Selling online requires a blended mix of old, traditional real-world sales techniques and modern, online strategies to make the most of the potential opportunity which is presented by establishing an online store. The barriers to entry are minimized because platforms such as WordPress allow you to set up for free, and if you do wish to customize fully, the set-up costs are minimal.

In this brief piece we shall cover six common mistakes when you are planning your WordPress ecommerce site.

Tip One: No Contact Information Included

Make sure your customers can make contact with you in a variety of ways and not just online. Some customers may be unsure that you are a genuine outfit and wish to connect with you in order to convince themselves that you are bona fide and can be trusted. Make sure you prominently display a telephone contact number along with fax, email and physical real-world address and include a contact form.

Tip Two: Bad Photos

Using poor quality photos and images is a big mistake – people see these and usually, immediately abandon the site. You only have a split-second to persuade a shopper you are the site to do business with – don’t skimp on the images and make sure they are of excellent quality.

Tip Three: Old Information

Keep your content fresh and interesting and never rest on your laurels. Visitors want fresh and up-to-date information, not last year’s, last month’s or even last week’s throw away offers and bargains – they can get that just as well on Main Street. What attracts visitors and encourages return visits is topical and relevant content which is kept fresh – search engines love this too!

Tip Four: Disabling the Back Button

Some marketers do this because they think it keeps visitors on a page or makes them move forward in the sales process.

No it doesn’t – it just annoys people. Don’t engage in these petty tactics with your potential customers.

Tip Five: Slow Speed of Websites

If your website is slow in loading, you must investigate and find out why this is the case. Visitors will not hang around while your hosting server cranks out the juice – they simply will hit the back browser button and move on to the next site. Whatever the reasons for the speed, it must be fast enough to satisfy your visitors and again, Google has started to take website speed into account with rankings in its search engine, so slow is out and fast is in.

Tip Six: No Search Engine of Breadcrumbs

If you have a large site then you are going to need some form of a site search facility so visitors can find what they want very quickly. If you have a simple site which lends itself to a hierarchy, e.g. homepage > product range page > product, then you should look at installing breadcrumbs which is simply a small, one line of text which shows where the user is in the site. Users getting lost in your site simply results in them navigating away to another competitor – make the user’s life simple and convenient.

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Category: Internet
Keywords: ecommerce, WordPress, ecommerce websites, selling online