Online buying has transformed from an underground operation of the specialists to a daily action most of us perform. The large shopping sites increase their turnover by billions of dollars each year, and the private Internet stores also flourish.
Whether it is a local business that wants to expand the sale of its products, a person or organization that sells information and content or a goods broker that connects East and West, everyone can use an Internet store in order to increase their sales turnover dozens of times.
How do you build a successful online store?
Here are 4 tips and points to think about before starting:
1. Characterization and Research
As in all the processes of setting up a website it is important to prepare preliminary stages of characterization and research. The owner of the online store, together with a company, builds a meticulous site description of the store based on its goals, products, services, customers and marketing messages. It is also necessary to examine carefully how the particular market operates on the Internet. It’s a good idea to get into a number of competing sites and get ideas from them.
At the characterization stage, a keyword research is also conducted. The research has two main goals. First, it contains many answers to the success of SEO and visibility on the web. Second, research can help to divide store products and services into categories and subcategories, depending on the scope of relevant searches.
2. UI design
A graphic user interface is the graphic display that is presented to users who come to the online store. Therefore, the design phase of the graphical user interface must be precise and tightly controlled. At this stage, the potential users must be well known, and not only key phrases and popular searches.
The design stage, including user interface design, is a derivative of the initial characterization stage, in terms of proper division into categories, familiarity with the target audience, integration of marketing messages (such as prestigious prices versus attractive promotions). Another great tip is to combine products with multiple images and full specifications that provide comprehensive information about each product.
3. Transparency is a top priority
The credibility of online purchases is gaining momentum. Indeed, many users are not afraid to make purchases online, including purchases that usually require credit card details. However, surfers do not tend to purchase products from anonymous stores or websites whose owners are in the dark.
Be sure to formulate professional pages, and give surfers a number of ways to contact the store (email, phone, address, etc.). You can even provide online chat services that make you an online sales agent. In addition, take care of the rules of the site in advance and make sure that users are obliged to agree to its terms before the purchase. It is also recommended to give users a number of payment methods and to emphasize security and safe purchasing issues.
4. Promote the store and generate traffic
The success of an online store is, of course, also evident in its traffic. It should be emphasized that the product pages alone, as beautiful and correct as they may be, cannot hold on to their shoulders all the work of promotion. Promoting an online store in Google’s search engine requires investment in additional areas. For example, quality content; this content may include articles about the particular industry, reviews of various products, professional guides, and more.