According to Darpan Munjal, in an article for Practical Ecommerce, money spent on marketing will be wasted if visitors are not encouraged to make purchases and one of the best ways to gain an edge on the competition is by ensuring on-site usability.

 

Observing that, for the majority of online retailers, approximately 97 out of 100 users abandon web pages without completing transactions, Mr Munjal noted that implementing the basics is important, as advanced techniques will have little impact if usability aspects are not in place.

 

He recommended focusing on ease of navigation, customer service that can be located quickly and offering a simple checkout process.

 

"These are basic, foundational aspects of your site that are necessary to put you on par with your competition," he said.

 

Analytics was also revealed to be of import to businesses and firms were advised to monitor top keyword searches each week, optimising the results to ensure they are what the customer would want to see.

 

Website usability tips were also recently provided by Zippycart, which suggested that Google Website Optimiser be used by those in the industry as it can help identify areas of cost-effectiveness on websites.