1. Safety and security of the website
No one wants to catch a bug while surfing the web, but it’s not just their computer’s safety that’s at stake. Because you save a lot of data about your products and the consumers who register to buy on your site as an eCommerce business, security is one of the most important eCommerce website needs. Any data breach puts your company at danger; your leads’ contact information could be stolen and sold, or you could lose vital information forever.
Unsecured websites have a negative reputation on Google and other search engines. Google began identifying websites that did not have an SSL certificate or use the HTTPS protocol not long ago. These aren’t just suggestions or warnings; without these two components, users won’t be able to access websites, and if your certificate expires, you risk losing possible orders.
2. Optimization before and during the building of an eCommerce website
When it comes to bad reputations, Google’s new feature for users flags websites that take too long to load. If people used to click on a link, wait for it to load, and then go back if it didn’t, they might now avoid checking out a website with a slow load speed entirely.
According to study conducted by Think with Google, if a page takes more than five seconds to load, the likelihood of users bouncing jumps by 90%. That’s all the more incentive to consider optimization and make sure your site is running smoothly.
The goal of SEO is to increase your sales by using various methods and approaches to help your website rank higher in search engines. Adding keywords to your website’s content, as well as meta information to pages — titles and descriptions — and images, is a big part of it. Many professionals overlook the fact that clients can find you via an image search if you include ‘alt’ descriptions in your visual material.
Another item that many businesses overlook is hiring an SEO expert early on in the construction of an eCommerce website. At the very least, the website should begin with all of the needed meta tags, but an SEO expert may also assist you with page structure and internal linking, content strategy, developing a mobile-friendly design, and optimizing loading speed, among other things.
3. Search and filtering capabilities on the Ecommerce Website
Even if your website doesn’t sell anything, people utilize the search bar, and if it does, it should absolutely have advanced search functionality. A visual search function, for example, allows customers to upload a photo of an item they like, and your search engine will try to identify a product that is close, if not identical.
Users just need to browse categories if they don’t know what they’re looking for and need some ideas. In other circumstances, a quick search will yield the product they require in a matter of seconds.
Because some consumers may not recall the actual name of a product, you may wish to tag yours with keywords or synonyms.
4. Issues relating to registration
Although there are certain advantages to registering on an eCommerce website, such as keeping buying history or shipping address, some users prefer a guest checkout form or a one-click-buy function.
Consider how many different online accounts you have. You undoubtedly have a lot of them if you’re like the typical user, and some people don’t want to register on yet another website just to place a one-time order. Consider including a guest checkout tool on your eCommerce site if making a sale is more important than collecting the personal information of a few customers. Other options for reminding customers of your website address include include it on the order packaging or including it at the conclusion of the message with the shipment number.
You don’t have to use a registration form; you can simply invite people to sign in using social media or fill out a simple form with their name, email, and phone number. In both circumstances, you can create an account for them and email them the login information.
5. Various payment alternatives
When you’re just starting out with an eCommerce website, including all potential payment alternatives can be too much, but merely offering one limits you to customers who utilize that option. Despite the fact that unexpected shipping costs (55 percent) and a lengthy checkout process (26 percent) are two of the most common reasons for buyers abandoning their shopping carts, the 2019 Payment Methods Report found that 6 percent of them would abandon you because you didn’t offer enough payment options.
PayPal, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, American Express, Stripe, Square, Visa, Mastercard, and 2Checkout are the most popular payment options, according to Hostgator. You might want to look into cryptocurrency possibilities depending on the type of things you’re selling, as it continues to grow in popularity.