Before we start digging in the best practices, here are some facts that you ought to know:

• Online shoppers using high speed internet connection waits to only up to 4 seconds in order for a page to load. Online shoppers using lower connections wait up to 6 seconds.

• Online shoppers who decide to continue shopping in a website they have known and have shopped before, according to Jupiter Research, appreciate easy and user-friendly site interface and navigation.

• Online shoppers need to know if your website is secured to do a transaction most especially that payments are made in your website.

Top 5 Best Practices for Ecommerce Websites

1. Put your Best Effort in Rendering your Website Pages Quicker Than 4 Seconds

Online shoppers today are always concerned about getting things in an instant. In online shopping websites, shoppers are looking for quick transactions and that begins with page loads. According to research, online shoppers today wait only up to 4 seconds for a page to load. When you don’t pay attention as to how your website loads, you might be missing potential customers and that is the last thing that you need.

2. Easy Checkout Process

The online shopping checkout process is the same as following a queue in a grocery store. We don’t want to follow a long queue, and most of all, we don’t want to be tempted with the products displayed in the queue section because we might be spending on something we don’t really need. Some online shopping websites have a confusing checkout processes. Checkout buttons or links are not placed in the most visible part of the checkout process or customers are being lead to buy other things before arriving to the main item to be checked out. Pay attention to the quality of your checkout process if it’s too long or distracting.

Also, some online shopping websites require account registration to be able to finally purchase an item. Although this is a good way for website owners to get registered members, this is considered to be a major turn off to those who actually want to buy a product right away but as a guest user.

3. Flexible Payment Methods

One thing that hinders shoppers into finally purchasing goods is the way they can pay for those goods. If you only accept cash on delivery for payments, then, those using credit cards and PayPal credits will find other suppliers to get the products from because even if they have the capacity to pay, but still unable to do it because of limitations. Lift the possible limitations and get a merchant account from PayPal because most of payment terms are fine with PayPal-whether debit, credit, cash, and PayPal credits. Lastly, PayPal provides a good amount of security to transactions as well and payment disputes can be made in case of transaction failures.

4. Online Shopping Cart

Selecting the best kind of online shopping cart that fits your ecommerce website is very important as it will aid online shoppers in heading for the checkout easily. This means that when you successfully lead customers into the checkout process, chances are good in capturing a sale. What makes an online shopping cart “the best”? There are only a few things that you would like to see in a shopping cart:

• Landing page/Products’ Shelf should Aline skirt have pictures of the product with its corresponding Product Name, Product Code, and Price.

• When a product is selected by shoppers, more information of the product should be read by customers such as colors available, texture, weight, dimensions, and product care. The price to be displayed should already contain values for additional shipping fee, taxes (if applicable), and other fees.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.