11 Crucial Tips on Building an Outstanding E-commerce Website
Your web design can make or break a first impression. It can impact how much time users spend on your page.
On the other hand, a lousy web design might turn off your website visitors. So much so that they will not hesitate to click the back button and hop on to another website.
But despite the benefits a website can bring to a business, only 64% of small businesses in the US have a site. That said, now is the best time to spruce up your web design if you have one. Otherwise, you should start building your online store today.
In this post, we have listed 11 crucial tips that you should follow when building an e-commerce site:
1. Pick a good domain name
Picking a good domain is vital to your branding and business. Hence, we always recommend to our clients at Sytian Web Developer Philippines to choose a domain name that’s related to your business name. If not, ensure that it’s easy to spell and remember and can make it easy for your customers to associate the domain name with your products or services.
Using descriptive key phrases in your business and domain names will make it easy for your customers to know what you are offering. This allows you to rank well on search engines, which is vital to your business strategy.
Once you have ideas for your domain name, the next thing that you need to do is register it. You can claim your online store’s domain name through web hosting sites like GoDaddy, BlueHost, and Google Domains.
All you need to do is to go to these websites and then put your business name. It will then tell you if a particular domain name is available.
2. Keep it clean and simple
Minimalist sites are considered more visually appealing and trustworthy than complex sites.
So, if you want to maximize the conversions of your e-commerce site, you should consider simplifying it. To simplify your website, get rid of unnecessary information, and use a simple and minimalist theme with a lot of white space.
After all, you don’t need many bells and whistles on your e-commerce site, as they only serve as distractions. Keep it clean and simple, and focus on making a sale.
3. Make branding a priority
If you want to build trust from your target audience and drive sales to your e-commerce business, you should make branding a priority.
That’s because it’s the DNA of your business. It defines what your company does, the people it serves, and the values you adhere to.
It is also what makes you stand out from your competitors. Over time, this plays a crucial role in building a connection with your audience and driving sales.
To get the most out of your brand, you should consider asking yourself some key questions:
- If my brand is a person, what would it be like?
- If I have three words to describe my brand, what will these words be?
- What makes my brand unique from other e-commerce stores out there?
- What is it that you do better than anyone else in your industry?
Once you answer these questions, you can start with the branding of your e-commerce site. Over time, this builds trust from your target audience, driving more sales in the process.
4. Security is a must
Building your customers’ trust takes time and is crucial for sales. One of the best ways to secure your e-commerce website is to use an HTTPS protocol for your domain.
Customers expect that their data is safe with you. Payment details and transactions will also need high security. Your site should be compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI).
To improve security, you should not keep sensitive credit card information on your company’s website. Instead, store them in a secured database system. That’s because if ever your system gets hacked, you’re the one who’s going to be liable.
5. Think like your audience
If you want your e-commerce site design to resonate with your audience, you have to think like one.
There are many things that prospective customers take into consideration. Ideally, they want a site that’s well-designed, easy to navigate, and makes the entire shopping process easy and hassle-free.
It will also help if you consider putting yourself in your site visitor’s shoes. What’s the best layout that’s easy to navigate? How do you organize items on your site in a way that makes sense for users? What do you need to do to simplify the check-out process?
By putting yourself in your customers’ shoes, they’ll quickly know what they want from your e-commerce store. That way, you’ll design your site in a way that meets those needs.
6. Be smart with colors
Picking the right colors for your site is also essential. Once you understand the psychology behind color,you can use it to your advantage, driving more sales in the process.
For instance, red is a color that generates excitement and passion, one of the main driving factors of spending. Studies even show that it can raise conversions to a whopping 34%.
Meanwhile, if you want to boost your brand’s credibility, blue is a color that increases feelings of trust.
Overall, colors are powerful tools that you can use in your design toolbox. Once you know how to use it, it plays a significant impact on your web design.
7. Implement a search bar
After getting rid of the clutter and making your menu options simple, you might need to make additional changes. Because visitors will have fewer choices on the menu, they’ll get to see more products once they click on a specific category.
This can help, especially if you might not have many products for sale on your site. Also, forcing users to scroll through hundreds (or potentially thousands!) of options to choose from won’t drive sales and conversions.
That’s why integrating a search bar into your site is the best solution.
8. Use images and videos
Whether you like it or not, many buyers these days will only give you a couple of seconds of their time.
That’s why you must get straight to the point, get their attention, and keep them on the page until you can explain things to them in greater detail.
Using photos is one of the best ways to get their attention, while videos sustain it. The key here is having one or both of these things found above the fold of every page.
Videos also have a way of telling stories that photos can’t. So, make sure that your ad has as many product videos as possible.
In fact, you’ll receive higher conversions from shoppers who watched a product video than those that didn’t.
9. Have scannable content
You may write long-form content for hours, but the truth is that no one’s going to read it.
Only a tiny population of website visitors read texts on a web page. Rather than reading every word, all they do is scan the text for critical information.
So, if you want to get your point across to your audience and drive sales in the long run, you have to make it scannable.
It helps you break up your content- whether they’re blog posts, product descriptions, or ‘About Us’ pages in an easy-to-scan format. Make sure that you keep these sentences and paragraphs short and sweet.
You can also use the call to action to highlight essential information, such as bulleted lists to break off large chunks of texts. You should add a customizable and responsive author boxthat shows the author name, gravatar, description, etc.
The more scannable your product description is, the easier it is for you to convince them why your product is the best. As such, it can help boost your online sales.
10. Optimize for mobile
In this highly digital age, every web page should be optimized for mobile. Still, thousands of websites out there use old themes or sites that only do well on desktop.
Sure, your e-commerce site’s web design theme is mobile-responsive. But are you doing anything to improve your online store’s page load speed on mobile?
You risk losing out at least half of your customers if you don’t have a mobile responsive site.
Mobile users should search, browse, and purchase right from their phones to their devices without the hassle.
11. Make all transactions effortless
So you might have done things right. Customers have found what they’re looking for on search, and you have stunning photos and product descriptions. They’ve now added items to their shopping cart and are ready to purchase.
Now, they encounter the following hurdles:
- Unexpected costs in shipping
- Unclear return policy
- No multiple payment methods offered
- Have to create an account before making a purchase
What you’re doing is taking off the excitement in the purchase. That’s why you need to publish your shopping fees and policies on your homepage. Doing so can help you get rid of any of these unpleasant surprises. It also helps that you work with a reputable company that provides inventory planning services.
Also, if the platform you’re in restricts certain payment types, you should upgrade to a different platform that doesn’t.
Ideally, you need to find a payment platform that can handle international payments and other channels. This includes digital wallets and bank transfers. That’s because not everyone has access to credit cards and PayPal.
Running an e-commerce site can sometimes be daunting. But by applying the e-commerce website building tips listed above, you now have a chance to boost your online sales.
