Tips on How to Optimize the Shopping Cart on Your Author's Website

The core of any successful online sales venture revolves around the webmaster's ability to keep visitors engaged from first glance to final payment processing. Writers promoting and selling their books through a personal website stand to increase their profits (always important for any artist) by taking a second glance at how well their payment set-up is serving them. The following is a list of tips on how to optimize the shopping cart on your author's website. Consider how a few minor tweaks, like the ones mentioned below, may improve your potential reader's buying experience.

Tip #1: Begin viewing your website's shopping cart as more than a checkout line. A shopping cart is perhaps one of the most overlooked selling tools that can be fine tuned to automatically benefit the author, whose success depends upon word of mouth in most cases. Create your own word of mouth promotions by offering access to your newsletter or promoting an upcoming release throughout the checkout process. Each page should do more than merely detail the contents of the cart.

Tip #2: Create a personalized cart. In other words, your shopping cart pages should not vary too widely from your main website pages. It is essential to maintain a sense of security and comfort for readers who are relaying their financial information, and suddenly feeling as if they are visiting another site will diminish those crucial qualities.

Tip #3: Use an automated order responder with a printable confirmation number. Customers purchasing books directly from an author's website, which is still a relatively new process, will demand a high level of service and professionalism. With much to prove, it is imperative that author's selling their own books through a website can offer automatic order confirmations to the customer. Otherwise, future book purchases may be jeopardized.

Tip #4: Promote past, new, and upcoming book releases on your "thank you" page. Once the purchase is finalized, take advantage of the new customer you've worked hard to acquire by taking this opportunity to promote your other products. If the customer was interested enough to make the initial purchase, it's likely she'll be interested enough to consider coming to your website again.

Tip #5: Offer PayPal payments. While many web hosts offer shopping carts with built-in payment processing options, you may find it necessary to sign-up for a PayPal payment option separately. Because many (if not most) web shoppers depend upon the reliability and security of PayPal to make their purchases, an author would be remiss not to make this option available to readers.

Tip #6: When asking for email addresses for order confirmation, ask for permission to send out future updates. Be clear about the information being sent (upcoming release announcements, book tour dates, etc) and the frequency of communication your readers can expect when signing up. Stick closely to the information provided to readers on this page, and never share information gathered. This step should strengthen the bond between yourself and the reader, as opposed to leaving the transaction to a one-time encounter.

Tip #7: Shop around for a cart that offers advanced tracking features. You are certainly not limited to the shopping cart offered by any particular web host. In most cases, webmasters can implement shopping carts from professional, specialized services provided by companies offering tracking systems that will allow them to optimize their sales strategies. These features can aid the author in understanding what shopping cart features, advertisements, and plans work best with each new release.

Keep in mind that, as an author, each element of your website must create credibility for you, trust between yourself and the reader, and security for all considering making a purchase. Your shopping cart is where these elements will come together simultaneously, therefore consider optimizing it to your advantage.