3 Factors to Consider for Your Ecommerce Website

If a business obtains the ability to operate 24/7 on its own, you can only imagine the benefits that will emerge with online promotions.  The key is not only to promote the website but modify the behavior of website visitors through usability, design, onsite promotion and creating brand awareness. We will take a quick look at three factors to consider when evaluating your ecommerce solutions.

1. Tracking Results and Transactions

• Through Google analytics you can track your total revenue, conversion rate, average order value, product performance, transactions, visits to purchase, days to purchase and more. It is important to track your performance online in order to understand which forms of marketing are most effective. Take advantage of online tools that can help you track your results more effectively. It is also helpful if your ecommerce web designer can Integrate Ecommerce and CMS to allow for better catalog and data management.

  2. Ecommerce Community

• Learn from others by joining ecommerce networking groups such as Practical Ecommerce. This is an online community with blogs, articles, webinars, podcasts and more. It is good to learn from other people and share helpful tips. This is a good way to gain insight but also to build your reputation and trust in an online community and promote your business by contributing something of value. Other ways to get involved are through Facebook, Twitter,LinkedIn and Blog Marketing. Any way you can promote your products through giving back to a community will really play a large role in improving brand awareness.  Through social networks you can offer coupons and discounts to your dedicated fans and loyal shoppers. It is a great platform to connect with potential customers.

3.  Ensure the Security of your Ecommerce Site

• The main concern of online shoppers is that people don’t trust a website enough to give out their valuable and personal information. Security is a big part of online stores and must be evident to the buyer that the site is secure. The World Wide Consortium (w3c) has anElectronic Ecommerce Interest Group which sets standards and best practices for ecommerce websites to ensure the security of the buyer’s information. It is always important to include a Privacy Policy to inform users how their information will be used and who it will be distributed to. This is a good way to build the confidence of the buyer and hold the merchant accountable to the privacy of each buyer.

The Proper Use of an Alt Attribute for SEO and Validation

What is the Alt Attribute? The alt attribute is the “alternative text” for your images that allows text to appear if a user is viewing your website on a browser that does not support that image. It provides additional or “alternative” information about the picture. The text can also serve the purpose of allowing those with disabilities the chance to read a description if they are unable to see your image appear. The alt attribute serves the purpose of describing the picture or image, if the image is unable to appear.

Alt Attribute Standards of W3C and Google Guidelines

Although you may not be familiar with HTML or XHTML markup languages, it is still in your best interest to gain a better understanding of the importance of validation. If you website code is validated, you are ensuring that your website meets the necessary standards and high quality. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the worldwide accepted Web Standard led by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe. With Search Engine Optimization small alterations to your code in Meta tags, headings, content, titles, and etc will go a long way for your websites success. On example of the importance of Validation in regards to SEO is the alt attribute. With any image file you have within your code, w3c requires you to include the alt attribute to each image. With the alt attribute you can present an “alternative” description for your image content where you can place descriptive keywords which will be acknowledged by search engines. It would not be wise to pack the description with multiple keywords. Keep your description brief but accurate. Google is pretty straight forward about the Google Webmaster Guidelines for Alt Text categorizing that as “keyword Stuffing.” Here is a great video of Matt Cutts describing Alt Text that briefly describes the proper use of Alt Attribute according to Google Image standards.

Conclusion and Best Practices

1. Brief Descriptive Alt Attribute Description- You can optimize the image file name with a short brief descriptive text as well as the alternative text

2. Alt Text for Image Links- If images are used as a link you can help search engines have a better idea of where you are linking your website. Consider “Image Links” to be similar to anchor links in regards to proper keywords and descriptions for indexing. This applies for images with or without links.

3. Do Not Abuse- Do not abuse the alt attribute to stuff a large amount of Keywords in the image description. Remember that Google is all about what is best for the user. Stuffing keywords will not benefit a user who is not able to view your image in their browser in any way.

4. Google Image Search- When you optimize your image file names as well as your alternative text you will be optimizing your images for Google Image Search.

Now that you know how to properly use the Alt Attribute, have fun describing your images. Remember that your websites validation and code plays a large role in Search Engine Optimization. If you have a business and want to properly develop your website in order to rank well for your keywords you want to create your website with professional web development strategy. As a Dallas Web design company, we fully understand the importance of implementing an SEO strategy into your website development. As the interent popularity grows so will the development of web standards. Remember to do your research and do things the right way. High Quality goes a long way in the long run.