Among several factors, an outstanding user experience or UX is a critical component for the success of an online business. User experience can mean the ultimate difference in making your eCommerce store a resounding success or a disappointing failure.
However, if you run an online business of any capacity, you know that generating traffic and turning it into conversion is not as easy as it is on paper.
Unlike some years ago, an attractive website design is not the only component behind user experience. Established business owners rely on several components such as great landing pages; a site optimized for all devices and organic content.
If you wish to improve the user experience on your eCommerce store, we share the top six ways for you below.
Create a mobile compatible website
An estimated 3.5 billion of the world’s population access the internet from their mobile phones. You cannot ignore this staggering figure if you run your business online.
Online eCommerce stores that are not optimized for mobile platforms have a high bounce rate. This means that customers will surely leave your website if it doesn’t load quickly or abandon their shopping carts.
Successful online business owners make sure that their website is compatible across all platforms, including mobile phones.
To make your eCommerce site very mobile-friendly, here are the top ways:
- Keep the layout simple
- Include plugins
- Use large fonts and increase the size of the buttons
- Remove text-blocking ads
- Develop an app if your budget allows
Increase website loading speed
Customers are five times likely to leave your website if the site does not load within a second or two. Besides, customer experience also is reduced by up to 16% and the conversion rate by 17% with poor UX.
To prevent potential customers from bouncing from your site, here are the top ways to increase its speed:
- Optimize the image sizes to fit a typical smartphone screen. Pixlr and Canva are fantastic online image editors you can use to reduce image sizes.
- Content Delivery Network or CDN can improve your network
- Compress HTML and CSS files using third-party apps such as Gzip
- Reduce redirects
- Remove java-scripts that are render-blocking
- Improve response time on the server
- Test your site speed using SEMrush and Pingdom
Create a secure but simple checkout process
The checkout process is one area where customers spend a good amount of time. This is also where the clients complete the entire transaction.
To make the checkout process streamlined and effortless, these are easy and practical ways:
- Ensure topmost security for the checkout process.
- Adopt large buttons for check out.
- Using Google auto-fill can minimize the checkout process.
- Add a reminder to tell customers that they have a product in their cart.
- Add options for customers to continue shopping or buy the product straightaway.
- Publish an SSL certificate on your website to boost confidence.
- Adding plugins to your site can also secure your site to a considerable degree.
Engage with customers on social media
These days every online business has a social media presence, which is one of the main channels of interaction with customers. Business owners that engage with customers on social media witness rapid growth and develop trust with them.
Engaging with customers shows that you care for them and their opinion. Besides, it also establishes your strong presence on social media and allows you to market your brand.
To engage your customers on social media, whether it is Facebook, Instagram, or others, here are the top ways:
- Adding social media links to your eCommerce website is a great way to start.
- Encourage and invite them to connect with you on social media.
- When a customer asks a question or comments on social media posts, try your best to respond to them.
Create a reward system
Humans are inherently wired to respond positively to rewards. So when a brand puts an offer in its hands, very few customers can resist it.
However, you should also know the right way to give the reward to your customers. Here’s how you can do it:
- Start with shopping discounts
- Give reward points for signing up
- Offer shopping discounts
- Reward special cards for frequent shoppers
- Offer coupon codes or reward points for every item purchased
A referral or an affiliate program is also a great way to reward customers and bring more customers to your site.
Develop trust with your customers
Trust from your customers is something that is not easily earned. But if you have trust from your customers, you and your business can profit a lot from it.
Some of the proven ways to establish trust with your customers include:
- Create transparency by sharing relevant information
- Tell the story of how you started your business
- Share customer reviews and video testimonials
- Have great customer service in place
Conclusion
Online businesses rely heavily on the overall customer experience. Therefore, we hope that the tips shared on this list will help you create the best user experience so your business can go to the next level.