When it’s time to build and grow an ecommerce website it’s extremely easy to get overwhelmed. Online consumers have high expectations when looking for and buying products, so websites must work to meet these standards. But at the end of the day, it’s all about driving online sales – so what’s the secret? Having just launched The Vintage Contessa’s new ecommerce website, we thought we’d share some tips and key steps used:
Step 1. What to Build On – Choosing Your Ecommerce CMS and Platform
The first step should always be centered around choosing a Content Management System (CMS) and an Ecommerce Platform to use for your website. The content management system works to deliver your content and products to website users, while an ecommerce platform is a software application that allows online businesses to manage their website, marketing, sales, and operations. As you can imagine, there are a plethora of options. Some examples of a popular CMSes for ecommerce sites are:
- Magento
- WordPress
- Shopify
- Drupal
- Joomla
With examples of popular E-Commerce platforms being:
- BigCommerce
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- PrestaShop
- Volusion
You’ll notice that Shopify is listed twice, that’s because Shopify is an all-in-one package. This makes it a great option for people looking to quickly and easily push their brand and products online. Outside of Shopify, the team at ASTOUNDZ looks to WordPress + WooCommerce as the best website ecommerce solution for businesses. In fact, most businesses outgrow Shopify as their need for additional website software integrations increases. This is exactly what happened with The Vintage Contessa.
Shopify could not meet The Vintage Contessa’s website needs of being able to offer a best-in-class shopping experience, while also being fully customized to match their brand and promote their ‘Sell to Us’ side of the business. With ASTOUNDZ, our team of website developers and SEO experts fully migrated the website to WordPress, retained all established search rankings, and increased interactions with customers buying and selling.
Are you on Shopify and looking to make the jump to WordPress? Give us a shout if so and have any questions about how to make the migration.
Step 2. Detail your Website’s Buyer Journey
After choosing your website’s CMS and Ecommerce Platform, it’s time to detail your website’s buyer journey, or purchasing funnel. Listing and detailing out each step that must to be taken to complete a purchase online is critical for driving conversions. By working to keep the amount of steps in this journey low through strategies, such as:
- Menu Navigation Optimization
- Shopping Cart Experience
- Dynamic & Personalized Product Linking
The overall experience of a website will be that much better for users, resulting in even more sales.
For The Vintage Contessa, the team at ASTOUNDZ refined the website’s buyer journey by updating how products were loaded and categorized. Working with The Vintage Contessa, ASTOUNDZ collaborated to find the best set of product main- and sub-categories. This allowed the website’s shopping experience to be streamlined, as products could be displayed in a more organized way. To ensure the product pages could complete the buyer journey with a sale, ASTOUNDZ standardized the product details and optimized the design for mobile.
Step 3. Optimize Product Page Content & Design
Having a shopping cart and some products on your site is not enough to drive sales. Your website must also have key content types to drive conversions. A classic example of this is customer reviews/testimonials. Some additional examples are:
- Unique Product Details
- Category Linking
- Calls-To-Action
Depending on your industry, the type of content you need will vary…so make sure you do your research! Or you can hire a company like ASTOUNDZ. Our team has decades of combined search engine optimization and website development experience. As a leading provider for ecommerce SEO and website development, we have proven results in driving results. Contact us today for a free consultation.
