Improve your e-commerce website in 2024 (part 2)
In the first part of how to improve your e-commerce website in 2024, we discussed the first 3 steps in improving your e-commerce website this year, such as having a responsive and immersive e-commerce website, without compromising website speed and loading time.
Without further ado, here is the second part and the remaining 4 steps to start making this year the best one yet in terms of e-commerce performance:
4. Make your website easy to navigate
5. Make your website easy to use
6. Get the data!
7. Get a fresh perspective
4. Make your website easy to navigate
As detailed in this Optasy article, being able to navigate around your e-commerce site with ease is vital. The user should easily access different parts of the website with as less clicks as possible.
This can start with an understandable and clear menu, that separates brand content from product pages and details special ecommerce offers when need be. From a brand experience point of view, this can mean creating an immersive yet clear mega menu on the desktop verison and a simpler hamburger menu on the mobile version.
Byredo: e-commerce website’s mega menu on desktop
Byredo: e-commerce website’s hamburger menu on mobile
Another point is to have clear and distinguished call to actions to initiate clicks and conversion:
A good Call To Action example from Skims: clear and visually distinguishable from the rest of the website’s content with a clear initiative or .. well: call to action
Adding a search bar tool is also important, as users who come to your e-commerce website for the first time may often use it to find a specific item they are looking for.
Search bar example from The Ordinary
Search bar example from The Ordinary.
Tip: Having an interactive search bar with either:
recommended products available at the launch of the search bar
showing products as you type in your search quiery is a great functionality for new users that don’t know your brand yet.
5. Make your website easy to use
To differenciate from the last point, making a website easy to use means reducing the number of clicks that it takes a user to convert. The more optimized the conversion funnel, or the less clicks it takes a user from discovering a product to finalizing a purchase = more purchases!
For example: you might be tempted to add links to branding pages on your product page to illustrate the product better, but if your website visitors click away from the product page, they may not complete their purchase.
Tip: One way to reduce the amount of clicks it takes to complete a purchase, is to add a quick “add to cart” or “quick purchase button” in the hover over, as shown on the Initio e-shop:
As you hover over the image, the “quick purchase button” appears
You can then proceed to choosing the size (in this case there is only one) and add the product to your cart.
This way, when a user visits your product page for the first time without converting, they can convert faster on their second visit when they are ready to purchase.
Tip: Adding a “recently viewed” section to your e-commerce site is also practical, especially if you have a large product catalog with tens if not hundreds of product references.
The main idea is to make the conversion as easy as possible with as less clicks as possible.
Running constant test purchases on both desktop and mobile are a great way to check your e-commerce website usability. And if you can get feedback from customer service, for example about users that were confused about the way a commercial offer was formulated - even better!
6. Get the data!
Tracking e-commerce KPIs is vital and while I write a post on e-commerce KPIs in particular, this post is about the links in tracking data between GA4 and your CMS & why it’s important.
As written by Search Engine Land, importing GA4 data into Google Ads is important to optimize SEA campaigns and improve their performance.
Tip: Compare the data you get from GA4 and your e-commerce backoffice or CMS. If there are big differences in conversions, for example GA4 reporting only a section of the purchases that your CMS reports, you might have a tracking problem. You can then work with a tracking specialist or web analyst to improve the situation.
7. Get a fresh perspective
Every time you test out a new landing page, campaign or other similar action, put yourself in the place of someone who:
has never heard of your brand
visits your website for the first time & has limited patience
is looking for a specific item
doesn’t know what they are looking for (yet!)
This means when looking at and analysing your website, take into consideration loading time, landing page, first impressions, images, CTAs from the perspective of someone who goes on your website for the first time.
And yes, you should also look at your website through the eyes of someone who has heard of your brand and provide them with new and exciting content every once in a while. But when looking at the new users vs returning users rate on Google Analytics, the new users rate is very high.
Tip: when naming products, don’t forget to provide general describing keywords. For example: you sell a white linen midi-length dress and the name of the dress is LUCY. A person who has never heard of your brand will not find too much information if your product is just named “Lucy Dress”. If you name your product “Lucy midi-length linen dress”, it contains a lot more information for someone who doesn’t know your brand.
Another tip is to exchange with your customer service and pay attention when any feedback regarding website offers and user experience comes up.
This was the part 2 on how to improve your e-commerce website in 2024:
4. Make your website easy to navigate
5. Make your website easy to use
6. Get the data!
7. Get a fresh perspective
Which step was your favourite?
Don’t forget to read part 1 of this article.