6 Quick Wins To Launch Your Client's Ecommerce Store

Clients of any web design business aren’t buying a website. They’re buying a marketing tool that generates sales. This is especially true when you’re building an ecommerce store for your client.

Even when your design is perfect and the users love it, if the website isn’t generating sales your client will not be satisfied.

Here are 6 ways you can help your clients as a web designer/developer.

Build a Blog and Use Content To Drive Traffic

One of the best ways to improve the conversion rate of an online store is by using blog content. There are many reasons why blogging regularly helps an online store drive sales.

• Blogging helps with SEO. Create blog posts focusing on different keywords and search queries.
• Regularly posting new articles shows your website is being maintained.
• Blogging helps keeping your audience engaged.
• Blogs can create backlinks, which increases traffic to a website and improves search engine ranking.

Once you’ve built a blog for your project, the goal is to start posting new articles on a regular basis. Educate your customers on the importance and goals of content marketing to get the most out of it.

Provide a Facebook Pixel

Studies show that only 2% of website visitors make a purchase when they visit an online store for the first time. The goal is to make them visit again, because this greatly increases the chance they’ll make a purchase.

This can be achieved by a retargeting campaign. Retargeting means you set up advertisements that target people who’ve previously visited a website. With the Facebook pixel, it’s pretty straightforward to set up. Install the Facebook pixel on a website and dive into the Facebook adsmanager.

This can be a helpful extra service you can provide to your clients.

Security Is Key

One of the biggest reasons people decide not to buy on an online store, is because they don’t trust the website. It is your job as a designer to make sure that the website looks trustworthy and actually has the necessary security measures in place: an SSL, an encrypted payment system, etc.

Besides those security measures, you want the website to look safe:

• Make sure there are no broken elements on the website. A picture that doesn’t load will make it look like the website isn’t maintained.
• Show the people behind the website to increase trust. The “about us” page should contain the contact information and ideally a picture of the people running the store.
• Add reviews and testimonials to display social proof.

Set Up Multiple Payment Methods

A lot of visitors will add products to their baskets and even click on the check out button. But then they suddenly cancel.

Visitors cancelling a purchase in the final stage can occur because of several reasons. Perhaps you weren’t clear about the shipping costs and they now realize buying the product online will cost more than they expected.

Or you’re not providing their preferred payment method.

Choosing the right payment methods for an online store is a critical step for building a successful ecommerce business. Try finding out what payment methods your audience prefers. This can actually depend on the country you're selling to. For example, Americans are used to paying by credit card, while Europeans often prefer debit cards or bank transfers. Finding out what the preferred payment method of your audience is, can have a huge effect on sales.

Optimize For Mobile

These days, a lot of people make purchases using their mobile phones. Others switch devices as they are in the process of making a purchase - e.g. they browse your catalogue on their phone, but move to a laptop to enter their address and credit card details.

So as a web developer, it's essential that your ecommerce stores work well on every device. Speed up your website and optimize it for mobile to increase conversions and sales.

Add Google Analytics

Running an online store without any kind of analytics set up is like driving blindfolded: it'll end up badly. Google Analytics will give you insight into who's visiting the online store. It will provide the information you - or your client - need to run an ecommerce store.

Aside from analytics, Google has a couple of free services that can be used to give your client's website a boost.