The Must-haves to include in your eCommerce Site.
Convincing cold traffic to buy your products when they don’t yet know you is no mean feat. New brands selling direct to consumer have to work really hard to convince people that you are the real deal, and worth the time, money and effort of ordering from you. This is mostly done by showing how other people love your products (journalists, influencers and real people).
Note I have deliberately focussed on direct-to-consumer brands that didn’t start out with big brand awareness, and so they have to work harder to prove themselves to new buyers.
These are the exact elements the great ‘direct-to-consumer’ brands almost always have on their sites.
INCLUDE THESE essential elements on your homepage
Trust markers
1. Add third party endorsements. Ideally big name press quotes.
2. Add customer review quotes (these could be pulled from social until you get Trustpilot, Yotpo or similar review plug ins)
3. Other: credibility/trust markers such as certified xxx, made in xxx, 100% natural, money back guarantee etc
Products on the homepage
Add best sellers - to help people choose and understand your product set
Add a homepage ‘about us’ or mission statement block
This will help newcomers to know what you are about at a glance
Add instagram posts of your products from customers
This provides more social proof that your products are bought and loved by other people
2. GIVE SOME LOVE TO YOUR ABOUT PAGE
Use this as an opportunity to tell your founding story, give information about the products and your approach. Remember the lense you should have when writing this is to always write for your customer, and be relevant to them.
Some examples of good mission/about pages.
https://www.heist-studios.com/about
Great copy
https://www.evesleep.co.uk/about-us
Copy sells the benefit well.
Terrible team photo of all the white men behind the brand
https://www.brooklinen.com/pages/about
Great combination of product information and the people benind the brand.
Get them excited about your mission and make them feel part of a movement!
Key things to include on the about us page:
1. Catchy headline
2. Body copy to explain your mission
3. Clear description of your product benefits
4. Photos that show your company’s history and personality
5. Videos, interesting statistics or other visual elements.
3. PRODUCT IMAGES AND VIDEO ARE KEY.
Make sure you have detailed product images and unboxing videos if possible, as well as 360 degree videos if they suit your product. The more the customer experiences the product before they buy it, the better.
4. SET UP PRODUCT REVIEWS AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE
For independent brands targeting cold traffic - getting people to take the plunge and make that first purchase is hard. 98% of people who visit your site won't actually buy. so building trust and proving that you are more than someone's side project is key.
Use a plugin like Yotpo to set up an automated review system and reward people for giving you reviews. The sooner you get this done, the sooner you site will be credible.
5. GET SOME Customer VIDEO REVIEWS
Almost all product sites can benefit from real reviews from real people. Have you thought about creating a social competition where you reward people for sending in reviews? These will help your site performance and can be re-used in email, social media and more.
6. CONSIDER EXPANDED PRODUCT PAGES
Have you thought about building out an extensive product page rather than using just the standard page? Add elements explaining your product, exact specs, you vs the competitor, video testimonials about the product. Building out specific product page templates for each of your core products can really make a major impact on conversion rate.
If this isn’t possible make sure you include extremely detailed product info and specs. Think of every question your customer has ever asked you and include it! Think of every objection a customer might have and rebutt it!
It would be great to add additional pages that describe the product lines in more detail, to help people choose between options and understand more about the product options, the construction etc.
As a technical product you should go into detail about the technical aspects of the product.
A great example is here: https://www.heist-studios.com/products
7. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK YOUR SITE SPEED BEFORE LAUNCH
Google reports a massive loss of revenue for sites that are slow to load, especially on mobile. Do yourself a favour. Get software that monitors site speed for you! If the speed is slow, be sure to compress images.
Get daily alerts if it increases or decreases a set percentage. This will help you see if the changes we make increase or decrease performance.
