With the gift giving season in full swing, it’s a great time to talk about e-commerce sites. Creating and maintaining a successful e-commerce site, with so much competition, is no easy task. You need to stand out from the crowd with a good website, appealing product, and incentives to ensure customers choose you over your competition.
We’ve got some tips for web design for building an e-commerce website this holiday season that will get you customers into the new year.
Make a Good First Impression
A good first impression is key for users visiting your site, particularly if they are new customers. Users decide in only a couple of seconds if they want to make a purchase on your website, so you need to ensure those couple of seconds are a positive experience.
Firstly, ensure your URL is easy to remember and not too long. Your URLS for each page should also be straightforward, avoiding lots of numbers or codes that a customer won’t understand. If they can remember your URL, they are more likely to return.
E-commerce website design should also be intuitive with an easy to follow menu and navigation so the user can easily find what they want. Having a search bar with a working search function will also make the customer experience much smoother and if they’re able to find the product they’re looking for, they’re much more likely to buy it.
Features like having a ‘Recently Viewed’ list, access to new products, viewing the cart, and high quality photos are all things that can help boost your sales by giving the customer options and a smooth user experience.
SEO and Marketing
Just like any other website, a successful e-commerce site needs good SEO and digital marketing to get it noticed. While paid advertising like PPC is a great way to gain new customers, you also have to build your online reputation organically if you want to be successful in the long term. Creating an SEO and social media strategy with a digital marketing agency is the best way to cover all your bases and ensure that you’re increasing your online visibility.
One example of part of an SEO strategy is blogging to keep your website regularly updated and give you something to share on social media. Search engines that see a website updating pages give them a higher ranking over time. You can also ask for reviews and feedback about your products and company, whether on search engines, social media, or your website itself. Having a lot of activity (and good reviews) help search engines recognize your legitimacy and see that you’re a good website to recommend to users.
Easy Checkout
Checkout is the most important part of an e-commerce site, and it’s where most shops fail to make the conversion. Over 70% of shopping carts are abandoned before payment, often for a variety of reasons. Checkout is too confusing, shipping costs are too high, or there aren’t enough payment options are just some of the reasons someone may not make a purchase. You need to offer a variety of payment options and ensure customers don’t need to input too much information to make a purchase. The easier, the better.
Recommending products that are similar to ones being purchased is a great way to increase sales. If a customer is buying a scarf, recommend gloves or socks. If they’re buying a set of glasses, recommend coasters. These small add-ons will increase your average transaction and give you more revenue.
You also need to ensure your checkout is secure. If a customer doesn’t feel safe inputting their payment details, then they won’t make the purchase. Using SSL certificates and informing the customer how their personal information is being kept safe is an easy way to give them peace of mind and make them feel more comfortable.
Other E-Commerce Features
Other features can be made available on your e-commerce site to help make it successful. Including an option for live chat as customer service will help customers who have questions about products or the checkout process easily without having to wait for email or a phone call. Live chat is quick, easy, and solving customer issues this way can lead to faster sales and better reviews for your company.
It’s also important to ensure your e-commerce shop is not only mobile-friendly, but optimized for shopping on mobile. More than ever, people are making purchases from their tablets and cell phones. If your shop is not easily navigable from a mobile device, you’ll be missing out on sales.
Lastly, ensure you’re using the best e-commerce software, plugins, and platforms to run your shop. There are a variety of platforms and plugins available offering different benefits so you can customize your e-commerce shop how you want it. Working with a web designer can help simplify this process.
Ready to Start Building An E-Commerce Website?
VivosWeb can design, market, and launch your e-commerce site. We know how to get your shop noticed by new clients and keep regular customers coming back with unique e-commerce website design. Contact us for help with your e-commerce site today!
+1(905) 574-1010
