People seem to get a little more dressed up for New Year’s Eve bashes, more so than they would for an ordinary night out. The idea is to shine and dazzle a little more. That mentality continues as the new year starts. People want to improve upon their own appearance with a new hairdo, a new wardrobe, a new waistline, whiter teeth. Sure, we think about these things year-round, but there’s something about a glowing, dropping ball that brings a personal makeover to the top of the to-do list.
It’s the same experience in e-commerce. E-tailers start to think, “Hmmm. What can I do to make my site dazzle more this year? How can it really shine?” For that reason, every year around this time, those in the e-commerce industry begin to be hit with newsletters, articles and seminars about how to prepare for the new year, namely about getting a redesign. The holiday push is over, a new sales year is beginning and in general, the focus is on a new beginning.
Remember that a redesign isn’t only about aesthetics. Sometimes putting a band-aid here and adding a feature there can actually clutter your site’s programming. A complete redesign may be needed to give your e-commerce site a facelift inside and out. A professional site evaluation that looks at everything from code to usability to search engine optimization and overall design is a sure-fire way to let an expert explain in detail what you are doing well, and most importantly, what you could be doing better. Often giving your own site a once over can identify if you need to redesign. If you recently had a redesign or your site is relatively new and current, keep reading — you may find something you want to implement.
1. How long as it been since your last redesign?
Industry experts recommend a redesign every 2-3 years. A refreshed look and feel is a huge part of that. Imagine if Madonna still looked the way she did in the 80s? She’d never be the success she is today; she livened up her image over time. Fast food restaurants and major soft drink brands like Burger King and Pepsi have jazzed up their logos. Bottom line is, they are still the names we know and love and are still recognizable, but these giant companies invested in changes to keep things current. So, if your e-commerce site looks like it did in 2002, 2005 or worse, 1999, you are going to definitely want to consider a brand new look and feel. You’d be amazed at how far some highly successful merchants have come since they first launched. Use the Way Back Machine (archive.org) for any store you frequent to get an idea of how a redesign every few years can progress their success.
As stated above, it’s not just about aesthetics, it’s about what’s behind the scenes, too. What is your code like? Is it gobbledegook? Is it table-based? Table-based programming is fast and easy for programmers, but it’s very old school and clunky; therefore the search engines don’t favor it. For serious programmers and e-commerce business owners, Cascading Style SheetsCSS is the recommended way to go. If you’ve been on the e-commerce block for some time now, but are starting to see your organic rankings dip, your code could be the culprit. Newer sites or redesigned sites with less-complicated code are now getting spidered better and faster.
Think of it this way– table-based programming is like being seated at the kids “table” on Thanksgiving; it is often ignored and gets slim pickings. CSS-based programming gets to sit with adults where it will be noticed, be part of the conversation and be surrounded by plentiful options. Aside from the type of code, there could also be lots of heavy stuff on your back-end bogging down load times and SEO.
2. Is Your Site Busy? Is it Hard to Navigate? Does it Instill Trust?
We all know what K-I-S-S stands for, right? While every e-commerce site needs to have its own unique branding, there are fundamentals in e-commerce we call best practices that must be followed. Landing on a cluttered homepage with mixed messages, no flow, no call to action, too much text, etc. can all cause people to click away. There’s lots of competition out there. There are pages upon pages of results for any keyword a user searches. Why should they stay at YOUR site? You have less than ten seconds to capture their attention, and if someone gets to your site and doesn’t know where to go, what to do or– worse yet- even WHAT you do, you can “kiss” that sale goodbye. Some glaring errors could be lack of a search box, a hard-to-find search box, an endless menu where shoppers have to scroll to see the navigation menu, no featured items or pricing on the homepage, too many clicks to get to item pages. Bottom line: if it looks amateur, you risk losing a customer. If your site is professional and consistent through the shell, homepage, section page, item page and checkout, you are in good shape.
Trust is the number one reason someone will leave your store. Does your site have customer service information in the header? (We hope you are not hiding from your bread and butter!) Is your checkout branded like the rest of your site? Do you have secure shopping graphics? Anyone can add something to the cart, but will they proceed by putting their credit card information into a form if they don’t trust your site, if they can’t see your return policies, etc.? Probably not.
3. Do you require
people to register to check out?
If you answered “yes” to this question, WHY? It’s easy to add items to the cart, for sure. But hitting that registration screen is a roadblock standing between you and a conversion– between you and profit. Of course there are benefits of offering account registration, however most online customers simply want to easily and swiftly check-out and make their own determination if they want to register. This issue is listed in a redesign article because this required checkout comes standard with many e-commerce platforms. If you find yourself in this situation, changing platforms may be worth considering, which inherently means a redesign.
Summing Up
The new year is a prime time to evaluate your website to determine what you are doing well and where you can improve. If there are a number of improvements to be made to make your site more trustworthy, easier to navigate, faster to load and an updated look, a redesign for 2009 may be what you need to ring in the new year… and ring up more sales.
[...] issue of the e-commerce magazine from Solid Cactus, the eBiz Insider. I have the cover story, “New Year, New Look: Is it Time for a Redesign?” which covers some tell-tale signs your e-commerce site needs a redesign. Check out the story, [...]