This is a guest blog post by Sandra from thinkingmoney.org.

With low overheads, the online business game is very competitive. In order to obtain success in this marketplace it is essential that you are aware that there are many things involved in having an eCommerce site.

As with any business venture, you’ll need to know your product inside out, who your target audience is and how you intend to sell to them. This will help yours marketing: it’s not all about presenting eye catching content anymore; being a pretty site does not help increase conversions.

Internet marketers are raving about CRO of late (Conversion Rate Optimisation). It’s all very well having a site, and the ability to purchase things from it, but the most important factor is actually getting people to buy from you. eCommerce sites cost a lot of money to setup well, accept credit cards deals in very techy and intricate coding. So you’d want people to actually buy right?

The first thing to do is establish what you want to sell and where you want the potential client to go. You will need well written content, with SEO anchor text, and persuasive language used. For this you may want to use a freelance writer who has experience.

The customer has to clearly understand what you can do for them; your USP’s will play a vital role. Clear calls to action will make a difference, if in doubt then test and test again. Once you learn the basics, it’s quite easy to test different colors and different positions on the page.

P.S. don’t forget to set up an analytics program on your site! Find out where your users are coming from and when they are leaving your site, and lots more insightful data!