The 12-step Master Guide to Build your eCommerce Website from Scratch | MaxMobility
Posted By Max Mobility
On 19-Apr-2021
An interesting Nasdaq survey has brought to light the fact that by 2040 almost 96% of all purchases will be made through eCommerce!
In a world largely leaning on the ‘If you are not online, you do not exist’ stream of thought, it would be foolish for businesses to underestimate the potential of eCommerce in boosting revenue.
According to a Nasscom strategic review of 2018, eCommerce platforms in India have witnessed as big as a whopping 19.1% boom since 2016-2017. At this rate, we could even reach the 2040 vision before time.
Why should you build an eCommerce website from scratch?
Well, if your own eCommerce website is the way to go, it’s best to go about it the right way. Let’s look at why you should opt for building your eCommerce website from scratch:
- Easy & seamless functionality without any bugs
- Conveying the unique touch and features of a brand
- Not restricting your design options only to what the tool has to offer
- Letting the company voice and tone permeate into the functionality of the website
- Optimizing the responsiveness of your website
- Device adaptability (compatibility as per devices & platforms)
- Ascertaining absolute ownership of the website code and design
- Choosing the best hosting provider that can sustain the load
- Obviously you invest a lot less when you create your own eCommerce website from scratch
Building your own eCommerce website from scratch is invariably the way to go if you want to ensure seamless functionality and it is in line with your brand tone and voice. Top eCommerce Platforms in India follow a checklist for the purpose, so should you!
Once you have created your own eCommerce website, it is time to see how to turn it into a raging success with the following tips:
1. Optimize your User Journey:
Along with optimum functionality and seamless operations, the primary factor that determines the functionality rate of an eCommerce website is its ease of flow.
A lot about an eCommerce website depends on its individual user journey. The flow of the user journey determines whether an eCommerce website is leading to more conversions or not.
2. Thorough domain analysis:
Focus on conducting a thorough and effective domain and competitor analysis to ensure that you are incorporating everything that is needed into your user journey. With proper domain analysis, you can ensure that you are addressing all of your user’s needs.
When it comes to eCommerce you need to be even more wary of your competitors than usual because your competitor is just a click away. Therefore, thorough competitor analysis will keep you informed and on the right track.
3. Offer what is in demand:
There are numerous tools in the market to aid and bolster your marketing strategy.
Use tools like Trendhunter and Google Trends to identify what is in demand and provide your customers with what they need. That is one of the most fundamental steps to kickstarting a sure-fire successful eCommerce website.
4. Decide on which domain name to use:
Brevity is your friend here. Choose a domain name that your customers can best identify with.
Another key thing to ensure while choosing the right domain name is to ensure that you avoid any kind of similarity with other names. That could result in loss of prominence, revenue, and traffic.
Even here there are tools like ‘Instant Domain Search’ to generate domain names that suit your purpose. So, you have plenty of help to take this basic step towards creating your eCommerce website, only if you know where to look!
5. Select a theme for consistency:
What does the theme of your eCommerce website do? Well, it maintains uniformity and consistency and helps users identify your web pages.
While choosing a theme, you need to consider the following pointers:
- Compatible with a fast loading speed
- Mobile optimized
- Best product display options
Another aspect to consider is the amount of money that you are ready to invest on it - there are free & paid themes available for display!
6. Attractive product photos and descriptions:
What does an eCommerce site replace? It replaces a physical store - and that’s why it needs to be well-equipped with more than what an actual physical store has to offer!
Creating a smart and effective display of your products with proper descriptions ensures that your customers can freely browse and select what they like at ease. It is important to showcase multiple photos from various angles so the specificity is not lost because they are viewing what’s on display on an eCommerce website.
7. Display user-generated content:
What do customers trust above all? The reviews from other customers, of course! Another way for your eCommerce platform to trump over physical stores lies in the variety and number of user-generated content and reviews you can display for your products.
These add weight to your products and also optimizes your user journey. Happy and satisfied customers translate to higher conversions!
8. Scatter SEO-friendly keywords all across your website:
While we are talking about how to engage customers better on your website, you can not ignore the importance of getting them TO the website in the first place.
With SEO-friendly keywords for every page of your website, you can ensure that your site can attain maximum visibility. The first step to conversions is getting discovered first & the best e-commerce platforms need to acknowledge that!
9. Learn how to use colours to your advantage:
Colour psychology is critical in understanding and creating a website that can deliver results. You need to think like a visitor in order to ensure that you are optimizing your eCommerce website with colours that inspire conversions.
The colours also need to be in line with your brand’s corporate image and persona.
For instance, using a bright colour for CTA buttons go a long way in prompting the desired action.
10. Make it easy to navigate between categories:
Clearly, when you are creating your own eCommerce website, you are displaying many categories of products. Now navigating through these categories should be easy or else it becomes a glitch in your user journey.
When you are dealing with multiple categories, make sure that you are making it easy for your customers to navigate and filter through products as per their preference.
11. Make it a responsive website:
When customers shop, they do expect instant support. Creating a responsive website with live chat options can ensure that your visitors are engaging with your products and raises the chances of conversion greatly!
12. Seamless payment options:
Making checkout a breeze is one of the best ways of optimizing your user journey. The number of abandoned carts due to glitches in the payment process signals an alarming loss of business.
When you create an eCommerce website with seamless payment options, you maximize conversions and ensure retention.
A bonus tip: Use Content for Conversions:
As the world of eCommerce is rapidly evolving, recent trends are leaning largely towards using the power of content marketing for conversions. From the right content to conversions is seeming like an easy leap while statistics show that products that have informative blogs have a 67% higher chances of selling!
Informative blogs on products and services have been a major hit - especially among the young demographic. When you attach a blog to your product, it disseminates the right information, builds trust, and increases the rate of success of your eCommerce website!
Want to give your brand new eCommerce website the overhaul that it deserves? Use these tips to make a mark as one of the best eCommerce platforms with maximized conversions. Every step along the way from choosing the domain to setting up an easy payment setup is crucial in ensuring that your eCommerce website succeeds.
Are you ready to step into the eCommerce revolution yet?