Things to Avoid While Creating E-commerce Website

While creating an e-commerce website, it is important to pay as much attention to the ‘don’ts’ as you will to the ‘dos.’ Any good e-commerce agency India will tell you that if you do not keep in mind the mistakes that you need to avoid while creating an e-commerce website, you are bound to encounter multiple issues with your e-commerce website. You will notice that your sales are not picking up, you are not getting traffic, or the conversion rates are very poor. You will end up redesigning your e-commerce website. If you want to avoid this, you need to focus on the below mentioned mistakes that you want to avoid while creating an online business.

A Website Full of Distractions

You need to avoid, at all cost, designing an e-commerce website that is full of distractions like, ads, too much content, and banners. A distracting website is confusing for the visitors and that is why many choose to leave right away. You need to create a website that has a clear layout. You might be tempted to place third party ads on your site, because you will be paid handsomely for it. However, you need to think about the customers that you are going to lose when they click on that ad without making any purchase on your website. Finally, make sure that the Call to Action (CTA) button is clearly visible to the visitors as soon as they land on your website. This will improve your conversion rate.

A Website that is hard to Navigate

How can you expect your customers to buy from you online when they find it a herculean task to find anything on your website? Studies after studies have shown that an e-commerce website that is hard to navigate due to broken links, wrong categorization, and hard to understand menu, is bound to fail. In order to avoid this mistake, you need to make sure that every link on your site is functional. You need to take this a step further by making sure that when a visitor clicks on a particular button on your menu, he/she gets the information that is mentioned on the button. For example, if the visitor clicks on women high heel shoes, she will expect the page to display high heel shoes only and not flats or running shoes. Basically, it should be easy for the visitors to find what they are looking for.

Too Much Content

Many people make the mistake of stuffing too much content on their e-commerce websites only to realize later on that visitors find it confusing and distracting. Do not expect visitors to go through your product description that covers several paragraphs, minute details, and has some really hard words thrown in. Visitors prefer content that is provided in simple sentences, under meaningful sub-headings, bullet points, and covers topics that are most relevant to understanding the product.

A Website without Coded Connection

You are an e-commerce business and you expect people to share their financial information with you. E-commerce website development without a coded connection, visitors will be hesitant to browse through your website let alone buy from you. You need to gain their trust if you expect them to do business with you. A website with a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate will tell the visitors that any information they share on the site is secured and will encourage them to buy from you.

A Website without Multiple Payment Options

A website without multiple payment options can forget about ever reaching its sales target, because a lot of visitors will not be able to buy from it. Remember that not everyone has a Master Card, so how do you expect a visitor with PayPal account to buy from your site? Multiple payment options on your e-commerce website will ensure that you reach out to a lot of potential customers.

A Website without Multiple Shipping Options

Just imagine a customer who has added products on the shopping cart and is going through the checkout process to only find out that the preferred shipping option is not available on your website. You will not only lose that customer right there and then, but you will most probably lose him/her forever. It is important to have multiple shipping options to cater to a wide customer base and to ensure that another viable option is available in the event something goes wrong with one option.

A Lengthy and Confusing Checkout Process

There are online businesses that require customers to create a profile or lot of information in the checkout form. Such businesses often fail in the long run. Customers are often put-off when they are required to create a profile in order to make the purchase. The checkout process should be simple and consist of two or three steps. It should only ask for the customer’s shipping address and financial information to complete the order. You should have a guest-check out getaway for those who are not interested in creating a profile right away. Remember that customers always prefer businesses who are easy to do business with and a simple and short checkout process will help you in achieving this.

Having Poor Quality Images and Videos on Your Website

Visuals is everything in e-commerce business. Before a visitor goes through the content on your website, he/she will first go through the images on your site. Poor quality images will compel the visitor to look for the product or service somewhere else. The images of the products and services that you are providing should not only be of high quality, but should also provide a complete picture of the product. Let us say that you are selling household electronics on your website and you just have one or two good quality images of every product on your website. How do you expect a visitor to finalize a refrigerator by just looking at two images? You need to provide images from every angle of the product so that the visitor can make an informed decision.

Not SEO Optimized

Creating an e-commerce website is not enough to ensure success today. Visitors will click on your website if it shows up in search results. By applying SEO techniques, you will ensure that your online business gets top rankings on major search engines like, Google, Bing, and Yahoo. A SEO optimized site is easy to navigate, loads up faster, and is mobile friendly also. The last point is especially important, because most of the searches and purchases are done on mobile devices today.

When you create an e-commerce website according to guidelines of e-commerce agency India, which focuses on both dos and don’ts, you come up with an online business site which becomes the preferred site of the customers in no time.