EP056 Optimizing for Success: Key Insights into E-Commerce Website Excellence

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[00:00:00] Darin Newbold: All right. Well, good day and welcome to Commerce Today. My name is Darren and I am here. No, this is not Josh. This is, uh, definitely a, uh, a significant change. And we're very excited to have our very own account manager, Andrea Sims. Andrea, so glad to have you with us today at Commerce Today. 

[00:00:24] Andrea Sims: Absolutely.

[00:00:25] Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here. 

[00:00:28] Darin Newbold: Well, very good. Well, we have a fun, fun topic for you today, and we want to kind of take advantage of Andrea being with us to talk about optimizing for success. Basically, those key insights. into e commerce website excellence. And so what Andrea has kind of put together for us is a whole bunch of questions and kind of questions around different topics.

[00:00:54] And so kind of the first key area that we want to start with are key questions for e commerce site design. and user interactions and kind of the first area that we came up with and with some sub pieces kind of the audience and persona. So, so Andrea, tell me a little bit about kind of the questions that merchants ought to be asking their, their agency as they're looking at that audience and persona and then the other pieces that are underneath that.

[00:01:23] Andrea Sims: Well, definitely bringing attention to their UX, their UI, bringing their brand alignment, their brand and Kind of like a style guide, if you will, of what's important to their customers and then kind of compilating that and kind of making sure that they have that represented on their website. So, when you're thinking about your UX and kind of your brand loyalty, you're improving your customer feedback, all those things are important when you're thinking about designing your website, not only that, but when your brand is going to be your face, if you will.

[00:01:57] So when you're talking about your ecommerce site, that is your face to your customer. That is your representation to them. So making sure that those things are in alignment to what your customer base needs, what they want, how they like to interact with your site. Um, all those are very important kind of things to keep in mind when you're going forward when designing a site.

[00:02:15] Darin Newbold: And how would we put those together? Maybe, I mean, you gave a great reason why, but how would we put those together for kind of the questions that maybe, maybe that merchant ought to be asking their agency around around this topic. I mean, what, what would they want to ask to, to make sure that their agency is aware and make sure their agency is, is doing the right things to enhance and make sure these things are important and taken advantage of?

[00:02:44] Andrea Sims: Well, definitely making sure that they're having their best practices, if you will. So Magento has a lot of out of the box features. But then there's also a lot of add ons that you can do with, other plugins, other, we can even customize certain things for you as well. But making sure that you're asking, am I doing the best practice?

[00:03:03] Is my style guide in compliance with my UI UX for that? Is it in compliance with my SEO? Am I making sure that my target audience and I'm in compliance with all of those things? So when you're asking your agency. Your agency should know definitely best practices for developers and for you. Your, your agency should be able to walk you through the best way of whether it be from your CMS pages, if you have the right colors, fonts, sizes, all those things are taken into consideration and your agency will walk you through all of that.

[00:03:39] Gotcha. 

[00:03:39] Darin Newbold: Gotcha. and then going beyond just the audience persona and that UX and brand alignment side, you started, you hit it on it was kind of the SEO and kind of site performance. So what are the questions? What are those important questions and the topics that merchants need to need to really be talking to their agency about so that they're hitting on all of the key pieces?

[00:04:03] Andrea Sims: Well, definitely having your analytics. Making sure that like I mentioned before with your SEO and your analytics for that, you understand your page speed, you understand how your company is going to be utilizing, Their website performance. So whenever a customer goes to their website, cause you had to put yourself in their, in their shoes, right?

[00:04:22] As a, as you're, as a merchant, I want to put myself in my customer's shoes to then be able to tell my agency what needs to happen. So if I'm going through my website and I'm realizing my company's not coming up to the top, what can I do? My company for search results. Or perhaps I'm thinking about the page performance of how fast I can get through to my loading pages Is my site actually coming up how it should be and when you're asking your agency?

[00:04:49] Hey, how can I improve? Am I using too many graphics? what CMS pages am I loading up for all those, um, my content, all those things are taken into consideration. And so your, your agency is going to come back to you and say, Hey, we can improve page speed on, you know, your landing page for maybe a few products that you have for that.

[00:05:11] That way it goes a lot faster for you to get down to your, um, your checkout page, which is what you want. You want conversion. And that's what we're looking for. Anyone that comes to your site, you're looking for conversion, whether that be for your CTAs, your calls to action to where it's, I want them to download a newsletter.

[00:05:27] I want them to download a demo. I want them to just go to the cart and finish out completion for buying. All those things have to be a smooth user experience. So when we're going through all of that, asking your agency, how can I best enhance performance on my website using analytics that have been placed onto your site?

[00:05:47] Darin Newbold: Okay, so we hit the analytics around that, and we also talked about loading speed search engine, and we didn't quite quite get into maybe SEO, but maybe a little bit, but I want to also ask, um, one of the big things that's so important is how much is happening on these crazy mobile devices all the time.

[00:06:06] So, mobile responsiveness, what, uh, what are the things that the merchants need to be asking? And, and. And helping, helping their agency take advantage of the, you know, a mobile, uh, mobile device and mobile purchase. 

[00:06:22] Andrea Sims: So when you're going through your design for your site, definitely making sure that it is mobile compliant is going to be key.

[00:06:28] You sometimes may want a graphic or you may want something on your website that doesn't translate so well into mobile. Maybe the page doesn't fit, the image is blurry, the sizes are not the right way. Getting with a good agency that has a good designer and great front end developers is going to be very, very key because they're going to be able to make sure that whenever Your customer, because most of the time when they go into a website, they're going to look on their phones first.

[00:06:53] Let's just be, this is day and age. So you're going to go on their website and they're going to go on their phones. So you want to make sure that whatever forms pop up, they're actually compliant to your mobile device as well. your checkout pages, if that's actually compatible for your mobile site as well, all those key components, cause it can't just be my website as a whole.

[00:07:13] It'll just magically go into a mobile device. No, each page has a different variation of how that needs to be displayed. So asking your e commerce agency, Hey, I need to make sure that I'm compliant in my graphics, my sizes, my fonts, my branding. It needs to all translate well to my mobile device as well.

[00:07:35] Darin Newbold: Very good. Very good. Well, that is very important to to stay on top of. You started to kind of tease it and I think you even kind of hit on it a little bit with the conversion strategy and calls to action. CTAs as they're called and having a goal oriented layout. So, as they're asking their their merchants, What are the best or what are the, uh, the best ways to have call to action on there so that, yes, we want to have conversions, but we also don't want to inundate a, uh, a customer that's on the site and make them feel. you know, overly pressured or overly hit with bunches of stuff, right? 

[00:08:16] Andrea Sims: absolutely making sure that you know exactly what you want from your target audience.

[00:08:21] So if you're wanting, let's say a particular time, maybe it's a sale that you have going on, or maybe it's a promotion that you have that you're running. Whatever it is that you want your end goal to be. Talk to your ecommerce agency about the best Magento out-of-box features that they definitely have, or even plugins, add ons, or any customizations that you can have to where, let's say for example, you want that newsletter, making sure that you've simplified the process for your customer to be able to streamline, to get down to what it is that you want.

[00:08:49] Maybe you want to target your promotions for it. You want to make sure that all of your forms on your site are easy to get. to They are clear. They're defined the whole nine. So that way, when you're going down and your customer comes in and says, Hey, I know what I'm here to do. And that way your conversion rate is multiplying for you as well.

[00:09:07] So definitely making sure to talk to them about how to simplify the process. That's the biggest thing I can definitely say is simplify the process for your customer. 

[00:09:14] Darin Newbold: So, and I'm guessing that a great question and some things to ask the agency would also be, Hey, how are we, how do we stand as it, as compared to our competitors?

[00:09:26] And those that are out there being able to have you looked at our competitors and have you seen what are they doing and what what could we be doing better as well as what can we do as far as testing and even getting feedback from our from our customers and making sure that we're we're taking advantage of whatever feedback and the things that we get from them, right?

[00:09:48] Andrea Sims: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we've had one of our solution architects go through one of our clients websites, and they have had an opportunity to kind of gather that customer feedback. And with that information, they were able to find some definite improvements. That the site can definitely take on, um, based on that customer feedback, the feedback that they got.

[00:10:11] So taking the time with your agency, that your agency knows your website as well, takes your customers into consideration, takes you into consideration to where then you've now created a customized platform for your customers. They now know this is how, when I interact with X, Y, Z company, I'm going to get X, Y, Z, you know, experience back.

[00:10:34] So with your agency, ask them, what have my customers been saying? What are some of my pain points that I've been having with my website? Is it my, I don't know your, your time for shipping that you have to get accurate on your website? Is it time? You know what I mean? Your, your, your page speed lows that come in and your customers are complaining because they can't seem to get to check out fast enough.

[00:10:56] Am I doing this the correct way? All of those things are important for you. And then your agency should be going through your website and saying, Hey, I'm seeing some areas or opportunities for growth for your site. And that's where you really want to play a part with that. 

[00:11:10] Darin Newbold: Excellent, excellent. Well, we've talked a lot about the communication with agencies now.

[00:11:15] So, with kind of the, the time that we have left, what are kind of maybe in your mind, kind of the top three things that, merchants need to really know as they're interacting? with their e commerce agency and and how best to do that. So what are maybe your top three that if you could only pick three and I'm sorry, we're gonna run out of time.

[00:11:37] I 

[00:11:38] Andrea Sims: know because I have so much. It's so juicy. 

[00:11:41] Darin Newbold: We have six pages here, folks. So just in case you're wondering, but But no, pick, pick the top three, Andrea, and, uh, and what are those that, and again, kind of from the questions of how you would approach it with, uh, with your e commerce agency. 

[00:11:56] Andrea Sims: Definitely clearly defining your goals, open communication channels, training and support.

[00:12:02] So making sure you have realistic timelines, making sure you have a dedicated person that is your point of contact from your company. Um, that knows how to do UAT testing, understands deployments, understands your tasks. Making sure that you have a streamlined communication with your agency, whether that be through whatever tools you use here at Creatuity.

[00:12:24] We use JIRA. So we have, um, and I find that that to be a, if I have time to kind of go in and rave about it real quick. It streamlines the communication between your solution architect, your project manager, and your developer. That's something that's very unique here at Creatuity because most of the time you don't get to see the chef behind the magic, if that makes sense.

[00:12:45] And this is an opportunity for you to be able to do that. Um, making sure you have responsiveness, making sure you're communicating on a timely manner with your agency. That will help you stay on budget. That will help you stay within your timeline and end up in getting to your end goal. So if you don't have those vital key pieces of how you connect with your agency, you will end up burning money that you didn't really want to burn.

[00:13:10] So being efficient with your communication, being efficient with your project manager and your solution architect will help you, your project go a long way. 

[00:13:18] Darin Newbold: So, so kind of bringing these back to, to our questions from a merchant standpoint, what they want to be able to do then is, is ask that e commerce agency, how do you plan your timelines?

[00:13:31] Yes. How do you project, how do you project manage and what, what tools do you use to make sure that we stay on track on your side? And how can our tools maybe interact with your tools or our people? Um, 

[00:13:43] Andrea Sims: just about to say the same thing. Absolutely sure that they know what is needed on their side as well.

[00:13:48] Darin Newbold: And then how do, how, how do we document changes? How do we know when something's changed or if it hasn't changed? And how do we have recordings and of, of those changes? And, and if in the crazy situation where we maybe have to go back and change or two because of something. and then one of the things that's interesting, and I like you have this on the list is, is And what's the best way for us to provide you feedback on the site and to do that as quickly and as promptly as possible.

[00:14:15] So, that's some things that really, really kicking in for those merchants to be able to, uh, to ask and have those questions ready. And as well as the, the agency ought to be asking the flip side of all of these questions and going through this as far as the discovery process and all of those things and throughout a project.

[00:14:37] Right? 

[00:14:38] Andrea Sims: Absolutely. Because once you get past the sales process of the ballparking and everything, you're going to get down to the real nitty gritty of working with your agency for day to day improvements on your e commerce site. So, knowing how to interact with them the best way will help your project go the furthest.

[00:14:55] Darin Newbold: Excellent. Excellent. So, for this wonderful episode that, uh, that we put together, we, we went through a, uh, A lot of questions around the site design and user interaction, um, asking about the audience of persona UX branding, as well as that site performance that relates to, you know, mobile responsiveness, load speeds, SEO, and having all the analytics for that.

[00:15:21] And definitely knowing a conversion strategy and the designs around your, uh, calls to action. And then we, we talked about the, uh, the questions that. Merchants can then ask their agency and make sure that they've kind of set the stage, if you will, with clearly defined goals and then all of the pieces behind that, the timelines, the project management, document changes and feedback, as well as always having that open communication with a dedicated person.

[00:15:50] Any last thoughts before we close this out, Andrea? 

[00:15:54] Andrea Sims: Absolutely. Just thank you so much for having me on. If anyone that's interested in getting to an e commerce agency. Make sure that you talk to them openly and make sure that you have a good compass within your company of where you'd like to go because your e commerce agency can definitely take you there.

[00:16:11] Darin Newbold: Outstanding. Well, Andrea, thank you so very, very much. And for all those that, uh, that are taking a look at this podcast, we appreciate it. As always, we love to hear your feedback. We want to hear your stories, your information. Definitely, uh, hit like and, uh, follow us. We, uh, we definitely love that as well.

[00:16:30] And as always, thank you for being a part of Commerce Today. And until next time, take care. 

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