Your website is key to sales. It is important to optimize it for success. In this blog, I will cover 5 important tips to help your website work harder for your brand and your business.

With so many fashion designers selling online, it is important to put thought into your website as well. Here is the time to think like a consumer about your own website. Take some time to do a critique on a few fashion websites. Take notes on what you like and do not like about the experience. If you are like me, a website's speed is the number one reason I click off the website. A cluttered website will also make me overwhelmed and ultimately dissatisfied with the shopping experience. Designing a website is like designing your own boutique, you want to make conscious decisions to merchandise for success and make the experience enjoyable for the customer. Let’s go over my top five tips for creating a website that customers love. 

Optimize your Website

Apple’s website is crisp, clean, easy to navigate and most importantly easy to purchase from. You can achieve this for your brand through website optimization. Website optimization uses easy navigation and great design to attract traffic, and keep customer attention throughout the customer journey. You first want to think about your website design and how you would want it layed out based on your collection. Keep things simple and easy to use. After design, you will want to look at more of the technical aspects, like using best practices for websites and optimizing your website for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You will want to be mindful of keywords, content, website speed, and keeping your website up to date. You can do this with updating products or utilizing blogging or other website updates. There are many components you can refine in order to fully optimize your website. 

Add a “Best Sellers” section

If you have a website with several different products,  styles, and other selections and do not give any direction to the visitor, the choices can be so overwhelming that the visitor leaves your site without buying. A simple “Best Sellers” button on the navigation bar can help direct visitors to a page that isolates only a couple of  choices. This can allow them to initially focus on one or two products at first and simplifies their buying decision. If they choose to explore more, they can visit the other areas of the site and shop for other products when they are ready. 

Build your Community through an Email List

Building a community is an essential part of building recurring income for your brand. If you take a look at other  fashion websites, oftentimes there will be a pop up with a prompt to add your email. This builds your mailing list with interested potential buyers. Some brands have contests and others offer “sign-up” discounts to reward visitors for giving their email and/or phone number. Capturing this information can be an enormous source of continuing revenue as your brand grows and expands. Ultimately the reward you offer for the contact information is up to you but it is important to give the customer some sort of value in exchange for their email or phone number. 

Once you have visitor emails and/or phone numbers, you can onboard them and make them feel like they are part of your family or community. Any email or text message you send them serves as a touch point where you can reach out and embrace your audience with valuable content, weekly newsletters, product reviews, exclusive VIP coupons, and special offers. Some brands even have a special birthday coupon that they send to build customer loyalty when that special day comes around. They ask for an “optional” birthday in addition to the email address when signing up. This adds a personal touch and lets your audience know that you value them and consider them very important. 

Integrate Apps 

If you are using a platform like Shopify, you will be able to utilize the Shopify application platform to integrate applications. Klaviyo, for example, allows you to integrate email marketing, rescue abandoned shopping carts,  integrate coupons, send back in stock alerts, and give personalized product recommendations. One application puts a pop-up bubble in the corner every time a product is sold on the site. This can build urgency to buy before supplies disappear, and it also eases buyer resistance by providing social reinforcement. Since other people are eagerly buying your product, they may feel more comfortable purchasing as well. 

Brush up on your Legal policies

It is important to also make sure that your site has important legal and administration information that social media companies and search engines require. You must include these items  before they will make your site viewable and your link clickable. Clearly stating certain topics like a privacy policy, SSL encryption, a returns and refunds policy, proper contact information, and other administrative and legal notices makes your site more acceptable to the search engines and social media platforms. If you do not include some of this information, your site can be blocked from appearing on search engines or being an active hyperlink on a social media post or caption. 

Your website is the gateway your customer enters that introduces them to your brand and your product line. When properly designed and optimized it can be the most powerful sales tool in your marketing mix. A strong website can expand your target audience, build your brand-loyal community, and grow your fashion line and your business. It is a powerful marketing and sales tool that can make a dramatic impact on your bottom line.  

Not sure how to go about your marketing plan? The V.Mora team can create social media content and manage your social media plan with one of our Marketing Packages.  For inquiries please contact: vmorainquiry@vmora.com

Have a Marketing plan already, but need help with producing your line? V.Mora can help you take your brand voice and turn it into products. We will help each step of the way to design, develop patterns, and connect with the right vendors for your project through our Production Development and Management service. Please contact us if you are in need of the Production Development and Management Services below:

• Sourcing 

• Technical sketches 

• Pattern Making

• Prototype making 

• Sample Making

• Fittings 

• Digitizing and Grading

• Marker Making

• Manufacturing

Please contact us at: vmorainquiry@vmora.com