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How to Find an Affordable Website Builder

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Find an Affordable Website Builder appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve had a great idea for a website for a while and you’re finally ready to take the first steps to getting it built. Congratulations! But you’re a little worried about figuring out how to get started and, even more importantly, how to pay for building a new website. The good news is that you no longer have to choose between spending a lot of money on a professional website designer or learning how to code to do it yourself. You can build a website all on your own with limited to no web design skills by using a website builder. Even if your budget is especially limited, you can still find an inexpensive website builder that’s within your price range. Should I Use a Free Website Builder? Before we get into how to find a good affordable website builder, you may notice in your early research that there are actually some free website builders on the market. Even better than cheap ones, right? Not necessarily. Any company that offers a website builder has to make money in some way, so free website builders usually have trade offs or limitations that make them less useful than paying for an affordable website builder. There are a few common forms this takes: Ads – If they’re not making money from you directly, a website builder company may make their money by serving ads on your site. That could make your site look more cluttered and tacky, and distract your visitors from the messaging you want them paying attention to. Shared branding – In addition to serving ads, some website builders treat your website as a way to promote their brand. That could mean their logo somewhere on your page, or even right there in your URL, which would look something like yourname.theirname.com. This sets your own branding back by making it hard for visitors to differentiate you from the website builder’s brand and see your website as having a memorable, unique identity. Limited pages – This is a common limitation with free plans. In some cases, the most you can build on a free plan is a one-page website. That doesn’t give you much room to work with. Limited bandwidth – This is another big one. The amount of bandwidth you have affects how long your site takes to load and is especially an issue on sites that have media elements like audio, video, social media displays, or animation, which require more bandwidth to load. Visitors won’t wait around for a slow site to load, so if your website builder doesn’t offer enough or unlimited bandwidth, you’ll lose visitors because of it. Important features require a paid upgrade – For a lot of the companies that offer a free website builder plan, it’s a way to get your foot through the door so they can, eventually, convince you to upgrade to one of their paid plans. They do this by limiting the features in the free plan so that you’re likely to realize over time that actually you do need one of the paid plans. If none of that sounds like an issue for you, keep in mind that there’s still a catch: for most of these free website builders, if you create a website and decide down the line you want to switch to a different website builder, you can’t take what you’ve already built with you. You’ll have to start from scratch. If your website’s URL is a subdomain of the website builder’s URL (e.g. the yoursite.theirsite.com situation we described earlier), any visibility you’ve built for your initial website will be lost as well in the move to a new URL. In other words, if your website is a personal passion project and you’re sure you won’t ever care about personal branding, ecommerce website options, or other brands’ ads on your site, then a free website builder could make sense. For everyone else, you’ll be better off starting with the right affordable website builder so you can stick with it as you grow.   How Much Do Affordable Website Builders Actually Cost? Paying for a good website builder doesn’t have to break your budget. The most affordable website builders cost in the range of $4-$25 a month . Most companies offer several web builder packages , so pay attention to how the costs and features compare for the different plans. If there are any features you’re okay without now, but you may want in coming years, be aware now what the cost of an upgrade will be. You don’t want to pick the option that seems the cheapest now, only to pay more over the long-term when you need to upgrade to a business website and switch out your basic plan. Also pay attention to the deals you sign. In many cases, a lower cost comes with a longer-term commitment. That could be fine if you do enough research going in to be sure of your choice, but you don’t want to feel stuck with a website builder you don’t like because you agreed to a three-year commitment to save a couple of bucks a month. What Features Should I Look for in an Inexpensive Website Builder? When you’re weighing your options, be sure to consider the features each website builder has to offer, not just the cost. The cheapest plans may be missing key features you need, especially if you run a business website, and paying just a little bit more could get a website builder with all the functional benefits you need both now and in the long term. While there are many benefits of using a simple website builder, it’s still important that you outline your future site goals so you choose the best website builder plan for your future. Here are some of the top features to consider when browsing different website builders. Necessary Features To start, there are a few features you definitely don’t want to skimp on. Consider these a necessity when perusing your options. A website builder that doesn’t offer them won’t provide what you need for a successful website. Ease of use – If you have to spend hours learning how to use a new website builder, then it’s not providing a great value—even if it didn’t cost much. Your time is worth something too. Look for a website builder that boasts drag-and-drop functionality and intuitive editing tools. Ideally, you should be able to jump right in and start building your website the same day you purchase. Educational resources – While a good website builder shouldn’t require you to spend much time learning the ropes, a good library of educational resources (tutorials and articles) will ensure that you know all the different features available, are able to make the most of them, and have access to easy answers whenever you have a question. Customer Support – Just as importantly, any time you run into confusion and need assistance from an actual human being, you should be able to trust someone will be available and helpful at the moment you need them. Check that your website builder offers customer service and has a good reputation for it. Website Templates – Building a website with a website builder usually starts with design templates. By having a well designed starting point, all the other changes you make come much easier. And having a good looking template to start with really makes a difference in the quality of the end result. Look for a website builder that offers multiple templates for you to choose from, and you’ll have no problem creating a beautiful site . Mobile-friendly compatibility – People now do more of their browsing on mobile devices than on their computers, which is exactly why you need a mobile responsive website. If your website does not have a responsive design, you’ll lose visitors. Plain and simple. For a website that all your visitors can interact with, go with a website builder that makes it easy to make your website mobile friendly. Nice-to-Have Features Along with the essentials, there’s a good chance you’ll want your website builder to offer some useful additional options. These won’t necessarily be required for all websites, but they’ll be important for some to have and useful for others. Multiple pages – Before you choose a website builder, consider how many pages you’ll want your website to have. And not just right now, will you need room for it to grow in the months and years to come? Some of the most affordable website builder plans put a limit on the number of pages you can create. That will be fine for some sites, but become a big problem for others. Custom domain – Most website builders that you pay for will offer the option of having a custom domain. With many, you’ll need to pay separately for the domain name, but some will include it in the cost. Confirm if you’ll be able to use a custom domain at all, and whether or not you should anticipate it costing extra. SEO (search engine optimization) features – Creating a website is one thing, getting people to see and interact with it is another. If you care about people finding your website, then you should start thinking about SEO now. Check for helpful SEO features that make it easy to perform on-site optimization for your pages (customizing the fields that matter to Google, such as your URL, title, and image tags). Media features – Will your website ever include media like audio or video? If so, make sure the website builder you choose is set up for the bandwidth those feature require and make it easy to load them to your site. Security features – Hackers abound, which is why you must protect your website from hackers at all costs. If your website isn’t secure, you risk hackers taking it over or stealing sensitive information your customers provide you. Security features like an SSL certificate or compatibility with security hardware are crucial if you’ll be accepting payment information through your ecommerce store, and are still useful to have if you’re not. E-commerce functionality – Will you be using your website to sell items on an online store? If so, a website builder that allows you to add a shopping cart and secure checkout process is a must.   Your costs when investing in a website builder will have a lot to do with which of these features you need, and which you can easily live without. Even if you need some advanced features though, you can still save money when looking for an inexpensive website builder. 4 Ways to Save Money When Investing in a Website Builder If looking at your options still has you worried about the costs of getting the website builder you need, there are some potential ways to make the money you spend go further. 1. Only pay for what you need. If your website will be fairly simple and you don’t expect much traffic from day one (most people won’t get a lot of traffic right away), then you don’t need to invest in a high-level website builder plan with lots of different features. Figure out what features you actually need now, and find the most affordable website builder that offers those. But do also consider the features you anticipate needing in the coming years as you grow, and consider the cost of future upgrades when making your decision. The most affordable option for the long term may be different than the one that’s cheapest for right now, and you may be better off spending a little more now to save later. 2. Look for bundles or packages. Some website builders include other services you’ll need in the price. For example, HostGator’s website builder comes with free web hosting —something every website requires to go live on the web. Web hosting is another monthly cost, so saving that money pays off for you in the long term. Similarly, if a website builder package allows you to register a domain name for free or includes free ecommerce features, that could save you money on services you’d be paying extra for anyways. Pay attention to what’s included in the website builder packages you consider before making a final decision. 3. Wait for specials. Like any other type of business, the companies that provide website builders often offer specials and sales. Making your purchase at the right time could earn you a discount. Often these fall at the times of year that sales are common for other companies, like Black Friday, Labor Day, or  Memorial Day. If you have your eye on a particular website builder, or a few, sign up for the company’s email list so you’ll be alerted if the company’s plans go on sale. Many website builders offer referral or affiliate programs , so you may be able to score a discount at any time of year if you have a friend that’s a current customer or you learn about the website builder from an affiliate who provides a discount code. And you can save money on your renewals over time by taking advantage of those programs yourself and sharing your discount code with others. 4. Pay for a couple of years upfront. Many website builders offer a different monthly price to customers that sign up for a long-term commitment. If you’re not entirely sure about the website builder you choose, this option could be risky. But if you’re confident you’ll be sticking with your website builder for years to come, then agreeing to be a customer for one, two, or three years and paying upfront can save you a considerable percentage versus paying month to month and reserving the right to cancel at any time. Get Started with an Affordable Website Builder You could easily spend weeks studying up on all the different features and options available in different website builders. Or you can cut the process short by checking out HostGator’s website builder to see if it matches everything you need. If you have any questions about how it all works and what’s included, our support team is available 24/7 to provide answers. And you won’t have to worry about finding and buying web hosting separately, as it comes included (and from one of the most well respected web hosting companies out there). Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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15 Steps to Proper New Website SEO

Posted on August 27, 2018 by Hosting

The post 15 Steps to Proper New Website SEO appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your 15-Step SEO Guide for New Websites The best time to start thinking about SEO for your website is when you’re just starting out.  You can get things started on the right foot and save yourself some trouble later. If you’re in the early stages of building or launching a website , there are a few main steps you should take now to get your new website SEO into place.   1. Choose Your Domain Name Carefully. Domain names are one of the ranking factors search engines look at to figure out what a page is about. If it’s possible to choose a domain name that’s relevant, easy to remember, and incorporates the main keyword you want to rank for, that’s ideal. It’s not something you should force. For example, if your business is called Howard’s Deli and the domain www.howards-deli.com is available, that’s probably a better pick than www.egg-salad-sandwiches.com . That’s likely to cause confusion when the customers that already know you try to find the site. There are a few good tools that can help you brainstorm domain name ideas based on what’s available, so you don’t set your sights on a name you can’t have. 2. Select a Reputable Web Hosting Provider. Google has been upfront about site speed being a ranking factor for SEO. Visitors are impatient and expect webpages to load within seconds (or less), so Google tries to only deliver results that will satisfy that requirement. While you have a number of strategies you can try to make your website faster over time, one of the best steps to take from day one is choosing a web hosting provider that can deliver consistent speeds.   3. Perform Keyword Research. Keyword research is a big part of SEO. In order to do a lot of the other things on this list effectively, you need to first have a clear idea of the main terms and subject areas you want to focus your SEO efforts on. A number of SEO tools provide keyword suggestions and data on the amount of traffic and competition you can expect to deal with for each keyword. Most of them will cost you a subscription fee, but you can use Google’s Keyword Planner for free to get started:  When choosing your keywords, be sure to be realistic. SEO is competitive and a brand new website isn’t in a good position to compete for popular, broad terms. Get specific and find long-tail keywords to target. For example, something like “ east chicago modern art sellers ” is more attainable than just “ art sellers .”   4. Plan Out Your Site’s Architecture. If you’re starting with a simple site that just has a few pages, this may not seem all that important right now. But it’s still smart to plan out your site architecture in advance so you have a structure in place as you go. For most websites, your site architecture should have a pyramid structure. Your homepage is at the top, with the next most important pages (typically the ones that go on your main menu) right below that. Underneath those, you’ll add any subcategories and individual pages that fall within them. When you plan your site architecture in advance, you’ll make sure your website is organized to give priority to the most important pages in terms of how easy they are for visitors to find, and you’ll make it easier on visitors to navigate between pages on the site to find what they need.   5. Use a Mobile-Friendly Design. Many of the SEO algorithm updates Google has announced in recent years have been all about mobile. As more and more people turn to their phones to do most of their browsing, users and search engines alike expect websites to provide an intuitive mobile experience. When you’re building a new website, it’s imperative that you make it mobile friendly .   6. Target Primary Keywords for Each Page. Your initial keyword research can help you gain an overall picture of the language to use when building your website, but it’s also good practice to choose a target keyword (or a couple) for each individual web page on your site. To avoid competing against yourself, choose unique ones for each page.   7. Optimize Page URLs. Customize the URL of every page on your website. To the best of your ability, you want each URL to be easy to remember, communicate what’s on the page and, where possible, use your target keyword for the page. Your site architecture should also help you create a structure for your URLs that provide the visitor information on their positioning in the site. For example, if one of your top-level categories is Shoes and a subcategory is Boots, a product page might look something like   www.your-website.com/shoes/boots/product   8. Optimize Title Tags. The title tag is part part of the website Google looks at to learn what the page is about, which makes it another good spot to use your target keyword. Try to keep your title tag short – Google will only display 50-60 characters on the search engine results page and even less of the title tag will show up in the tab at the top of your browser. And don’t keyword stuff here. Using your primary keyword once should do the trick.   9. Optimize Images. Every image you use on a web page provides a few additional opportunities for optimizing your page for your main keywords. Customize the name of each image to include the keyword you’re targeting (e.g. primarykeyword.jpg) and update the alt text on the page with your keyword as well. If you have a WordPress site, then you can easily update the alt text in the media editor when you load the image: If not, you can update the alt text in the html of the page. The html should look something like    10. Optimize Headings. When writing for the web, headings are a good tool to better organize your copy so that it’s easy to read and scannable for your visits. As an added bonus, your headings are another signal to Google on what your page is about. Strategically include your target keywords in the headings on your web page – but only where it makes intuitive sense to do so. You don’t want to force words in if they sound strange to the reader, but if you can use the keywords in a way that makes sense, do so.   11. Optimize text on the page. You have to be careful here because search engines notice keyword stuffing and your website can be penalized for it. But as long as you only use your target keywords (and relevant synonyms) in contexts where they make sense then it’s a good practice to incorporate them into the text on the page. In most cases, as long as you’ve chosen target keywords that are relevant to what the page is about (which is important!), then this part should come naturally.   12. Write Unique Meta Descriptions. While meta descriptions don’t directly influence rankings, they do play a role in your click-through rates from the search results. When a person sees your web page in the search results, they’ll see your meta description below the page title: Any words in your description that match the terms they searched will be in bold, helping draw their attention to your result. Since they’re trying to decide which of the results to choose, you can use this text to make a case for why your page is worth the click. Always write a relevant meta description for every page on your website. Try to incorporate your keyword(s) for the page naturally in the description to hopefully end up with some bolded text on the search results page (as with “ cloud hosting ” in the example above), and use the space to provide a brief description about what’s valuable on the page.   13. Link to Other Pages on Your Website. Internal linking gives you a way to signal to Google what your page is about through the anchor text you use. If you’re not familiar with the term, the anchor text refers to the words that are hyperlinked. Google sees the words used each time there’s a link to a web page and takes that as information about what’s on the page. Internal links also give you a way to show the search engines how your different pages are connected and drive traffic from one page on the website to another. Since you ideally want your visitors to stick around and spend some time on your website (which is also good for SEO), providing helpful internal links is a good way to make that happen.   14. Submit Your Sitemap to Google. Before your web pages can show up on the search engine results page, Google has to crawl your website. Usually Google’s crawlers will make their way to your website over time even if you don’t do anything, but you can speed things up by submitting your sitemap through Google Search Console . You can directly communicate to Google that your website exists and tell them all the specific pages on it.   15. Create an SEO Plan for the Future. If everything on this list already sounds like a lot, you’ll have to get used to it because you’re just getting started. SEO is a long-term, ongoing process. To show up in the search engines when people are looking for the information or products you provide, you have to put some real work into providing consistent value on your website and building authority around the web. Start on your plan for long-term SEO sooner rather than later. Consider if you can learn the ropes and do the work on your own, or if you need to hire skilled SEO professionals to help. Whichever route you choose, it’s important that you decide to make it a priority and take the long view on making progress. SEO is slow and the sooner you start, the better off you’ll be. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Add Google Fonts to Your WordPress Website

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Hosting

The post How to Add Google Fonts to Your WordPress Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . Is Your Site Using the Right Font? Thanks to the growing number of mobile internet users, finding the right font has become a big project for site designers, publishers, and retailers. The BBC and the Guardian have recently debuted new bespoke fonts designed to be easier to read on phones—and save the companies money on licenses for commercial fonts. Even if you don’t have a flagship-media budget, there are ways you can update your site fonts for better readability, a more consistent appearance across browsers and devices, and faster page-load times to help your SEO. What Fonts Are Best for Your Site? Whether you’re a design fan or someone who likes to consider all the options, it’s really easy to fall down a rabbit hole of fonts. There are thousands of open-source fonts that anyone can download and use, and thousands more available for purchase. Because you want fonts that make your website easier to use and faster, it’s probably best to limit yourself to Google Fonts , a repository of open-source fonts that are easy to read on small screens and which cache quickly to speed up page load times. At this writing, Google Fonts offers a mere 848 font families, 823 of which work for English-language copy. To narrow down your 800-plus choices, you’ll need to apply some basic font choice principles , like those described by Janie Kliever at Canva. Two to three fonts is the ideal number for most sites. If you stick with only one, your site may look sterile and visitors may have a hard time figuring out which text is a headline and which is your main copy. More than two or three fonts can make the site look chaotic and amateurish. Choose fonts that have some contrast so that they create a visual hierarchy. For example, you could use a bold or serif font for your headlines so they stand out and a simple sans serif font for body copy so it’s easy to scan, even on a smartphone. Google Design gives a broader overview of typography, fonts, and how to find the best fonts for your site in their Choosing Web Fonts: A Beginner’s Guide . Among the things the authors say you should consider are: Are you designing your site for the long-term or short-term? Long-term projects often need font families with many style options. How long will your text blocks be? Even on-screen, serif fonts are a good idea if you’ll feature five or more paragraphs at a time. What size will your type be? Simpler fonts are easier to read at small sizes, but they may not stand out enough in headlines. Will your visitors translate your site into other languages? If so, you’ll need to choose a font family that supports multiscript characters so those translations display properly. The guide recommends a few fonts for specific situations to help you get started. You can also browse the entire Google Fonts library here .   Finding Google Fonts for Your Site When you’re ready to explore Google Fonts, it can be a bit of a challenge to navigate the somewhat clunky directory to find the right typefaces. As an example, let’s walk through looking for a serif font to use for headlines on a site for a petsitting business—something bold and businesslike but a bit playful. In the Google Fonts search filter sidebar, you can select the serif category and decide how you want the results presented—by age, popularity, or alphabetized by name. Under languages, you can narrow your results to typefaces that support English by selecting ‘Latin’ (confusing, but we do use the Latin alphabet). Next, you can check the boxes to open slider menus and fine-tune your options for number of styles (variations on the font, like lighter, bolder, or italic), thickness, slant, and width. By choosing ‘serif’ and ‘Latin,’ you get 174 options for your petsitting website headline font. Bree Serif looks like it could work. To see how your copy will look, you can replace the dummy copy with your text by inserting the cursor, clearing out the dummy text, and entering ‘Our Petsitting Service Menu.’ (You can also click ‘apply to all fonts’ so we don’t have to retype it.) You can use the slider menu to resize the text anywhere from 8 to 112 points. You can also use the dropdown menu on the left to see how your copy looks in a sentence or paragraph or the alphabet and numerals in that font. Clicking the + button adds Bree Serif to a tray at the bottom, where you can collect all the fonts you want to use. When you’re ready to install them, click the black tray bar and you’ll see HTML and CSS code to embed the font in your site. (More on this below.) You can download as many fonts as you like, but Google recommends that you don’t download everything “just in case,” because of the time and space it would take. How Can You Use Google Fonts On Your Site? If you’re comfortable adding code to your site, you can use the Get Started with Google Fonts API guide to using stylesheets to specify the font families and styles you want on your site. You’ll also find out how to drastically reduce the font file size for headings and logos by optimizing font requests. For anyone who’s not comfortable editing their own site code, there are several plugins for WordPress that can install and manage Google Fonts for you. One of the most popular options, with more than 300,000 installations, is Easy Google Fonts . With this plugin, you can avoid editing the code for your site’s theme and you get a menu of all Google Fonts without having to manually select and download any of them. The plugin adds a typography menu in the WordPress Customize section of the dashboard, where you can select font families, styles, color, and other text elements for each type of header and text in your site theme. You can see a realtime preview of what each change you make will look like; visitors to your site will only see your changes if you save and publish them. To change text elements that aren’t part of your theme’s default controls, Easy Google Fonts allows you to create your own font controls that will show up in the Typography menu. After you choose the Google Fonts you want to use and make sure they look right in the preview, you’re ready to save and publish to update your site.   Update Your Fonts, Upgrade Your Site By updating your site’s fonts, you’re not only giving it an updated look, you’re also building a better user experience. Faster-loading fonts that are designed for on-screen readability are the key to keeping visitors coming back, especially as more people do their browsing on their phones. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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5 Tips for Optimizing Your Landing Pages

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Hosting

The post 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Landing Pages appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your homepage is a landing page, your product features page is a landing page, even the pricing page is a landing page. Any page that features call-to-action buttons to signup as a customer can be considered a landing page, but certainly others are more concise and specific than the rest. Typically it is the product’s main feature page that gets the most optimization care, because that’s the page that drives the most sales, based on the fact that it has an actionable intention. Landing page optimization is all about User Experience and User Interface, although our product can be amazing and solve a lot of problems for our customers, a poorly executed landing page will not drive the same amount of leads that a fully optimized landing page would. And what is the criteria for a good landing page anyway? 1. Setup an analytics platform Google Analytics is a good start, it will give you all the necessary insight about your visitors and some of their demographic information, but for more concise analytics it’s best to look into specifically built marketing solutions that can analyze data such as user live interaction, their browsing history on your landing pages, as well as their potential previous interactions with your landing page. All of which will give you a much more broad and clear understanding of how your landing page is being used. 2. Optimize for sales There’s little to no value in optimizing a landing page for search engines, if the landing page doesn’t perform well in front of live visitors. Search optimization is only a means of acquiring new and organic visitors, what happens next is their live experience with the landing page that you’re offering. If the experience is poor, so will be the number of sales. The best way to go about optimizing for sales is to understand basic principles of UX and UI, GoodUI is one such resource that offers several dozens of concise User Experience and User Interface tips that will let you optimize your landing pages for maximum conversion potential. 3. Remember the basics “What problem are you trying to solve with your service and whose problem is that exactly? The answers to these questions will help you identify who your target audience is. And once you’ve found that out, you then need to spend every waking moment researching on what exactly your audience wants.” – Fahad Muhammad Your first landing page will be bad, there’s no other way to go about it. Mistakes will be made, and changes will need to be done on almost daily basis, until some time a solid landing page forms and you can begin to start testing its performance. However, we have to emphasize the fact that all landing pages share common traits, components that make a landing page what it is, and without these components, the customer can easily get lost: Headline, and sub-headline (optional). Description that explains the value behind the offer. A self-explanatory image to reflect the product. A number of elements that portray quotes and/or testimonials. A form that can be used to gather visitors details. (pre-sales) Any other components are completely up to you and your own personal preference and/or experience, since there’s no shortage of landing page examples on the web, inspiration can be gained everywhere. 4. Limit the navigation options The job of a landing page is to keep the visitors attention focused on the copy of the landing page and what it is trying to offer, having a full-blown navigation menu available at the top of the page might be used as a means of exiting the page and thus eliminating any possibility of a sale to happen. This can also be seen as distraction. If you’re serious about making sales and increasing conversion rates with your landing page, get rid of the menu and see what happens! 5. Social proof One of the best ways to optimize a landing page is by enabling social proof. This can come in forms of testimonials, quotes and case studies that come from your existing customers. You might be wondering, how do I gain access to these? The best way is to reach out to your existing customers and ask them kindly to do some reviews for you so that you can use them on your landing page. This has been a proven technique for increasing sales through your landing page by the means of establishing credibility. web hosting Continue reading →

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5 Tips For Improving Your eCommerce Store Experience

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Hosting

The post 5 Tips For Improving Your eCommerce Store Experience appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . It’s predicted that the year 2015 is going to yield as much as $2.2 trillion dollars in total global transactions over eCommerce networks. As previously reported by eMarketer , the expectancy of that amount was to be reached by 2018, but as more people are gaining access to the internet (with as many as 1 billion new internet users in the following two years), eCommerce has managed to outgrow quite a few, if not all, of the predictions made. To launch a successful eCommerce store , the only few requirements are a reliable hosting company , a reliable piece of software/platform that can act as the actual storefront, but most importantly — an idea, a product, a vision upon which to strive and build for the future. If you have managed to arrive at the point of completion, it might be a good time to look into some tips and ways of how to improve our eCommerce store experience, not only for ourselves, but for our biggest assets, which is the customers and consumers. Sometimes it’s enough to throw a few pages together and list some products, however these days a lot more goes into creating a seamless shopping experience.   1. Focus on User Experience Any eCommerce store out there is built for the customer, and for the customer alone. Just like you walk into a bank, and expect soothing background music and free sweets to indulge in, your eCommerce store should strive to provide the same exact experience, it should feel as if people are browsing a real physical store, which can sometimes be a tricky thing to achieve. An eCommerce store built on the principles of User Experience, will easily convey trust, loyalty and ease of mind; things that go a long way for the user to make the final decision of completing a purchase or not, these days there are no shortage of alternatives for products online, even if yours is quite special. Things to consider implementing: A clear and visible user interface that naturally explains what the page does. Easily accessible menus and navigation bars. Clean and organized product pages; photos, review, prices, and descriptions. An easy way to access the customer support portal/platform. A clear indication of social media presence. Fast loading pages, popups to the bare minimum, focus on seamless.   2. Invest in Mobile Experience Last year, one-third of the total internets population spent time browsing eCommerce stores using a mobile phone, in fact — that one-third of those people actually made a purchase using their mobile devices, and this number is expected to increase significantly over the coming two to three years. Sooner or later, mobile will be primary shopping experience for anyone. On top of that, having an eCommerce store that doesn’t provide a mobile-first experience is going to scare away the majority of people who browse your store from a mobile device, it has been a proven twice over fact that is based on simple principles of a good user experience. How to optimize for mobile user experience: Keep the mobile experience as simple and straightforward as possible, and that includes a responsive design experience. Utilize icons, larger fonts and text-boxes where possible. Important notices and announcements to be kept above the fold. Easily accessible buttons that don’t overlap with the design.   3. Click and Buy In other words, don’t make the check-out process for products a nightmare. The last thing people want to do is spend more than 10 minutes trying to actually purchase something that they clearly are ready to pay money for. The hard part is to get them to actually get to this page, don’t make it a miserable experience once they do. Approximately $4 trillion worth of merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts this year, and about 63% of that is potentially recoverable by savvy online retailers, according to BI Intelligence estimates. — Business Insider That is a lot of money to be leaving at the table, so here are some tips to improve the check-out experience on your eCommerce store: Allow multiple payment options: PayPal, Credit Cards, Gift Cards, Direct Deposit. Free shipping on big orders. Clearly state all the costs before the check-out is done. Allow customers to purchase without having to signup for an account.   4. Optimize the Photo Quality In an online store, there are no physical products to touch, to feel or to observe. Your images are the only way of really conveying what the product looks like, and how it works. There are, of course, exceptions where video uploads are also useful, but not everyone can afford or have the time to produce high-quality videos for all of their products. Visual content is simply easier to remember, easier to understand, and makes for a much more likely chance of a completed purchase. The best way to display photos: Try to show at least 2-4 high-quality photos of all of your products, and do it in a way that shows all the angles and aspects of the produce. This should be done throughout the whole store. Outline what are the benefits/advantages of each product and have specific images for that. If you’re selling Unisex T-Shirts, show pictures of both a girl and a boy wearing it. Provide the option to see what all the colors that you offer look like, it’s a shame to choose a bright pink, but have it arrive shallow. Make the customer experience as physical as possible.   5. Optimize for Search Engines If you have done all of the above, and follow it with your full focused attention, then all that is left to do is do some Search Engine Optimization integration, since eventually — you want to arrive in a place where majority of your traffic is organic, coming from direct search engine queries. You can find plentiful of SEO guides on the web, but here are some outlines to focus on: Have a mobile site ready. Now a Google ranking factor. Have HTTPS (Secure Browsing) enabled. Now a Google ranking factor. Create a content marketing strategy for your blog to attract new visitors. Immerse yourself in inbound marketing to create links, news headlines, etc,. If you can successfully implement all of these tips, what comes beyond will be patience and the ability to maintain these little strategies to keep pushing your eCommerce store forward, and beyond.   ***** Alex Ivanovs is an online entrepreneur who has been writing about technology, business and developer topics for over a decade. He currently manages CodeCondo — an aspiring community for designers and developers. web hosting Continue reading →

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