There are approximately 110,000 eCommerce websites that are generating meaningful revenue online. Whether you're launching a new eCommerce website, or you're interested in improving your current site, this post is for you.

Read on to learn some top facts about eCommerce website development:

1. Choosing the Right Theme

The right theme is crucial when you're launching or developing an eCommerce website. While you may think you need a flashy, cutting-edge design, it's more important that your design is user-friendly, functional, and easy-to-navigate.

When you're choosing your theme, make sure to consider user experience before anything else. Choose an intuitive layout that will allow visitors to easily browse your selection and purchase products.

Simple also doesn't mean boring, however, and it's possible to use eCommerce website development, design, and whitespace effectively to create an interesting, welcoming, and easy-to-navigate e-commerce site.

2. Picking the Right Platform

Picking the right platform for your eCommerce website is one of the most important decisions you'll make. Now, shoppers are making 51% of their purchases online.

It's obvious that the future of retail is online shopping, but this area is also becoming increasingly competitive. You need a platform that's easy for users to update, simple for visitors to navigate, and difficult for hackers to break.

3. Optimizing for SEO

SEO is a hugely important part of e-commerce website development. Search Engine Optimization helps your site become more visible in the search results. This means that people who are searching for the types of products you offer are more likely to click on your website.

SEO should be at the heart of your plan for your website. You should understand SEO best practices and include an SEO strategy for your copy, website design, content marketing, social media, and more.

4. Prioritizing Security

As a business owner selling products online, one of your key priorities should be ensuring that all the information on your site is safe and your website is secure.

Your site should support SSL which encrypts secure information. This means that it's safe for website users to use credit and debit cards and enter information like their email, phone number, name, and address.

Your website should also comply with PCI, which is another key security method if you're accepting digital payments.

5. Implementing a Responsive Design

We're now using mobile devices to access websites more than ever before. And customers are using these devices to make purchases on eCommerce sites.

This means that your eCommerce website development needs to be optimized for mobile. You can do this by ensuring that you have a responsive design that will give your users the best experience possible- whether they're browsing using a mobile, desktop computer, or tablet.

No matter which theme or platform you decide to choose, you'll need to make sure you're keeping mobile users in mind for every part of your site. This includes everything from basic browsing to payment and checkout.

6. Supporting Guest Checkouts

Often, eCommerce business owners want to ensure users have to create an account if they want to make a purchase. This sounds great in theory- since you can then email them with follow-up communication and track their information.

But it's key to remember that many people are uninterested in creating an account so they can buy a product. While repeat customers may want to register, you should ensure that people who want to make a one-time order can do so quickly and easily.

Otherwise, you may miss out on those first-time sales which can turn that person into a loyal customer in the future.

7. Building a Site Search

Many people browsing an eCommerce website will use a site search box. Each of those people knows exactly what they're looking for- and what they'll potentially buy.

When visitors can quickly find what they're looking for, this translates into higher sales. And a better user experience can mean those customers are likely to hang around your site for longer and return in the future.

Make sure your search boxes are clearly visible on every page of your site, so users can easily move around. You can also use micro-copy in the Tesco search box to show customers how to search- whether by keyword, product code, or item type.

8. Optimizing Performance

It's a fact: Slow sites lose customers. With attention spans decreasing rapidly, it's crucial that your eCommerce website development optimizes performance.

Your site needs to run as quickly as possible. You can ensure this happens in a few different ways:

  • Make sure your website uses caching so less time is spent sending data between the database server and the web server
  • All images should be compressed, which means they're the smallest size possible and won't take precious seconds to download.
  • Combine your site's CSS or JavaScript files into single files to help them interact faster with your site.

If you keep these things in mind during your eCommerce website development, your customers will be more likely to stay on your site for longer.

9. Writing Top-Notch Content

Everything from the keywords you're using to the quality of your content will impact how your site is ranking in Google.

While the content on your site should provide information, it should also represent your brand. Use it to connect with potential customers, answer their questions, solve their problems, and build up a relationship.

Starting a blog is a great way to build up brand awareness while also positioning your products as the answer to your readers' problems.

10. Implementing Analytics

If you have a fault of a spike and your website goes down, you could miss out on thousands of sales.

You should have a strategy that helps you identify any issues that could negatively impact your site's performance. There are a number of tools you can use like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools to monitor engagement, traffic, and conversion rates.

These help you see what's working, what's underperforming, and if your website can keep up with your traffic.

What Do You Think of These eCommerce Website Development Facts?

As you can see, there are a number of things that impact the success of your eCommerce website development. From content to SEO, security to analytics, the above steps will help you attract more visitors and convert those visitors to paying customers.

Need help building your eCommerce site? Get in touch today to learn more.