eCommerce development takes A LOT of time and hard work, so let’s get straight to the point. If your in-house development team needs additional help with building a website or if you’re interested in learning more about eCommerce, then read on. However, if your team doesn’t have the resources or skills to build a website that’s responsive, reliable, and convincing, don’t worry. That’s why we have written this blog post for you.
In this post, we’ll share some amazing tips and fundamental steps for developing an eCommerce website for your business. Let’s get started.
1. Buy Your Business Domain
After finalizing on what you want to sell online, whether it’s a product or service, one of the first steps is to buy a business domain name. A domain name is the name of your website. If you’re completely new, a domain is what comes after “www.” in a web address. Getting a domain also gives you access to a professional email.
A domain name can be purchased either at the start of your development or when your website is ready to be launched. However, we recommend buying it earlier to avoid losing your creative domain name later on.
2. Create a Solid Content Marketing Strategy
When developing an eCommerce website, it’s important to consider how you’re going to market your content. We recommended creating a few buyer personas to understand your target audience. Analyze their demographics, their buying behaviors, why they’re shopping on your website, etc. In eCommerce development, it’s critical to shape your marketing strategy with your store’s design and align your marketing efforts, creative assets, and technology stack with your business goals.
3. Branding, Branding, and Branding
Gucci, McDonald’s, Nike. What do all of these brands have in common?
They build strong connections with their customers based on how they positioned themselves through branding. Consumers feel emotionally connected to these brands and keep buying over time, being loyal to them 一 and this attachment is created through branding.
Like physical stores, eCommerce stores also have to be recognizable. Use a professional logo, color scheme, and tone of voice to stand out. Each of these branding aspects builds brand personality and affects the user experience. Additionally, storytelling is highly important for any eCommerce store. It shows that there are humans behind the company, not some AI chatbot. Tell your customers who you are, share your unique story, and why your website exists to give it a sense of humanity.
4. Use the Right eCommerce Platform
There are many different types of eCommerce platforms to choose from. It’s either SaaS, on-premise, or a hosted platform. When you work with professional developers, they’ll always prefer SaaS platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce over anything, because you don’t need to maintain the software yourself.
Both Shopify and BigCommerce maintain their servers, run upgrades, and respond to issues so that merchants don’t have to. Additionally, they don’t take much time for development, compared to development on on-premise and hosted platforms. SaaS platforms can integrate seamlessly with ERP and CRM systems.
5. Use Proven SEO Practices
Once your eCommerce store is launched, it means everyone is gonna see it. However, if they’re unable to find it, what good is your website? More than half of your traffic is gonna come through organic search, which means you need to use proven SEO practices for increased visibility. Your first steps to begin with are writing detailed product descriptions, performing deep keyword research, and adding structured data with keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions.
6. Use a Reliable Shipping Software
If your website sells products online (rather than promoting your brand’s services through an eCommerce website), you must invest in software to ensure that your website’s shipping process runs smoothly. Backend tasks, such as importing and printing shipping labels, managing inventory and orders from ERPs and marketplaces, and sending tracking information through APIs, are crucial for providing a positive customer experience.
7. Invest in a Site Search Tool
Using an eCommerce site search tool can be extremely useful. A site search bar allows online shoppers to easily find what they’re looking for on your website and returns instant search results. We recommend investing in a tool that allows you to fine-tune merchandising rules and provide personalized product recommendations based on each customer’s behavior.
If you’re hiring an eCommerce development expert, ask them to use tools like Searchspring to streamline your merchandising, product recommendations, narrowing down search filters, sorting options, and report on shopping behavior, performance, and other metrics.
8. Use a Customer Support & Live Chat Tool
Did you know that 73% of customers believe that a company’s respect for their time is the most important aspect of a good customer experience? When eCommerce websites use a live chat tool to assist their customers, it allows them to answer their questions and provide a better experience. So make sure to use live managing chat across multiple channels, including eCommerce sites, email, and social media.
Conclusion
From the front end to the back end, there are many more factors that go into eCommerce development. To begin with, keep these top eight factors in your checklist when building your website. We hope this article helps you understand all the aspects of eCommerce development. Let us know if there are any questions you have. We’d love to help.
