It is no secret that e-commerce websites are very popular. In 2013, global business to consumer online sales were valued at more than $1.2 trillion. That same year in United States people spent more than $38 billion making purchases with their mobile devices. EBay is one company that is able to take advantage of this. Their sales for items purchased on mobile devices hover around $14 billion each year. At least two thirds of all people in the United States who are 15 years old or older report buying products online. If you are looking to sell services or products online, having the best e-commerce website it is very important.
- Use great images. Many companies go with stock photos they find online for free but this is a mistake. While it might seem like the free stock photos look decent, it makes a lot more sense to have a professional photographer take quality images for your e-commerce website. This is especially true if you are selling unique products or offering services that are personal. You need to have good quality images of the items you have for sale. Make sure when you put your images into your e-commerce web design, use your keywords in the titles, filenames and descriptions. As important images are to attracting customers, search engine spiders can only index text.
- Make it load quickly. In order to attract and retain visitors to your website your e-commerce web designers need to develop a website that loads quickly. The typical web user will only wait three seconds for website to load before they abandon it for another site. You need your site to load as quickly as possible. You need to make sure your website looks great on mobile devices. Several years ago, the number of people who access the Internet via mobile devices surpassed Internet uses with computers. My people who are out and about, are far more likely to look, for example, for places to eat on their phone or tablet than anywhere else. If your website does not load rapidly or cannot be accessed properly from a mobile device, you need to start over. These are two important tips for creating a good e-commerce web design.
- Simplicity is your friend. There is an saying, “keep it simple, stupid.” The same can said for the best e-commerce web design. If your site looks too cluttered or busy, it will turn people off. When the web was first developed, many web designers felt the need to put as much stuff on each page as they could. The best e-commerce web design makes use of empty space. This makes it easier for visitors to look at the site and get what they need. Research shows that minimalist designs are more effective than busy and cluttered ones.
- Make it easy for visitors to buy things on your site. This should go without saying but it is important to note that use here is for people select select items to purchase and to make those purchases, the more likely they will be to buy something from you. If you use any advertising such as pay per click advertising you need to link back to the product you are promoting. It can be very frustrating to click on the promotion for a product to be brought to the main homepage. Most customers will not spend time searching through all of your products to find a deal that you offered in your add.
- Make it easy for customers to add items to their cart. Different e-commerce websites use different methods or terminology for this part of their business. Whether you use the cart, a bag or a basket, you need your web development team to make it easy for visitors to pick products. Every page of your site needs to have a button it allows your customers to check out and pay for the items. Make clear how much you’re charging for shipping. If customers get unexpected charges, you will have problems with chargebacks.
Good e-commerce web design can turn visitors into customers. You should take your customers needs into consideration when designing your website. That is the best road to success.
