There is no question that the Internet has changed the way that people shop and live. As more and more businesses begin to recognize the importance of well-designed websites, they are also becoming aware of how critical page and search rankings are to their site traffic. That said, there are a few proven ways to optimize your business blog posts to improve your SERP listing and attract new business. Continue reading “4 Proven Ways to Optimize Your Business Blog Posts”
Month: November 2015
How To Enhance The Checkout Process or Clients With Online Shopping Cart
The holiday season is upon us, and online spending and shopping continues to grow in popularity each year. Is your website optimized for the most simple and quick shopping experience? Are you losing out on potential sales due to how your shopping cart function is designed? Well fear not! Today we’ll explore some tips on how to enhance the checkout process with online shopping cart for your customers.
Consider your online sales process as the store that your customers are walking through. You want the store to be clearly labeled, so that customers can find products with ease. You want them to be able to fill up their carts without having to backtrack many times, and, most importantly, when it’s time to check-out, you want them to stay in line and pay for the products that they’ve added to their carts, not turn around and walk out of the store empty handed.
The web design and function of the shopping cart on your website matters greatly and websites with the simplest and most streamlined checkout process boast the most loyal and return customers. Here are some tips on how to enhance the checkout process with online shopping cart to make your website more efficient and your customers’ experience even better.
How To Enhance The Checkout Process With Online Shopping Cart
Customers Don’t Like To Register To Buy
Initially, nearly all online sales required a shopper to register in order to proceed with the checkout process. After extensive studies of what the top factors are for sites with high-volume sales, many businesses are rethinking this concept. Jared Spool points to some eye-opening data about the registration process and completed sales that should definitely give pause to any online retailer as they consider the checkout and shopping cart on their sites. The undeniable message in the post: Shoppers don’t like having to register to checkout, and if the process isn’t simple, they will leave and spend their money elsewhere.
What’s In The Cart: Design “Musts”
When your customers are getting ready to check out, they will need to review the items in their shopping cart. It’s critical that your website design incorporate the most user-friendly and informative methods possible, so that there isn’t confusion and the need to hit the “back” button as shoppers try to assure that they have what they need.
Rather than having only items listed, make sure that you include images of the products, the link to the product and the product specifications for simple assurance and a speedier checkout. Remember, the quicker and more simple the checkout process, the more likely your window-shoppers will become paying customers.
Modify Link
Online shoppers can use their cart for both items they want to purchase, as well as items that they might want to compare before they checkout. People can also simply add incorrect items into their shopping cart, only to discover them as they go to checkout. No matter what, your website shopping cart and checkout experience should include a “Modify” button that makes the process of removing items from the cart simple.
By providing a quick “remove” checkmark next to products in the shopping cart, you’re assuring that customers won’t try to go back on the order, which increases the chance of the sale not being completed. Simple modification of the shopping cart makes for a better customer buying experience.
Delivery Times: Spread The Word
Despite the many advantages of shopping online, one of the biggest drawbacks to it is that shoppers cannot get that instant gratification of a product in hand as soon as they have paid for it. Be sure to counteract this by clearly advising of shipping and arrival times with each product.
Adding sales-friendly lingo to encourage your website visitors to hit the “buy” button also helps. If they are weighing heading out to find a product in a store versus purchasing online, a reminder that they could have the product in their hands within two days might be all the encouragement that they need to complete the order on your website.
Thank You: Don’t Forget Post-Sales Customer Service
As soon as a customer completes a sale on your website, they should receive an email confirmation of the purchase. In that message you should thank them for their order, as well as include a link to track the delivery process. By incorporating customer service and ease of delivery into your online sales process, you are increasing the chance of repeat business. We might live in a digital era, but customer service never goes out of style.
9 Web Design Elements That Improve Conversion On Your Site
As we have discussed before, proper website design is critical to your business and brand. You only have about eight seconds to entice a visitor to stay on your page. The importance of good web design cannot be understated in our technology-driven economy. Often clients will assume that if they have a beautifully designed site, the work is done. But that’s never the case. Remember to include these 9 web design elements that improve conversion on your site to focus on your target audience and improve your SERP listing.
9 Web Design Elements That Improve Conversion On Your Site
There are many elements to consider when you’re considering the design of your new website, and any good web design firm will staff a host of media professionals, from graphic designers to copywriters and engineers in order to deliver the most compelling and rewarding websites to their clients.
Today we’re focusing on the importance of the functional requirements that should be considered when designing a website. Consider it the technological way of assuring that beauty isn’t only skin deep on your website.
Functional requirements require that you think about how you want your website to work and the core processes that you expect your website to be able to achieve in order to deliver.
Think of the functional requirements of your website in the most basic of concepts, barring from your mind how you want the website to look. Consider the functional assessment of your website as the ultimate customer experience: What must your website do to attract and retain customers?
Simple examples of functional requirements include:
- The website needs to be able to process customer orders.
- The website needs to be able to complete sales transactions.
- The website needs to retain customer purchase information.
- The website needs to have a sign-up function.
- The website needs to host video.
- The website needs to have a calendar.
- The website needs to have a blog.
- The website needs to have a contact form.
- The website needs to have social media links.
Many websites fail due to the fact that the sites were designed considering only the visual elements of the website, with no regard to how the website would actually function behind the scenes. This often leads to a navigational nightmare for potential customers, who will think nothing of leaving your website to find one that operates in a more streamlined manner.
In addition to forcing you to think about the customer experience, functional design planning will reduce website design and delivery delays and costs. If you solely focus on how you want your website to work, without assessing the functional requirements or reality of your site, this leads to major budgetary issues and time delays.
While a graphic designer can create wonderful logos and images for your website, it’s important that website developers be a part of the initial process to assure that what you’re envisioning is technically possible and makes navigational sense.
The last thing that you want to happen is to have a website designed that looks good, but that doesn’t make it simple to convert visitors to buying customers. It should be simple for someone visiting your site to sign up for a newsletter or purchase your product.
The ‘pretty on the outside’ concept won’t get you good results in the long-term when it comes to e-commerce. A good web design agency can assist you with all of the important and unseen components that are critical to having a successful and profitable website. Contact the professionals at Digital Parc for a consultation, and remember these 9 web design elements that improve conversion on your site.