100+ Retail eCommerce Optimization Tips

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You can setup an ecommerce store or an affiliate site with a minimum effort with the technology available today, but running and managing it successfully is a real herculean task.

The ecommerce market is highly competitive. Big players like Amazon, Buy.com, 1800flowers, etc have dominated the entire ecommerce terrain, leaving the small and medium online retailers almost inconspicuous in the web space. Well, there is no need to sweat it out. To become a successful online seller, you have to properly optimize your ecommerce store.

 

This article provides 100+ retail ecommerce optimization tips and tricks that will help you enhance your ecommerce website quality, rank in search engines, traffic and conversion rates
 

General:

Get your senior management’s support and commitment on your efforts to improve your website.

Identify the changes required and build a good operations team.

Always remember that your goal is to provide better online service to your customer through your website. (Remember Zappos)

Set achievable goals for every webpage.

Set a key performance indicator (KPI) for every online marketing campaign you conduct.

Never depend totally on technology.

Help users to reach you by different means – email, telephone, physical address, live chat, etc.

Ecommerce Merchandising tips:

Don’t use too much of animation on your home page.

Display top-selling and newly launched products on your home page.

Make sure every product page is reachable within 2-3 clicks.

Recommend product accessories for items that have been added to a shopping cart. For example, if a customer buys a notebook, then recommend laptop accessories like a USB mouse or bags. Just recommend! Don’t add them automatically to the shopping cart, otherwise it will lead to shopping cart abandonment

Add a buy button to your recommended list or wherever you show a product.

Also show product prices for each product in your recommended product list or anywhere else you display your products.

Make sure your content has compelling call to actions – buy now, limited offer, etc.

Wow customers by offering surprise gifts, offers, and price discounts.

Have good site search functionality within your site.

Also include advanced search functionality, such as search by color, size, etc.

Add breadcrumb navigation, which helps users understand their depth of their visit to your site.

Allow users to modify their shopping cart lists. They should be able to add or remove products and change the quantities that they want to purchase.

Avoid hidden cost – imposing additional cost on the total value of the purchase. Allow user to add associated products manually. Don’t ever automate it. Hidden costs lead to shopping cart abandonment.

Don’t force users to register, even for adding items into their shopping cart.

Glean only necessary information during the sign up process.

Display security badges clearly.

Give alternate payment options. About 74% of online merchants provide alternate payment options.

Offer free shipping for a certain price threshold.

Install an analytics program to help you better understand user behavior.

Use a visual analytics program to facilitate easy interpretation.

Avoid a long check out process.

Provide all necessary information, such as shipping, privacy policy, return policy, delivery date and time, etc.

Ecommerce design tips:

Ensure that the site’s html code meets web standards.

Minimize graphics like flash, scripts, etc.

Graphical links has minimal value. Make sure that your links are text based because it is good for search engine spiders.

Ensure that your site loads quickly.

Use secure server include (ssi) files.

Be creative with your 404 page. You can merchandise it with other related products or add site search functionality or link it to another section of your website.

Never optimize your website without user in the mind

Never start your SEO campaign without planning and benchmarking

You can provide multiple paths for the user to reach a product page, but have only one path for spiders

Conduct SEO competition analysis to understand your competitor's SEO strategy

Conduct category and product level keyword research.

Don't stuff keywords on your product page

Focus on long tail keywords (e.g. canon power shot 4x digital camera).

Don’t use the manufacturer’s product description. Use your own instead.

Use keyword rich titles and meta tags, headings, etc. However, make sure you don’t spam. If you do it right, you get it right.

Use keywords in your product descriptions.

Get quality back links to your product pages steadily, but not suddenly.

Recommend products and accessories on your product page. Smart and sophisticated interlinking helps in SEO (a good example is shopping.com).

Ask customers to review products that they have purchased from your site. Unique content helps in SEO.

Allow customers to tag the product.

Use keywords in interior links.

Don’t have more than 100 outgoing links.

Optimize images for fast loading and for search engines – 6 steps to optimize images

Create a sitemap – it ensures that none of your webpages are orphaned.

Create search engine friendly (SEF) URLs that are easy for both users and crawlers. Opt for URL optimization like mod_rewrite to static URLs.

Write blog posts about the products you sell and give a back link to that page.

Ecommerce email marketing tips:

  

Conduct an opt-in email campaign.

Invite users to sign up for your newsletter after a sale.

Avoid spam words like free in the subject line.

Make sure you have an unsubscribe option on your email content.

Provide a proper mailing address on your email content.

Include tell-a-friend functionality.

Conduct periodic email campaign.

Offer exclusive discounts to opt-in customers.

Include compelling call to actions in your email message.

Make sure your offer is visible above the fold in the email.

Pay per click (PPC) marketing tips:

 

Start by advertising top-selling products.

Bid on popular and relevant keywords.

Use negative keywords as well.

Use keyword options like phrase and exact match.

Focus on improving your quality score.

Add keywords in the ad copy.

Add call to actions in the ad copy.

You don’t have to hold the very top position. Find a balance.

Make sure you give the right landing page, otherwise you’ll meet with a high bounce rate.

If you don't get enough return on ad spends via Google's Content Network,

then turn it off.

Test your ad copy with different keywords.

Test your PPC ad campaign.

Experiment with your landing pages.

Comparison shopping engine (CSE) marketing tips:

Choose the right comparison shopping engines for your campaign and start slow and steady. (Steps to conduct CSE campaign)

Identify the right combination of product, price and shopping engine channel

Prepare feeds according to the shopping engine’s requirements.

Use common product names or street names in the feeds.

Don’t forget to use recommended data feed fields.

Make use optional data feed fields as well.

Make sure your feeds are placed in the right taxonomy of each shopping engine.

Use the exact MPN or SKU..

Update your data feeds daily, weekly or monthly (daily is highly recommended).

Send feeds to Google base.

Don’t advertise out of stock products.

Provide an appropriate landing page.

Remove poor performing products.

Conduct Shopping Engine competition analysis with other merchants in context with title, price and other promotional offers within each CSE.

Track your rankings in the comparison shopping engines.

Track clicks and sales at the product level.

Social Media Tips:

Create, maintain and market your blog along with your web store.

Make tagging and bookmarking as easy as possible


List blogs which link back to you via permalinks, trackbacks


Encourage the mash up by letting others use your content


Make regular and valuable contributions in relevant forums


Be positive and straightforward in your comments


Be receptive to comments and let the world know that you care for your customers

Ecommerce customer support service tips:

 

Provide exceptional service to repeat customers.

Provide good customer service to first time customers as well.

Make sure you respond to customers in a timely manner.

Get a toll free number.

Train customer representatives properly. For example, offer product and sales training.

Make sure your contact info is available in all your pages.

Thank the customer either by calling or sending an email about the purchase they have placed.

IM is very effective for servicing frustrated customers.

Offer different channels to your online shoppers, so that they can reach you easily. Example: Telephone, Online Chat, Email.

Important Note: The above mentioned tips are just a suggestion from Mobius Knowledge Services and do not promise any success. We have implemented the above ecommerce optimization tips and have had great success with our clients. I recommend you to test it.

Feel free to add more tips and let me know your thoughts on the above mentioned tips.

Ecommerce SEO tips:

Make sure you have an about us page filled with your company’s information.