Monday, March 27, 2017

E-commerce Website Analysis of glamfashionjewels.it #semrushchat

Our regular SEMrush Chat participants and our blog readers know that sometimes we evaluate websites in real time. Last week, we chose to analyze the site of Glam Fashion Jewels, a fashion accessories brand based in Naples, Italy.

The digital marketing space is highly competitive. To provide your site visitors with the most efficient and the most optimal user experience, you need to make sure that your website, including its content, site architecture, design, calls to action, and many other elements, meet your audience’s expectations. Otherwise, it will be much more difficult for you attract more users to your site and convert them into your paying clients.

Our chat guests shared what they like about this website and what should be fixed, including their tips on what can be done to improve its user’s journey. The following chat recap can be useful for companies that aren’t receiving a high rate of visitor engagement, retention and conversion.

Q1: After the first glance, what is one thing you would definitely change on glamfashionjewels.it?

When our chat guests browsed the website, they made some remarks on its quality. Let’s find out which improvements glamfashionjewels.it needs.:

1. Remove the pop-up

Starting off, many of our chat participants suggested removing the email signup pop-up that covers the screen as soon as you enter the site. “Get rid of the pop-up that hits you as soon as you get there,” tweeted Andy Drinkwater‏ @iqseo.

Many website owners use these elements on their site in order to get more subscribers. However, these pop-ups can be very annoying and can do more harm than good. Besides preventing you from growing your mailing list, they can make people leave your site as soon as possible. If your site visitors want to sign up, they can do it by clicking on the signup button.

Nevertheless, Colt SebastianTaylor‏ @ColtSTaylor pointed out that he liked the “Do not show again” option in the top right corner of the pop-up: “I'm not a fan of the pop-up, but I do like the ‘Don’t Show Me This Again.’ " 

SEMrushchat Recap of glamjewels.it

2. Improve content

Some of our chat participants mentioned that the site owners need to improve the English version of their content. They pointed out that there were some spelling mistakes and the language was poor. No matter how beautiful the design is, websites with spelling and grammar mistakes make any site look less trustworthy.

Also, our chat guest experts advised to change the font and typeface on the homepage. Professional web designers use web fonts and typefaces strategically, focusing on specific goals. For example, font hierarchy helps you establish a message hierarchy and different font types enables your users to differentiate between the different types of messages. “Updating the font on the homepage and moving it above the fold,” recommended Rachel Howe‏ @R8chel_Marie.

You can check out the article “How Typography Affects Conversions” posted on Kissmetrics Blog.

3. Optimize photos for mobile friendliness

Damon Gochneaur also noticed that the images are poorly formatted on the mobile version of  glamfashionjewels.it. Using images is great because it can help you to improve your message towards your audience, attract more viewers, and even impact their decisions. However, not all images are great.

You need to optimize your images for desktop and mobile to provide a smooth user experience to all your audiences on any device. Make sure your images look right on all different types of screens (image resolution). 

4. Get rid of the capitalized text

Some website owners use text in all caps to emphasize their message. However, capitalized text can turn your site visitors away. In a social context, it means that you’re yelling. Is that how you want to treat your users? Capitalized text is bad for readability, as it reduces the shape contrast for each word.

“Coming across the wall of text in all caps at the bottom of the page is like running into a stop sign unexpectedly,” tweeted Bill Slawski‏ @bill_slawski.

5. Optimize meta tags

James Haagenson noticed that the meta tags describe the product as “cheap fashion.” When the website shows up on a SERP, Google displays the following site title: “Online Cheap Fashion Jewelry Store,” and the title tag contains “Low Price Handmade jewels.” James believes that this sort of wording and phrasing does not instill confidence, therefore it should be changed.

SEMrushchat Recap of glamfashionjewels.it

Viable Operations‏ @viabledigital also pointed out that when using the English version with the American Flag icon, it would be better if the currency automatically changed from Euros into the US dollar. In fact, the English version of the website offers two currencies: pound (GBP) and dollar (USD). However, the American flag next to the English drop-down menu can be a bit confusing to site visitors.

Let’s sum up.

SEMrushchat Q1 Recap of glamfashionjewels.it

It seems that the site owners have some work to do. Now, let’s see what technical issues they should fix first.

Q2: Which technical issues should the site owner fix first, out of the ones SEMrush has identified on glamfashionjewels.it?

We detected several on-site issues on glamfashionjewels.it, which you can check out below:

SEMrushchat recap of glamjewels.it SEMrush

We asked our chat participants which of these issues the site owners should fix in the first place.

  • Hreflang mistakes

Hreflang attributes are a technical solution for websites that have similar content in different languages. Hreflang implementation enables you to mark up webpages that are similar in meaning, but are aimed at audiences from different regions. In other words, these attributes help you to speak to your target users in multiple countries in their language. However, without proper hreflang implementation, Google can’t figure out which of your pages to index and display for a particular region. “Hreflang first, if they're serious about other countries/languages,” tweeted David Rosam‏ @davidrosam.

To find out more on the topic, you can check out “13 Most Common Hreflang Mistakes — SEMrush Study.”

Andy Drinkwater‏ also recommended starting with hreflang issues because it can help you to fix some of the duplicate content issues: “I would start with hreflang as this might fix some of the duplicate content as well — depends on what else is found.”

  • Duplicate content

Google claims that there is no duplicate content penalty. However, it can negatively impact your search visibility and rankings. Having two or more versions of the same content also means that authority signals like backlinks are split over multiple versions.

When it comes to e-commerce websites, the reasons for duplicate content issues can be the same product descriptions of similar items. As a result, the performance of each version is limited. You need to avoid instances where the same content can be served across different URLs, both external and internal to your website.

  • Duplicate title tags

Title tags are among the most important on-page SEO elements. It’s what searchers and your potential users see in the SERP when they see your site. It’s surprising how often we come across websites that have the exact same title tag on every single page. These tags must be written differently for every page, otherwise, your search visibility can be negatively impacted.

  • Broken links

When high-quality websites link to your pages, Google understands that your content is also of high quality. On the other hand, broken links result in a poor user experience and can indicate to the search engines that your site is low quality.

JP Sherman‏ @jpsherman also pointed out that the first thing you need to do is to think about your customers: “This is my opinion — but technical and architectural issues are secondary to the UX issues on this page. Customers first.”

SEMrushchat Recap of glamjewels.it SEMrush

Our chat guests recommended that the site owners pay attention to the following problems first: hreflang mistakes, broken links, duplicate content and title tags. When it comes to SEO issues, it’s also important to prioritize them based on your business’s goals.

Q3: How could they improve the user's journey to making a purchase on their mobile website?

Marketers are haunted by the question of how to get their users to do what they want them to on their websites. That’s where the importance of a user’s journey comes in.

Here are six major tips on how glamfashionjewels.it can improve its mobile user’s journey:

1. Arrange the English and Italian versions of the site

Some of our chat participants noticed that the mobile version of the site is a mix of English and Italian. “If the page is supposed to be in English, it should be entirely in English. Luckily I've been studying Italian,” tweeted Reva Minkoff‏.

If you don’t want to confuse your site visitors, you need to make sure that the English webpage is entirely in this language.

2. Make the site easy to navigate

The navigation of any website is crucial for helping your users to easily and quickly find what they want. You need to think about how your site visitors will go from your home page to other pages that have more specific content related to your product or service. To do this you need to keep your navigation consistent, divide your categories clearly, and make sure all navigation elements are clickable links.

3. Optimize the mobile site for user experience

Mobile optimization includes multiple elements, such as consistent and simple navigation, easy scroll experience, the right visuals, and easy interface actions to name a few. Our chat participants recommended Glamfashionjewels.it should start with removing its pop-up and provide clear calls to action (CTA). When using action buttons, it’s better to use universal symbols, so your users can easily understand what they should do and where they should do it on your webpage.

4. Make important elements more visible

To provide your site visitors with a better user experience (UX), you also need to make the important elements of your site more visible. Some of our chat participants pointed out that the “Buy Now” button is too small. How can you convince people to complete the desired action, if the action button is so unnoticeable?

SEMrushchat recap glamjewels.it SEMrush

“A black 'Add to Cart' button is too far down. I would lift this and make it more visible,” tweeted Andy Drinkwater‏.

5. Improve the site’s speed

When it comes to mobile, site speed is becoming more important than ever. Page speed is another highly important element for user experience. Most mobile users will wait only a few seconds for a webpage to load. To make your visitors stay on your site as long as you need it, you should pay careful attention to its loading speed.

6. Clean up the homepage

Some of our chat guests also noticed that the homepage on the mobile site is cluttered. Cluttered and unfocused design refers to the situation where too many small elements (e.g., images, menus, ads, etc.) and messages are presented on a single webpage without enough white space. Cluttered webpages are too busy and confusing for visitors.

The Express Writers‏ team pointed out that the homepage of glamfashionjewels.it doesn’t provide users with a clear idea of what to do next, once they’ve landed on this site.

Let’s sum these key points:

SEMrushchat recap glamfashionjewels.it

Hopefully, the tips from our chat guests will help glamfashionjewels.it to improve their mobile user’s journey.

Q4: What website features did you like and you'd suggest that glamfashionjewels.it utilizes more?

At the end of our site analysis, our chat guests shared what they liked about this site analysis. Probably, glamfashionjewels.it can utilize the following features more in order to improve its performance:

A Live Chat feature is convenient for your users. People like it when a site provides them with immediate access to help. Live Chats allows you to solve your users’ problems faster and provide them with a quick answer about your products or services. This feature also assures your potential clients that you’re there when they need you.

  • Custom photography

Images can be a powerful tool in attracting new audiences and influencing decisions of your retaining users. However, not all images are amazing. For example, generic stock photos are often used for quick blog graphics or setting the tone. But, if you want to stand out from the crowd and offer a personal touch to your site visitors, stock photos may not be the best option. Glamfashionjewels.it smartly uses custom photography that adds a customized touch for their audience. “You can tell they have custom photography; I like that,” tweeted ThinkSEM‏.

  • The main product categories are visible

Instead of a large menu, the site owners use simple navigation that lists their main product categories. The users can easily see what categories the site has and pick what they need.

  • Good search function

Some of our chat participants liked the clean search function that helps users to easily find what they are looking for. However, PureFocus‏ suggests making it bigger:

  • Clean design

Rachel Howe mentioned that the design is decent and clean and she agreed that the site has quality images. Her main recommendations were to improve the site’s user experience:

Lastly, JP Sherman‏ pointed out that the biggest thing that he likes about this site is that it's confident and enthusiastic. Also, that its issues aren't huge.

As our chat participants mentioned, the product looks very nice, the site owners just need to whip their website into shape to improve its performance.

SEMrushchat recap glamfashionjewels.it SEMrush

In fact, some of the issues we mentioned in this post appear on many websites. We hope that the tips from our SEMrush Chat guests will help glamfashionjewels.it fix its problems and improve its performance.

Thanks to everyone who was kind enough to join us for our e-commerce website analysis!


Source: SEMrush blog