Some people make the mistake of believing that eCommerce web design and common web design are one and the same. Yes, there are many similarities, however, the difference between selling merchandise in an online store and merely being a portal for information is pretty substantial.
While a basic website will be on the web and offer users information about the company and how to make contact with them, an eCommerce website is built to attract visitors and get them to buy items. In order for users to go to the site and make purchases the structure behind the scenes is a little bit more robust than your average everyday website. It takes a great deal of skill and knowledge to build and maintain an eCommerce site.
Selling Stuff Online
There are literally millions of big dreamers out there that hope to one day build a website that sells stuff for them so that they can just sit back and enjoy the income that comes with it. As for the people that actually make it happen, they put in quite a bit of work.
One of the biggest problems an online store has is its competition with huge businesses like Amazon and eBay. Other giants like Walmart and Home Depot are in on the game as well making it really hard for a small-time online store to create any kind of waves on the internet.
However, it is possible and it happens all of the time. A few results-driven people get together and create a monstrosity of a store and within a couple of years, they are a multi-million dollar business.
Depending on what the store sells there can be a plethora of challenges for the seller:
- Order fulfillment
- Inventory
- Packaging costs
- Storage of goods
While some are able to do sales and run the business out of their own garage, others need to rent warehouse space and hire outside agencies to keep up with the demands of their business.
Probably the best stuff to sell online would be digital downloads so that there are no overhead prices to pay for storage, postage, insurance, and everything else that goes with the selling territory.
In any event, whatever is being sold online, the only way that it is going to get sold is if it is known on the internet. This is where critical SEO comes into the picture.
Internet Visibility
Trying to promote a website through TV, radio, billboards, and so on is pretty hard unless you have enough money to make it happen. If you get a domain name that is impossible to forget and have the cash to send out enough media through the airwaves and everywhere else to get your URL embedded into the heads of people that hear it…you’ll be fine.
Meanwhile, in the real world, people love to look online for answers and find the comforting ease of link clicking hard to resist. If your online store is visible in the search engines the chances of you being successful are much stronger than other means.
Here are some of your options:
- Organic search engine results
- Search engine paid ads
- Paid ads on social media sites
- Paid ads on heavy-traffic sites
Out of all of these options, organic search results are the best way to get visitors to your site without having to spend millions of dollars a month in advertising costs.
The bottom line is that in order for an eCommerce site to make money it has to be able to be found on the world wide web. This is why developing for the purpose of online sales and search engine optimization have to be hand in hand in order for the best results.
eCommerce Web Design Essentials
Because there are so many variables in regard to online stores and how they operate it is hard to put eCommerce into a basic category. Essentially, an eCommerce site is built so that a person can sell things from the site.
Some of the items that get sold on eCommerce sites are:
- Makeup
- Clothing
- Auto parts
- Motorcycles
- Sporting goods
- Software
- Books
- Movies
- Novelties
What this means is that anybody can sell just about anything – within legal limits – in an online store. So…in the beginning stages of the development of the site, the crew that is building the site has to figure out relevant keywords and put together a plan to rank for these keywords as best as they can.
Of course, you, or anybody else, can slap an online store together with a “free” online store platform from the internet and start selling things today…but the web does not generally work that way unless you have an endless supply of money to spend on advertising.
Web Design and SEO
Although many people believe that designing websites and optimizing them for search engine visibility are two different things, the truth is that they are both parts of each other. When a web designer sits down to plan the website, one of the first things they should consider is the keywords that the site will want to rank for. If they don’t know this…they are leaving out a pretty significant part of the picture.
Some of the most important factors to keep in mind when building the foundation of the site are:
- Pillar keywords
- Target audience
- Items for sale
- Landing pages for items
When the developer knows and understands these factors they have a much better chance of creating a site that can be published and not have to be rebuilt.
Pillar Keywords
The reason why pillar keywords are so important for the development of the site is that it gives creators the pillars that they need to create content. Content goes further than pictures and headings.
Content is what the search engines scour to determine the best fit for an answer to a query. As search engines become smarter and more sophisticated, search bots seek out content that makes sense and is useful for users.
Establishing the pillar keywords for the business is crucial for the development of the site. Why? It’s pretty simple.
If you are building an online store that sells shoes and clothes you are going to want to build content on what the site is selling. Why would you build a site that sells shoes and clothes but use words that describe anything but shoes and clothes?
For example, when you seek out the best keywords for your site you want to go with words that have a:
- High search volume
- A low keyword difficulty rating
- A low level of competition
- A meaningful intent behind the search of the keyword
Your big pillar keywords might be “clothes” and “shoes” but proper keyword research will help you redefine potential keyphrases that yield big returns.
For instance instead of a common word such as “shoes” your site might do better with “men’s shoes” or “unique shoes” or even “shoes for business”.
You could go out even further and investigate versions of keywords such as “foot apparel” or “clothing for feet.”
When you find your proper keywords and the best variants of them you can begin to create the landing pages for the items and use creativity to bring high-ranking results.
The Target Audience
Understanding the target audience for your site is crucial. In order to speak to your potential customers you must understand them. Much like the old adage “…in order to catch the squirrel, you must be the squirrel…” in order to catch customers you must be the customer.
By discovering the pillar keywords for the site and understanding the way that your visitors will most likely think when they visit the site you have more power when it comes to effective design.
It is important to understand that just because you don’t appeal to one group of people does not mean you have to try to please all of them. Many great marketers use the power of commonality to help with maximizing conversion rates.
In the End
In the end, the eCommerce websites that are designed with SEO in mind from the beginning are going to be more successful than the ones that are not. In order to build a great website upon an effective foundation the factor of search engine optimization has to be in the mix. Just like any other recipe, if there are missing ingredients…things just don’t taste right.
