San Diego-based Miva Merchant, a leader in small business shopping cart software, is offering tips to online small business merchants to help them avoid costly website mistakes.

The company aims to change the way online merchants deliver their Internet shopping experiences by helping merchants develop more effective calls to action.

“Online shoppers want a smooth transaction experience,” says Jesse Ness at Miva Merchant. “Merchants benefit by being simple and direct with their online visitors. Consumers prefer buttons labeled “Buy Now” or links that read, “Learn More – ” over longer calls to action that may not be as clear.” As an added benefit, phrases that are shorter and more direct are also friendlier to the consumer who’s using a mobile device.

Here at the TechJournal we interview many digital marketing gurus and not infrequently note that some ecommerce websites still make it unnecessarily difficult to even find a buy button. It’s not as if they’re expensive to use or difficult to code.

Keep it simple, make call to action stand out

Way too much clutter that turns site navigation into a maze is one reason. But whatever the reason, Miva Merchant warns merchants to make sure that a call to action stands out.

“By building a site that is simple, pleasant to look at and uncluttered, merchants can help consumers find and respond to a call to action more quickly.

Using complementary colors and keeping the space around a call to action on the site clear encourages consumers to spend more time looking at the site and focusing on the call to action.

Jesse says that it is possible to overdo a call to action on a website.  “By repeating the call to action too many times, the site becomes a turnoff to consumers who haven’t yet made up their minds to buy, sign up or subscribe. A better approach uses the site to build consumer confidence in the product or service and make it easy for a customer to act once a decision is made.”