The Ecommerce Blog

Introduction

When we’re surfing the ‘net most of us are testament to the fact that attention spans get a little smaller. In contrast to print publications, much less attention is given to each word as we skim through web pages, so it’s important for us to understand that writing for the web can be significantly different than writing for print.

The web has inadvertently made authors out of us all. As we post on forums, send emails, share information, write white papers, guides and various web content – most of us are not authors by profession and so consequently the quality of writing on the web varies greatly.

In this post I’ll share some important points to consider when writing for the web and trying to harness the obvious reach that the web holds over traditional print media.

 
When we strip away all of the graphics, logos, designs and images from a site, we are left with pure web content. Most business websites can be quite similar in the sense that we all advertise our services, products, contact details, etc. However, each company has a variety of specialized information that can be used to create a unique website and it’s important that we recognize and feature the points that make our individual business (and associated content) different from our competitors.

 
As a general rule, if the first paragraph of a publication can attract and keep the readers attention, then they are highly likely to read on. Optimizing your first paragraph to be as articulate and concise as possible will greatly increase the chances that a reader will stay with you for more information. Outline your biggest benefits here and engage the customers to read on and get involved with your products and/or services.

 
Being a slave to search engines is inevitable, and it is because of this that we find many sites bombarded with keywords. Don’t allow your quest for rankings to interrupt the effectiveness of your grammar or your ability to be informative.

Your website may have a large amount of information – readers will most definitely not get through all of it – so make sure you outline the most important benefits and present them to users in a conversational style.

Having a friendly conversation will present the information more clearly and will be more engaging, for example:

“If you’re short on time, then you should try one of our widgets. Time is a precious commodity, and we’re here to help you make the most of yours…”

Don’t present your information in large blocks. Cut it down into short bite-sized paragraphs that are easier to digest and use bullet lists when comparing or describing features.

Use the least amount of words so that readers have less to skim through – you’ll find that the amount of scanning is reduced and readers will actually absorb more information.

 
It’s also important to understand that people come to your website with different levels of knowledge on any one topic or product. You can’t expect everyone visiting your website to know about or understand your offerings in their entirety.

For example, sites that list products by their model numbers and reference codes are narrowing the appeal of their site to only those users that would know these numbers. It’s important to have enough foresight to realize that while you’re fully aware and knowledgeable about your products and services, your website’s visitors may not bw.

For example, instead of providing just model numbers and reference codes, why not include a picture, short description and some user reviews on your product pages?

 
Visitors will often venture to your website with one single goal in mind. Given that, if they’re then presented with a website that forces them to figure out the product/service that suits them, but they are not helped because there is no meaningful information, then your website has failed.

This extends to the way your information is presented. If your fact sheets and other information are, for example, simply uploaded in a series of PDFs for the user to download, then thy have to work harder because you didn’t take the time to convert the product information into easily navigated web pages.

Readers Don’t Like:

• Pages that require a lot of scrolling – Text is easier to read if it is clear, concise and scanable. The text needs to be in short paragraphs or bullet lists and needs to get straight to the point.
• Over doing the sales and marketing pitch with no real information but too much “fluff”, claiming “world’s best”, “number one”, “top of the range” – these bear no value if the simple features and benefits of your products are left out.
• Grammar and spelling mistakes – It seems obvious but they’re still very apparent on many websites. If someone sees spelling and grammar mistakes, then it seems obvious that the author was not willing to spend some extra time to run a spell check or read over their own work. If the author places such little value on the time they invest in their work, then readers will place similarly low values on their products/services and will most probably disregard the information.

 
Many visitors will take a look at the information on your website, however it’s important to understand that each person reads individually, so effective web content should make the reader feel that it’s focusing on them.

Try and get your point across quickly and avoid bombarding people with information – your published web content should be the result of various levels of refinement considering style, emphasis and conciseness.

The above points give a few important factors to consider when writing for the web, but if you are still lost for content then start at the very basic level of interviewing/researching your customers and finding out what it is that they want or need. From there, you can start investigating the foundations that lead customers to your website and make them want to stay with you.

WebmasterWorld.com is an excellent community forum which provides webmasters and online retailers with a great place to discuss their businesses, online marketing, search engine optimization and more.

As I was browsing their forums earlier today I came across a great post titled Top 100 Ecommerce Tips. I read through all 100+ of the tips listed and decided to pick and choose the best tips from that post and merge them with some of my own that I’ve come up with during my last 10 years of selling online.

Here’s the list of 74 tips I think are the most important when it comes to selling online. If you implement just 10 or 20 of these tips I’ve got no doubt you can increase your conversion rate by at least a few orders a week:

1. Never leave unanswered emails for more than 48 hours, or your customer is gone.
2. Let the customer see the shipping charge without registering! Preferably on the basket or a easy-to-find ’shipping charges’ page.
3. Make sure your forms use common names for fields so that they’re recognized by toolbars that have an autofill function.
4. If you’ve got a country drop-down box, list the countries in alphabetical order.
5. Don’t just accept payment through PayPal. Many people have had bad experiences with PayPal and prefer to use alternative, simpler payment methods.
6. Make your site incredibly easy to buy from – no registration if possible, live chat, 800 # – make it friendly and easy to buy from.
7. Take a picture of your office and add it to your contact us page with your company phone number on it.
8. Don’t bury your products in several pages of clickthroughs, implement a working search mechanism so the user can get to what they seek in two clicks, three maximum.
9. Insure there are redundant methods of getting around and no point on your site is more than two clicks away from anywhere.
10. Keep your initial products pages light and clean, with links to product details if they actually want to read.
11. Build your site for the end user, not the search engines. This means leave off all the search engine-filled text on the initial products pages.
12. Give the user a sense of who you are. The web is a cold, anonymous place. Anything you can do to bring a sense of personality and assurance to your website will help.
13. If you use a site search, make sure it works better than expected. It should search more than product names. Make sure it can find products by SKU, model number and even misspellings if possible.
14. Be sure to include links to your privacy, shipping, returns & exchange policies right out where the customer can easily find them.
15. Keep the customer informed about the status of their order before they ask.
16. Use the same visual theme for every action required of the customer.
17. Make product options clear and comprehensive.
18. Answer every possible question on the product detail page.
19. Make sure your site search can also search by size and color. If I’m considering a green skirt or blue towels, make it easy to find other items that would match.
20. If you only ship to USA (or wherever) say that right off and several times.
21. Goes without saying that spelling must be perfect. On slow days, have employees proof read old pages.
22. If you’re new to ecommerce NEVER mention that. Invitation to scammers to hit you.
23. Get a real 800# (or 888), not a 866 or such.
24. Get the most web un-savvy person you know to test your site.
25. Customize product descriptions. Eschew text provided by suppliers which everyone else uses.
26. Listen to customers, invite their comments and criticism and act on what you learn.
27. Answer emails in 8 hours max (certainly not 48).
28. Give street address but never “we’re in Puppyland Center, between Tony’s Pizza and the Shoe repair shop”.
29. Show good sharp graphics. Learn to use basic photo editing software.
30. Remove all non essential navigation elements from the checkout process. Have a single page checkout if possible.
31. Calling your customer to thank them and confirm their order instills immediate trust.
32. Customers haven’t got time to read explanations about how you would like them to format the date. Make it easy and obvious.
33. If the customer has entered some incorrect information, let them know this without them having to type in all their details again.
34. Pay good money for a proper interactive graphic designer (not a coder, web ‘developer’, or print designer doing a bit of moonlighting). If your web site looks professional, people will trust it and buy stuff.
35. Add your 800# to every step of the checkout process with something to the tune of “questions or problems completing your order, call 800#).
36. Have a “best sellers” or “most popular” listing. The boost from this has been noticeable.
37. If your site ranks best in your niche, and If you sell something that is sold on many other websites (something drop shipped for you, for example), very slightly change the name — Tarenta to Tarento, Classica to Classico, for example. This helps deter people price shopping for the ‘product name’ elsewhere and in the shopping engines.
38. List your prices for every item clearly and upfront. There’s no space for a ‘price on application’ model online, none at all.
39. When using thumbnails to link to larger images give your customers larger images.
40. If your target audience is concentrated in one country, host your website on a server located in that country.
41. Keep the 3 P’s above the fold on a product page. Product name, Price and Purchase link should all be visible without having to scroll.
42. Know your visitors – if significantly more people are first-time-buyers, don’t hit them with a login screen with a small link to register to the site – reverse the process.
43. Never tell the visitor to “Hit your ‘back’ button to correct”. I haven’t found a valid reason to do this yet – any issue should be able to be handled within the system.
44. Have a “Help” link very prominently displayed so they have somewhere to go if there is an issue.
45. It is better to deny a suspected fraudlent order in post processing, rather than have the computer automatically deny honest customers due to AVS or CVV issues.
46. Ship fast. Preferably the same day and you are sure to get emails from appreciative customers.
47. Use a proper SSL certificate, not a shared SSL certificate which prompts the user with an alert before checkout.
48. If using paid advertising, don’t send them to your home page; send them to the relevant product page (or custom landing page) that is tied to the keyword you advertised.
49. If you sell software, allow immediate access to the full version and allow unlimited upgrades.
50. Have a list of “recommended products” and “other customers also bought” with each item.
51. Have a newsletter sign up and send out newsletters regularly with discounts and special offers.
52. If the product ships via a carrier, send an email to the customer with the tracking number with a link to the carrier to check status.
53. Use an XML Sitemap generator to create a sitemap to get a “big picture” of your site. Submit it to Google and they’ll help you find dead pages, etc.
54. On category pages don’t just list product names, but include some unique content about the category for indexing by the search engines.
55. If you sell the same object in different colours, offer them pictures of each colour.
56. Use a larger font (14+) for titles and product names to make them stand out and possibly increase conversions.
57. Sign up for Hackersafe, verising and your related trade associations and display their logos to improve credibility.
58. Have a person answer the phone, not a recording.
59. If you cannot exceed the expectations created by your site then rewrite your copy. Underpromise and over-deliver.
60. Hang in there with the difficult customers – they become the most loyal when treated correctly and given the time they deserve.
61. Know when a customer needs to be given to your competition.
62. Make the font on your product copy readable. 12pt at least. No funky fonts.
63. Make sure your buy button pops off the page and is big enough to be seen and clicked on.
64. Make sure the title tag on each product page is unique and reflects what is on the page. Make sure you have the product name first in the title tag, not your company name.
65. Offer a strong refund/return guarantee.
66. Add a 360 degree product view before the rest of the pack.
67. Play with the wording of your add-to-cart buttons. “Add to cart” is a nice non-threatening way to encourage adding items as some feel “order” or “buy” is too much of a commitment.
68. Be careful making a coupon field too prominent in checkout, especially in markets that are based on commodity goods such as electronics. Seeing the field may convince a shopper that was ready to purchase to exit and spend more time hunting for coupons. Consider relabeling as promotion code or something less descriptive (unless you are linking to a promo page with coupon codes to encourage larger sales).
69. Mine referral data of orders for search engine keyword queries encoded in the urls and further optimize for these terms for organic search or consider adding to your PPC campaigns.
70. If you’re going to ask customers to sign up for your newsletter during checkout, do it AFTER the payment is processed.
71. Amid all the costly free shipping gimmicks, 365 day guarantees, free return pickups and insanely low prices… don’t forget to actually turn a profit.
72. If everyone else is competing on price, compete on service, product range or faster shipping options.
73. Try changing your store design once a month, and everything else being equal, one will generally outperform the others by a significant amount.
74. Add a personalized “thank you” message to your email invoices. Include your name, email, phone number and a photo.

Do you have any tips you’d add to the list? Leave a comment below – I’d love to know what they are!

When you’re selling the same products as everyone else online (such as t-shirts, DVDs or computers) it might seem the best way to compete is on price and price alone. When all you focus on is having the lowest price, however, you tend to attract a certain type of customer (known in some circles as “bottom feeders”) and find yourself in a race to the bottom, serving fickle, price-sensitive customers who are here today, gone tomorrow (if your competitor is cheaper).

The typical online retailer will focus on price as the #1 motivator for their customers, and while price is important it’s not the only factor in the buying decision. In this post I want to share 5 things you can compete on besides price. Maybe I can give you some ideas so you don’t get caught in a low price war with your competitors.

#1 – A wider range of products/varieties/custom make/models

If you sell the same blue t-shirts as everyone else and that’s all you sell then your value proposition to shoppers isn’t all that great. What if instead of selling just blue t-shirts for example, you started selling blue t-shirts with different styles (v-neck and collar for example) or blue t-shirts with matching jeans? If you can offer a wider range than your competitors then you’re less dependent on a low price being the primary/only motivator for people visiting your store.

#2 – A well known company/organization that’s a customer

If you sell, say, computers and you’ve got a well known company or organization on board as a paying customer, you should use that credibility to your advantage (with permission, of course). Put up a “Featured Customers” page and even post a case study or testimonial video from your marquee customer talking about how great your products/service/support/shipping is. Potential customers in similar industries will see the testimonial, which helps build instant trust and rapport, especially if you sell high ticket items.

#3 – A personal approach to customer service

If your competitors are playing the low price but faceless company game then you should play the moderate prices but small team willing to help game. If you sell to small companies or consumers then the large majority will prefer to buy from a small team who are passionate about what they sell rather than a big no-name corporate. Your About Us page can help here, so make it personal with lots of photos and a compelling “how we came about” story.

#4 – A reward points program

If you can’t compete on price then why not award customers with points for every dollar they spend? They could then “trade in” these points against future purchases in your online store. It’s a great way to build loyalty. You could take it one step further and even send a VIP card in the mail to make your customers feel extra special.

#5 – Constant, informative communication

Using postal mail or email marketing, you should send regular, useful information to your email list (you do have an email list, right?) and customer list (yes, they should be two separate lists) every month. You can talk about new products, link to “how to” videos or reviews for products you sell or even have a customer-of-the-month newsletter. The more you keep in touch with your customers, the better their top of mind awareness will be – i.e. when they’re in the market to buy the products you sell, you’ll pop into their mind first (at the top, ahead of your competitors).

These five strategies are just the tip of the ice berg. If you’re finding that price is the most influential part of your customer’s purchasing decision (if you’re not sure, survey them) then you have three options:

1. Deal with it and try to lower your prices
2. Reposition your company/website and/or target a different type of customer
3. Implement one of the five things I’ve discussed in this article

Which boat are you in?