Get Social On Your E-commerce Website

What is social media? 
Social media is the means by which one communicates, collaborates, shares with others via technology. It is usually thought of as a personal profiles used to communicate with friends, but it can also be used for many other purposes. One can create professional profiles on LinkedIn or a brand can use this it in a strategic way to gain buzz about their brand and communicate with their customers through many social media mediums.

Why use social media?
Businesses can now use applications to improve their social media web pages. One app can made a Facebook page work as an e-commerce site, where people can purchase items right off of Facebook. Another app lets businesses add promotions, sales materials, and product presentations right to the page. You can create e-newsletter campaigns, give promotions using social media, and allow for customers to communicate with friends while shopping online. It is important that business using social media match their social media campaigns to their overall marketing plan.

This graph represents the shares in which social-generated e-commerce sales has contributed to. The data is from tracking sales that were referred to by a social media site. As you can see, Facebook takes up the largest share. Now I will provide some examples of what social media can do for you.

1. Increase Customers
Your online presence will help you reach people that you would have never been able to reach before. It opens up your audience and the people that you will be able to make an influence on.

2. Decrease Advertising Costs
Compared to traditional media such as TV commercials and print advertisements, social media is a cheap alternative that will generate sales if you use it correctly.

3. Measurable Results
With social media, you are able to see what people are interacting with by seeing what they are clicking on and how many people clicked on it. You are able to see these results quickly, and then adjust to those results so you are able to make a better impact.

4. Generate Content
Your content can consists of special promotions or testimonials from employees or customers. This is increase trust and the raise the value in which people see your brand.

5. Increased InvolvementSocial media allows for communication with customers. You are able to hear about what is working for them, what is not working, hear their complains, and their praises. You can use this information to decrease problems. When people talk about your brand it increases brand buzz and word-of-mouth communication, which is an important factor in generating sales.

6. Narrow Targets
You are able to target your audience by more specific demographics than before with social media. You are able to find these people quickly and get your message out their.





Sources:

http://ecommerce-software-review.toptenreviews.com/5-ways-social-media-will-increase-your-ecommerce-business.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-and-pinterest-in-social-commerce-2013-9

Landing Pages for E-commerce: The Basics

A landing page is a webpage that appears when a search engine optimized ad is clicked on. The landing page will represent the ad, if it does not then you are spending your money on clicks that will not make a sale. Different ads call for different landing pages. This will help generate leads that will sell products. It is not a homepage which rarely changes, but a page that may be on the web for a limited amount of time that the promotion is being offered. Google AdWords is one way that people use search engines to optimize promotional ads to gain traffic and sales. Here is a graphic of the driver process:

This graphic represents the process by which e-commerce businesses need to follow. The driver or drivers lead to specific landing pages, which leads to the homepage, the questionnaires, and the couple that was offered by the driver. You may ask, why the questions? This is the most important part by far. This will give you a database of interested customers by which you can personalize advertisements and promotions.

The design of landing pages needs to be done right. The page need to be designed in a strategic way that connects with the customer. The first thing you need to do is make sure that the ad will be relevant to the customer. You can do this by creating keywords and ad lines that relate best to what you are selling and promoting. This will cause someone to click on your ad and stay on the page. After they click the ad what is going to make them stay?

The headline: Once the ad is clicked on this is the first thing people see. It is your chance to communicate and draw attention to the visitor.
The central promise: This has to do with what you have to offer to your customer. Make this clear to them.
Great Copy: Copy is the text within your ad. The words you choose have to do with whether a person will keep reading or not. The message needs to be clear and concise. Make sure you get to the point so that someone understands what you want them to do.
Call to action: If you do not tell people what to do, they are most likely not to do anything at all.
Images: Use photographs that are compelling and unique. Be creative with with you choose. Do not be like everyone else.
Unique Design: Use a design that people are drawn into. Don't use what thousands of other people are using already.

Here is an example of a landing page designed with a compelling headline, clear promise, an intriguing photo, and a call to action.

The E-commerce Shopping Cart: Clean, Clear, Under Control

The shopping cart experience is a great way to turn visitors into customers. It is another means that will make or break a buy. If your shopping cart is not user friendly or easy to understand, people will not buy from you. Understanding what makes for a successful shopping cart experience is just another detail that is essential in website design. I will be showing examples of what is essential when implementing a shopping cart into your website design.

Shopping Cart Design Essentials

1. "Add To Cart" Buttons

This button for the Reebok website is seen in blue. It is a great color to use because it contrasts well with the rest of the page, meaning that it stands out on the white background. It is not too small, although it could be larger. There are two options for viewing the product, a "quick view" option and an option that will take you to another page. The image below shows the quick view option. It is a  small window that pops up and gives you a few details about the product that you can choose, along with the add to cart button.

2. Talk to an Expert

This option is an example of the growing use of social media in e-commerce websites. They give you the option to ask any questions, which are answered instantly, while you are thinking about your purchase. This is a great way to engage with the customer and reassure them in their purchase decisions. There are also options to share your items through e-mail or chat with a friend through Facebook or other social media.

3. Multiple ViewsDifferent views of the product give the customer a better idea of the product. They are able to see the product from different perspectives. This shoe is very detailed with different colors and designs on each part of the shoe. They customer is also able to better view them using the product. The high resolution photographs of the product really help a customer visualize. Shooting these in a studio setting can give the shoe a white background, which is great for reducing distractions in the background.

4. Product Summary
The summary gives the customer a better idea of the details that they selected for the product. They are able to review the summary of their product selections. This needs to be organized in a fashion that makes the details easy to read. Making important details in bold is a good way to help the reader find what they are looking for.

5. Secure Checkout Logos/Multiple Payment Options

If your website does not have a secure button, this is draw people away from purchasing products. It is important to make it's clear that your checkout is secure with a boxed in button and logos that represent a secure check out. It is also to great to have different payment options such as Paypal so that the customer can trust that their payment is a secure one. Using a button that stands out is an important aspect to consider. This button is blue, which has high contrast with the white background. A good way to represent payment options are with icons/pictures of the credit card logos.

6. Promo Code
Promotional codes are a way to give customers promotions online. I know that I am attracted to these kinds of discounts. Make this options easy to find and use.

7. Free Shipping Offers

When you offer free shipping, it provides even greater connivence to the customer. If someone where to just go to the store, they would not have to pay those fees. Making it free is a great way to attract people to buy.

8. Shipping Methods
Providing different shipping options gives the customer different options to how fast that their products will arrive. This should be mentioned in a clear way while checking out to purchase merchandise.

9. Final Price (including taxes and shipping costs)
The final price before payment is a no-brainer. You must give the total amount before they confirm the payment. This example is off to the side of the page. It is clear and concise with no confusion.

10. Lists of Complementary Products
As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Amazon provides you with many different options after to pay for a product. If you buy shoes, there will be similar shoe options of accessories that will go along with the running experience as seen in this shopping cart example for Reebok shoes. There are also cookies that collect information about your behavior online. On the side is an ad from Facebook that has detected that I have been searching for Reebok running shoes.

11. Privacy Policy, FAQ, Return Policy
Privacy policies, frequently asked questions, and return policies are important to implement into your website. It provides a good way for people to answer questions that come about often. This will leave more unique and difficult questions to be answered by customer service.

12. Check Out As Guest
Oh, how convenient this is. This is a way to get people from item selection to purchase check out as fast as possible with no extra hassles such as opening an account.

E-commerce Web Design: Product/Service VS. Layout

I came across the article 10 Rock Solid Website Layout Examples which has great explanations and examples of different web layouts. Johnson gives an example of a grid and next he gives an example of an actual website to compare it to. I encourage any designers to check out this article for inspiration or just to gain some general knowledge about website grids. My question is what kind of layout does a business that sells products likely to use and what kind layout does a business that sells services use. How might the layouts be different from each other? I will start by explaining examples of different layouts and then talk about what types of products are more likely to use that layout.

Johnson's website layouts:

Sometimes the most simple of things can make the most impact. I believe that this is very true for all types of design, especially website design. The arrangement of elements on a page is something that can make or break a sale. The size and location of the call to action, using an intriguing photos at the top of the page, the arrangement of objects in the virtual store, and the location of the shopping cart button can make a big impact. An example of a product website would be clothing, amazon, sports gear, fishing supplies. Examples of service websites would be photography, technology sites, design, and marketing solutions.

Three Boxes
You may be thinking this is far too simple, but actually it is very effective. The three boxes can be filled with graphics or text. The larger box can be something like a slide show that features different products or services. The small boxes at the top can be used for logos, navigation, logins, and shopping cart links.
Product or service website? This website layout can be used for both e-commerce products and services. Products can be well-represented through images and if it is a website that provides services, professional photos that represent the business could be used. This would work well for the homepage of a product website and it could possibly be the product listing page of both products and services.

3D Screenshots
This layout uses a 3D slide show effect that one can flip through. The slideshow can consist of screenshots, photographs, and text. The small boxes at the top could include the logo, navigation, and shopping cart options.
Product or service website? This website layout can be used for both e-commerce products and services. The sideshow would be able to feature product and services images. This work work best as a homepage of a product site and it could be the product listing page of a services website.

Advanced Grid
The advanced grid can consist of many different elements. Once again, the gray boxes represent text or graphics. The boxes at the top represent logos, navigation, login, and shopping cart options.
Product or service website? This type of layout would work best for e-commerce websites that sell products. If there are many products, like a clothing store, there is a lot of room for creativity and being able to fit a lot of products on the page. This type of layout would work best for a homepage or even a product listing page.

Featured Graphic
The featured graphic website consists of a simple photo with text that relates to it. It is great for a site that does not have much content or graphics. The smaller boxes would consist of a logo, navigation, and shopping carts.
Product or service website? This would would great for a e-commerce business selling services. A service such as marketing solutions. This could also work well for a website selling one single product. This would work great for a homepage and an informational page.

Five Boxes
This is an advanced version of the three box layout. The large boxes can consist of graphics or images. The small boxes at the top could be for a logo, navigation, shopping cart, or login information.
Product or service website? This website layout can be used for both e-commerce products and services. If it is a services website, there would be a lot of content to put up. Different products and promotions can be displayed for a products website. This would work well for a homepage.

Fixed Sidebar
This layout uses a vertical navigation bar. This makes the access to the bar available at any point on that page. Any of the other layouts can be used on the right side of the page to display the product or service.
Product or service website? This would work for a product or service layout, mainly because you can use any of the layouts mentioned for the rest of the page. This would work well for any page on the website.

Headline and Gallery
The headline and gallery layout can use graphics or text in the gray boxes to display content. The small boxes on the top are for logos, navigation, log in, and shopping cart options.
Product or service website? This website layout can be used for both e-commerce products and services. It would work great to display products and photography/design options. This would work well for a product listings page.

Featured Photo
The gray space would consist of a photograph and the white boxes are for navigation.
Product or service website? This would work best for a services website, especially photography. The photo would be displayed in gray and then there could be a slide show app. This would work best for a homepage.

Power Grid
This is the most advanced grid, but it provides a lot of information in an effective way. Information can include photo, video, and text.
Product or service website? This layout would work best for a business that sells products. The would be able to display a lot of information if they have many products. This would work well for a homepage or a product listings page.

Full Screen Photo
This layout consists of an image in the background. The gray contains the content of the page.
Product or service website? This would work well for a services website such as photography. It would be great for a homepage view.

Color Psychology: Color in E-commerce Web Design

It is important to be able to understand and talk about colors and how they work in design so I will explain some key terms when it comes to color theory and then I will give examples of websites that use colors to make associations. We will start with the three main groups of colors.

Primary: This includes red, yellow, and blue. If these colors are combined in different ways they make up the colors of the color wheel.
Secondary: Orange, green, and purple are what you get when the primary colors are mixed into one another.
Tertiary: Created when mixing a primary and secondary color together. You get something like yellow-green and blue-green.

Complementary: These are colors that complement each other and are found on the opposite side of the color wheel.
Analogous: These are found right next to one another in the color wheel. They tend have little contrast when next to each other.

Contrast: Helps divide information on the page such as white text on a black background or black text on a white background. Yellow text on an orange background would not be an easy read, therefore they have little contrast.

Next I will give some examples of websites and the kinds of associations made when viewing the colors on the site.

Black

power

Brown

warmth

Gray

stable

 Blue

trust

Red

passion

Pink

youth

Purple

luxury

Orange

energy

Yellow

joy

Green

natural

White

pure

These colors can be combined to create color groups that create certain emotions.

Warm colors: These create sense of warmth and the colors include brown, yellow, red, and orange.

Cool colors: Green, blue, and purple create a cool feeling.

Neutral colors: There is not much of a emotion associated with neutral colors. This includes black, white, and gray.

What can SEO do for your e-commerce business?

What is SEO? 

SEO is short for search engine optimization. It is the process by which one optimizes their website for organic search results. Organic search results are the listed items that are not paid for and there is no charge per click for the business when you search a subject online. This is made possible by web crawlers who search through all information on the web. Each website as an algorithm that then organizes the information into useful and relevant search results. Higher rankings means high traffic.

How do you optimize? 

There are several strategies that will help your website become a top ranking.

• Words: The words you use are important. These web crawlers account for all words on the web. When a specific term is searched the results are narrowed down to what is most relevant. 
• Titles: The title found in the code summarize what a page is about. Crawlers pay special attention to these.
• Links: When a site is linked with another it usually means there is some kind of recommendation from another site. This makes a site look credible to search engines.
• Words in links: A site that links certain words to certain websites makes the site relevant to the link. 
• Reputation: You need fresh content. This makes the website credible.

Keep in mind that this is only the basics of SEO and that recipes for good organic search rankings are always changing. 

SEO improves business 

1. Low Cost
There is a definite difference between the cost of traditional marketing such as TV ads compared to what SEO does to market your products and business, especially since you do not have to pay to be ranked high on the organic search list. There is maximum exposure to your business through this marketing technique and it greatly increases traffic and sales.

2. Increased Traffic
If you have quality content and use all the strategies to optimize, when people search for your website or products, it is the first on the organic search list. This causes a large amount of people to view the search results. In fact, as the the viewer moves down the results lists the chances of them moving past the first three is small, let alone the next page.

3. Increased Credibility
People trust that search engines provide them with the sites most relevant to their search. In fact, they do provide the the most relevant information because they find what is most credible for the term searched.

4. Increased Sales
It's pretty simple: The most people viewing your site, the more they are likely to purchase something.

5. Better Brand Awareness
People can find your brand more easily and associate it with your services.

6. Product Promotions
SEO provides you with the opportunity to sell products that you are promoting at the time.

7. Get Ahead of Competition
The first people to take advantage of search engine optimization will be the first on the rankings list. It is important to try to get a head of your competition. If a competitor is already optimized a skilled person with SEO knowledge can help you get ahead.

8. Increased ROI (Return on Investment)
Because it costs for people to click on a paid advertising, you will be able to make more money on SEO because you don't have to pay for people clicking on your ad. There for there are more profits.

9. Long Term Results
Once on the top spot of organic search results, there is a good chance it will be there for a long time.

10. Measurable results
Unlike traditional advertising, where you are not able to see how is viewing ads and who is purchasing products. With SEO you are able to see exactly where people are clicking and what exactly brought them to purchase items.

What does this have to do with e-commerce web design?

The use of SEO has a lot to do with the quality of the content and user experience of the visitor.  SEO helps with organizing and executing navigation around the site. If you have a good ranking in organic search results this means that your site has great content as well as well-design site usability. What keeps a customer coming back has a lot to do with their visual experience as well as easy accessibility.  

Sources: 

http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo
http://www.titan-seo.com/NewsArticles/5-seo-benefits.html

10 New Trends of E-Commerce Web Design

The online shopping experience you will remember is a fast growing phenomenon that many e-commerce businesses are picking up. These innovative webpage designs and techniques are drawing people in and increasing business. With any advancing technology in the world today, for those that have not picked up on these new trends will be left behind. Although these techniques are useful to draw in customers remember that content can not be forgotten. It is what will help optimize your website by keeping your rankings high.

1. High Screen/Photo Resolution/Photo Interactivity
People are now seeing high resolution photographs on e-commerce websites. These photographs range from just background design elements to 3D views of products. This trend is visually appealing and attention getting for the visitor and lets them better visualize owning the products. Not only are these photographs increasing in quality, but they are turning into something dynamic, this means that a visitor can click on and interact with with product online.

2. Video
Video is now being integrated into website design. This is a technique that lets the customer see the product in action. It acts like a commercial that advertises the product. It draws customers in, which increases purchases.

3. Responsive Web Design
Responsive web design includes all-device user friendly internet sites or applications. No matter what device you are using or how you stretch and pull the browser, the design conforms to the size. These are designed to make mobile shopping easy to do when people are on the go.

4. Infinite Scrolling
These sites are created to keep the visitor engaged. When you visit a website like this you keep scrolling and content keeps coming. As you scroll images and information change. Unlike traditional webpages where you stop when the content is finished, almost the whole website can be seen from the first page.

5. Simplicity
This design technique makes e-commerce websites easy to use and take in information. This includes bold headings, flat illustrations, and plenty of white space. There is no clutter, no confusion, just simply the high quality, engaging and interactive photographs that display the products for consumers to purchase.

6. Personalization
Amazon does a good job at personalizing your online shopping experience. Even if you do not have a profile, the landing page will personalize discounts on merchandise that you have search for in the past. This image is of the front page of my amazon account. The last thing I bought on here was an HDMI core and the first thing I saw when I logged on was other HDMI products and cords. It also says "Hello, Sarah" on the button go to to my account information.

7. Security
The best security for online payments is critical for business sales success. Security gives customers assurance that their payment information is safe with the site. The ease of entering payment information is also beginning to change. For some sites, you do not even need to make an account, but you just check out as a visitor. Making the processes and security of checking out simple is something that will help customers go from product selection to checkout completion with great ease and efficiency, hopefully increasing purchases due to lack of frustration at the check out.

8. Integration of Facebook/Social Media
Usually a facebook, twitter, and other social media icons will be found at the bottom of the e-commerce website. These tiny icons result in big business. There are so many affordable marketing possibilities when it comes to social media. Facebook can be used provide social proof to customers this means customers can communicate product ideas with friends to help with purchase decisions. Brands can also advertise by showing members of a network "liked" them on a social media site. Lastly, brands can use social media to promote products and discounts.

9. Fast Site Loading Time
If you are not a digital native (someone who as grown up with Internet technologies) you remember when the Internet first took off. Internet speeds and connections were extremely slow, taking long minutes to load pages. Now, a page can be connected in seconds and people expect pages to load fast, up to 3 seconds, or they will leave that page. Now that images are larger, there is more interaction, and video pages take more to load. Here are some steps to increasing load time: Web Design Depot 

10. Drop Down Menus
Drop down menus are important when it comes to navigation on the page. They can be single column, multiple column, and consist of rich HTML, as shown below. These can contain information that is relevant and easy to the visitor to navigate.