A rare ecommerce website with creative use of illustration.

I have built various ecommerce websites this past year. So much to share. Let me start with the blog first. I will cover ecommerce hosting in future postings.

1. Good and relevant content

Content. Content. Content. Content is king. Good and relevant content keeps people coming back. Provide highly engaging and relevant content.

2. Make it pretty

Don’t kid yourself - your blog needs to be visually appealing. On top of that, it needs to be legible. I’ve seen many blogs with good contents but illegible with 8 pt type and dark gray on black background or white type on black background. Please stay away from this type of color combination.

3. Show your product in action

Show your product off. You can do this using images or video, and feel free to encourage your customers to send you pictures of them using/wearing your product.

4. Killer headlines

Keeping your content short and snappy is a good way to ensure people read your posts. In this day and age where millions of bloggers are competing for everyone’s attention, you can rarely get away with huge paragraphs that just ramble on.

5. Go behind the scenes

Here’s a great opportunity to give people a glimpse behind the scenes of your shop, and if you’re comfortable with it, your life.

6. Social media

It’s incredible to consider that just five years ago virtually no one had even heard of Twitter or Facebook. The influence of social media extends to almost every aspect of our lives now, so it’s vital that you let people share your articles. Include share buttons to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn at the minimum.

by M Hayes