Your own successful online shop. A dream of many, because of the freedom to work wherever and whenever you want. Whether on the beach in Bali or in your own attic room. Unfortunately, it doesn't always deliver the desired results. In other words, many online shop owners fail and have to pull the plug.
Want to avoid this? Read on for the five steps to a successful online shop. These five strategies are aimed at attracting customers and driving sales on your successful online shop.
1. Online shop design that appeals to your target group.
It doesn't matter if you offer the best possible products. Or whether you are the one in the market with the best customer service. If the design of your online shop does not appeal to the target audience, then the online shop will not perform online. According to a American research, 93% of online shoppers find the visual elements of an online shop most important. When these visual elements do not match what the online shop visitor wants, the visitor will leave the website faster.
To get a high-performing online shop, you have two different options.
- You look for and pay a web designer, who develops the online shop completely for you.
- You learn to develop a website yourself and build your own online shop with the right design.
It doesn't matter what you end up choosing, as long as the end result is a design that captivates the website visitor. An example of a beautiful and good design, is the online shop of Skullcandy.
2. A great and original "About Us" page
When a visitor to your online shop navigates to the ‘About Us’ page, it means they may be interested in what the shop has to offer. People often visit the ‘About Us’ page to get that final nudge in the right direction. The visitor wants to feel confident that they are ordering from the right online shop. This is your chance to turn the visitor into a paying customer.
On this page, it’s important to clearly explain what sort of online shop you run, why it exists and what sets it apart from other online shops. You can use testimonials, reviews or anecdotes to do this.
It is also important on this page that your contact details are easy to find. Incidentally, this is important not just on this page, but across the entire website. An ‘About Us’ page with too much information is not recommended. Our advice: tell your story primarily by using plenty of visual content.
Many successful online shops use a minimalist design combined with visual content. A good example of such a shop is Tens. A minimalist design is less distracting and ensures that visitors can focus on what matters most: your story.
3. Advertise on your Social Media channels
This will probably be nothing new to you, still good to mention. Advertising through your social media channels gets you in touch with potential customers faster. It creates brand awareness for your online shop. Moreover, you get interaction with your target group. Advertising on social media does not have to be complicated at all. A simple Facebook post can be enough.
To analyse which channel works best for your online shop, you can use the tool Google Analytics. No idea where to start growing your social media channels. Read the 5 tips for your social media channels here.
4. Provide an SEO optimised website
To generate revenue, it is important that website visitors end up on your online shop. One of the best methods for attracting website visitors is search engine optimisation (SEO). By using search engine-optimised keywords in your product titles and descriptions, your website is more likely to rank higher in Google’s search results. This is one of the best ways to achieve sustainable growth and increase turnover.
If you’re not entirely familiar with the world of search engine optimisation, read our blog ‘Search engine optimisation: am I getting off to the right start?’. In this blog, you’ll read how to use SEO for your online shop.
'Mobile-first' for a successful online shop 5.
'Mobile-first' is the thinking that your online shop should be mobile-responsive. This means that the website is optimised for alldevices, so also for mobile phones. Nowadays, people are on their mobiles more often than behind a laptop or PC. It is therefore important to anticipate this. If your online shop is not mobile-responsive, you are missing a huge opportunity for mobile shopping.
The American 'Business Insider' predicts that by 2020, 45% of all online shopping will be done via mobile devices. So make sure your website design is accessible for all devices.
These steps will help you develop a successful online shop that will provide many website visitors. Moreover, these steps will help you get more conversion from your online shop.
No sense, time or knowledge to develop your new online shop yourself, let us know. Our developers at Monkey Vision help you!
