Practices for making an online store

Wollow is a software company from Varna, specializing in quality and affordable custom software solutions. Web project development requires special attention towards every client and the implementation of individual solutions. We strive to keep in touch with our customers, consult them regularly about good practices, and offer support for their websites and online stores. With our well-established over 10 year experience in the IT field, we rely on software solutions with unique code written by us, which guarantees quality, speed, good user interface and last but not least - excellent Google SEO Ranking.

"I have an online store, but I don't have enough orders, no one is calling me, my website is not visited, ..., what is the reason, where am I wrong, what can I improve, can I achieve better results or not" These are all questions we face each year.

We advise our clients that developing a quality working online store requires time, perseverance, work and many good practices. With the development of SaaS services (Software as a Service) it’s now easy for everyone to create their own online store or website, but this is only a small percentage of the overall project. There are a series of possible reasons why you don’t achieve the expected results. The truth is that a good software (website, online store, software, applications) requires the skills of at least 5-6 different types of qualified skills and specialists, answer to yourself whether everyone has them or needs professional help. The facts show that whoever has set up a website or online store for himself, a relative, an "acquaintance", a student or a pupil, is simply making the wrong choice. In this way not only money is lost, but valuable growth time, demotivation from Internet presence, distrust of subsequent choice of developer and other consequences.

What is the conclusion from the last few lines?

Contact a company or a group of experienced specialists (minimum 3-4 years), pay an adequate price for the service, demand guarantees for what you have been promised, sign a contract and act with a clear plan for realization in advance.

We pay special attention to the following misconception: All customers believe that IT professionals receive salaries in the range of BGN 3,000-10,000 for a working month of 160 hours, but these same people believe that an online store or website costs from 200 - 1000 BGN, although it is made for the same technological time and by the same specialists. It is obvious that the financial logic does not allow and experienced developer to require such unrealistically low rates for their highly qualified labour, acquired over the years (not to mention enthusiasts who completed an academy for 2-3 months).

It’s time to share our objective opinion about the negative practices in the process of developing a software product, website, online store, web application or whatever you choose to call your web project.

Firstly, this may be an inappropriate design, UI or UX.

All elements and product images, pages and publications should look professional and inspire confidence in your potential customers. The main factor here is the old rule that the information should be available with up to 3 clicks in the project, because each wandering of the user reduces the chances of sale. And remember that it’s imperative to have a responsive design, because over 85% of customers use mobile phones and if you don’t have a suitable design for this, you are simply doomed to fail.

Your website or online store is not optimized for search engines.

This is a very serious problem if you do not rely on some kind of digital or brand targeted advertising. When your online store is ready it is necessary to start working on its search engine optimization. We offer you a short but obligatory list of steps for your initial search engine optimization such as Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and others:

- clean and optimized code, consistent with best practices for optimization - there are countless sources to read from;

- unique content (as far as possible), this is the key to success if the first step is completed;

- and once again responsive design, search engines have different practices to optimize desktop and mobile web projects, both groups are important;

- the right selection of photos, such as size, weight, amount - remember that the excessive amount of information that search engines need to process requires a resource that costs a lot of money. The logic is that when you save a Google resource, it thinks positively about you and indirectly tolerates / helps you, the opposite is also true, so the choice is yours.

It is important to add that the result of SEO is expected after active and proper work after months of work, it does not happen for a month or less, so be patient and persistent.

Now let's talk a little about advertising, it is never redundant.

To have orders or interest in your site, you must have visits. And to get more visits and targeted traffic you need advertising, especially in the beginning. SEO is a very good solution, but it requires time and that time is compensated by advertising. The advertising opportunities are many and diverse, but we will turn our attention to digital and Internet advertising. For new and unfamiliar business, brand and especially domain, it is recommended to focus on Facebook advertising, Google Ads campaigns, email marketing and remarketing. For more detailed information on the topic, contact colleagues who are qualified in this or Google, we will not reinvent the wheel.

It is important to remember that, at least initially, if you want to sell or get noticed, you need to advertise. Without this step you can not expand and develop your project without much difficulty, if you manage ...

It is very important to know that the client can be your most valuable advertising asset or a consultant for development or adjustment in your online presence. The good thing is that it is free and long-lasting (of course, this is true if you gain his trust and keep it at a good level over time). Take advantage of the effect of satisfied customers, take care of them, respect them and they will turn this trust into a material benefit for you. Satisfied customers can become ambassadors, advocates and the most efficient army of advertising agents for your business.