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Five Tips for Choosing the Right Ecommerce Website Builder
If you run a firm, or are about to launch a business in this always-online world, it’s vital that you have a solid web presence. Your website needs to not only be live and up to date, but also tick a lot of boxes when it comes to things like design, content, usability and the like. This is even more important when you have an ecommerce website, because everything rides on people being able to find the products they’re looking for, and then decide to buy them online too.
If you’re about to jump into ecommerce, you must ensure that your online shop meets all the requirements of today’s trigger-happy, busy consumers, who will just click away to the next site if they don’t find what they’re looking for straight away.
This is where an easy-to-use, affordable ecommerce website builder can come in very handy. Rather than having to waste time and money trying to learn coding or graphic design skills yourself, you can simply utilize some of the low-cost software programs that are available, and have your ecommerce site up and running in a short space of time.
If you’re interested in trying out a website builder today, read on for some top tips you should keep in mind when selecting which service to use.
1. Look for a Range of Templates
Firstly, when you’re choosing a website builder you need to look for a service which has a wide variety of templates on offer rather than just a handful. When creating a website for your business, you want to end up with an online presence that is unique and stands out from the crowd, rather than one that looks like everyone else’s.
As you examine the various products on the market, look for a service which has plenty of templates available which suit your specific industry. For example, if you’re a photographer or graphic designer, or have some other type of business with a strong visual element, you need a site that caters to this niche by providing plenty of space for images. Alternatively, if you want to sell products online, then you’ll need to choose a website builder that has ecommerce as an area of specialization.
2. Make Sure the Platform has Top Usability
Something else to be mindful of when comparing options is how easy the platform you’re interested in is to use. Most people don’t have any coding or other sort of technical experience, so need to find a website builder that doesn’t take lots of knowledge to navigate. The best options are usually those which have “drag and drop” type elements, which can be picked up quickly and easily by people with only the most rudimentary computer experience.
If you can, it’s helpful to access a trial period or a demo version of the site before you sign up and part with any money. This will give you some insight into how the program works, and let you work out if it will be straight forward enough for your needs. Check too if there are any tutorials on the site which demonstrate how to use the various functions.
3. Choose an SEO- and Mobile-Friendly Product
Another factor to consider is that it’s vital for all websites these days to be made in a way that caters to search engine optimization (SEO). For your site to get you results, it will need to rank highly on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, which only can happen if the design is SEO-friendly. Look for website builders which make it easy for you to add and edit important information such as meta tags, title tags, and meta descriptions, at the very minimum.
Furthermore, because so many people now use smart phones and tablets to browse, shop and research online, an effective website is always mobile-friendly. This means that a website will still be visually appealing and easy to use on smaller devices, not just standard interfaces.
4. Ensure there’s Scope for Change
After a while, your website will no doubt need to be tweaked and updated, with additional functionality or changes made as trends and/or your business evolve. As a result, a good website builder will make it easy for its customers to integrate many different plugins over time, and to update the functionality as required. If a service doesn’t allow users to enhance their offerings after the initial build, it is generally best avoided.
5. Check Support Is Available
While website builders are designed to take the stress, time and high cost out of building a website, like any technological product they can sometimes have glitches. As such, it’s best to choose a company that makes customer support readily available to all clients. Try to choose a builder which offers 24/7 support, 365 days of the year, through a variety of methods such as phone calls, emails and live chat.
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