Spring Into Ecommerce Success with Help from Your Web Hosting Provider

Your web host is your best friend in the ecommerce business.

It’s time for spring cleaning so dust off the counter, clear out the clutter and sweep the doorstep. If you had a brick and mortar store, the last thing you would do is make your customers run an obstacle course just to get to your front door. You wouldn’t have dusty shelves or crowded shelves. The service would be speedy, courteous and user friendly. Why should your online store be any different?

 It’s the season of renewal. Nobody wants to spend a beautiful spring day clustered inside a mall or store, which gives ecommerce an edge if online stores do a little spring cleaning to make sure their sites are fresh and user friendly. 

Here are some spring cleaning suggestions you might want to consider:

• Banish the Barriers. You wouldn’t make visitors to a brick and mortar store step over and around ladders or climb through tunnels to get to the front door. When you make your website difficult to access you are sending a message to your customers and it isn’t the one you want to send.  Many ecommerce site owners don’t realize that the website that loads instantly in their office may take forever on a home computer or it may not be accessible at all.  Talk to your web host to make sure that your site is easily accessed and user friendly no matter where you customers are signing on.   

• Clear The Clutter. Studies show that people do not READ web pages, they SCAN them. Make sure your key messages ring out loud and clear. Often you have only a few seconds to convince the surfer to linger on your site. Don’t overwhelm your customers with pages that have so much content and so many graphics that they can’t focus on spending money with you. Keep it eye-catching, simple and easy to use. How do you know if your site has too much clutter? Ask your customers. Include surveys on your site and keep them short and simple. Encourage customers to add personal comments. To keep your response rate high, give participants a free gift like an ebook or an ad in your ezine.

• Freshen The Forms.  Are the forms on your site functioning the way they were meant to function? Are they current and easy to use? The last thing you want is to lose hundreds or thousands of subscribers because a sign-up form stopped functioning.

• Curb Cart Complaints. Slow and complicated shopping carts are responsible for an estimated $25 billion in lost sales. Most people who abandon purchases on the internet do so when they are in the shopping cart section. (Ouch!) They leave because of slow loading pages. In other words, even when the home page and the sales pages are operating at top speed, customers will still get frustrated and leave you if they encounter slow loading or failed shopping carts.  Make sure the carts on your site are functioning quickly and efficiently.  The last thing you want to do is lose your customers just as they are reaching for their credit cards.

• Untangle The Testimonials. Depending on the product or service you are selling, it might be a good idea to put testimonials across the front of the homepage. Instead of making them hard to find, pull out testimonials and sprinkle them throughout your site.   Make sure your testimonials reflect the substantive way that your product/service has helped your customers.

• Hug Your Host. Your web host is your best friend in the ecommerce business. Give your web hosting company a clear picture of what you want to accomplish this quarter and include them in your business plan.  Make sure the web hosting company you choose is reliable and has superior technical support. Check out the company’s history and ask for references. An ethical web hosting company will not be offended that you are asking questions. In fact, they will respect you for it. Make sure you select a host who can easily provide additional support as your online store grows and prospers.    

With a little effort you can freshen your site in a way that pleases your customers and heralds this season of renewal. It is very often the little touches that turn web visitors into loyal customers.  So get out the broom and get to work!