Clarify the unclear

I often see posts on social and forums from Shopify merchants about getting traffic but no sales.

Reading the comments from these posts if nothing else is always interesting. That's because the feedback is usually very general and something along the lines of:

• The colors look bad or the font is hard to read.
• Spelling and grammar errors.
• Lacking policy pages.
• Trying to be everything to everyone, yet no one at all.

The issue here is that this feedback needs to come from customers. Not from designers and developers like myself who think we know what your store should look like. Who thinks we understand your customer base.

But in reality, every store is different. We may not be your customers.

Sure there are basics like spelling and grammar errors. But why your customers don't buy? You have to think like them.

For example, when looking at a snack food, it's important to me to know the ingredients and if the food is vegan. If I can't tell that easily, I won't buy it. Simple as that.

As a customer, it's not my responsibility to tell you what's missing from your description. You're supposed to make my experience easy, not the other way around. So don't expect your customers to tell you what you're missing.

This reminds me of Derek Sivers' book Anything You Want where he talks about feeling pain when you're unclear.

If they're not clear, they just get silence. Lot's of hits but no action.

Silence is painful.

So if you're getting lots of hits but no action, take a look at your content.

If customers are reaching out, answer those same questions in your content. If you don't have customers yet, think about the questions they may ask. What would you ask if you were in their shoes?

It's not much different than adding structured data to your product pages. We add structured data to help Google to understand what your page is about.

What more could you say to help clarify the unclear for your customers?