The document outlines key practices for developing an effective e-commerce website that enhances search engine rankings and improves customer experience. It emphasizes the importance of performance, fast loading times, personalized marketing schemes, and seamless omnichannel experiences for increasing average order value and conversion rates. Additionally, it provides guidelines on product management, checkout optimization, and SEO best practices to boost online sales.

1. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
Development practices have a tangible impact on an online business’ bottom line. Building an
ecommerce website that satisfies business needs and customer expectations allows a
company to position its website in an increasingly competitive digital environment.
Ecommerce :
DEVELOPMENT TO MEET BUSINESS NEEDS
2015
GET STARTED

2. Introduction
I. Shopping Experience
II. Performance
III. Plan For Weird Marketing Schemes
IV. Great Products = Great Product Pages
Outline
2

3. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
3

4. Shopping experience is everything that happens before this :
It takes only 1/10th of a second for a visitor to form an impression.
Providing a flexible buying experience that adapts to the customer’s buying habits is key.

5. • Pleasurable: memorable experience
• Convenient: easy to use, works like I think
• Usable: can be used without difficulty
• Reliable: is available and accurate
• Functional: works as programmed
USER NEEDS PYRAMID
5
Pleasurable
Convenient
Reliable
Functional
Usable

6. Marketing channels affect online purchase decisions.
The customer journey has grown more complex, touching many different marketing
channels.
Online PurchaseJourney
6
BLOG REVIEW
ORGANIC TRAFFIC
SEM
SOCIAL MEDIA
EMAILING
AFFILIATE
PROMO CODE

7. Dimensions of omnichannel retailing
• Brick2click
• Device2Web
• eAve2Web
OrderIDs and customerIDs should be
generated through centralized
database system to serve them in
different stores, devices and
websites.
Omnichannel: a seamless approach to consumer experience
7
WEB
MOBILE
EMAIL
BRICK AND MORTAR
E-COMMERCE
IN-PERSON
CALL CENTER
SOCIAL MEDIA
SMS

8. • One website to build and to manage.
• Unique brand experience across devices
• UX gains
• Performance and UX gains
• Easier for SEO
• Easier for Analytics
• Great for A/B testing
Responsive Design
Why would marketing want it ?
8
Mobile and Tablet e-commerce is
set to double by 2018 according to
a Forrester Study.

9. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
THE WEB SHOULD BE FAST – GOOGLE INC.
Performance
9

10. Takeaways
Customers hate waiting.
Keep the load time under 2 seconds.
PERFORMANCE
10
47 percent of web users
expect a website to load in
under 2 seconds.
75% of consumers are willing
to visit competitor sites
instead of dealing with a slow
loading page.
47%

11. Want to rank well in search engines?
Pay attention to how page attributes are rendered. Too many external resources,
images that are not optimized, poorly written JavaScript affect search engine rankings.
Leveraging Cache
11
ENSURE THE SERVER PROVIDES
A VALIDATION TOKEN (ETAG)
USE CONSISTENT
URLS
IDENTIFY WHICH RESOURCES
CAN BE CACHED BY
INTERMEDIARIES
LEVERAGE
BROWSER
CACHING
DETERMINE THE
OPTIMAL
CACHE LIFETIME FOR
EACH RESOURCE

12. Define and configure the overall
“caching hierarchy” and per-resource
settings depending on:
• Traffic patterns
• Type of data served
• Application-specific requirements for
data freshness
Leverage browser cache
There is no one best cache policy
12
Caching Hierarchy
INVALIDATING AND
UPDATING CACHED
RESPONSES
CACHING
CHECKLIST
DEFINING CACHE
CONTROL
POLICY

13. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
PLAN FOR WEIRD MARKETING
SCHEMES
13

14. The name of the game in e-commerce
is to boost AOV – average order value.
Product recommendations are
responsible for an average of 10-30% of
eCommerce site revenues
MARKETING SCHEMES
14
CONVERSION RATE
OPTIMIZATION
PERSONALIZATION
UPSELL
CROSS SELL
PROMOTIONS
AND DISCOUNTS
E-COMMERCE
TRACKING
PROGRAMMATIC
MARKETING
A/B TESTING
Failing to plan is planning to fail

15. Would you like fries with that? A brief case for upsell and cross sell
30%
10% - 30%
3%
60% - 70%30% of people will add a last minute impulse
item to their purchase if offered a relevant item
that compliments their purchase.
Displaying cross-sells at checkout increased
sales by another 3% in a recent study.Product recommendations are responsible
for an average of 10-30% of eCommerce site
revenues
The probability of selling to an existing
customer is 60 – 70%. The probability of selling
to a new prospect is 5-20%.

16. Your client should choose one of the
simple (and automated) options before
moving up to more complex options.
Related Products
16

17.  Products from the same category (simple and
automated)
 Popular products from the same category or from all
categories (simple and automated)
 Products that you have marked as related to the current
product (simple, but requires initial set up of links)
 Products that other customers who bought this product
also bought (requires some sales data to work)
 Products the current customer has viewed recently (less
simple, but automated)
 Products that the site decides you might like based on a
combination of factors (not simple, but automated).
Related Products
17

18. Specific discount structure – Some Promotions To Plan For
18
PRODUCT
BUNDLES
BUY ONE
GET ONE FREE
PERSONALIZED
COUPONS
FREE SHIPPING
CUSTOMER
SPECIFIC PRICING
FREE TRIALS
MULTIPLE
COUPONS
GIFT CARDS
CART ABANDONMENT
STRATEGIES

19. Analytics
19
Marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed
– Dan Zarella

20. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
GREAT PRODUCTS = GREAT
PRODUCT PAGES
20

21. • Define your understanding of product
• Product variant combinations should
all have a SKU, price, stock level, etc.
• Get a sense of scale
• Agree on product page
• Agree who does product loading
• Agree on how to track stocks
Product CatalogueConsiderations
Product catalogue considerations
21
Product
Catalog

22. Product Loading/Product Input
22
3 options for product loading:
1. Have the client use the product
management tools provided in the
ecommerce platform
2. Import from a spreadsheet
3. Live integration with an external
system (most expensive)
Reiterate to your client how time
consuming product loading is – it takes
about 15 minutes for each “product” to
find and load the information
Product loading : the main cause of delays
in the launch of new ecommerce websites.

23. 1. Product shot
2. Product Name
3. Product Price
4. Quantity + Add to cart
5. Product Description (and options)
Extras ?
Social Media, Reviews, Related items,
Promotions, Shipping, Saved Cost
Anatomy of a product page
23
Product shot
Product name
Price
Description
Quantity & Add to cart
5 Vital Elements + A Few Extras

24. Category Checklist
• Structure: Main category, sub
category, specific category
• Should add value for the user
• Short URLs (for SEO)
Faceted Navigation
• Contains facets and filters
• Should be optimized for SEO
Product Page Listing
• Show numbers
• Use filters
• Use good quality product photos
Navigation and information architecture
24

25. • Clean, unique URLs
• Breadcrumbs
• Descriptive and unique content
• Strong content hierarchy (H1, H2, H3)
• Internal Linking
• Fast loading
• Rich Snippets
SEO 101 and best ecommerce practices
25
SEO makes for a great product page not only within your website but within the Web.

26. Get proficient at integrating semantic markup.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS USED TO DISCOVERPRODUCTS
26
Twitter Cards
Facebook Open
Graph
Instagram
Pinterest
LinkedIN

27. 1. Pinit button for every product image
2. Markup (Open Graph of Schema
markup)
3. Image description – any information
that could boost sales should be in.
Concrete Case : Pinterest
27

28. Onsite Search
28
28
Onsite Search should
lead to more selling
opportunities and
conversions
Search
Products,
Categories,
SKUs
Optimized
(No) Results
Pages
Sorting
Results
Autocomplete
Spelling Errors

29. Onsite Search :Concrete Case

30. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
The checkout process
30

31. Build Trust With Buyer Friendly Checkout Process
31
Keep the whole process short, simple, logical and distraction free
• Avoid payment processing delays
• Don’t force registration! Support guest checkout
• Trust signal: use a Trusmark
• SSL Certificate
• Easy form filling
• Progress indicators
• Have a proper cart page
• Use a “mini cart” in the top right corner

32. Cart Page
• Confirmation of every detail
regarding the product
• Direct link back to products in cart
• Easy quantity change Show a picture
of the exact product
• “Continue checkout” button
• Total price shown with shipping
• Credit card or email address not
required prematurely
Cart Menuand Cart Page
32
• Total price and number of items
shown
• Link to the cart page to details
• No “mini cart”, no cart widget.
Must have a cart page.
Cart Menu

33. For retailers seeking to create a connected customer experience, managing
inventory across channels is one of the biggest barriers.
Seamless Inventory
33
Real Time Transactions Holistic MethodologyInventory Shared

34. A system architecture that allows for live transactions with a single
and centralized database is the primary driver for a successful
approach to seamless omnichannel fulfillment.
OmnichannelFulfillment:
LeverageInventoryAcross All Channels and Locations
34

35. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
These are not extensive, they are just a means to get you started
thinking about performance, conversion rate optimization and SEO.
Quick Checklists
35

36. Code minification
 Minify Html
 Minify Css
 Minify Javascript
 Load Ressources Asynchronously
 Externalize Javascript And CSS
Optimize Rich Media
 Compress Images Without Loss Of Quality*
 Specify Image Width And Height Attributes
 Make Sprites When It Is Relevant
 Social Sharing Buttons And Other External Javascript Plugins
 Activate Gzip Compression
 Minimize Redirects
 Activate Cache
 Minimize Database Hits
 Leverage Browser Cache
Cache optimization on all levels
36

37. Product Page Do’s
 Use large, high res photos on a white
background.
 Use zoom features
 Allow scroll to between images.
 Indicate clearly when additional images
or zoom features are available
 Provide a short product summary at the
top of the page or next to the photo.
 Add a border to the action area – where
people select options and click buttons.
 Ordering options near the top in action
area
 Use breadcrumbs
Highly Converting Product PageChecklist
37
Product Page Dont’s
 Put a large block of copy near or
above the CTA button.
 Hide your add to cart button until
someone makes a selection.
 Make availability information an extra
click away.
 Have a subtle change when someone
clicks your add to cart button. People
will miss your “Successfully added”
message.

38. Performance
 Cache
 Code minification
 Load ressources asynchronously
Optimize Rich Media
 ALT
 Titles
 Width and height attributes
Optimize Content
 Unique title, product description, meta description
 1 product = 1 URL (or canonicals)
 No duplicate content
 Use HREF LANG for multiple languages
Integration
 Content hierarchy
 Rich snippets
 Internal search
 Canonicals
 No index
SEO Checklist
38
CONTENT INTEGRATION
RICH MEDIA
PERFORMANCE

39. Thank you!
39
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