Most of the E-commerce shopping cart sites on the internet are based on content management systems, example osCommerce, magento, Zen Cart, opencart, etc. this means: URLs and pages are dynamically generated by the scripting language fetching all elements from the database. To improve for these e-commerce shopping cart sites:
1. Designing for Success
- The top 100 eTailers prefer a 2 column, centered designed. The next most common design is 2 column, left justified design. However, there is no one size fits all solution. You have to test to see what converts best for your product.
For instance, make sure your proceed to checkout buttons are highlighted and easy to find. Make sure you have contact information easy to find, same for shipping info.
2. Be an expert of your products.
You know so much more about your products than your customers do, and in general retailers aren't doing a good job conveying their knowledge to their users. Offer your opinions on your products. Offer testimonials. Tell the users what to buy.
3. Make Buying Simple
-- Show progress
-- Eliminate distractions
-- Reduce shopping cart abandonment
-- Relay error messages in a friendly, useful manner.
Single page checkouts often help conversions by reducing distractions and generally making the process more simple and quicker.
4. Internal Site Search
It's not an option, it's a requirement. Make sure your site search is displaying relevant results. Check the Google Analytics site search report. People that utilize site search convert at a rate 5 times higher than other visitors. If you're not doing your site search well, then don't make it prominent.
5. Internal SEO for:
-- Internal Linking
-- Header Tags
-- Page Titles
-- Anchor Text
-- Image Optimization
6. Pay attention to your off-page SEO.
Increase your inbound links through:
-- Online Press Releases (PRWeb.com is used as an example)
-- Directory submissions
-- Blogging/Link Baiting
-- Shopping Feeds (make sure you optimize your data feeds)
