10 eCommerce Website Best Practices

person using an eCommerce website on a tablet

Online shopping has never been more exciting, and eCommerce has continued to grow in popularity.

But to succeed in eCommerce, you must quickly gain peoples’ trust. Whether starting a new eCommerce business, taking your retail business online, or trying to grow an established business, your goal is to create long-lasting relationships with your potential customers through your eCommerce website.

But this is not easy to do.

People’s perceptions of trust are constantly changing. So, you must create an eCommerce website that can outlast trends, be trustworthy, and stand out.

Here are ten ways to make your eCommerce website more credible and trustworthy:

1. Create a good first impression

First impressions are lasting and significant. A first impression can make or break your relationship with a prospective customer, especially in eCommerce.

Make an excellent first impression through your eCommerce website design. Determine first which design style suits your website best: minimalism, maximalism, trendy, etc.

Then use your brand colors, creative illustrations, crisp imagery, appropriate and precise copy, etc., to create a good lasting impression. This is your opportunity to showcase your brand identity and extend your brand strategy to your online audience.

Next, ensure your website, developed by an ecommerce website development company, looks good across all devices, from mobile phones to computers. Many business owners forget to test their websites on mobile phones. As a result, the customer experience on mobile is inferior. Your developer should help you with this testing so that poor user experience doesn’t impact sales.

Finally, optimize your website. Ensure that your pages load fast, there are no broken links, and all necessary information is easy to access. To speed up your website, use a caching plugin like WP Rocket, one of the best caching plugins for WordPress (we’ve used this plugin for many years on the crowdspring blog and other sites, have compared it to a dozen alternatives, and think it’s a must-have plugin). You also want to ensure your content is optimized for search engines by implementing an SEO writing strategy.

Essential Branding Toolkit for Entrepreneurs

Build a stronger brand with our free guides. Get actionable insights to define your brand’s unique voice, understand your market, and stand out to customers. The guides are concise, actionable, practical, and tailored for the busy entrepreneur.

  • The Ultimate Branding Checklist
  • Crafting Your Unique Value Proposition
  • Build Your Brand Pillars Worksheet
  • Market Research Kit

Essential Branding Toolkit for Entrepreneurs

Build a stronger brand with our free guides. Get actionable insights to define your brand’s unique voice, understand your market, and stand out to customers. The guides are concise, actionable, practical, and tailored for the busy entrepreneur.

  • The Ultimate Branding Checklist
  • Crafting Your Unique Value Proposition
  • Build Your Brand Pillars Worksheet
  • Market Research Kit

Essential Branding Toolkit for Entrepreneurs

Build a stronger brand with our free guides. Get actionable insights to define your brand’s unique voice, understand your market, and stand out to customers. The guides are concise, actionable, practical, and tailored for the busy entrepreneur.

  • The Ultimate Branding Checklist
  • Crafting Your Unique Value Proposition
  • Build Your Brand Pillars Worksheet
  • Market Research Kit

2. Build trust with your target audience

Many small business eCommerce websites struggle to gain customers. So, make it easier for people to trust you. Use trust signals such as:

  • Third-party reviews on sites like Zomato and Yelp
  • Credibility icons like a small checkmark for verification
  • Offering free returns or a “money-back guarantee”
  • Showing security seals in your site footer
  • An “About Us” page showcasing your team
  • Your physical address if you also operate a retail store

These trust signals help reassure people that your business is credible.

And don’t forget social proof. People are social and often rely on other people’s opinions. So, social proof such as comments or reviews can increase trust and help to convince people to buy from you.

3. Showcase your products with stunning visuals

Customers can’t touch or try products online, so high-quality photos are the best way to let them experience these products. Good photos attract attention, increase trustworthiness, and convince people to buy. Don’t skimp on the camera. You need a high-quality camera for product photography to take crisp images in varied lighting conditions.

Show off your site’s products with stunning visuals. Ensure that the products are the center of attention by using a white background to avoid distractions. Upload three or more photos of a product from various angles to fully encapsulate what it looks like in real life.

For example, Etsy is known for its arts and crafts by small business owners. You will immediately see creative and beautiful photos on the site’s home page to showcase various products. It’s an effective eye candy for customers to stay and browse through the site.

4. Build a community for your customers

You must provide your customers a space to grow and network through a site community. Although this isn’t critical for all businesses, many small businesses would benefit from building a community around their products and services.

Create a space where people can share the same interests or network. Building a public space for discussion can also help drive site traffic and engagement. You can do this on your site or an existing social network.

A good example is Shopify Community. The community allows shop owners, marketers, etc., to connect through various groups and report issues and comments about Shopify’s website performance.

5. Make your website user-friendly and accessible

An easy-to-navigate website is a good website. And strong website design helps you convert visitors into customers. A click or two to find what customers need, and they’re happy.

This is the secret to success for most social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Your eCommerce site should follow the same principle.

Optimize your website’s navigation by consistently featuring the main menu on each page, ensuring ease of access for visitors. Simplify the menu by including only essential items, as overly complex menus can deter users. Additionally, incorporating a WordPress floating button can significantly enhance user experience. This tool offers quick and convenient access to key features such as customer support or the shopping cart, streamlining the user journey on your site.

Finally, don’t include more than one (and, at most, two) call-to-action on any page. This becomes paralyzing when people see too many choices, and they’re more likely to leave the page.

To help you measure accessibility and friendliness and improve the overall control of your site, consider adding admin dashboard templates.  Admin dashboards can give you a comprehensive view of what’s happening on your site and allow you to make changes and build new web pages quickly.

6. Share valuable resources

Be more than just an eCommerce site and gain your customers’ trust by offering valuable content.

Many resources such as tutorials, blogs, podcasts, and more that can add value to your customers’ lives help establish trust and nurture relationships. These resources can also help you increase organic traffic through natural eCommerce link-building.

Show off your expertise to site visitors through educational resources and be relatable by sharing stories. Make sure these resources don’t only apply to your site but are also shareable to reach new audiences.

You can see this in our footer below. We show lots of valuable resources for small business owners, including how to start a business, how to write a business plan, a guide to marketing psychology, and more.

7. Be transparent

Appear human to your audience and show vulnerability.

But how do you do this?

By showing people you’re constantly trying to improve as an eCommerce website.

For example, many Internet visitors are concerned about website privacy practices. Since most websites track visits and place cookies for tracking and other purposes, transparent privacy practices can help build strong loyalty and trust. However, most eCommerce site owners sites struggle to understand the complex privacy requirements across the world. That’s where GDPR compliant data management can help differentiate your site.

Don’t be satisfied with just getting good traffic or sales. Always strive to grow and make your audience a part of this growth. You can start by launching beta projects involving new trends or technology that can make online shopping easier. For example, look at virtual store tours and virtual fitting rooms to differentiate your site from others.

8. Acknowledge customers’ experiences

It’s essential to create the best customer experience. But, it’s a mistake to focus only on customers with good feedback. Pay attention to customers with negative experiences. Make it a goal to make every customer feel heard.

Ignoring customer complaints will make them feel invalidated and lose trust in your service. So, make sure to invest time in communicating with these customers. Train your support team to handle these concerns professionally.

Customer feedback can help your eCommerce website be better and serve as your benchmark. Make it a goal to solve these issues as satisfied customers are happy customers.

9. Nurture long-term relationships

It’s very easy to ruin your reputation as a business. So, never be satisfied with just appearing trustworthy – embody that value as a company.

Having a well-designed website is essential, but rarely enough. Marketers know nurturing long-term customer relationships is vital to build a sustainable business.

Good customer support is essential. So, invest in the areas that customers find important. Be consistent in your daily interactions with people. Offer 24/7 customer service. Converse in a friendly and professional manner, and always address customer concerns quickly.

You can also help your support team deliver better customer service by connecting your website using an e-commerce integration tool. Such tools can help you create workflows, automate daily tasks, and synchronize data between e-commerce products and platforms – a valuable approach if, for example, you need to implement an Amazon to Walmart integration.

You can also add personal touches through content marketing and promotions, including customizing the shopping experience by sending discounts, offering recommendations, and providing educational content.

10. Leverage social media to promote your eCommerce website

Many people go to social media to discover new products and services. It’s one of the most effective ways to help your eCommerce site reach new people.

If you’re purchasing an e-commerce store, the store could have an existing social following. But if you’re starting a new e-commerce business, you’ll want to amplify praise from customers and prospects. Take advantage of positive comments and share them on social media to gain more social proof.

When promoting new products, always share on social media. You can also host giveaways or contests to increase your social media accounts and website traffic. And if you’re worried about the time-consuming process of selecting winners, use Instagram giveaway picker tools to simplify the process!

To nurture trust, your eCommerce website runs on three critical things: good design, credibility, and effective communication. Stay consistent in maintaining all three, and you will have a successful eCommerce website people love.