The eCommerce industry has witnessed tremendous growth as more people realize the ease of shopping online and getting stuff delivered to their doorstep. If you are planning to launch an eCommerce website or already have one and want to refine it for a better user experience, here are design ideas to help you get started:
1. Focus on the Graphics
The template and layout of your website matter even more than its content. Why? Design is the first thing people see and helps them decide whether to spend more time on your page or leave. So make sure the graphics are visually appealing and appropriate for the target audience. For example, if you’re selling kids’ toys, use vibrant colors and exciting fonts.
2. Utilize White Space
The white space on a newspaper and that on a website have a similar purpose: separating different categories of content from each other and making the page look cleaner and more organized.
3. Structure the Categories
Nobody likes scrolling through endless text. Make browsing your website convenient for your readers by segregating your product categories. Nike, for example, has broad categories, such as Men, Women and Kids. Under these categories, there are sub-categories and menus like Clothing, Shoes, etc., and even more sub-categories under them. This hierarchy makes it super-easy for users to find what they are looking for.
4. Google-Friendly Product Descriptions
About 87 percent of people read product descriptions, which helps them understand more about the product and inform their buying decision. Beyond that, product descriptions also serve as an opportunity to tell search engines like Google what your products are about. Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques like adding keywords to the product descriptions allow you to ramp up your product page ranking in the search results.
5. Optimize the Loading Speed
Speed optimization is an extremely important factor in SEO, regardless of the type of website you own. This is simply because users have short attention spans. The importance of page speed cannot be overstated. In general, if a website does not load within 2-3 seconds, users are likely to bounce off your site and switch to another website.
6. Mobile Responsiveness
According to several studies, 79 percent of smartphone users have purchased online using their mobile devices in the last six months. Hence, as an eCommerce website, it is important to make sure that your site is mobile-friendly. You can check the mobile-friendliness score of your website using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
7. Make the Process Painless
Keep the shopping process as straightforward as possible. It should be painless and convenient for your customers so that they don’t give up halfway through trying to make a purchase. In many instances, carts are abandoned just because the checkout process is complicated, requiring mandatory signups or logins. Indeed, signups can benefit you, but you can offer discounts in exchange for signup rather than making it a requirement.
8. Share Useful Content or Blogs
Blogging is a powerful way to stay connected with your customers. By blogging regularly about your products and industry, you keep your audience informed, entertained and engaged. Targeting long-tail keywords is beneficial as you have a better understanding of the user’s search intent and, hence, have better chances of conversion.
9. Keep Experimenting
It is important to stay updated on trends and see what’s working for your competitors. However, what worked well for Company X may not be as effective for Company Y. Experimentation is key! Keep experimenting with different types of content, products, marketing, layouts and other features to know what’s working best for you and go with that.
10. Invest in a Navigable Site
You do not want your customers to be lost in between pages just because they don’t know how to check out, how to add more items to the cart or where to find your shipping policies. So, make the navigation as smooth as possible.
11. Have the Necessary Elements
Basic elements like a search bar, filter options, ratings, reviews, sort by, etc., are some must-haves for eCommerce websites. Adding these options makes the shopping experience much smoother.
12. Make Your Website Search-Friendly
No matter how excellent your products, prices and content are, none of them will matter if people cannot find your site.
To make your website easy to discover on Google and other search engines, make sure your entire site is SEO-friendly, including product descriptions, blogs and all your web pages.
If you aren’t sure how to execute SEO, you can seek help from SEO experts specializing in eCommerce sites.
13. Use eCommerce Web Analytics
Sales are not the only metric that determines your business’s performance. Several other factors like the day and time of generating sales, geographical location, visitors and average time spent on site also give a detailed insight into customer behavior and scope of improvement.
How To Start Designing Your Website
i) Buy a domain after considering your brand name and objective. Make sure it is unique and something you’d love to have in the long run.
ii) Choose website hosting based on your requirements.
iii) Build a website using any website builder such as WordPress or Wix.
iv) Set up your theme by editing the existing template in a few steps.
v) Post pictures and add important pages and content that people resonate with.
vi) Promote your products on social media and via email.