Besides great visuals, you need to make your website easy to use.website optimization

Good web design includes not only visual aspects, but features to make using your site easy for people. You want the layout, navigation and function to all support ease of use by website visitors, especially if you are selling products on your site.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process that makes your site more attractive to search engines to help boost traffic. If you want to learn how to boost your traffic, read Collin’s post on SEO for your website.

Once those people come to your site, you want to make sure that they can find what they are looking for. This blog explores some ways to optimize your website for sales, which is optimizing your site for people. In other words, making it easier to use, navigate, and find information on your site.

Lisa Schneegans, former vice president of Praxis Software, suggests 10 ways to optimize your website for sales:

  1. Test your site early and often. Plan ahead to ensure your site can handle heavy visits or shopping traffic.
  2. Test your content for misspelled words, broken links, pictures, etc.
  3. Make sure images load quickly. A page that is slow to load may drive customers away.
  4. Install, verify and test all plug-ins and upgrades to make sure they are working correctly.
  5. Load test your site to see how much traffic it can support.
  6. Create sample transactions. These simulate expected customer traffic and web transactions. By running sample transactions periodically, every five to 15 minutes, you’ll know if there is a problem before your customers do.
  7. Check the performance of your network provider. Compare a site that is similar to yours, but connected to another network. This will show you which network performs better.
  8. Add cross-sell and upsell opportunities throughout your site. For example, on our About Blue Zoo page we mention and link to our web design and social media pages. Offer suggestions for “Bestsellers” or “favorite blogs” to improve sales and create more buying opportunities.
  9. Make it easy to find and contact customer service. Providing an easy-to-find phone number on the site helps online shoppers feel more secure. Clearly state your company’s return policy on your site.
  10. Make your search function more effective. Your search function should accommodate common misspellings by returning similarly spelled items or your site’s most popular search terms.

If you have any questions about optimization, contact Collin, our in-house expert. 

Quit Monkeying Around. Get Optimized Today. Join the Zoo.