E-commerce is a sector of business that has enjoyed considerable growth in the last decade. In 2021, retail sales for e-commerce reached 5.2 trillion dollars, and this value is expected to grow to 8.1 trillion dollars by 2026. With improvements in internet speed and an increasing range of smart devices that can navigate the web, consumers are making more purchases online.
Many people are happy to buy from international e-commerce firms, provided that the goods can be shipped in a reasonable timescale and are to suitable levels of quality. If you are a small e-commerce firm, you may already be enjoying a degree of success in the market.
However, more competitors enter this online space every month, making it difficult to secure a foothold and gain market prominence. Thankfully, some strategies can be employed to improve the likelihood of your e-commerce firm enjoying sustained and scalable growth. In this article, two such strategies will be explored.
Scale and secure the cloud
As your e-commerce firm develops, it will rely on an increasing number of online applications and programs to run. These cloud-based platforms will be essential for building and improving your business website’s services. However, as you place more applications online, they must be managed and monitored effectively to ensure they function smoothly.
There is a need to invest in a high-performing API platform to facilitate this growth. Put simply, your online applications need to communicate with each other effectively to allow them to perform efficiently. An API platform allows your team to manage individual APIs, secure your cloud-based systems, and deploy new software effectively. It is a vital tool for any online enterprise and a key component that will allow you to scale the growth of your IT infrastructure.
SEO best practices
Every e-commerce company needs to attract the highest possible number of visitors to its website. When potential customers make web searches online for products, your company should ideally aim to be on the first page of these search results. 95% of all search traffic will go to the results’ first page, and most consumers will not even look at page 2 and beyond. To improve your web page rankings, it is of paramount importance that each page adopts the best practices of search engine optimization (SEO).
Develop your content by using keyword research to find topics of interest to your customers, ideally which are not adequately discussed on other sites. Ensure that content is authoritative and of interest to your target market. Constantly add to this content so that it helps your site gain increased traffic and repeat visits from customers. Many more techniques will boost your site’s SEO, and it is important to have specialist staff who are competent in this field and keep up with the latest developments in SEO as search engines update their criteria.
To sum up
Every e-commerce business seeking sustainable growth should look to effectively manage and control its increasing number of online applications using a fast and secure API platform. In addition, website design should obey the best practices of SEO to ensure that more traffic to the site is gained through organic web searches.
