Getting into the e-commerce business is very profitable, given the fact that a lot of people nowadays purchase their items online. Aside from that, it is a lot easier to have e-commerce set up than a physical store because it is easier to set up and allows you to market to a lot of people.
Of course, the e-commerce industry comes with its challenges. One critical problem that e-commerce sellers need to know about is how to increase their sales better.
Since there are a lot of people in the industry already, it’s challenging to stand out from the number of people online who have their e-commerce shop. A simple way that you can increase your e-commerce sales is simply by optimizing your website, especially for mobile users.
More and more people can now access the Internet using their mobile devices. Hence, it is beneficial to any e-commerce shop to optimize for mobile phone users.
With that said, there are many things that you can apply to help optimize your online store for mobile Internet users.
Excellent Optimization Tips For Increase Mobile E-commerce Sales
Conduct a mobile-friendliness test
First and foremost, you need to figure out just how mobile-friendly your e-commerce website is. To do that, you can conduct a mobile-friendliness test.
There are a lot of sites that can do that for you, but you might want to use a free tool by Google instead. All you need to do is input your website URL, and then they will track just how mobile-friendly your site is. Once you get your results, you will then have a better idea of what you need to work on.
Knowing what the primary issues are on your website will help you be more efficient with your time and resources when it comes to mobile optimization.
Boost your website speed
Because mobile users are used to everything loading fast on their mobile phones and making everything convenient for them, they expect that all websites should load quickly.
Therefore if your e-commerce shop doesn’t fit the bill, you can expect your web visitors to click out of your website as soon as they see that it takes too long for your page to load.
On that note, you should prioritize your website loading speed when you are optimizing it for mobile phones. You can have or hire a developer that can trim down any unnecessary script that is slowing down your website.
By speeding up your website, you are not only ensuring that your web visitors aren’t going to exit out of your website as soon as they enter it. You are also improving your google search rankings.
Think about the “Thumb Zone”
To truly personalize your mobile users’ experience while they are on your e-commerce website, you need to think about the so-called thumb zone. These are the areas where it is most comfortable for the mobile user to click on or touch some aspects of their mobile phone screen.
People use their phones in many different ways, but most of the time, they hold their phones in similar patterns. If you want to develop the user experience on your website, you need to be conscious of how people hold their phones.
Being conscious of their thumb will help you make their website experience as comfortable as possible.
Perfect mobile navigation
Another web design feature that you should keep in mind to improve your mobile users’ experience on your website is how they navigate through all of your web pages.
To have the perfect mobile navigation, you have to figure out how easy it is for your mobile users to find what they need without taking too long or going through too many pages to find it.
If your website uses drop-down lists for crucial pages on your website, it might look okay on your desktop, but with the smaller screen of a mobile phone, it can occupy a huge space. It will make your site look cluttered.
Therefore, you need to test around and see how to design your website so that it looks good even when viewed on mobile phones.
Add breadcrumbs
The typical navigation bar that you see on desktop websites won’t look as good on mobile phones because it can be too massive. However, this doesn’t mean that you should take it out entirely to make some room on your mobile e-commerce website.
Bread crumbs are essential on any web site so that people can go back to their current web page and remember where to look. Bread crumbs are a part of making web navigation easier for your mobile users.
Although a lot of people can debate about its importance on mobile, it’s still something worth looking into so that your web visitors don’t get lost in your site.
Eliminate flash content
If your e-commerce website uses Flash in any way, then it might be time to remove that entirely as soon as possible.
Even Google Chrome is not going to support Flash starting this 2020, so you should get rid of it. Otherwise, the mobile users who are visiting your website might encounter errors as they go along your e-commerce site.
They will not be able to see any videos that you might have on your website if it’s a flash media. If you’re going to post any videos on your site, make sure that it is hosted on YouTube or other video sharing websites so that you can be sure that people see it.
Remove invasive pop-up messages
Pop up messages aren’t something that users want to experience on any website, whether it’s on desktop or mobile. Even Google doesn’t want a website that has too many pop-ups on it because it reduces the quality of user experience on your site.
Although pop up messages can sometimes help with increasing your email list, you should consider minimizing the number of pop-up messages that you have. Otherwise, you are just bombarding your website visitors, and they will click out as soon as they see one.
Pay attention to your typography
Typography is a design element on your website that you need to be more deliberate in applying. Otherwise, you might make your website unpleasant to look at and difficult to read.
Don’t use too many intricate or cursive fonts on your site because this can be difficult to understand for some people.
You should try to be as simple as possible when choosing your typography. Remember to use a text color that contrasts with the background. Otherwise, people might not be able to read what is on your website.
Spend time to improve your product pages
For any e-commerce site, the product pages are essential because these are the pages that should convince interested consumers to buy the product the most. Therefore it is in your best interest that you improve your product pages.
One way to improve your product pages is by making sure that the pictures of the products are of high quality. You should also make sure to include product descriptions that are not only search engine optimized, but also provide sufficient information about the product.
Incorporate a “smart search” feature
Plenty of websites have difficulty considering their website’s search feature, especially in terms of mobile-friendliness.
A simple change to your search feature that will be most comfortable for mobile users is that once someone clicks on the search box, it should automatically zoom in. That way, people can read what they are typing.
Aside from that, the predictive search is also a good idea as this will help them save time from typing in the full search entry.
Create an intuitive checkout process
Once your target customer is already at the checkout process, you want to make sure that this is comfortable and easy to understand.
It would be a shame that you manage to get them to the checkout process, but the process itself is convoluted that your customer ends up abandoning her shopping cart.
To make your checkout process optimized for mobile users, just keep in mind that they’re accessing your online store through a smaller screen. Therefore the information on the checkout process should be at a minimum.
Any forms that your users need to fill out should be easy to use and easy to see so that they can see what they are typing.
Deal with potential security concerns
Mobile phones hold a lot of private information, so people will be wary of the website that doesn’t have any security features.
At the very least, you should make sure that your e-commerce site has an SSL security certificate already. This way, your users can transmit any sensitive information, such as their credit card number, without having to worry about a breach.
Wrap Up
Ensuring that your e-commerce website is mobile-friendly will increase your opportunity to create and improve your overall conversions.
The tips above are just a few of the many ways you can optimize your e-commerce site for mobile users. Remember to experiment and to continue to update and fix your website so that it improves user experience, whether you’re on desktop or mobile.
It is not only smart but also productive to invest in mobile-friendliness for your e-commerce website moving forward.
