When you run an online store, your ecommerce website serves as your storefront. As a result, your ecommerce web design communicates who you are to your website visitors, making it one of the most critical factors in determining how many of your visitors become customers.
Most users form an opinion about your web design (CXL) in just 17 milliseconds, so you must make an excellent first impression. Implement these ten ecommerce web design tips during your next phase of ecommerce development to sell your users what you have to offer from the first glance and watch your sales soar with e-commerce SEO, Social Media Marketing, and eCommerce SEO agency.
Some ecommerce web design tips for improving your sales are:
Consider your users
To effectively connect with your users, one of the first things you’ll want to consider is getting inside their heads. , and a new, and a fresh, and a new, and anew.
Consider the age range of your target audience, for example. Creating a site for young girls (for example, AmericanGirl.com) will look and function differently than for adult women (e.g., Chanel.com). Compare the sites above for yourself—consider how drastically the color palettes of each site differ (colorful vs. generally grayscale).
Minimal Design
You’ve probably heard the term “minimalist” used about keeping your home clutter-free or the modern interior design seen in most modern homes or restaurants. However, minimalist design has also infiltrated web design, not just for aesthetic reasons.
The goal of an ecommerce site is to direct users toward making a purchase. Users may need to know where to begin if your site is cluttered (e.g., too many calls to action). However, with a simple and clean web design, your users will know exactly where to click, increasing their chances of becoming your newest customer.
Proper navigation
Navigation makes people need clarification and chooses to abandon a site. When a site provides a wide variety of products to offer, for example, Walmart, you can find exactly what you as a customer need, and it can become a daunting task with unclear navigation.
Keep your menu organized and clear by using jargon that your consumers are more familiar with. You can improve the user experience you have to offer. You need to ensure that your product pages are all cleared and organized as cause you don’t want to lose your users when they’ve almost found their product of choice.
Make searching an option.
As previously stated, when navigation is overwhelming (think Amazon), even a well-organized web design will not provide easy-to-use navigation. This could explain why more “densely packed retail websites have higher [rates of] search (>50%)” (measuring), as search is often the more accessible option for finding a product on such sites.
While only some websites will benefit from a search tool, consider whether your users would be lost without one. Furthermore, if a search tool is helpful, make sure that it is visible to your users and not hidden within the navigation: the easier it is to find, the more likely you will make a sale.
Make use of high-quality images.
Most people are extremely receptive to the imagery around them, which is valid for Internet content: for example, articles with compelling images receive 94% more views than those without. More specifically for ecommerce, 67% of consumers consider a product’s image quality to be “very important” in their purchasing decision (MDG Marketing).
With this in mind, you’ve probably noticed that more ecommerce sites focus on photography. However, being photography-focused does not imply that you should flood your site with stock photos: Instead, obtain professional photographs of your products and possibly even your team. This adds credibility to your company and results in a more visually appealing site that will keep your users engaged.
Make it clear what each page is for
Although we mentioned it briefly earlier, it’s important to remember that when a user visits your site, you won’t be there to show them how it works, where to find a product, or how to place an order. As a result, your website must speak for itself and include clear calls to action.
Businesses often become so preoccupied with creating pages with calls to action that they overwhelm their users. However, as Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar points out, “having too many options can overwhelm us and cause us not to choose at all” (Sumo). As a result, when designing product pages, for example, make sure they direct the customer to make a purchase.
Customer reviews and ratings are useful.
Web design plays a significant role in helping a user see a site’s credibility. Therefore, your overall design will influence whether the users visit your organization as trustworthy; accordingly, they will consider your reviews.
Letting your customers share their thoughts on your services or products can increase your users’ likelihood to make purchases.
Keep checkout simple
Abandoning a shopping cart is one of the most common complaints for online retailers. With an average abandonment rate of 69.57%, reducing this number is worthwhile (Baymard Institute). Fortunately, you can work to solve this issue by simplifying the checkout process.
Users who abandon their cart due to a long and complicated checkout process are second only to users who abandon their cart due to “just browsing.” However, when the design of the checkout process was improved, conversion rates increased by 35% on average (Baymard Institute).
Check that it is responsive.
Not only is the ratio of desktop to mobile Internet users roughly 1:1 (StatCounter), but 79% of smartphone users have made online purchases from their mobile devices in the last six months (OuterBox). Therefore, with more potential ecommerce customers on mobile than ever, providing a great web design on desktop and mobile is more critical than ever.
While you could build a mobile app to run full-throttle with the mobile commerce movement, a responsive design is a minimum you’ll need. A responsive design ensures that your site’s layout adapts to your user’s screen size and orientation. As a result, your site will cater to users from various platforms, ensuring that you earn sales from them.
Make the most of social media.
In the United States, 98% of adult Internet users have at least one social media account, with each person having an average of seven (MarketingTech). With almost every consumer on social media, it’s worth incorporating these platforms into your web design.
While it will depend on the preferences of your target audience, there are several ways to incorporate social media into web design: You can, for example, allow users to log in to your site using their social media accounts (e.g., Facebook). You can also include social share buttons for your blog posts and products and live UGC (user-generated content) feeds that feature your products (if applicable).
Conclusion
Now you can apply these ten tips for improving your ecommerce web design that suits your website. First, you can determine how best you can reach your customers, but it depends on what products and services to sell and, most importantly, on your targeted audience.