Building a Successful E-Commerce Website | 8 Essential Steps

An e-commerce website is one of the best ways to get your retail store, or any kind of business, online. If you have finally decided it’s time to explore your digital presence, then this guide will help you to successfully create and promote your online store.

 

1- Use an E-Commerce Platform that Syncs Inventory with Other Channels

The first step is to find an e-commerce platform that offers responsive templates and lets you sync your inventory with other channels like Amazon, Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, Squarespace, etc.

Some may wonder if it’s better in the starting years to generate more sales from platforms like Amazon as compared to your own site. To get started, read this guide to sell on Amazon.

As per my experience, it is best to opt for a platform like BigCommerce that provides all the features to build your online store, such as fast templates, an omnichannel presence, full-featured CMS, and integration with POS.

 

2- Follow The Google Guidelines for Improved User Experience

You simply cannot be successful with your online business if you don’t follow Google guidelines. Here are some suggestions that every e-store must follow:

• Follow the Google Webmasters Guidelines as this will help Google find, index and rank your site in the search results. Having a good organic presence is crucial to your business’s success.
• Make your web pages fast across all devices. Use Page Speed Insights to check and optimize your site speed.
• Create proper AMP pages as people love to spend time on sites that load faster. This will enable you to have an improved user experience.
• Use relevant rich snippets in order to improve CTR and raise conversions.

• Add your website to Search Console and Analytics and use e-commerce tracking to generate relevant data about traffic and sales.

 

3- Keep an Eye on the Net Promoter Score and Use the RFM Model

Every e-store must use Net Promoter Score or NPS as a metric to measure the success of their products. NPS is a metric that tells you how many people are ready to recommend your product or service to others.

In order to generate an NPS score, conduct a monthly poll asking customers, “How likely are you to recommend [the company/website] to a friend?” The number of people who give a score from 9-10 are very satisfied customers who will be counted as “promoters,” whereas the number of people who give a score from 7-8 are satisfied customers who will be counted as “passives” and the number of people who give a score from 0-6 are unhappy customers and will be counted as “detractors.”

When you have the data, then you can simply use the below formula to calculate NPS:

NPS = %Promoters – %Detractors

Moreover, you must use the RFM model for analyzing the customer value for improved customer retention. RFM stands for Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value. Read this guide to build the perfect RFM model for your own business.

 

4- Build a Strong SEO Strategy

You can’t have a good online presence if you don’t focus on the SEO. In order to make your SEO strong, follow the below steps:

• Follow the SEO starter guide to keep your SEO roots strong.

• Identify relevant keywords using tools like Ubersuggest and keep your meta tags keyword friendly. Have action keywords in your metadata so it helps to improve CTR and your site gets ranked higher in the search results.
• Earn links for your e-store as links form the foundation of Google’s core ranking algorithm and the more high quality links you have to your store, the better your rankings will be.
• Identify micro-moments and present the best product to the user so that it helps satisfy the exact user demand.
• Add videos, images, and text that lets the user understand the USP of the product.
• Use proper CTA’s that persuades the user to take action.  

 

5- Opt For Behavioral Segmentation

Most webmasters opt for geographical segmentation but fewer go for behavioral segmentation. One of the best segmentation types is segmenting the users on the basis of their behavior.

The first step in this type of segmentation is to create user profiles on the basis of:

• User behavior data collected via analytics
• The browsing history and cookies
• The search history and purchase history
• Social data
• Login details

Tools like Omniconvert offers a specialized traffic segmentation engine that lets you implement behavioral segmentation easily.

 

6- Advertise Online and Get More Subscribers Via Email Marketing

Once you have your site ready and have added proper tracking codes to measure the success of your marketing activity, it is time to get started with online advertising like Adwords and email marketing.

Adwords is one of the best platforms to generate traffic and leads for your new online store because SEO takes time and your site will not get displayed in the search results immediately.

Moreover, opt for email marketing as e-stores get a majority of repeated sales by running effective email campaigns.

 

7- Use the Power of HARO

HARO stands for Help a Reporter Online. This is one of the best platforms to secure valuable media coverage for free. You can pitch your brand story to several journalists and bloggers. The ones who are interested in featuring your brand or your product will contact you and you will get valuable media coverage for free.

 

8- Take Help from Niche Influencers

Influencer marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways for a new business to get enough brand publicity and generate sales. A new form of influencer marketing is micro influencer marketing that uses niche influencers.

Under this form of marketing, you partner up with bloggers, social media stars, or famous local personalities in your area and ask them to promote your services or products. When they start doing so, you receive referrals and leads immediately. Micro influencers are easy to approach and they don’t cost much. You can easily find relevant micro influencers using platforms such as Deep Social.

Take the help of the above strategies to successfully create and promote your online store. Always remember that customer retention is an important part of the e-commerce marketing strategy so do not always look to get more customers, instead concentrate more on retaining your existing customers.

We hope you enjoyed this promoted piece as much as we did!