What is a Good Website Design for E-commerce Businesses?
Of course, your e-commerce website design should be a reflection of your unique brand identity, but a good website design for an e-commerce business should check off a few important boxes. These days, you can’t get away with a basic website template that expresses no creative edge or anything that your competition doesn’t already have.
An e-commerce business relies entirely on your virtual presence. You get one impression on your audience, and that impression matters more than anything. This means you need to step it up and prioritize your design, especially when your online business is your sole method of selling.
Here are some of the most important elements that make up a good website design for e-commerce businesses. Follow this list and you’ll be able to piece together a stunning design no matter what industry you operate in.
Stunning Product Photography
An e-commerce business relies solely on product sales. To sell your products effectively, you need to showcase them in beautiful, stunning photographs. Today’s consumers won’t buy a product that they can’t see, especially when most industries have competitive online markets. Having just one or two images of the product with relatively low quality won’t be enough to entice those buyers to click “add to cart.”
If you don’t have one on your team already, it’s worth your money to hire a professional photographer to take a range of photos of your product you can use throughout your website. Professional images convey confidence, authority, and trust in your audience, and can make your products look absolutely amazing with proper lighting and technique.
Consistent Branding
Brand image is very important, especially when you’re an e-commerce business without a brick and mortar location or a site that only lists apartments for rent. The online commerce space is very crowded, so your design has to set you apart from your competitors and resonate strongly with your audience. It also needs to clearly relay the message and tone that you want associated with your brand.
If you’re thinking about deviating from the norm to make your brand stand out from the crowd, make sure you do your research. For example, when it comes to your header, keep this statistic in mind: users are 89% more likely to remember your brand when your logo is located in the top left corner of your website header as opposed to the right side. So, if you were thinking about doing something unique, leave your logo placement alone and try something else.
User Friendly Navigation
User experience is the key that leads your customer down the buyer’s journey. The easier your website is to navigate, the happier your viewers will be. The happier your viewers are, the more time they’ll spend on your page. The longer they spend on your page, the more likely they are to make a purchase.
You can’t effectively lead your customers down this journey and toward conversion unless you make it easy for them to use your site. Fortunately, there are many ways you can incorporate a user friendly design into every aspect of your site.
Here are some core elements you can implement to make your website easier to navigate:
- Organized product page layout
- Search bar functionality
- A simple shopping cart
- Clear calls-to-action (CTAs)
- High-quality visuals
- An easy, functional header
- Contact information clearly listed in the footer
Simple, Clean Homepage Design
Ultimately, you need to keep it simple. The easier it is to purchase a product, the more sales you’ll get. This is especially important for your homepage design. The homepage is the first impression your audience gets, and it only takes a few seconds for your visitors to form an opinion about your website. If they don’t like what they see, they won’t hesitate to hit that back button right away.
Forget about obnoxious, colorful in-your-face banners – opt for a clear, simple, and pleasing to the eye hero image instead. Avoid stock photo imagery whenever possible. Stock photos can make your website look fake or less personal, and today’s consumer is privy to that. Videos can also be an advantage, as interactive content is increasingly on the rise and helps keep engagement up.
Functional Mobile Responsiveness
If you’ve read anything about website design, you probably saw this one coming. Arguably one of the most important factors in any good e-commerce website design is mobile responsiveness. More than half of today’s online shoppers are browsing right from their smartphones and tablets and conducting searches through those same devices. Make sure you give them a seamless experience tailored to their smaller screens, or you’ll be missing out on a major traffic avenue and, as a result, potential conversions.
