5 Tips for a Stand Out eCommerce Operation

Searching for the things you want to buy is like driving through a snowstorm. Glaring pages leap out of your screen, but they all look the same. And you don’t like the look of any of them.

Don’t be part of the blizzard – Make your e-commerce store standout like someone in a high-vis reflective orange jacket on a glacier.

 

Search Traffic

You have managed to secure a high organic ranking in Google, great. But it’s not enough because now you need to persuade browsers to stick around long enough to check out your store.

You only have a fraction of a second to make an impression on a first-time visitor.

 

• Colour

The first thing a visitor notice is your color scheme. Does it conform to expectations, but with a few twists? Expectations are important – You will never see a pink funeral director’s website.

Gaming sites are usually black, with neon highlights in green, purple and blue.

Wedding sites are often mauve to appeal to the bride, though they will distinguish themselves using other colors for secondary parts of the page design.

Check your competitors’ sites and don’t stray far from their predominant colors.

 

• Font

Your font is the second part of your page design a visitor will see. Each target profiles will react differently to specific fonts because of the underlying emotions we all attach to different fonts.

Check out your competition, choose a font from the same family and check how easy it is to read on screens of all sizes.

 

• Design

You *must* have a logo, but you can use a free logo maker to design your own logo without spending a cent.

A free logo will work fine until you have the cash to lash out on a professional design.

Decide on your site color scheme before you start with your logo design because you need to use the same colors. When deciding on an icon, bear in mind that rounded icons often equate to gentle emotions and sharper icons are usually associated with aggression.

Typography is an aspect of website design that is often ignored. It includes how your text is aligned (centered, justified or left-aligned), and how long each line of text is. Left-justified text (ragged right text) is often the easiest to read as well as being less formal. You should also restrict the number of characters per line to 55 – 70.

Check how your site looks on a phone. Choose whichever statistic you prefer, but everyone agrees that mobile is massive. Your users will probably check you out on their phones, and if your website is slow to load or not optimized for mobile users, they will crash out instantly.

 

• Speed

Faster is better. That’s it.

Fast websites keep impatient browsers on board longer, so they don’t hit the ‘back’ button on their mouse.

Check your website’s speed using one of the many free tools. Follow the advice your tool provides and your pages will load faster.

 

Social Traffic

You will read much about how important social marketing is today. It’s true.

 

• Be Unique

You will only succeed on any social channel if other users *choose* to follow you. Nobody wants to read boring posts that provide zero value. Social is about personality rather than corporate.

Put one person in charge of each channel and brief your team on your target profile and the personality you want them to use. Your social posts need to show a constant personality even across multiple social accounts, though the individual account managers can add their own take on that.

Make your followers love you by focusing your social output on solving common problems.

 

In Short

Know your customer, be generous and different. Use split testing to check any decisions you make.