Why an Ecommerce Website Can Really Help A Small Business to grow

[This article was written by Sohail Rupani.]

In today’s world an increasingly large number of people are now are now eagerly getting on the ecommerce website bandwagon. Basically, they are doing this in order to effectively make it into the ‘major leagues’ and thereby become one with the movers and shakers of the online industry. Especially in terms of acquiring a really hefty ROI or return on their investments.

In fact, this is the best possible time to make money through an online business as the e-commerce industry is booming. This is largely due to the fact that many budding entrepreneurs have extended visions of emulating Aliexpress or Amazon or any of the highly successful online superstores and other businesses that currently dot the world wide web and the overall cyber landscape.

However, it is very important to understand that just merely creating a web-store and stocking it with products and then simply waiting for customers to show up on their own is not going to help the small business owner emulate all those big boys out there. In fact, creating a site for the simple purpose of having an online presence alone, is an exercise in futility, to say the least.

This is why it is absolutely imperative that you should take a few important steps in order to make sure that your site is not just totally relevant to the target market alone, but even the unintentional browsers. If you manage to pique their curiosity to a certain extent, they will stay long enough on your website and might even make a purchase.

Apart from that, an online website is always available to the potential customer 24/7, unlike a manned ‘brick and mortar’ store, that has to have staff members and adhere to normal working hours. To further exonerate the vast applications of an optimized website for small businesses, we have compiled a list of its top benefits.

A website can effectually show how the business’s products and services can help solve problems

By using photographs, videos and text, e-commerce site can easily demonstrate how their products can solve a problem as effectively as any sales assistant, in a real world outlet. It cannot be stressed how important visual assets are to drive traffic to your website. Here’s an example of how effective visual tools really are.

Example

Mr. John Smith is on the lookout for a vacuum cleaner that will help him to rid of pet hair from his carpet. He will not be interested in listening to all of the technical jargon and details but watching an online video that will be able to demonstrate the vacuum cleaner’s ability to suction up dog hair from the carpet and sofa, will be more likely to help him make up his mind, to actually purchase the product.

The website can easily reach out to just about everyone

Having any online e-commerce capable retail (or even wholesale) website that has the capability of changing currency on an automatic basis, effectively means that the site in question, can easily receive an order from just about anywhere in the world.

Here, it is pertinent to understand that people will not randomly trust any site. This is why it is very necessary to incorporate testimonials (both written as well as video) on the site. You should also have regular blog posts that will be able to create awareness of your products. At the same time, it is also imperative that the e-commerce website owner should use social media to engage with their customers in order to build a certain level of trust as well as brand awareness.

Websites offer a whole world of convenience to the end customer

Thanks to the increasing relevance of smart devices and their accompanying 4G technology, it is now easier than ever before, for just about anyone to see and subsequently purchase a product from a website, by simply swiping the touch screen of their phone.

Of course, it is a whole lot easier and faster to browse an easily navigable site that has the capability of retaining the required information. That is, the kind of information that can make it easier for repeat shoppers, to see up close, whatever it is that they are interested in purchasing, every time they open the site. Ultimately, just about anything that will help make the shopping experience pleasurable and easy, will also help to encourage potential customers to complete their purchases. Yes, this does mean that a website can transition into a revenue stream for your new small business.

The Importance of Setting up a website

There are various steps to setting up an e-commerce website that may act as either a standalone website to attract viewers or even as a corollary to a brick and mortar store. If you simply design a website as a formality, it will not help your small business grow effectively. There are so many ways you can design a visually stimulating website which provides results, do your research before finalizing they content and design of your website.

This is exactly why your website itself, plays a great role in whether your business will take advantage of the aforementioned benefits. First and foremost, it is imperative to understand that the website may not just be a repository of all the products that are just basically ‘dumped in it’ at random, but rather it is a great tool for marketing the products that are offered for sale at both the site and its real world counterpart as well.

The seminal importance of SEO or search engine optimization

In terms of marketing your products at services at your e-commerce website, creative use of SEO can certainly go a long way in attracting people to the site. This is due to the fact that SEO works by helping the major search engines like Bing, Google, Yahoo etc. ‘find’ the site from the point of view of the potential customer.

In other words, you can put in certain keywords on your site, that you feel that people who would be interested in and would use as search terms. If the potential customer’s search terms will closely match the keywords in question, viola, the odds are that the search engines would then choose them as their very first choice and thereby display them accordingly. This way, your target audience would then visit the site and might stay there long enough to make a purchase.

The KISS formula with regard to domain names

Here the well-known K.I.S.S formula will apply pretty well indeed.  As a matter of fact, KISS stands for “keep it short and simple” and that is precisely what a good domain name for your e-commerce site should be. I.e. concise, short and simple so that it easily remains at the top of the mind, for anyone who wants to recall it when they want to make a purchase.

Always try and acquire ‘the .com’ if you possibly can

Even though the dot com suffix has no actual effect with regard to the search engine ranking of your website, but nonetheless, your typical ‘.com’ top level domain (TLD) is by far and wide, still considered to be the single best choice, as far as different domain name addresses are concerned.

The overall layout of the website

The site should have a really clean and uncluttered layout that would help ensure that it is able to retain the traffic that it has managed to generate. By retention, we mean that the people who visit your website tend to stay long enough to ensure that they will actually make a purchase.  This is why the various fonts and colors that you use on the site have to be both bold and eye catching, so that they stand out from the rest of the competition.

Conclusion

In the light of the above, we can safely conclude that just about any website out there, can become a really great e-commerce site provided that certain measures are taken to ensure the same. So optimize your website and witness the expedited growth of your small business.

Author Bio:

Sohail Rupani is a senior SEO Strategist at an Orlando Digital Marketing Company. He specializes in SEO and SEM techniques. He is passionate about technology and loves to analyze the tech industry in his spare time and stay in touch with the latest happenings. He also writes technical articles about SEO and digital marketing. Follow @sohailrupani for more updates.