Building Your Online Store

Now we’ve chosen an online store (my personal preference is Yahoo! Merchant Services).

It’s time to start building.

Here are some considerations in organizing your store.

Categorizing
First, you need to think about how to categorize your products. Think about User Experience first and SEO second. From a usability perspective, you want your users to navigate your site freely and easily. When they are looking for something specific, there is nothing worse than making them think too hard - you will lose them for sure.

When you are designing your categories, don’t be afraid to include a product in multiple categories. You can group products by function, style and manufacturer. Maybe by price too. Whatever you think will benefit your customers and get them to what they want . . . quickly.

Pictures
Make great use of pictures in your store. While the spiders like to see text on your page, humans love pictures and pictures sell!! I like to put pictures towards the top and then put text towards the bottom. If the user wants to scroll down and read what you hvae to say - great. Otherwise, they will start clicking away on the pictures.

On your product pages, have several pictures. Remember that the user is trying to “experience” your product online. Anything you can do to make them feel they are seeing the product at all angles will help. Video is a big plus too.

Descriptions
Avoid using your manufacturer’s descriptions. We are all guilty of taking the easy way out sometimes, but when you use your manufacturer descriptions, not only will you put your customers to sleep - you also may be penalized by Google for duplicate content. They have filters looking at these things and the last thing you want is to have your page left out of the index because it is considered a duplicate.

If you are serious about getting your online business off the ground, you have to attend this new exciting event - The System Beginner Bootcamp - in Chicago on November 8th & 9th. There are two full days of information about getting started online.

I am presenting with Howie Jacobson, James Martell and Cindy Kappler - and of Course, Ken McCarthy. I will be teaching how to start your eCommerce business.