Making searching a ‘walk in the park’ or risk losing customers
If you’re dipping your toes in the mcommerce water for the first time, help is at hand from our panel of experts.
By Suzie Larcombe
In this article you’ll get 10 top tips from mcommerce experts to help you create mobile sites that sell. You’ll also find out more about what’s best practice right now and some things you should you avoid.
It may be you’ve already done the research, or you might be doing a bit of an ostrich impersonation when it comes to going mobile? Either way, if you plan to stay ahead of the game, you can’t ignore it; it simply WON’T go away.
Here are our 10 Top Tips, with a few ‘avoid if possible’ elements thrown in for good measure:
1. Opt for a mobile site rather than an app. A mobile website doesn’t rely on your potential consumers downloading your app, or having the right sort of handset.
What’s more, a mobile website will show up in searches, serving to broaden your reach. In short, a well optimised mobile website will be findable and accessible to all of your potential buyers.
2. Google is God (or most probably). With an estimated 90% share of the search market, it makes sense to respect Google’s guidelines for optimising your mobile site.
3. Make sure mobile searchers go straight to your mobile site. If you ask mobile searchers to divert from your ecommerce site to your mobile site by clicking on a link or choosing an option you risk losing them. Make their journey to purchase as easy and as stress-free as possible.
4. Make searching a walk in the park. Even more important on mobile than on standard ecommerce websites, your search facility needs to be well above the fold and easy to use.
Think of adding auto-suggestions and make your terminology exactly the same as your main site, so anyone familiar with your site will land on exactly what they’re looking for faster than the speed of light.
5. Think two, or maximum three clicks to buy and avoid registration if possible. Only ask your potential buyers to click (a maximum of) three times to buy, two if possible and don’t but barriers like registration in their way.
Don’t give them any excuses to go elsewhere: once you’ve got them, make sure they buy from you.
6. Give a range of ways to pay. Offering a whole host of payment alternatives attracts a wider audience. People with Paypal balances are often more susceptible to spending and people with credit cards often don’t want to punch their details into their mobile phones.
Think of the whole range of payment options and offer as many as humanly possible.
7. Remember that a picture paints a thousand words. Just because buyers are working on a smaller platform it doesn’t mean they’ll be any less thorough in their decision-making process.
Yes, make your photos smaller, but give them every product angle and think lightweight to speed up the load time.
8. Keep content to a minimum, but keep it sharp. Once again, your copy needs to hit-home, but not be War and Peace. This means you really need to invest either time (if you’re doing it yourself) or money (if you’re hiring a copywriter), to get your words hard-hitting, but few in number.
9. Offer click to call phone support. If buyers are in doubt, let them have the further information they need to complete their purchase in a completely hassle-free way.
10. KISS. Keep it Simple, (really) Simple. Make your design and functionality as easy to use as ABC, as quick to load as abracadabra and as stylish as you can within these limits.
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