Published on December 10th, 2016 | by Guest

A comprehensive guide for starting the successful ecommerce website

The year 2016 has come to an end but the trend of ecommerce is growing still

Quite interesting right? Yes, the research has revealed few interesting facts about Ecommerce, It’s sales are likely to reach around $434billion in US, this amaze everyone with the point what else one can catch out of the ecommerce business idea.

However, this exponential growth arrives along with some challenges like convincing to sentient customers with new and innovative products. They need website that lures them to keep on browsing and which makes them feel that your business is advanced and living up to their expectation.

In the past, it was easy to set up self-run business but not successful ecommerce business. Here in this post, you will discern few straight forward tips which ensure that your ecommerce site is fit to meet fast growing trends and success in online world.

Planning the type of product/service you want to sell

The initial step for building the ecommerce site successful is to know what products / service you want to sell online. This often makes you confuse in selection of the product opportunities, as you have to select only those products which are more likely to create a center of attention for customers / trending in customer’s point of view.

Do small SEO for product planning, analyze the competitors in location vise and select few of the interesting product idea which trending right now using tools like Google trends

Once you dig up with the idea about what you are going to sell online, evaluate it now to know if it is worthy to take up or not. By doing so, you can bridge demand and supply Gap. For appraising of the idea, you can make use of online tools like keyword planner and Google Trends.

Now when you have weighted up the idea, the next task is to figure out ways where you can obtain your products, for instance, writing to manufacture / suppliers to sell their products through your website if you are large biz enterprises or if you want to add your own, that’s perfect.

Study about the competitors

It is saying that the competitors, mistake and experience are the best teacher, same rule applies here; scrutinizing the competitors will educate you much more than anything else, for which you may require some tools.

Here is the complete guide of Sneaky Online Tools to Help You Spy on Your Competitors

While analyzing competitors, you will come across some of the important strategies that your business should take throughout business process say like, usage of product description, segmentation of the customers based on the location, taste and trends, and moreover what are the ways to convince visitors and increase conversion ratio and so on.

Setting up Your Business

The point of exhilaration increased when your hand is full of ideas and you are confident on how and what you are going to implement. Now the imperative decision could be naming your Business.

Booking a Domain and selecting server: Choose unique and impressive business name and complete it by adding appropriate extension, now determine it by checking the available domain names.Selection of server is most important decision; you must take at the initial point of starting the business, if you are new to the hosting world, consult any expert on choosing the most suitable hosting type, since there are many hosting option available with diverse features.You might be interested in reading the small guide on How and why to choose right Web Hosting for a business?
Godaddy, Hostingsafety and bigrock are few of the top domain and hosting companies you can rely for best and affordable hosting services.
Choice of Ecommerce platform:Now you have a domain name, the next thing comes is the selection of a good eCommerce platform on which your store be built upon.
There are plenty of ecommerce platform options are available, few are listed below.
Magento
Opencart
Shopify
Bigcommerce
Woocommerce from WP
3Dcart and So onEach platform has special features while opencart is popular and user-friendly, Magento is secure and fast. Read the details of different ecommerce platforms available to open online store.
If you are likely to choose opencart here are few reasons why you should use opencart

Setting up the online site
Website is considered to be the excellent online marketing tool, once you are confident about specific ecommerce platform, you must take quick step to build impressive website for your ecommerce business. Listed below are the few essential aspects that need to consider while building the perfect and successful ecommerce website.

Create a Logo: The first and probably the second thing, which your visitors are observing on your website is logo. Logo is not just icon you can build merely but it should be inspiring that identifies your business, consequently you must ensure that you are crafting your website logo professionally and impressively.
User experience Design: User experience which is commonly referred as the Ux is a crucial aspect for all frames. As we can see that the users has varied options available, they perceived everything on their finger tips, they wish to explore something new every day and time. This urges ecommerce business to be more modernized and friendlier in order to induce customers to buy at least one product before leaving out.

You must make certain that your e website user interface design should showcase what you want visitors to see, this means if the promotion of the website consider to the numerous items, the natural flow of the navigation should not get disturbed or should not confuse visitors. If anything that obstruct them, there should have the liberty of ignoring the same if it does not convey any interesting factor.

Know more about How User experience design can contribute in your business growth

SEO of each page: “Missing out on the clicks results on missing out on sales”. Since SEO comes with the inception of the website, you must assure that each page and the information / products on each page has set up with SEO in mind. Below are the few steps to learn SEO for ecommerce.Research and evaluate the keywords for Home page and product pagesPinpoint the important keywords in blog page / Media pageUse keyword tools like ubersuggest.io, keywordtool.io, keywordtooldominator.comRead Complete Guide: SEO for Ecommerce
Website loading speed: speed is great way to improve shopping experience of visitors on your website because visitors are likely to skip the website if takes 2seconds extra to load or check out process to complete. And those who stopped the site because of loading time will never return and also will not shy to tell their friends about the bad experience, this definitely has an adverse impact of sales and conversion.Follow some Crucial Tips to Implement for Fast Website Loading Speed
Responsiveness of the website: “one site to rule multi device users”Now users do not want to drag or enlarge their screen, they wish everything to be perfect at on one point on their own screen, be it mobile, tablet or desktop. As the amplified number of mobile user have emerged, it is essential to serve multi device users with responsive web design.Responsive design basically deals with the user’s behavior or devices they use to browse the particular website. A wide screen can entertain a site design with multiple column, content and links while a small screen can display same design and content using single column with links in precise way.Statistics says, it is not ecommerce but Mobile commerce and Google has also revealed that those sites which are responsive will get priority in terms of SEO ranking.
Mobile speed: in the era of instant satisfaction, present customer expect the identical quick speed on mobile as it is on desktop, therefore mobile performance of the ecommerce website will decide on increasing or decreasing the customer ratio.Although it was the time, when having mobile internet was just enough but now gratifying customer’s expectation over mobiles have become challenge especially in ecommerce sector, thereby you must ensure that you have website that caters wide range of mobile users.

Now when you have website, what you should next

Now you have most important features to launch a website, but what are the essential things to consider before launching an ecommerce website.

Planning for the invisible things

Very crucial aspects that need to consider for successful online business is planning for invisible things because an ecommerce website is allied with some sort of security and legal matters.

Merchant account, unlike regular bank account, a merchant account is specially created for ecommerce website with ability to accept payments by credit or debit cards. If your ecommerce business is new, be sure that you are confirming merchant account to get qualified for internet transactions.
Payment Gateways: financial intermediary between you and your customer must be safe and secure. Integrating good payment gateway arrives with the confident of not disturbing user experience on your website and approving credit card transaction and capturing funds.

While user buys any product, your website will redirect them to the checkout page; it is where the payment gateway works. You must ensure them that your website is safe, secure and protect the sensitive data of the customers (however the ecommerce website payment process should be easy by allowing them to add them in list, if they are not ready to buy item at the particular point of time). The payment process should happen in the blink of an eye when user clicks on confirm, he should get prompt message of confirming their purchases.

Extension and Plugins: Integrating plugins and extension to the ecommerce website is good way to look up shopping experience of visitors as the trend moves. For instance joomla extension for ecommerce, Extension from wordpress, Magento plugins and so on

Executing Marketing and promotion

“Give customer a reason to buy” It is not selling, It is marketing

It is a last but continuous process for winning ecommerce website.

Prepare plan for your first customer
Write frequently about what makes you apart in your blog and media pages.
Follow up the existing customers via email
Create new customer through social pages / writing about the new arrivals
Ensure visitors that you care about them

These strategies will persuade window shopper to become an active shopper. Other than these strategies, here are few other important approaches that boost online presence of your ecommerce store.

Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine marketing
Pay per click
Google Adwords Campaigning
Email Marketing
Content Marketing and promotion
Display advertising

These approaches of Digital marketing are great way to build strong online branding respective to the diverse segmented audience. Always show customer what they want to see, this makes them feel to be treated as the king

This guide is based on the in-depth research of web and experts on what make an ecommerce website successful, let me know, if I have missed something in comment section, I will be happy to consider.

About the author:

Tabassum M is a professional author in several authoritative sites and a digital marketer at ULTIMEZ, the excellent Web Design, Development and Digital Service Company. She loves writing content, sharing information and blogging. You can connect with her directly on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.

Tags: business, comprehensive, ecommerce, guide, marketing, starting, successful, website