As someone who runs an eCommerce business, you are hopefully aware that your eCommerce website (online store) will be your main point of contact with your target audience, your business card, and your biggest marketing tool.

• 3 Web Design Features That Can Boost E-Commerce Sales

In that respect, it’s only natural that you focus your efforts on creating an attractive and functional eCommerce website, together with providing your target market with excellent product quality and customer service. Even though it’s rather easy to create an eCommerce website nowadays thanks to platforms such as Shopify even when you have no knowledge of design or development, it’s crucial that your website features a customer-oriented design that will help your business grow. Regardless of whether you plan to outsource this task or do it yourself, keep in mind the following points as they can make or break your business.

The Navigation is Easy and Intuitive

The most important thing about every eCommerce website is that people who land on it can easily find their way around. This means no clutter and useless information. More importantly, the users have to know instantly where to go and click in order to move from one page to the next. That said, the way you create your navigation header is extremely important.

Make sure to keep your tabs simple and straightforward. Don’t go over seven different clickable options as you can always utilize drop-down menus. Aside from the intuitive navigation in the header, make sure that the visitors to your site can also quickly access the search bar and the shopping cart icon. Organizing your pages and connecting them with the customers in mind will help them find the information they’re looking for quickly, which will also push them further down the sales funnel.

Proper Use of Images

Visuals are everything in this day and age, especially when it comes to assessing the authority and trustworthiness of an eCommerce business through the website. This is why it’s imperative that you use top-quality images for your product pages, and maybe even incorporate videos if it facilitates the use of the specific product. Aside from product images, you have to be very careful with your first-page visuals.

Regardless of whether you wish to include several images featuring different product categories such as online designer clothing stores or you like the idea of a single banner-like image very common for sites specializing in selling specific products such as watches or CBD oil, these images have to be of the highest quality and unique to your brand. Reserve stock imagery for your blog and focus your attention and budget on creating branded and recognizable photos for your main pages.

Professional, Clutter-Free Look

When they land on your eCommerce website, your potential customers should immediately have a sense of professionalism and trustworthiness from the mere appearance of it. HQ images, appealing color combos, simple yet effective typography, intuitive navigation, and all the important information disclosed and available at the click of a mouse are the things that even people not too invested in the online trends will take notice of. On the other hand, if your entire website design looks too sloppy and amateurish, with clashing colors and annoying popups, and blocks of text all over without rhyme or reason, users won’t trust your expertise or find you to be trustworthy enough to purchase from you.

A Uniformed Website Design

Uniformity of website design throughout all of the pages of your website is a very important matter to the buyers. If your goal is to generate more leads, you should expect them to spend more time browsing your website in order to get a feel about your brand. Now, if they jump from one page to another only to be presented with a new set of colors, completely different typography, and visuals that feel like a part of a completely different website than the one they’ve just been on, they won’t feel assured to keep browsing, let alone convert.

By choosing coherent and uniformed design elements and visuals throughout your eCommerce website, you’ll effectively create a recognition value that matches your brand.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Finally, the web design you opt for your website can affect the SEO score and your rank in the SERPs. Keyword implementation, content, and appropriate tags make a huge part of what the Google crawlers and algorithms look for when evaluating the authority of different websites.

While your target market may not be directly involved in the SEO aspect of your eCommerce website, in the end, it will be the effectiveness of your design and optimization efforts that place your site and your products in front of the audience you cater to. If you’re not sure how to go about SEO on your own, hiring an SEO specialist to help you as early as the design stage of your website will make a huge difference for your business success later on.

Keep in mind that the contemporary audience is not only interested in the products; they tend to value the whole package which provides them with a satisfying experience as well. In that respect, your eCommerce website design plays a crucial role in attracting and capturing a growing base of loyal customers.

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