Top 10 Ideas for Increasing E-Commerce ROI
Jakob Nielsen just posted “10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities” based on his research with e-commerce sites. It’s an interesting list:
- Email Newsletters. I would not have thought of this as high on my list, but Nielsen makes a good case, especially if you are currently dependent on search engine traffic.
- Informative Product Pages. OK, so it’s obvious. Yet still so seldom done.
- High-Quality Photography. A case of balancing download times with the need to compellingly display your product.
- Product Differentiation and Comparisons. Amen to this one. I hate getting to a site and being unable to tell a wizz-bang from a whats-it. Too many companies seem to assume you already know their product strategy, down to the differentiating features of their own product lines.
- Support for Reordering. Like e-mailing newsletters, this one is especially important if you’re paying too much for search engine placement.
- Simplified Text. Here’s to my Master’s degree in Technical Communication from the UW…
- Catering to Seniors. Too many sites don’t bother accommodating the wealthiest segment of the population. (Not to mention the fact we should be honoring our parents, not frustrating them.)
- Gift-Giving Support. Gift certificates are becoming more and more popular… as we get lazier and lazier.
- Site Search. Nielsen is reluctant to push this too hard since the other items in his list can give a quicker return, but it’s still important.
- User Testing. Yes, yes—it’s the same old thing from Jakob. Wouldn’t it be nice if he were wrong? But he’s not. For sites with thousands or millions of diverse users, with loads of money on the line, face it—you can’t afford to be off-tack for long.
Here’s a link to Nielsen’s full article . While you’re at it, you might check out Search Engines as Leeches on the Web—a perspective I hadn’t really considered before…