Eleven easy ideas for a better ecommerce site

Palmer Web Marketing has produced a report, “Ecommerce Roadmap”, that promises “192 best practices of today’s successful ecommerce sites”. Some of its suggestions are basic or obvious, but a number were intriguing to us. Here are just a few:

* Toot your own horn. “If your company has received recognition from the media, proudly let your first-time visitors know by displaying the recognisable icons on your landing page.”

* Don’t include a link to the page that your visitors are on. For instance, on the widgets category landing page, remove the link to the widgets landing page from your listing of category pages.

* Show visitors where they’ve been. “Change the colour of visited text links so the user doesn’t accidentally visit a page he or she has already been to. While some web designers dislike giving up this design preference, it will greatly help orient your site visitors. In addition, show a history of product pages that have been recently viewed. This will allow browsers to easily return to a product they were interested in.”

* Make sure that your logo links to your home page. Okay, this one is both basic and obvious, but enough companies don’t do it to make its inclusion here worthwhile.

* Include results for nonproduct sections of your site in your search functionality. A significant portion of online shoppers use search as their main navigational tool, even when they are seeking returns information, a privacy policy, and the like. Analyse your site logs to see what nonproduct terms people are searching for, and be sure to program your on-site search to provide the appropriate results.

* Show the user’s previous search query in the search box. “After a user performs a search, populate the search form field with the exact query the customer entered. This will allow them to realise if they made a typo when searching.”

* Make product images as well as text clickable.

* Indicate products that are nearly sold out. “In order to create a sense of urgency, show some type of indicator when a product is close to being sold out. This will likely increase the chances of the customer taking action now.”

* Offer links to a PDF of the product manuals. Providing an uncertain shopper with this information could help close the sale.

* Hide the site’s standard (top and side) navigation bars once a customer has started the checkout process. You don’t want anything to distract them from completing their purchase.

* Do more with your thank-you page than simply thank the customer. “Surprisingly, many ecommerce sites waste the thank you or receipt page by making it a dead end.” Instead, include on it a feedback survey, information on how the customer can track his order, a refer-a-friend form, or some other type of engagement.

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