From The Rock

In recent years as ecommerce sales have increased in comparison to traditional stores, many businesses and individuals have turned to online shops in their attempts to run a business online. There are other ways to make money online, such as affiliate programs and advertising sales, but selling products will give you more control and the opportunity to make more money.

In this article we will take a look at 7 things most good ecommerce sites have in common.

Effective Site Search

It’s very important that you make it as easy as possible for visitors to find the products that they are looking for. Ecommerce sites that include a large number of products can become difficult to navigate, and many of your visitors will prefer to simply do a quick search rather than browse through a lot of pages. If you search is effective it will help them to find what they are looking for.

Simple Checkout

If you want to lose customers to your ecommerce site, one of the best ways to do it is to make the checkout process long and complicated. The shorter and easier your checkout process is, the less abandoned carts you will have. Work to streamline the checkout process so it involves as few steps as possible.

Accessible

It’s a simple concept, if someone cannot access a website they will not be able to buy anything from it. Take the time to test your ecommerce site in all browsers and operating systems and test in a wide variety of situations. You don’t want to lose sales because someone simply can’t use your site.

Visited

No website will be successful without visitors. The design and structure of an ecommerce site is important, but getting people to the site is equally important. You should have a plan that determines how you will market the site, rather than leaving it up to chance for people to stumble across the site.

Trust

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that use websites and email to scam other people, and with fraud and identity theft being a major concern, a lot of consumers are hesitant to give out there personal info to a site that they do not know. Earning the trust of visitors is critical in order to make sales. Many sites use badges from the BBB of Verisign to show that they are legit.

Optimized for Search Engines

Online searches provide some of the highest quality of traffic that you can get to your site. People who find your site through a search are looking for what you have to offer, so they are pretty likely to buy if your site does a good job. Many ecommerce sites suffer from poor search engine optimization. This is a huge topic that cannot be covered here, but if you are not familiar with SEO make sure that you consult with a professional.

Design

While the functionality of an ecommerce site is more important than it’s appearance, good design will always help to make a positive impression and to keep people interested in the site.

Steven Snell is a web designer that enjoys observing design trends of ecommerce website design. He has a gallery of the best e-commerce websites.