Having an e-commerce website is mostly about getting customers to purchase products or services you are selling. You may have many people visiting your site by having good contents that attract people to see and a good page ranking with Search Engine Optimizations. But turning those visitors to customers is a different matter.
To attract buyers, you should have several strategies to make the sightseeing individuals to actually make a purchase.
To understand what customers want, you may want to think like them as if you were a visitor to your own site. Being a customer on your own site can open your eyes to the weak points your e-commerce site may have, exposing visible flaws in design to any errors that can occur. By understanding these, you can elimiate any weaknesses your site have, and further highlight the strong points. Several things to consider are:
1. Know What They Want
Finding out what your customers want is the beginning and end of your marketing efforts. Get this right, and you can make mistakes with the rest of this list and still make sales. Get it wrong, and you will struggle no matter how well you execute the rest.
If you're a service provider working closely with clients, this is relatively easy - since clients will tell you about their problems, challenges, loves, and hates. They'll let you know when you're giving them what they want - and vice versa. Pay attention to what they tell you and use it to improve your service - and develop new offerings.
If you're selling products or artworks without so much interaction with your customers, it's a little harder but still doable. Take every opportunity to meet with your customers and talk to them - in 'real life' as well as via social media.
Working out what your customers want is an ongoing process that involves trial and error. Here are two questions that can help you get the answers faster:
- Which products/services/artworks are your customers most enthusiastic about?
- What do they buy from your competitors that you could do better, or with an original twist?
2. Show Professionalism
There is a large difference between an amateur working for money and a professional making money. When a new visitor lands on your website, what's their first impression? Does it look professional or amateurish? Up-to-date or neglected? Popular or obscure? No prizes for guessing which qualities are more attractive to buyers.
Every sightseeing visitors judge the overall of your site by a glance or two without paying much attention to features that bulk the site. Professionalism can also be seen by the coloring of your site and how good you manage to put the contents and links. A website that confuse people can make even a professional company looks like an amateur salesman.
3. Make Your Offer
Show them the way to the informations that leads them to purchase. Tell them about yourself and show them what you are capable of. Show your customers what business you are on and how to contact you for more informations regarding their needs. If you are a shop owner, a visitor entering your shop should be given the best treats and confort. Offer them adequate informations and make them happy.
And for the last, let the decisions be theirs. Do not give too many promotion and discounts because that will show a negative side of your business.
4. How to Buy
Provide enough information on whatever you are selling. If you are selling products or goods, give enough informations about the size, quality, weigh, delivery times, refund policy, etc.. If you are selling service, tell them how you provide them with your service, how good it is comparing to your rivals.
These may vary from business to business. But by not giving enough information to visitors will likely make potential customers shy of contacting you. The more you tell them, the easier it looks and the more of them will buy.
5. Price
Businesses who target individuals should apply a price for their products or goods. Service prices also apply. But if you have a medium to large company where prices vary, but you still want to reassure the right people that you aren't out of their league, you may want to consider offering packages at different price points, or indicating a range of pricing for typical projects.
Publishing your prices will reassure those who can afford what you sell and filter out those who can't.
6. Testimonials
You may think testimonials look cheesy, but they wouldn't be so common if they didn't work. So why not make life easier for yourself - and your customers - by using something that works?
Ask your best customers for testimonials - you may be surprised how eager they are to help out. Get them to be as specific as possible about the benefits they received from doing business with you. Photos, URLs, and even videos will make the testimonials more credible and reassuring.
7. Free Subscription
The truth is that hardly anyone will buy the first time they land on your site. This is particularly true for sophisticated, creative products or services - these purchases are usually not made on the spur of the moment.
So as well as making your sales offers abundantly clear, offer a free subscription - to your blog, your newsletter, your podcast, or some other form of communication channel that gives you permission to stay in touch with them over time. Once they get to know, like, and trust you via the free samples and advice you send them, they'll be more likely to pick you when they're ready to buy.
It's no secret that email is still the most powerful online sales channel for most small businesses. So building a mailing list of people who have actively opted in to receive your free content and sales messages should be one of your top priorities.
Everyone likes free items. But free items can have drawbacks if not given well. If you can satisfy visitors by just giving them a free item, a larger chance that they will buy your product or service.