We are podcasting again live from WordCamp Seattle 2016. Our guest on episode 40 is Eric Amundson, owner, web strategist and user-experience designer at IvyCat.com. I’ve known Eric for several years and he has been heavily involved in both our local Seattle WordPress and our WooCommerce meetups. Today I am chatting with him about some of the main concepts you need to know to make sure your users and customers have the best experience once they land on your eCommerce site.

We chatted about:

* The most important aspects of user-friendly design for your eCommerce site’s homepage

* Navigation and tips on what to think about when creating menus and navigation on your site

* How to make the most of your sidebars and the main elements to avoid

* The pros and cons when it comes to mobile-friendly sites and some thoughts on mobile responsive vs. mobile apps

* How content is #1 when it comes to the user experience and a unique tip to help you generate content for your online store.

Thanks To Our Podcast Sponsor: WP101.com

Transcript

You can download the transcript of this show at: the-wp-ecommerce-show-transcript-november-9-2016

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone, welcome to episode forty. Bob Dunn here, also know as Bob WP on the web. Today we are sharing with you our second show recorded live at Word Camp Seattle 2016 a bit over a week ago. It was a fantastic two days of learning and connecting and I would highly recommend checking out a Word Camp near you if you haven’t already. With that said, I am honored to introduce my good friend, Eric Amundson, who runs a company called IvyCat.

Hey Eric, welcome to the show.

Eric Amundson: Thank you so much, Bob. I appreciate you asking me.

Bob Dunn: He actually took some time, I think he was in the contributor room, so I pulled him out from important stuff. If something goes wonky in that and it’s his fault, it’s my fault.

Eric Amundson: If WordPress crashes and burns, it’s all you?

Bob Dunn: Yeah, really. Oh god!

Eric Amundson: Only Eric would have contributed.

Bob Dunn: Yeah, really, but keep me out of that room. Well, before we chat with Eric, go to the questions, I’d like to thank our sponsor who stepped up to cover both of our podcasts here at Word Camp Seattle, my friends over at WP101.com. If you are new to WordPress or just starting to wrap your brain around WordPress, their collection of exceptional and professional video tutorials not only guide you through the WordPress basics, but also help you with some very popular plugins. For me, they are the go-to site where I send a lot of people who are struggling through the murky waters of WordPress in the beginning. That is WP101.com and I will be chatting a bit more about them later in the show.

Before we dive into the questions on usability, user-friendly sites, eCommerce, that’s our topic today, I would like to have Eric tell all you just a bit about IvyCat and what he does.

Meet Eric Amundson from IvyCat

Eric Amundson: Sure. I started IvyCat in 2002 as a web designer. I had been laid off from a job where I built an e-commerce site. I built my first eCommerce site in ’99 and did a good job, used FrontPage, made all the mistakes and learned from them. Then over time, when WordPress came out—I started using it about 2005— in 2010 I hired my first employee. We focused the business more on, instead of just all sorts of sites, more on eCcommerce and event management sites. That’s really what IvyCat specializes in,