The eCommerce industry is growing at an insanely fast pace. From food and beverages to clothes and jewelry, virtually anything can be delivered to your doorstep nowadays - all you need to do is click.
But the growing demand also means fiercer competition to deal with. How to make sure you stay on top of your game? Utilizing effective website design is certainly one of the best ways to accomplish this.
Below is a list of 7 tips for eCommerce web development that will help you drive more traffic and boost your sales.
1. Choose a Great Domain Name
When it comes to designing your eCommerce website, one of the first things to pay attention to is your domain name. Even though it may not seem like a big deal, a short, memorable domain can make the difference between creating a strong online presence and getting lost in the digital space.
Choosing a perfect domain name for your business isn’t easy, especially having in mind that new domain names are being registered every second, so chances are the ones you like are already taken.
To make the process easier, here’s a list of five basic rules to follow when coming up with ideas for domain names:
- Brainstorm the top five keywords related to your eCommerce business
- Be sure your domain name is unique
- If possible, go with the .com extension
- Make sure your domain is short and memorable
- Make sure it is easy to type (no special characters, hyphens, numbers, or double letters).
Sometimes a great domain name can come with a high price tag. Before you commit, ask yourself, how much does a domain cost? The total cost will depend on the length of time you want to register it for, the type, and where you buy it.
2. Keep It Simple
Your eCommerce website should be designed in a way that it meets the visitors' needs and turns prospects into buyers.
Make sure the web design is clean and simple, with no distracting images or links appearing, especially at checkout. Avoid using long content, complex animations, cheesy stock images, and ambiguous terminology whenever possible.
3. Make it User-Friendly
One of the best ways to help visitors find what they’re looking for is by providing a navigation menu. The navigation menu should appear either vertically on the left side or horizontally at the top of your site, across all the pages. Use a dropdown menu to showcase the categories and subcategories of products.
Another way to provide a good UX is by having a well-organized filter. People don’t like it when they have to scroll through an entire website just to find the product they’re looking for. If this happens, they’ll probably leave and go to your competition. To provide the best
experience for your customers, allow them to find the desired products by offering various filter options.
If you have a blog, it has to be super-neat too. Oftentimes, people skip reading an article because it’s too long, they get bored, and they never reach the section they actually wanted to read. This won’t happen if you use a table of contents on your blog. A table of contents helps you highlight the most important sections of an article so that readers can jump to the most relevant part. In addition, a table of contents helps Google to show rich snippets in the search results. Now that you understand the advantages of having a table of contents to your blog, you’re probably ready to add one. Even though you can code to achieve, there’s a much easier way, and that’s adding a WordPress table of contents plugin.
4. Use High-Quality Videos and Images
As online buyers can’t touch and feel the products before buying, presentation is key. If your product images are blurry or unclear, your products will look cheap and unattractive. That's why you should always use high-quality images and videos that compel the buyers to own the products you’re selling.
You should also use videos to show the product from all angles and demonstrate how it can be used. This can have a great impact on customers’ buying decisions.
5. Be Upfront with Prices
Concealing shipping charges until customers reach the payment gateway can increase cart abandonment and negatively affect your sales. Ensure that the product’s total price is displayed to the customers right from the start.
Also, avoid changing the prices too often. Believe it or not, customers have a great memory when it comes to prices so they won’t be happy if you spring a high price on them.
6. Showcase Customer Testimonials and Reviews
Customer testimonials and reviews are a great way to prove that your products are of high quality. They can also influence the buying decisions of potential customers and boost sales.
Consider displaying samples of each product's reviews under the product's description or, if your e-store doesn't have a large number of products and/or reviews, arrange the reviews in a single dedicated page that will appear on the home screen and be easy to notice.
7. Use a Failed Payment Recovery Service
When it comes to generating sales, web design is important, but there’s another important element that mustn’t be overlooked - the payment process.
Subscription-based businesses like eCommerce lose about 10% of their monthly revenue due to failed payments? Card payments can fail due to a number of reasons including insufficient funds on the card, expired card, fraudulent activity, etc.
A failed payment recovery service will help you create and send personalized email campaigns, call customers on your behalf to recover payments quickly, thus increasing your revenue and making sure you keep a good brand reputation and image.
Final Thoughts
Don’t underestimate the importance of web design in the creation of a successful eCommerce business. Work with a web designer and graphic designer to figure out how to implement these tips and get ready for orders to roll in!
The RedAlkemi team hopes you're keeping safe during the Pandemic Coronavirus. Take a look at tips to stay productive during Coronavirus and how to transform your work amidst COVID19.
