eCommerce Web Re-Design in 2010
March 4, 2010 by Pablo Palatnik
In order to achieve true success in e-commerce, it is a MUST that you stay on top of new strategies, and one of those strategies includes design optimization. With design optimization, you can also strategize for SEO as the two will go hand-in-hand for on-site optimization and design. Many retailers go with the times and make changes to their sites for various reasons. The scope of web design can range from better user navigation, site speed, faster checkout, etc.
In a recent post by eMarketer, a great survey was done amongst some e-retailers which gives us a good picture of what is being prioritized and looked at in the past AND next few months for online retailers.
“Even in summer 2009, Internet Retailer and Vovici found e-commerce sites preparing to invest ahead of recovery to provide a better shopping experience. The increasingly consumer-centric focus of online shopping sites is now leading two-thirds of them to plan a site redesign for 2010, according to the researchers’ “Website Design Strategies and Tactics” survey.
Among those sites that will refresh their looks, better organization and updating of home, category and product pages are top priorities, followed by better search engine optimization.”
I have to say, as an e-commerce guy myself, the web design priorities on the first chart are pretty much on point with priorities we ourselves have been putting into place and giving more emphasis.
It’s VERY important to have your website homepage UPDATED. I see this as an issue in small online retailers but this is one factor that says a lot about your store. If you walked by a retail storefront and saw the same items on display and nothing changes after a few weeks or months, you would think that business JUST DOESNT CARE so why would I care? The aspect of a refreshed and updated homepage can go a long-way with a user that has come back to browse your website after a second time. This also goes for non-ecommerce sites for that matter.
The second priority on the list being Search Engine Optimization. Well…that is a focus many try to place but just aren’t sure how if they dont have an in-house team working on it or outsourced help. You must have optimized design in order to achieve the best rankings and that all starts with the very basics of SEO that sometimes companies get caught up in trying new strategies and forget to stick to the basics. Solid meta tags, image optimization with tags, navigation, INNER LINKING, etc.
In the coming weeks, I’ll discuss e-commerce web design further.
