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Starting a webshop, what should you pay attention to.

You want to start a webshop, but have no idea how. Which system do you use and how do you set everything up? Whole books have been written about that, and we’d rather not cram them onto a single blog page. We want to help you get your webshop started and optimised, quickly. Just enough of a nudge in the right direction.

CHOOSE YOUR SYSTEM

You’ve chosen your product and are 100% sure you’re taking it to the online market with this product. But which system do you choose? There are countless webshop systems out there. We ourselves work a lot with Magento. It’s the number 1 platform in online sales. Magento is therefore an excellent choice to build your webshop with. It’s very extensive and offers plenty of options to get your webshop started. You can also start a webshop through WordPress. Want to know more about that? Then read these 17 pros and cons of a WordPress webshop.
Starting a webshop Magento

DESIGN AND CONVERSION

Now that your system is chosen, you can start your webshop. That begins with a fitting design. That sounds simple, but don’t underestimate this step. The design is directly linked to your eventual sales. Placing the right button in the right spot can lift your conversion rate from 1% to 2%. In short, you double your revenue! Below are a few short tips to keep in mind for optimal conversion.

  • Make sure you have excellent product photos. Good isn’t good enough.
  • Shorten your load time. Bring down the average load time of your page. This is easy to measure via Google Analytics, more on that further down.
  • We’ve said it before on our blog, but content is king. Make sure you have good product descriptions.
  • Fewer clicks. The sooner a visitor reaches the order button, the better. All roads lead to Rome, you just need to find the easiest one.
  • Customer service, always offer your visitor help to win a bit of trust.
  • Reliability. Show trust marks, payment options, a physical location and also your USPs (distinguishing features)

ANALYTICS

Measuring is knowing, and with Google Analytics everything can be measured. From the very first visit to the webshop right up to the eventual conversion of your shop. That way you can see, for instance, how the user flow runs. Where visitors go and where they drop off. Tackle those bottlenecks. We once had a client who tripled(!) conversion purely by making the webshop mobile. Don’t underestimate your statistics. That’s certainly true early on, when your webshop is still in its infancy.
Webshop statistics analytics

WEBSHOP SEO

Search engine optimisation for your webshop is a somewhat different story than for a website. Starting a webshop might not be that difficult, but the optimisation process is. It can cost a lot of work and time. Of course the normal SEO “rules” apply to a webshop too, but it also has a number of additions and important points to keep in mind.

  • “Use your visitor”. Ask for reviews of your products and of your service. That way you kill 2 birds with 1 stone. You get extra content you don’t have to do anything for yourself, and you get extra credibility since someone has already ordered the product in question from you.
  • Write unique copy. Don’t post descriptions the supplier gave you, since it’s probably already used on 10 other webshops.
  • Keep your URLs simple. By using webshop.nl/category/product you can fit in keywords more easily and it’s easier for Google to determine the structure of your shop.
  • Optimise your product photos. We can’t say it often enough. Selling a Pink Lady apple? Then name the photo pink-lady-apple.jpg and give it a fitting alt tag.
  • Internal links are important to make certain pages or products extra important. The more links to a given product, the more important it will be seen as.
  • Brand pages. If you have a webshop with brands, create an optimised landing page for each brand. This matters for Google and for your visitors.
  • You should really be able to reach a product page within 3 clicks. Speed is therefore an incredibly important point!

STARTING A WEBSHOP

In short, starting a webshop might not be the hardest thing there is, but making sure you actually sell something is a whole different story. Want to start a webshop and need more information? Then get in touch with us. Or take a look at the webshops we’ve made.