Tips, Tricks and Tools to Instantly Improve Your Ecommerce Site

• Attract visitors• Convince them to buy from you• Deliver their purchases

quickly and cheaply.

• Provide a good shopping experience so they come back and buy from you again and again.

To help you through this minefield, we’ve put together our top tips and tools that will instantly improve your ecommerce sites performance.

To have a successful ecommerce site you need to:

THE Basics

aTTracT VisiTorsSearch engines play a huge role in online shopping, so there are a few tools you should use to boost you up the rankings.

Tools To aTTracT VisiTors1. Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads

• Get visuals of your products in front of loads of potential customers who are searching to buy

• Especially important with the rise of visual commerce

Tools To aTTracT VisiTors2. Google Adwords and Google AdWords Remarketing

• Show your advert to some of the people searching using your keywords, and people who have already visited your site

Tools To aTTracT VisiTors3. Schema.org

• Use it to mark up your site; telling the search engines what it’s about, and which bits of information you would like displayed in the search results

£5.00The best way to increase sales is to increase the speed of your site. 1. GTmetrix

• Checks the speed of your site and recommends easy ways you can speed it up, such as optimising the size of the images you use

Tools To incrEasE salEs

£5.002. Navigation

• Include a search bar and clear product categories so your site is easy to navigate, as you will lose out on sales if visitors can’t find what they are after

Tools To incrEasE salEs

£5.003. Product descriptions

• Include detailed product descriptions and pictures. People can’t have a proper look at your products because they’re buying online, so you need to give them information to build trust

Tools To incrEasE salEs

£5.004. Shopping cart

• Add a shopping cart function to your site that people do not have to sign in to use. Once they have products in their cart they are more likely to buy.

Tools To incrEasE salEs

No one can buy from your site when it’s down, so it’s important to know when it does go down so you can fix it as soon as possible. Most hosting companies don’t proactively tell you this, so you need to monitor it yourself.

BE rEliaBlE

2. Pick a decent hosting service• Make sure your chosen host has good reviews. • Consider the support facilities they can offer, making sure to

pay close attention to the SLA (Service Level Agreement). • Look into the type of hosting offered and pick the one most

suited to your business needs now and in the future.

BE rEliaBlE - Tools

£60£55 £5

£35 £25

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£50 £10

£30

£45 £15

Invest in a Franking machine to save your time and money.

1. Franking Machines

• Franking machines give you reduced rates on postage so save you money, and they save you time because you can weigh your packages and apply the correct postage right from your office or delivery room

• The Royal Mail’s rate change that came into effect on the 31st March made it even cheaper to send small parcels with a franking machine

EnsurE spEEdy and cosT EffEcTiVE dEliVEry

There are a number of tools that can give you great insight into your site visitors, enabling you to optimise your site to improve the user experience, thereby increasing your chances of sales.

improVE sHopping ExpEriEncE By gETTing To know your VisiTors

1. Google Analytics

• Shows you where your visitors are coming from, and which of the referral channels create the most conversions

• Helps access the efficiency of your marketing channels

• Google Universal Analytics upgrade lets you see your customer demographics

improVE sHopping ExpEriEncE By gETTing To know your VisiTors

2. Crazy Egg

• Shows you how people are looking at and interacting with your site. See where people get referred from, where they click, scroll to and abandon pages, so you can optimise your site accordingly

improVE sHopping ExpEriEncE By gETTing To know your VisiTors

We hope these tips and tools come in handy for improving your ecommerce site. For more handy tips and tools for SMBs, follow the Pitney Bowes Blog at www.pitneybowes.co.uk/smb-blog.shtmlRelated posts: • Sending Out Lots of Parcels? Your Secret Weapon• Why 2014 is THE year to take your business online• 5 Ways to Save Your Business Money

good luck!