A high-quality, well-designed website is crucial to any business, but even more so for ecommerce businesses.
Online stores don’t often have physical locations, so their ecommerce website is the backbone of their entire business. Without an ecommerce site, online stores can’t sell their products and services or reach their target audience.
As such, ecommerce businesses must have aesthetically pleasing, functional, fast, and secure websites.
You’ve come to the right place if you’re unsure how to create a well-designed ecommerce website.
Read on to find the seven best practices when designing your ecommerce website.
Responsive Design
Your website should be responsive, meaning it should automatically adjust its layout according to the visitor’s device.
Mobile device usage has grown exponentially. Thus, a responsive design is essential for giving customers a great experience, regardless of their device.
It also helps keep your website organized and easy to navigate so customers can quickly find what they’re looking for without any confusion.
Clean Design
A clean design emphasizes simplicity and clarity, allowing visitors to quickly find what they are looking for without distractions.
Achieve a clean design by using the following elements.
- Plenty of white space
- Consistent fonts, colors, and branding throughout the site
- Straightforward interface
- Intuitive navigation
High-Quality Images
High-quality product images are essential when creating a professional ecommerce website.
Optimize images for quality and loading speed to prevent a slow-loading website. Ensure all product photos are high-resolution and accurately represent your products.
High-quality images ensure your customers know what they’re getting, allowing them to make an informed purchase decision.
Information Security
Prioritize the security of sensitive customer information.
Customers don’t want their personal information or payment details exposed to hackers or unnecessary third parties, so ensure you’ve taken all the steps to protect your customers’ data.
Use secure payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe.
Furthermore, ensure your website utilizes hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS), which is a safe method of sending data between a web server and a browser.
A secure website builds customer trust and increases the likelihood of customers purchasing from your online store.
Customers want to feel safe when making purchases online, so a secure payment system is essential for any ecommerce website.
Use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology to encrypt all transactions on your site.
Display trust badges from trusted third-party services such as PayPal or Verisign to let customers know their information is secure when shopping at your store.
Easy Navigation
Your navigation menu should be clear and straightforward to make it easy for customers to go where they need to, simplifying the customer experience.
You don’t want site visitors to feel lost or confused when browsing your website’s different products or pages.
Visitors will likely leave your site and never return if they cannot find what they need quickly.
Keep menus short and sweet, and list only necessary items. You can hide other options using dropdown menus or hidden navigation to prevent clutter and improve the user experience.
Optimized Product Pages
Your product pages should include accurate and detailed product descriptions that use powerful, action-oriented words to engage visitors and encourage purchases.
Ensure product pages include high-quality images with detailed descriptions. Doing so makes it easy for potential customers to know what they’re getting before clicking “Add to cart.” and completing the checkout process.
Combining high-quality product photos with accurate and detailed descriptions prevents returns and keeps customers happy!
You should also SEO-optimize product pages by including relevant keywords in your product titles, tags, and descriptions.
Doing so can improve your visibility in search results and drive organic traffic to your ecommerce website.
Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews and testimonials are essential in building customer trust, especially for people unfamiliar with your brand and visiting your site for the first time.
Include reviews and testimonials from previous customers to show visitors your brand is trustworthy.
People are more likely to purchase from your store if they see positive reviews from customers.
Ecommerce Web Design Tips
Prioritize Mobile-Friendly Designs.
Mobile technology enables users to do many things on their smartphones and tablets. They can use mobile devices to read books, play games, and shop online.
Many people today prefer shopping online using their mobile devices. You’ll miss out on customers and sales if you don’t mobile-optimize your ecommerce website.
Design your entire website with mobile users in mind.
Find the best ecommerce platform for small business to easily design mobile-friendly websites. These platforms allow you to create responsive designs with little to no coding skills. Platforms like Shopify offer built-in themes that you can choose from.
Avoid Clutter.
All pages on your website should contain ample amounts of white space. Avoid stuffing your web pages with content because it can cause clutter.
Clutter can confuse and frustrate visitors, making it difficult for them to navigate your website.
Prevent clutter by creating a clean, easy-to-navigate layout that quickly points customers where to find what they need.
Remember, less is more when creating a website.
Leverage User-Generated Content.
Social proof is one of the most powerful tools in marketing, so leveraging it for your ecommerce website is ideal.
The question is: What is user-generated content?
As its name implies, user-generated content (UGC) is brand-focused content users create and often publish on social media platforms.
Here are the most common types of user-generated content you’ll find online:
- Product reviews (including video reviews)
- Blog posts
- Testimonials
- Unboxing videos
- Hashtag campaigns
Using this type of content on your ecommerce website builds trust among potential customers. UGC can help you develop meaningful relationships with customers and encourage them to purchase your products.
Conclusion
Creating a successful, well-designed, and profitable ecommerce website requires careful consideration of various factors.
However, following these practices and tips will help you start in the best way possible.
- Create a responsive design
- Keep things clean and simple.
- Use high-quality images.
- Ensure the security of customer information.
- Make website navigation straightforward.
- Optimize product pages with high-resolution photos and accurate and detailed product descriptions.
- Leverage user-generated content, including product reviews and testimonials.
Remember these steps to create an optimized ecommerce website that can generate long-term traffic and sales.
