Tag Archives: shopping

10 Ways to Boost Online Store Sales with Wishlists

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Hosting

The post 10 Ways to Boost Online Store Sales with Wishlists appeared first on HostGator Blog . Adding wishlist functions to your online store can help turn more window-shoppers into paying customers, if you make your wishlist visible and easy to use—and maybe don’t call it a wishlist. Here’s how to choose your wishlist tools, put them in the right places on your site, and make the most of the marketing opportunities wishlists deliver. 10 Steps to Wishlists That Work Why do wishlists work for online stores? Saving items for later reduces cart abandonment, and it makes it easy for your shoppers to pick up where they left off later, even on another device. Shareable wishlists can also reach new customers who are shopping for gifts or want to copy a social media influencer’s style. Follow these steps to boost sales for your online store with wishlists. 1. Choose your wishlist plugin The best wishlist plugins make it easy for your customers to use them. Look for guest wishlist options, social shareability, privacy options for individual wishlists, and easy to use admin tools that show you which products are the most wished-for. Two of the best-rated options for stores that run on WordPress with WooCommerce are WooCommerce’s own Wishlists plugin and YITH WooCommerce Wishlist . Both cost $79 for a one-year, single-site subscription. YITH also offers a pared-down free version. 2. Decide what to call your wishlists Wishlist—as in, “add to wishlist” may seem like the obvious term to use in your store. But UX-research group Nielsen Norman Group has found that some shoppers feel “greedy” about adding things to a list to share with others. NNG recommends alternatives like Favorites or My List. 3. Choose where to put wishlist tools on your site There should be an add to wishlist (or favorites or my list) button on every product page. Google’s Retail UX Playbook lists wishlist-related calls to action on product pages to reduce friction for shoppers who are browsing or who want to complete their purchase later, on another device. You can also add a wishlist button—usually a heart—to product photos on your category pages. West Elm does this, and lets shoppers start marking favorites without signing in or creating an account first. Shoppers can review their My Favorites Gallery and sign in if they want to save those items for later. It’s also a good idea to make wishlists visible and easy to access from the shopping cart and during checkout, to encourage shoppers to add items from their lists. 4. Customize your store’s wishlist tools You should be able to customize your wishlist buttons, colors, messages, and more to blend in with your site design. You may also have the option to require that shoppers register in order to make a wishlist, although NNG recommends against that because it adds friction to the shopping experience. You may also be able to customize the sharing options you want your store’s wishlists to support. Make it as easy as possible for shoppers to share their lists, especially on social media. One study found that online stores without “clear social sharing options” consistently miss out on potential sales .   5. Preview and test your store’s wishlist features Navigate through your store the way shoppers do and add things to test wishlists to make sure that everything looks and works the way you want it to. Preview the new setup on different devices and pay special attention to how your customizations look on mobile phones. And follow our recommendations for other UX testing best practices . 6. Activate your new wishlist capabilities Make your wishlist functions live, let your shoppers know they can make wishlists, and then listen for their feedback. You may need to tweak things as customers start building and sharing their lists. Wishlist implementation done, right? You’re just getting started. You’ll get much more value from your store’s wishlists if you go beyond relying on customers to keep and share their lists. The next steps are all about making the most of the marketing opportunities wishlists give you. 7. Use wishlist data in your marketing campaigns Use your wishlist admin dashboard to make your marketing more effective. You’ll see how often list owners post. You can see which products are on the most wishlists and promote them. You can personalize email offers to customers based on specific items on their lists. And you can create holiday promotions that offer deals on users’ wishlist items and incentives for sharing lists. You can also send personalized offers of similar items at different price points, along with cross-sell offers. For example, if a customer has a pair of jeans on her list, you can offer cheaper and more expensive jeans from the same brand. You can also offer tops, belts, and shoes that would look good with her wishlist jeans. 8. Test your wishlist-based marketing efforts We’ve talked before on the blog about A/B testing for email marketing , and your wishlist marketing messages should get A/B tested, too. Sometimes the color or placement of a button or a small change to the wording of a subject line can make a significant difference in engagement and conversions. So, test early and often. 9. Monitor your wishlist metrics Over time, you’ll send trends emerge from you wishlist data. How many of your shoppers have wishlists? Is the number of lists rising or flat? Are your customers consistently sharing their lists, or do you need to promote sharing more heavily? Pay special attention to how users are sharing their lists. Is email or social their preferred channel? If it’s social, which platforms do they use the most, and which platforms generate the most traffic to your store from shared lists? This data will help you decide where to focus your marketing efforts. It can also flag areas where you may need to improve UX. For example, if you’re getting a lot of click-throughs from lists shared on Instagram but very few conversions, you need to examine that pathway to see if there are obstacles you can remove to increase sales. 10. Keep optimizing your wishlist program Consumer preferences, technology, and social network popularity are always evolving. That means you need to keep tabs on what’s trending in online retail, in addition to watching your marketing metrics and A/B test results. Keep listening to your customers, too. Any opinions or requests they share about your wishlists when they contact customer service or post on social media are data you can use to build a better wishlist program. Ready to start granting e-commerce wishes? Build your online store with HostGator. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Domain Name Management

Posted on April 10, 2019 by Hosting

The post Domain Name Management appeared first on HostGator Blog . When you’re in the early stages of creating your first website, you may be surprised by just how much is involved in building and maintaining a website. One of the most important parts of getting your website up on the web, and keeping it running for years to come, is domain name management. What is Domain Name Management? Domain name management is everything involved in finding the right domain name , registering it, and keeping it up to date for as long as you want to use it. Domain management isn’t difficult (or at least it doesn’t have to be), but it’s something important to stay on top of for as long as you have a website. Starting Out with Domain Name Management The bulk of what you need to know about domain name management comes into play when you’re still in the planning stages of creating your new website. What Is a Domain Name? Ever wondered how domain names work ? A domain name is what people type into a browser to find your website. Every website technically has two addresses used to stake out their unique place on the web. Computers identify websites using their IP address, which usually looks something like 111.111.111.1111 (except with more or a mix of numbers than that). But humans aren’t likely to remember a long string of numbers like that, so for us, the main internet address that matters for websites is the domain name. Domain names start with www, and most commonly end with .com—although there are a growing number of top-level domains people and businesses can opt for instead of .com, such as .net, .org, and .biz. Your domain name’s important because it’s directly tied to how people will think about and interact with your website. A simple and straightforward domain name like www.sarahs-website.com will be easier to find and remember than one that’s confusing and overlong like www.examplewebsitehardtoremember1267849.com . But with a huge and growing number of websites already online, a simple and straightforward domain name is getting harder to find every day. Who Needs a Domain Name? In short, everybody that wants a website. Think about it: have you ever been on a website that didn’t have a domain name? It’s a core part of being published online. If you want anyone else to be able to find and access your website, then a domain name isn’t optional. It’s one of the necessary costs of doing business on the web. But the cost is fairly minimal and, in return, you get the possibility of being found by friends, strangers, and potential customers alike. How Do You Find a Domain Name? As mentioned, this part can be challenging. With over a billion websites already published online, most of the obvious combinations of words have already been taken. Or if they’re not yet in use, they’re owned by domain investors who will charge a lot to hand them over. So before you get too attached to one domain name, you need to research first whether that domain name is available. You can quickly determine a domain name’s availability by searching at https://www.hostgator.com/domains If your domain name is available, you can register it right there. If not, the tool will provide recommendations for similar domains to consider. In some cases, it’s worth also putting your desired domain directly into a browser to see if it’s currently owned by someone willing to sell it. But you should expect to the cost to be reasonably high for domain names for sale by investors. There’s a good chance you’ll need to do some brainstorming and a number of searches before you land on a domain name idea you really like that’s also readily available. But it’s worth spending some time to find a domain name that’s a good fit for your website. How to Register a Domain Name Once you’ve found the right domain name for your website, you want to claim it as quickly as possible, before someone else tries to buy it. Registering a domain name is a simple process. If you’re buying a domain name that no one owns yet, you can go through any domain registrant. With HostGator, just add the domain you’ve chosen to your shopping cart and checkout. If the exact domain name you search is available, it will be added to your shopping cart automatically. Pro tip: Register your domain with your web hosting service.   Most companies that sell web hosting also offer domain registration services. While you can always use a previously registered domain name when you sign up with a different web hosting company, that adds unnecessary steps to your process. You can save yourself a little time and energy by keeping it all in one place. What is Domain Name Privacy? As you’re registering your domain, you’ll probably see the option to include domain name privacy as an add-on. It costs a little extra, so you’ll obviously want to know what you’re actually paying for if you choose to get it. Every time someone registers a website, the domain registrant is required to submit contact information to the ICANN WHOIS directory, including a: Mailing address Phone number Email address Having this information published to the wide web makes it easy for spammers and scammers to access, which opens the door to receiving a barrage of emails, texts, and calls you don’t want. And that’s on top of any potential safety concerns that come with your contact information being public for anyone to find. Domain name privacy is a service registrars offer to keep your contact information private while still staying compliant with the law. The domain registrar will provide their own information, so that anyone who has a genuine need to get in touch with the domain owner still has a way to reach you, just with the company serving as your intermediary so you can dodge all the unnecessary contact. How to Set Up Web Hosting Having a domain name is one necessity in getting a new website online, but the other important step you have to take is setting up web hosting for your new website. In most cases, you can combine the two steps by using the same provider for both and make your life easier. Subscribing to a new web hosting plan is as easy as registering a new domain. Simply determine which type of web hosting is right for you , select your plan, and check out with the web hosting provider you chose. Any good web hosting company will also provide a number of useful resources to help you get started and learn how to use their cpanel and other resources. And you can often register your domain, or any additional ones you choose to purchase, in the web hosting account you use to manage your website. Ongoing Domain Management Domain management isn’t something you do once and you’re done. Domain names and all of the services associated with them work on a subscription basis, meaning you need to pay on a regular basis to keep everything up to date. Handling Renewals The most common option for ongoing domain management is annual renewals, although you can often save some money by committing to multi-year plans where you purchase your domain and other services for several years out. In either case, when renewal time rolls around, you need to confirm that you still want to continue: Using the domain name you purchased Keeping your contact information private (if you opted for domain name privacy) Continuing with the web hosting provider you selected The company you work with will send reminders when your renewal is coming due, so you can decide if you want to keep using your domain, and make sure you make the necessary payments on time to keep your website functioning. The Risks of Not Managing Your Domain Name Setting up everything you need when starting your new website is obviously important, but consistently keeping up with domain management is arguably even more important. The risks of dropping the ball when it comes to domain name management are serious. You could lose your domain name. During the initial search for the right domain name, you saw how hard it is to find a good domain name that’s available. If you fail to renew your domain name at the right time and someone else buys it, you lose access to it. And you’re back to square one in the search for a new one. Finding a good domain name is hard enough the first time, why put yourself through all that again? You lose all your domain authority. Even worse, if you switch to a different domain name, all the work you’ve put into building your website’s authority online will be lost. The new domain owner will get the benefit of the brand recognition you worked so hard to build and the backlinks you earned. And all your regular visitors will be confused to find the website they expected to find gone. Unless you’ve built up an email list and can use it to drive most of your former followers to a new website, you risk losing your following completely. And even then, there will likely be former fans that miss the update and give up on looking for your new address online. Someone can charge you big bucks to get it back. When you realize the high stakes of losing the domain name you’ve used for years, you’ll want to get it back. Sometimes people buy a domain name out from under the former owner the moment they see an opportunity to do so for exactly this reason. These domain name sharks know how valuable it is to you and how big of a loss it would be. That means a big opportunity for profit for them. To get your old website back at the address people know, with all the SEO authority it had before, you’re pretty much at their mercy. They can ask for a significant amount of money—and the better a job you’ve done of building up your website’s reputation, the more they’re likely to demand. You can be punished for the amount of work you’ve done and success you’ve accomplished up to that point. Obviously it’s preferable to stay on top of your domain management and keep current to begin with! How to Make Domain Name Management Easy We have good news! Domain name management doesn’t have to be hard. There are two good ways to make the process easy so you don’t lose your domain name. 1. Keep all your renewals in one place. If you have to keep up with domain registration, web hosting, and domain privacy renewals in different accounts, then remembering to do it all is harder. If you have multiple domains and websites and use different providers for each, then you’re adding a lot of unnecessary work to the process of staying on top of it all. If you use one company for all your website services, then renewing everything will only require one step. When you’re logged in, pay for everything coming due, and you’re done. So take a little time when you’re getting started to find a company you can trust to make your life easier for years to come.   2. Set up auto renewals. That one easy step we mentioned? Even that’s not actually necessary. If your provider offers automatic renewals, you can let your domain name management run on autopilot. For as long as you want to keep your domain name, domain privacy plan, and web hosting, just keep the auto renewal option selected for them all. You can avoid doing any work at all—except for what you do to update and promote your website. And trust us, that’ll be enough work without adding domain name management on top of it. One Place for Domain Name Management HostGator offers domain name registration, domain privacy, web hosting, and an array of other useful services that you can manage all in one account. Getting started with HostGator is easy, and you can even use our website builder to make your initial design and future updates easy as well. HostGator can handle all of your domain needs, whether you need to register or transfer a domain name . We will help you manage your domain name and find the best web hosting plan for you and your needs. Contact our team of experts today for more information! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Building an eCommerce Website

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Hosting

The post Building an eCommerce Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . It’s easier than ever to build your own eCommerce website and start selling products online. With the help of select website building tools you can have your site online in a day’s work. Of course, coming up with your product idea, along with product sourcing and creation will take longer, but the actual website building process can be streamlined. Plus, eCommerce stores are only primed to grow. By building your very own store now you can take advantage of this trend well into the future. Even if you’ve never built a website before, you can create your very own eCommerce store with ease. By the end of this post you’ll know how to find a good product and niche for your store, how to build out your site, and the approaches you can take to generate sales. Before You Build Out Your Store Before you start the process of building out your eCommerce store there are some foundational things you’re going to need to do first. The first of which is securing your domain name and web hosting services.Without these, there’s no way to actually have a live eCommerce website. There are dozens of different providers and services you can use to secure a domain name and hosting, and you can either purchase them together or separately. If this is your first time building a website, then the easiest course of action will be purchasing them together from the same provider. This will minimize the number of technical tasks you need to complete and speed up the process of getting your site online. If you’re looking for the fastest and most beginner friendly way to secure a domain name and hosting, then consider purchasing them both right here at HostGator. Just select your web hosting package and add a domain name to your order before you check out. You might not be ready to name your store and purchase a domain name just yet, so feel free to return to this section later once you’ve come up with the perfect domain name for your business.   What You Need to Build an eCommerce Website Building an eCommerce website will be a little different than creating a standard website or starting a blog . Beyond securing a domain name and hosting you’ll also need to consider tools and software for processing payments, along with actually creating and manufacturing your products. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s required to build a website from scratch for an eCommerce store: A domain A hosting provider An integrated payment processor A platform or tool to build your store Initial capital to create your products Packaging for product shipping When you’re creating an eCommerce store there will be some initial capital that you’ll need to invest. Building an eCommerce Website the Easy Way Building an eCommerce website is similar to the process of building any other website, except you’re selling physical products. This means there will be greater work upfront to help ensure the success of your website. Here’s the process of discovering your market, finding out what you’re going to sell, and finally building out your store. 1. Market Research and Finding Your Niche To start an eCommerce store you’re going to need a physical product to sell. But, it would be a heartbreaking experience to go through the process of building out a store only to find out that no one wants to buy what you’re selling. To avoid this fate you’ll want to spend time upfront finding the right market and products to sell. You might already know exactly what you want to sell, but if not, no worries, this post will walk you through the process of market research . Ideally, what you want is to uncover a pressing need in the marketplace and fill it with your product. Look for Trending Products One way to ensure that you’ll start selling products right out of the gate is to align yourself with products that are currently trending. By getting into a trending niche at the right time, you can ride the wave in the short-term and long-term. However, you don’t want to hop into a trending market when it’s on the decline. Instead, you want to find a product or a niche for products that are growing in popularity. There are tons of different tools you can use to spot trending products and niches, but here are some of the most common. Google Trends : This Google tool allows you to look into the past and future of certain product keywords. By using the data this tool provides you’ll be able to see if a market is growing or waning in popularity. TrendHunter : This site showcases a ton of different niches and products that are currently trending across the globe. Plus, there’s a nifty filter that lets you sort by different industries. Instagram Influencers: If you spend any time on Instagram then you probably follow a few influencers who regularly promote certain products. The chances are pretty high that the products they promote tend to sell well and can suggest a viable niche. Align With Your Passion Hopefully, by exploring the resources above you have a handful of products or potential niches you could go into. To narrow down that list even further we’re going to do some self-evaluation. After all, it’s going to be hard to sustain momentum with your store if you don’t actually care about what you’re selling. Spend some time with the following questions to determine if you have what it takes to sustain yourself in the niche: Do you care about the market you’ve chosen? Do you have any pre-existing knowledge you can rely on? Can you see yourself working in this space for 5 years or more? Do you care about the people that you’re serving? Explore What’s Currently Selling By now you should have narrowed down your list of potential products and niches to a group you actually care about. Now, we’re going to take this one step further and validate our ideas in the marketplace. The most effective ways to do this are using the Amazon product marketplace and a keyword research tool. First, head over to the Amazon bestseller list in the product category of your choice (link). Then, spend some time digging through the products to see what kinds of things people are actually buying. Look for product multiples and dig through the reviews to see if there are any glaring issues with the existing products. Second, head over to the tool Ubersuggest . This is a free keyword research tool that’ll give you tons of actionable keyword data. Then, all you have to do is input your target keyword and you’ll receive a list of related keywords and their overall search volume. This will help you determine the overall size of the market and maybe even give you a few ideas of products you can sell. 2. Getting Ready to Sell Before you settle on the product you want to sell there are a few more considerations you’ll want to take into account. First, you’ll want to make sure the product is light enough that it’s easy to ship. During the early days of your eCommerce store, you’ll be handling most of the packaging and shipping yourself. This will not only make your life easier, but you’ll be able to maintain better product margins, which can be crucial in the early days of your store. The last thing that needs to be considered in regards to your product is prototyping. With this approach, you’re not looking to create the perfect product the first time around. Instead, you’ll be trying to create an initial product and then iterate and improve based upon product feedback. This will help you get to market faster and build a better product over time. 3. Choosing Your Platform If you haven’t secured your domain name and hosting yet, now would be the time to do it. The easiest approach would be to pick up both right here at HostGator . When the time comes to choose the platform for your eCommerce store you’re going to have a lot of different options at your disposal. There’s all-in-one platforms, website builders, CMS like WordPress, and more. One of the easiest options is using a website builder to set up an online store. 4. Building Your Store Below you’ll learn the basics of building an eCommerce website with the HostGator website builder. For full eCommerce functionality, select the eCommerce plan. This will give you options like inventory management, shopping cart, coupon codes, and additional online payment methods for eCommerce sites. With the builder up and running the next thing to do is select your website template. From the ‘Category’ option select ‘Online Store’ and spend some time browsing through the templates until you find one that you want to act as the foundation for your site. Once you’ve found a suitable template hover over it and click ‘Select’. On the next page, you’ll be able to edit your website. Just click on any existing element of your site and a drop-down list of options will come up that shows you the changes you can make. If you want to design your storefront, then click on Pages> Store from the left-hand menu. To add products to your store, configure your shopping cart, and more, you’ll need to upgrade your service. So click on the blue ‘Upgrade’ button in the upper right-hand corner. Or navigate to Store> Upgrade Now . 5. Launching Your Store and Selling Products If you’ve done everything above, then congratulations, you’ve put in a ton of work and you’re just about ready to launch your store. However, it’s important not to launch your store before it’s fully polished. After all, you only have one chance to make a first impression. Spend some time double-checking every page on your site for typos, broken links, or other things that don’t work. You’ll also want to run through a few sample purchases to make sure the checkout process works smoothly as well. Once you’re satisfied with your virtual storefront, it’s time to launch your store and start selling products ! Marketing Your eCommerce Website Now, if you don’t have any existing social media channels for your business, or a list to promote your store too, you probably won’t get much traffic to start. What you need to do is invest in marketing your eCommerce store to the world. Here are a few of the most common eCommerce marketing methods: 1. Content Marketing With an eCommerce store, you have a multitude of opportunities to create content. Whether you’re creating educational content that’s geared towards your selection of products. Or, you’re creating content that’s geared towards picking up backlinks or social media shares. Often, content marketing won’t give you immediate results, but instead, it’s something that can provide you with traffic over the long-term. Here are a few great resources on building a content marketing strategy from scratch: How to Make eCommerce Content Marketing Work for You Top 5 Tips for a Successful Blog Content Marketing Strategy 2. Social Media Marketing Social media can be a great way to increase brand awareness while driving traffic back to your eCommerce site. There are a lot of social media networks out there, but the ones you’ll probably find the most value in are Instagram and Pinterest. Both of these are more image-driven platforms, so they align well with selling products. Instagram will give you a way to showcase your product itself, along with how it’s commonly used. While Pinterest gives you the opportunity to create and share content that’s related to your niche and drive targeted traffic back to your site.   3. Influencer Marketing Influencer marketing has been used to build some wildly successful eCommerce stores. If you’re not familiar, it’s the process of reaching out to influencers on Instagram and having them promote your brand and products to their audience. You have the option of doing paid shoutouts, but you might also be able to find accounts who will mention your product for free in exchange for your product. If you’re interested in exploring this further, then check out the resources below: A Comprehensive Guide to Instagram Influencer Marketing A Simple Guide to Instagram Influencer Marketing in 2019 Building Your eCommerce Website Hopefully, by now, you have a better understanding of what it takes to build your own eCommerce store from the ground up. It’s a lot of work to make an online business, but with the eCommerce market continuing to grow you’ll be setting yourself up for success in the long-run. If you truly want to create your own eCommerce website all you have to do is get started. Use the information above and start implementing. You’re not going to get everything right your first go around, but the most important thing is to experiment, fail, and keep moving forward. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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5 Benefits of Using a Website Builder for Blogs

Posted on November 13, 2018 by Hosting

The post 5 Benefits of Using a Website Builder for Blogs appeared first on HostGator Blog . Website builders for blogs make it easy to publish your content. As a blogger, you’re already tasked with creating and promoting your work. The last thing you want to worry about is building your website from scratch. Haris Bacic , a Forbes contributor, writes: “Creating a website for your business doesn’t have to be a headache and it certainly doesn’t require hiring an expensive design agency to create it for you. Depending on the type of business you own, there are several quick and affordable solutions.” Should you use a website builder for your blog? Here are five benefits to consider right now.   1. Quick Setup A blogger’s focus is creating compelling content for their readers. You need to craft creative topics, design beautiful images, and maybe even record a video (or two).   Your time is limited, and you shouldn’t waste it constructing a site. With website builders, you don’t have to learn how to code or hire a website designer . Website builders cater to first-time site owners and beginners. There’s no stressing about fixing  a HTML error. You could literally set up your site during a lunch break. For example, HostGator’s setup is simple and quick. You can either register a new domain or enter an existing one. Then, you can select a hosting plan and any additional services, like hack alert monitoring or site backup . Website builders also make it effortless to brand your blog. You can add a favicon—a branded icon—in the address bar and browser tab for your visitors to see. It’s a clever way to give your blog a more professional look. If you sign up with HostGator, you’ll also receive 24/7/365 support. The friendly support team will answer your questions and help you resolve any issues. A quick setup means more time doing what you love. Website builders for blogs decrease the technical difficulty.   2 Affordability Whether you’re a seasoned or novice blogger, you don’t need to bruise your bank account to create a website. Your goal is to find an affordable option that will help you communicate with your audience. A few decades ago, developing a website required a tech guru. You would book an appointment with an agency, go to the business’s downtown offices, and talk with their experts about the look and feel of your desired site. This complicated process meant expensive rates. The professionals even charged you for making monthly updates. Bloggers depleted a lot resources to exist on the World Wide Web. With website builders, you’re in control. Now, it doesn’t make sense to squander your time and money with an overpriced specialist. It’s worth it to utilize a website builder . “Be realistic with what’s essential for your website…A DIY website builder will more than suffice. A majority of individuals and businesses looking to build a website will fall into this category…Rest assured, building your website is affordable and doesn’t have to break the bank,” writes Entrepreneur contributor Ana R. Alvarado . When comparing website builders, go beyond primary features. Figure out if the hosting provider offers multiple email accounts, a one-click application installation, or a money-back guarantee.   3. Pre-Designed Templates Visuals are a key component when developing your website. You want an eye-catching design that sparks visitors’ interests. Then, you can lure them in with your original content. The cost of hiring a website designer can get pricey, ranging anywhere from $300 to $5,000. It can take several weeks to produce a custom design that fits your business’s needs. The whole process also can leave you overwhelmed. Pre-designed templates remove that anxiety. You don’t have to constantly contact someone to make simple changes. You can modify the color scheme, font choice, and images when you see fit. Check out the pre-designed template below. HostGator provides a selection of more than 100   mobile-friendly website themes , plus an image library. The drag and drop functionality makes it trouble-free for non-coders. With pre-built sections and pages, you have an array of customization options so you can fully customize and categorize your site. There are no limits on how to develop a site suitable for your audience. Test out your design to ensure it’s delivering the right message. You can run a beta test asking a few consumers for their opinions via a short survey. Then, you can use that input to make improvements. Website builders help you skip the drama when it comes to design. Pre-designed templates offer bloggers the convenience to choose what’s best for them.   4. SEO Tools Getting your website up and running is only the beginning. The next step is to draw attention to your blog and persuade users to actually visit. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one method of earning more visitors. By raising your organic search traffic, you can convert the occasional visitor into a frequent blog reader. HostGator’s SEO tools can provide you with easy-to-follow insights and analytics that help improve your search rankings, boost your website traffic, and monitor local competition. “The best way to start is to build a website that is SEO-friendly. Website-building software that caters to this will help your site rankings to be boosted through allowing you to add and edit title tags, meta tags, and meta descriptions, at a bare minimum,” states Inc. contributor Bubba Page . SEO is more than stuffing keywords into a blog post. It involves doing research to find relevant keywords, optimizing your images, and linking to authoritative sources. Also, consider the permalink structure —how visitors locate your blog and its internal blog posts. After your blog setup, be sure to do experiments and measure the results. SEO isn’t a one-time tactic; it’s an ongoing strategy that needs fine-tuning. Focusing on SEO is essential for growing your readership.   5. Ecommerce Shopping Cart Some bloggers don’t set out to make money with their words. And that’s fine. It starts as a hobby and surprisingly leads to a full-time business. Statista reports that an estimated 1.66 billion users worldwide purchased goods online in 2017. eCommerce opens doors for small businesses to market their products to a global audience. If you’re expanding into eCommerce, one of the first steps is to decide what you will sell to your readers. As a food blogger , you might sell your latest cookbook. A lifestyle blogger may sell unique jewelry. It’s really up to your imagination and the purchasing desires of your shoppers. HostGator makes it painless to manage your store. With a convenient dashboard, you can view recent orders and total monthly sales. Before launching your eCommerce store, you’ll also want to think about how you will ship your products, payment options for customers, and your refund policy. These factors play a critical role in how you run your business.   Starting can be a fun adventure, but if you ever feel exhausted, find ecommerce communities online.  Your local library may be a powerful resource, too. When you’re ready, you can turn your blog into a business. Use the eCommerce shopping cart add-on to monitor your incoming sales.   Blogging with a Website Builder Creating a site shouldn’t be a worry for bloggers. Website builders exist to make the process of publishing content easier. Look for a website builder for blogs that offers quick setup. You want pre-designed templates, so you don’t have to spend money on hiring a web designer. The e-commerce shopping cart also lets you expand your blogging into a business. Start your blog today. Choose HostGator as your website builder. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Design an eCommerce Website

Posted on November 5, 2018 by Hosting

The post How to Design an eCommerce Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . When building an eCommerce website , you know that the ultimate goal of the site is to get people to make purchases. You can’t just focus on building an e-commerce site that looks great (although that’s worth doing too) – you have to make sure every element of the web design guides people toward the point of buying something from you. Fortunately, building an eC ommerce website is easier than it’s ever been. You don’t have to hire an expensive designer or learn coding from scratch. If you don’t have much money to spend or time to work with, you can use a eCommerce website builder to create an eCommerce site that’s professional and geared toward achieving your goals. Whether you build the website yourself or hire someone to do the legwork, there are a few important steps you should take to make sure your eCommerce website will do its job. 1. Organize Your eCommerce Website Based On How People Shop. One of the first steps to building an eCommerce website is figuring out what pages and categories to include. You’ll obviously want a home page and pages for each of your different products. But how will you organize all those product pages so that people can find what they’re looking for? Think about how your potential customers are likely to shop and browse and build out the site architecture that makes the most sense based on that. For example, if you sell pet food and supplies, you might organize your website based on the type of pet your visitors have (dog, cat, fish, mouse, etc.) with subcategories under each for product types (toys, treats, food, etc.). Anyone visiting the site can pretty quickly figure out how to narrow down their search based on their particular needs.  And by visiting a page that groups a lot of similar products together, they can browse all the dog treats or cat toys available and pick the one they most want.   2. Make Your eCommerce Site Responsive. According to mobile shopping trends , almost a third of all shopping online now happens on mobile devices. If your eCommerce website doesn’t work well on mobile, you’ll be missing out on a lot of potential sales (and it will hurt your SEO to boot). For most eCommerce websites , the best way to make your website mobile friendly is to make it responsive. Responsive websites provide the same information and images on each page no matter what device they’re on, but they position them differently in order to make the page fit the screen. An image that shows up next to text on the desktop will show up below it, for instance. Luckily, responsive websites have become enough of a norm that a good website builder or designer will offer a responsive option as a matter of course.   3. Include a Search Bar. Many of your visitors will be content to browse the site to find items they like, but some will know exactly what they’re looking for. A search bar gives them a way to get directly to the page they need and is, therefore, one of those features that every eCommerce site should have .   4. Have a Shopping Cart. Your ideal customer isn’t going to see one item they like and go straight to the purchase process. They’ll spend some time browsing and choosing several items they want. A shopping cart is another standard feature of eCommerce stores because it allows visitors to save the items they want to purchase while they continue browsing, and then go through the purchasing process once for all of them. And for visitors that add items to a shopping cart but don’t buy right away, you can follow up with a reminder email to your customers to help nudge them back to the site toward a purchase.   5. Include Wish List Functionality. Including wish list functionality accomplishes a few different things: It gives people an easy place to point friends and family in the lead up to a gift-giving event – a situation people regularly make purchases for. For people who prefer to do research before they buy a product, it gives them a chance to save the items they like for possible future purchase. For anyone avoiding impulse buys for budgetary reasons, they can mark now the things they want to come back for later. Giving people a way to use your website to create a list of items they want creates a few opportunities where those items are more likely to become future sales.   6. Include Reviews. Over half of regular online shoppers  say they read reviews almost every time they shop online. Looking at customer reviews has become a regular part of the purchasing process.By including a review feature on your website, you give your customers a way to hear directly from each other – which is more powerful than what you can tell them. Enabling reviews from third parties shows your customers you’re confident that your products can stand up to customers’ honest feedback. And if the reviews are positive (which they should be if your products are solid), they’ll increase your sales. As an added benefit, reviews can help you gain valuable feedback about the products you offer and the service experience your customers have. You may be able to pick up some tips that help you improve your eCommerce business results over time. For example, at HostGator, we feature reviews on a dedicated page on our site: 7. Offer a Guest Checkout Option. When someone takes the step of creating an account on your website, it provides you with awesome long-term opportunities. It means they can use some of the features we’ve talked about here – like creating wish lists and adding reviews –  and that you can provide them with relevant promotional emails and reminder emails after cart abandonment. But creating an account takes time and for some visitors who aren’t sure they’ll come back, it can feel like an inconvenience to have to take the steps of creating an account. They just want to make their purchase already. Including an easier guest checkout option removes friction from the checkout process so more people are willing to go through the whole process, rather than changing their mind when it looks too time-consuming. 8. Invest in High-Quality Product Photography. For physical products, a photograph can often tell your visitors valuable information about the product that your words can’t communicate as well. 78% of online shoppers say they want to see images that bring products to life. You not only need to provide photographs for all of the products you sell, but you should also invest in making sure the images are high quality. Whether you take the photos yourself or invest in a professional product photographer, make sure the images you use look great and show your products in the best light.   9. Make Your Contact Info Easy to Find. You should do your best to answer all the common questions your customers may have on your website, but even so, you’ll have customers that need to get in touch at some point. When that happens, make it as easy as possible for them to find a way to get in touch about whatever issue they’re having. Don’t make them dig through the website for a simple email address or phone number. You can’t provide good customer service until your customer has successfully managed to get in touch. And customer service is the best tool you have for repeat business.   10. Perform User Testing. Building an eCommerce website requires doing a lot of guessing about what people will respond to. Even if you work really hard to put your potential visitors first and try to design the site based on how you think they’ll behave, you won’t get it all right on your own. Before you launch, do some  website usability testing . Bring in some other people who can look at your website with fresh eyes. Have them take the steps on the site you most want your visitors to take – like creating an account, making a purchase, and signing up for the email list. They can provide honest feedback about any difficulties or inconvenience they experienced. Their feedback will enable you to make any last minute tweaks needed to correct problems you didn’t know how to see yourself.   Design Your eCommerce Website with Quality in Mind eCommerce businesses live and die on the quality of their websites. Make sure you do your due diligence to build a successful eCommerce site that can do the main job you need it to. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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