Making the most out of your digital platform

I have been working within ecommerce for close to a decade now and when I first started my career digital was such a small proportion of sales for companies. However, this has become increasingly more important throughout my years in the sector, with companies now realising the potential and the importance of an online presence. In an era where smart phones are thriving, and people are so time precious, it's no wonder companies have seen the need to increase investment in this area. 

Digital continues to evolve with the development of technology but also social changes within our society. People are always on the go and where we used to see laptop devices used more dominantly, we are now seeing a shift to mobile and tablets, so a responsive website is key to ensure content works across all devices. 

Top 5 tips for website optimisation:

*User Journey - It's key to any website that you keep users on a journey to reduce bounce rates on pages in which you expect a conversion. It's important to consider where users might want to go next in their journey, so where relevant have CTA's throughout your pages to get customers to find out more, sign up and/or purchase, all of which will make pages the users journey easier. I always think simplicity is the key across the board so ensure your navigation is clean and simple, so a user can navigate through without getting lost or overwhelmed. 

*Homepage – This is your chance to shine! For new users coming to your website, the homepage is most likely where they will land first and where you will receive the most web traffic. This is your real estate which should be treated in exactly the same way as a storefront, and it's your opportunity to get people into the door so it needs to be inviting both visually and content wise.  Engage your users with content, utilise imagery and videos and ensure you're presenting key messages you want the users to see. Video content is becoming even more important and can often display your brand in a richer way in comparison to any text. 

*SEO - Organic traffic is not only one the cheapest traffic sources but usually the biggest driver to a website, having a SEO optimisations strategy is integral to the success of your website, not only building on your websites discoverability in search engines but also improving usability. SEO is a long-term project, results will not be seen overnight so it's important to build your strategy as early as you can within the campaign, so you start gaining benefits as soon as possible. Keyword research can unlock new areas of interest for users and can help with buying trends.

*Analytics - I really recommend having some form of analytical tool to measure the success of your website, and also help with optimisation. There are so many tools out there with different levels of services available. Google analytics is great for really digging into the user's behaviours, what channel they are coming from, demographics, most viewed pages, top converting pages, time on spent on the site and much more. There are also various tools to analysis, such as user's interaction with the page to see where they are clicking, how far they scroll and how different their interaction is dependent on what device they use. Some examples include; hotjar, sessioncam, crazy egg to name a few.

*Omni - channel experience - Both websites and stores offer very different experiences. A bricks and water store allows you to see and touch the products and you get a sense of scale. Online stores allow for convenience with items delivered directly to your door, I myself very rarely visit stores anymore to avoid the rush and to save time. It's important to have a consistent message across all channels including social to ensure your brand is recognisable to your user but also allows for a deeper engagement and increases purchase intent.