized experience. By segmenting your leads, you can target their interests and show them exactly what they want to see, which increases the likelihood of closing a sale.
- More customer data. With an e-commerce website, you have more opportunities to collect customer data. Analytic tools can track the activity on your website and collect information on how your website is performing. You can even set up goals to track when certain actions take place, so you can work to improve your numbers. Additionally, after customers make their purchases, you could request that they fill out a survey to help you make more customized recommendations. If you explain how the survey will benefit the customer, they are more likely to fill it out. It’s necessary to collect data in an ethical way, so be mindful and learn from ethical challenges from the past.
The goal of an e-commerce website is to generate sales online. In some ways, this type of website runs itself, but it takes more than just listing information on a web page in order to entice and retain customers. Many businesses spend a majority of their marketing budgets on things like print ads, flyers, pamphlets, and TV or radio commercials. While those traditional tools are effective, your website is the fundamental component that connects all your marketing efforts. In this digital age, peoples’ attention spans are diminishing, so first impressions are everything. If you don’t grab their attention in the first ten seconds, it will be harder to earn their business. It’s important to understand the components of an e-commerce website and the ways you can increase traffic and thus increase sales.
One of the most influential things you can do to attract visitors to your e-commerce website is by providing engaging content. In 1996, Bill Gates wrote his essay “Content is King,” in which he declared the value of internet content and how it would be used in the future. He basically said that internet content would be a big moneymaker, and his statements are more true today than ever. There are different ways you can capitalize on the content you share on your website. Forbes lists images, videos, blog posts, customer testimonials, and infographics as just a few of the ways you can use content to draw in customers and boost sales.
Compelling content also improves your search engine optimization (SEO). Depending on the subject matter and the delivery, your content can show up in more searches, which will bring more visitors to your website. There are many different factors that influence search engine algorithms like Google, Yahoo, and Bing directory listings. Google offers this handy SEO starter guide with best practices and tips to make it easier for search engines to find you. One of the most basic ingredients to their algorithms is keywords, like the words used in your product descriptions and titles on your website. It’s important to think carefully about the words you choose. They should target the products or services you offer. External links are also an important ingredient in the search engine algorithms. Whether you’re linking to other websites with relevant content or they’re linking to your website, it will help increase your SEO traffic. If you’re developing quality content for your company’s blog, it is more likely that people will want to link to it and share.
What We Can Do
Are you interested in developing an e-commerce website for your business? JRS Marketing Communications has nearly 20 years of experience helping businesses reach their goals with strategic website design and marketing services. Our team can also diagnose any ongoing problems you’re facing and help upgrade your current offering to maximize your website’s potential. Here are the steps we’ll take to get the process started:
- First, we’ll sit down with you to learn more about your business and select keywords that describe your business, products, and services. This will help us develop the best SEO strategy for the field of work you’re in. We’ll perform keyword research, such as these suggestions from Search Engine Journal, to determine the types of content to focus on in order to make the most of your e-commerce website and attract new customers.
- Next, we want to steer people to your website with content development. Doing that will require more than just product photos. With our copywriting and video production services, we can create professional and meaningful content to bring life to your website. We’ll also regularly update and add new content, so that it’s always current and fresh.
- Finally, we’ll map your site’s traffic flow to ensure visitors can navigate freely from page to product, reflecting the complete sales cycle. Our goal is to design a plan to keep people on your website until they make a purchase. To do that, we’ll organize your website based on how your customers shop. Also, we’ll make sure it is mobile-friendly, and test the navigation tools and how they affect your customer transactions. A well-organized website will tempt users to spend more time browsing. We want your offering and process to be clear, concise, and visually appealing.
If you’re ready to get started, give us a call today at (312)339-9359.
