Tips for your retail website strategy during coronavirus
In mid-March, when the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic commenced to grow to be crystal clear, I talked to much more than 40 of our retail prospects about their problems and requested how Google could assistance. Weeks later, I’m continuing to hear from these prospects about the difficulties they are experiencing, especially with the ongoing closures or limits on their bodily suppliers.
Individuals are experiencing uncertainty way too. Additional than 50{2e54b6599e2852fcddcb96c51aef71201c0435684ebd8fbda55b4c693aab2644} of U.S. purchasers searched for what is open or closed in close proximity to them last week. So the stress is now on retailers’ new main suppliers — their e-commerce web sites — to not only provide inventory and generate revenue, but also to aid, advise, and reassure prospects alongside the way. It is a sensitive balancing act, but not an unachievable a single, and I have labored with my staff to identify eight approaches that shops can apply to present their prospects with relevant, frictionless, and useful browsing encounters appropriate now.
1. Prioritize business difficulties
Your staff is probably being inundated with requests and new thoughts. But you simply cannot deal with them all at once. Prioritization is crucial. Examine irrespective of whether there are areas of your site’s messaging or layout that are hurting the brand name or acquiring a negative effect on customers’ encounter. Change that initial. Then dig into optimizations that can both make improvements to the encounter or make improvements to overall performance.
Items to take into consideration include things like website overall performance and matching the messaging on your marketing channels to your website. You may also want to appear at methods to improve buyer aid and promotions, as properly as methods to handle volatility in website targeted traffic and transaction quantity. Concentrate on those jobs that will drive the most effect, then define how you will evaluate their success.
2. Improve website speed
With ongoing shop closures, much more and much more men and women are browsing online. And as online targeted traffic spikes, it is critical that your retail website can cope with amplified quantity. These guidelines will guarantee you’re all set.
- Examine your information delivery community (CDN) vendors (for case in point., Akamai, Cloudflare, Google Cloud CDN) for configurations that can permit a lot quicker requests.
- Numerous website means really do not involve updates on subsequent visits. Adopt very simple HTTP-caching solutions that make improvements to load instances for returning users and decrease server load with minimal code adjustments.
- Make your website load a lot quicker by compressing your pictures and text, without the need of compromising visual top quality.
- Implement font-show swap so prospects can examine your site’s text, even if the main font doesn’t load quickly enough.
- Delete unused tags from your tag administrators, thoroughly clean up bloated CSS and JS code, and take away other deprecated features.
- Regularly check your site’s speed working with tools like Test My Web site and PageSpeed Insights. You are going to locate much more guidelines on how to speed up your website listed here.
3. Present a seamless checkout encounter
Seventy-six {2e54b6599e2852fcddcb96c51aef71201c0435684ebd8fbda55b4c693aab2644} of smartphone users are much more probably to purchase from companies whose cellular web sites or apps allow for them to make buys swiftly.1 Assure your payment processing method is quickly and effortless. Also identify methods to incorporate personalization enhancements, this sort of as storing browsing data or a short while ago explored goods. In shorter, your entrance- and again-conclusion framework and technological innovation require to deliver the most effective encounter possible. Operate with your tech teams to map the infrastructure and tech stack that aid your website and make guaranteed they interact seamlessly.
4. Leverage technological innovation to alleviate buyer aid demand
Additional than 1 in 4 U.S. purchasers say brand names could be most useful to them by coaching their buyer support teams on how to most effective cope with their requirements in the minute.2 With that in mind, are you providing prospects the form of aid they require in today’s environment? Use your teams and chatbots to explain buyer support updates, be clear about anticipations, and signpost handy means. Empower and check any buyer messages on your Google My Business profile way too, so prospects get answers swiftly and quickly.