In a previous blog post, I wrote about effectively using ShopSite’s Customer Registration Feature for your online store. Concepts such as not making it required, ensuring it’s easy to understand, and how to correctly add sign-in and register links to your web pages.

If you’ve mastered these ideas, here is one other option to round out your awesome registration system…

The multi-purpose “My Account” link

So you have a static sign-in and register link clearly defined in your top and bottom navigation. Great. That makes it easy for returning customers to sign back in, and new customers to sign up.

But what about those customers that are already signed in and want to manage their account?

If you’re not using ShopSite’s dynamic JavaScript code for customer registration (that automatically changes the links based on whether the customer is signed in or not), the customer is left to either go to the cart and click the edit account link, or click sign-in (which is not an obvious choice).

Enter the multifunctional “My Account” link!

If the customer is signed in, clicking this link will take them to their account. If they’re not signed in, it takes them to the sign-in page.

The format for this type of link is:

My Account:
http://xyz.com/cgi-xyz/sb/order.cgi?func=3&html_reg=html&storeid=XXXX

…

That’s it. Short, simple, and it enhances the user experience on your site.