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5 Features Of An Effective Ecommerce Web Site
18th November 2006
Author:
Trevor Sadowski | Views: 1
Building an effective ecommerce web site demands that you have a basic level of web site creation experience and a working knowledge of HTML.
How to gain suitable experience
The best way of obtaining experience of web site creation is to just jump in and play around with some practice sites before you attempt to build your first ecommerce web site.
There are several free HTML editors available on the web or, if you are already familiar with the Microsoft
Office applications, then you may want to buy Microsoft FrontPage as you will find the user interface quite familiar.
Basic ecommerce web site design
The design of your ecommerce web site should be in keeping with your
business niche. For instance, a professional, clean approach for formal businesses such as investment and insurance; or a friendly, funky feel for a matchmaking site.
You only need to do a search on Google to see what sort of designs work for the highly ranked ecommerce web sites in your niche. If the market is competitive too you can assume that these designs have been tested for their effectiveness.
Effective keyword research
Keyword research is the starting point for all successful ecommerce web sites. You need to discover what phrases your potential visitors are typing into their browsers to find sites such as yours.
You may already have a good idea of the keywords you are targeting but if not, then you can use free tools such as the Google tool included in their adwords program or, you can make use of the popular Overture Inventory tool.
If you wish to move on to a more thorough research tool then you should consider investing in Wordtracker, a very powerful tool popular with internet marketers.
Browser compatibility issues
Do not fall into the trap of thinking that everyone uses Internet Explorer. Granted it is the most popular choice by far, but there are also many people who dislike it enough to have chosen one of the many alternatives.
You need to view your completed site in as many browsers as possible to ensure it looks the way you expect it to.
Keep image files small
Clear, fast loading product images are essential for an effective ecommerce web site. Nothing has visitors reaching for the back button on their browsers quicker than a site that is slow to load. In fact it has recently been measured that your site has only 4 seconds to load before most people get impatient and click away.
It is essential that you keep graphics files to a minimum size.
Take note of these five issues and you will be well on your way to creating your own successful ecommerce web site.
Trevor Sadowski has been building ecommerce web sites for over two years and has built up a wealth of experience to help others.
Visit his ecommerce web site at http://www.ecommerceintro.com to pick up your copy of his 7 step ecommerce guide.
This article is free for republishing
Source:
http://www.articlealley.com 
