E-commerce is a competitive and cut-throat industry these days. When selling products or services online, you have to strive to improve and perfect every single element of the experience for users. From web design and descriptions to checkout and payment solutions, even the smallest of hurdles can send fickle customers scrambling away. It’s also very important that you optimize the experience for both traditional and mobile users. Some brands are making very common and simple mistakes that profoundly impact sales and conversions when stacked on top of one another. We’ll review some simple errors that you’ll want to eliminate from your e-commerce platform.

Grammatical Errors

Grammar isn’t a strong-suit for many people, but most people still know how to spot grammatical errors when they see them. Unlike individuals having casual conversations, businesses are expected to be professional entities that know how to present themselves to the world. A series of grammatical errors in product descriptions, reviews, or even generic content can give the wrong impression to many shoppers. This can lead to subconscious questions about the legitimacy and quality of your brand, and may result in these shoppers looking elsewhere for a solution. With SpellCheck built into most browsers and with plenty of time to review your drafts, there is no excuse for bad grammar in the world of e-commerce.

Excessive, Empty Promotion

All websites need content: this is unavoidable. Some businesses rely on writers who create generic promotional content for them. This can cause problems in multiple ways. First of all, the content may seem completely irrelevant to shoppers and seem like you’re merely pinging noise at them, leading them to ask why they even bothered clicking in the first place. Additionally, self-serving content is generally of little to no use to shoppers who want to learn more about product and service benefits and features. This can create a death-spiral of sorts: as more and more people are turned off by this content, your bounce rates increase. This tells search engines that you are not the best choice for those searching for products and services in your niche, which reduces visibility and traffic (and therefore sales); a double-whammy of sorts.

A Lack of CTAs

Every piece of content should strive to encourage customers to act in some way. Whether that be a direct product purchase, an email subscription or something completely different, content must inform, persuade…and then encourage people to act. Calls to action are crucial in the world of e-commerce and cannot be forgotten. Unfortunately, all too many brands fail to include this vital component in their content and offerings. Whether via email, social media or directly on your website, a failure to persuade action from consumers will result in lower conversion rates and more wasted efforts. Without a call to action, you might as well be pinging noise, static and garbled text at your audience.

There are so many little dynamics that can boost or harm online sales. Some improvements require careful planning and market research, while others merely require common sense. What small tweaks have you been able to implement that led to increased sales?