6 Tips to Ensure Your E-Commerce Website is Designed to Sell

Buying goods and services online is becoming an increasingly popular phenomenon as the number of people using e-commerce websites is only witnessing a surge. While shopping online is very different from walking into a brick-and-mortar store and physically picking things out, there are several steps an e-commerce website can take to bridge the gap.

Successful e-commerce entrepreneurs realize the need to offer customers with a shopping experience which lives up to their expectations and maybe even surpass them to ensure repeat purchases. The e-commerce website design plays a crucial role in this.

Whether it is browsing through the products, selecting them or making a transaction, customers (understandably) will gravitate towards a website that offers them speed, convenience and reliability in their online actions.

A website that isn’t intuitive and lacks spontaneity can ruin the online shopping experience, which can cause the user to lose interest in navigating it. This can further lead to shopping cart abandonment, and generally make the website unpopular among the tribe of online shoppers. It is, therefore, important for e-commerce website designers to optimize their website for seamless product selection and completion of purchases.

The following are a few tips that can help you design your e-commerce website in a way that always delivers when it comes to driving sales, and leave buyers delighted.

1. E-commerce Website with Quick Loading Times

Wouldn’t it be extremely frustrating if you found a product you needed and considered buying it, only to realize that the product description/pricing information or a full-size product image is missing or refuses to load?

One of the biggest turnoffs for online shoppers is having to endure a website that is slow to load, or displays incomplete information. It is vital that the website’s pages are scaled down in a way that allows them to load and display content faster.

This should further be supplemented with efforts to provide users with all the information they need to make a purchasing decision.

2. Banish Pop-Ups

How many times have you been interrupted by unwanted and annoying pop-up windows while browsing through websites or getting into a purchase? While sometimes these pop-ups do contain important information, most of the time they’re a nuisance.

When it comes to e-commerce websites, a pop-up ad that occupies the majority of screen space and hinders users from moving on to the next step in the purchase process, will only hinder the overall shopping experience and egg customers on to abandon their shopping cart.

It is best to steer clear of ads of this kind. However, if you must place content on pop-ups, make sure the pop-up window is displayed for only a few seconds, is easy to close or navigate away from, and is small enough to not interfere with the purchase process.

3. Updated Inventory Records

Few things are more exasperating for a buyer than adding an item to his shopping cart, only to be told that it is out of stock. This can be disastrous; as you can immediately lose your customer’s interest over this. It is crucial that the availability of the products is conspicuously displayed at all times.

In case the product isn’t available, you can have your customers enter their contact information in a designated field to receive a notification of its availability, once it is back in stock.

4. Optimize, Optimize, Optimize

As the use of PCs and laptops are slowly but steadily declining, tablets and smartphones are quickly taking their places.

In fact, most people, especially those always on the go, prefer to use these mobile/wireless devices to browse the Web, read their emails, download content, play games and even shop.

Hence, your e-commerce website should be optimized for them. A seamless shopping experience on these devices will help you secure a good share of this essential channel.

5. Make Things Easy

Having too many pages between your product page and transaction confirmation page will only make buying from you complicated and arduous, which in turn, will kill your conversion rate. If the customer is on the checkout page, make it easy for him to finish his transaction as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This also applies to having distractions/interruptions in the purchase process as that will take them away from your purchase funnel. Don’t whisk them far away from the checkout page just because they clicked on a recommended item. Similarly, don’t interrupt them with links to your blog either. Let the customer finish his transaction before you take him anywhere else.

6. Focus on Online Customer Service

You can make use of your website to create customer delight through customer service. Place all the information your customers are going to need on your website when buying from you. Whether it is product description, usage instruction, pricing information or other supplementary content, make things as clear as possible to them.

Engage your customers through all channels. Social media can play a big role here. Invite their comments, complaints and concerns, be open to taking questions and providing quick answers/solutions.

Most importantly, keep your website content authentic, unless you want to invite Google penalties. Placing unoriginal content or fake reviews is a strict no-no.

Conclusion

Designing an e-commerce website that captures the imagination as well as the trust of the users is challenging, yet do-able. There needs to be a delicate balance of several factors, failing which can put you out of business. The above tips should help you understand the nuances of a well-designed e-commerce website, thereby reaping considerably higher conversion rates and enjoying a bigger piece of the pie in every way possible.

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5 Tips to Make Web Designing Smooth and Hassle Free

Websites cater to varied needs, that of businesses they represent, users who find them after online searches, potential and existing customers, employees, and many others who stumble upon them unknowingly.

Great websites are built around a target audience and a market niche. There is no ambiguity about a strong website. It is easy for the visitor to understand what the site is about and find what he is looking for. This is one of the hallmarks of a successful website.

Ease of use, simplicity and clean layout, though they sound simple, are not easy to achieve. As soon as you create the framework, design the layout, and keep adding the absolutely necessary components, the simple design becomes complex in no time. And to make something that is complex appear beautiful, simple and uncluttered, you need to employ the best designing tactics.

Here are a few web designing tips to help you design a beautiful and useful website, without headaches and heartburns.

Web Designing: Be Organized and Structured

Organization and structure are of vital importance when designing a website.

Organization will help a user navigate his way easily without getting confused. A cleanly-organized site will follow web designing conventions that a user will be familiar with.

Hierarchy will help a user spot the main and important sections, and navigate to relevant content. Readability becomes even more important when we consider that a majority of Internet users just scan a website to determine whether it is useful to them or not.

A smart web design will break up content into bold headlines and small chunks of content that are informative and concise.

Quality websites use contrast between text and background color to improve readability. A dark background with dull color text will only drive away visitors or give them a headache.

Web Designing: Pick Correct Color Scheme

Websites need to be visually appealing and a great color scheme will help with that.

When designing websites for companies, many designers choose to stick to the color scheme of the brand logo. It helps in maintaining brand identity and appeal, and makes it easy to build and execute brand promotion campaigns.

If there is no existing color scheme to build on, browse the Web and study sites that catch your fancy. Appealing sites have great color combinations that gel well, spark chemistry and speak to one another.

Avoid garish color combinations and colors that blend into each other.

Choose a limited set of colors for the general UI, text and backgrounds. It is best if you maintain uniformity and consistency with the color scheme used in the user interface. Look up quality sites like Facebook, Google or Airbnb and you will see that there is continuity or predictability across the UI. But graphics, illustrations, videos and photographs are not bound by any color restrictions, and you can let your creative juices flow.

Web Designing: Devote Time for Planning

Most designers work in agencies where there are too many deadlines and time schedules to adhere to. It may become impossible to spend more time than absolutely necessary on planning.

Great designers say that they put in plenty of work hours into planning the basic essentials of a website. This is necessary to design a clutter-free and simple user experience.

The core content or the very essential message that a website needs to convey should be uncovered and written down for reference. Everything else you do should do justice to this core idea and help communicate it well and in the most appealing manner to the user.

Also, map out user flow in the beginning and plan the website to maximize it. If a designer keeps user flow in mind, it will be far easier to focus on the right points and design the project effectively.

Web Designing: Ensure the Client Is on the Same Page as You

Web designers either passionately agree or strongly disagree on this point. We at web designing Utah agree on this point.

Many a time, clients are clueless about how web design differs from web development, and give wrong inputs and have misplaced expectations.

It is not necessary that you involve your client in every step of designing a website, but ensure that he/she is happy with your core concept or idea, and green lights the prototype.

In web designing, time is money and you cannot spend a lot of it educating your client. You must collaborate with your client and understand what the business and marketing requirements are. There is no doubt that he/she understands the business the best and can help you get to know the target audience better.

Mood boards help you convey your visual thoughts in the best possible manner to the client. They help convey the intended look and feel of a website to a client, and help in planning the designing process better. Crafting mood boards also help you put down what you have in mind and assess whether your visual thinking is in line with the business’ needs.

Designers vouch by the fact that mood boards help win pitches and get quick sign-offs.

Build the style or mood around a main/central image. The central image is also the core theme or the mood of the website, and it should be supported by smaller supporting images, illustrations or graphics. If clients are not able to understand the meaning of an image or why it is there, you need to replace it with something more meaningful and achieve a character and style that is in sync with the business.

Web Designing: Be Friends with Web Developers

Your job does not end after you furnish the style sheets to the web development team. Ensure that you collaborate and communicate, and see to it that your designs are developed, implemented and supported properly.

Many a time, developers will have valuable inputs to provide on designing. So if possible, check with them in the initial stages and validate your vision and ideas. This will also help in better implementation.

Clean codes, a fabulous user interface and good backend programming are necessary for a fast-loading and user-friendly website. And it is the web developer who is usually responsible for these. So, be passionate about your design and team up with the developer for the best execution.

Conclusion

There are several things that go into building a mind-blowing website, and creative vision and innovative designing ability are just a couple of them. Ensure that you follow all aspects of designing and development, and collaborate and communicate with your team and all stakeholders effectively to get the best results.

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5 Things That Your Small-Business Website Needs

A couple of weeks back, I happened upon a website that probably defined what you “don’t” want in your website. I honestly don’t know where to begin. The website had no proper home page and opens directly to the ‘About’ page, which is practically blank. In fact, when you click on the home page link, it redirects to the pricing page. There was no call to action, the content was far from engaging and there were so many broken links.

A mere glance at it and you could understand how unprofessional the website was. There are so many horrendous sites on the Web that it goes beyond bad web design. In fact, the success of a website depends on numerous things and its aesthetic appeal is just one of them. What is more important is to have a user-friendly website that your customers/potential customers not just love to browse, but actually do business with.

The following are 5 essential elements your small business website must have to boost your business.

1. Have a Simple Web Address

Why make things unnecessarily complicated ?

Your domain name should be simple and easy to remember. Remember that it’s like your brand and therefore must be easy enough for users to remember and type into a Web browser. A “.com” domain is recommended by most marketers. In fact, almost 52 percent of all websites are .com domains. You should therefore try to by a .com site unless it is a government, non-profit or organization website. Even in case of latter, it is recommended to have a .com version as well so that you don’t lose traffic, should a user type the .com address accidently.

It is easy to recall a .com site, which also makes it a default domain extension. Many use dash, hyphen or an underscore if a .com name is not available for their business. While you may choose do so, it is recommended to avoid such practices as they often look spammy apart from causing SEO headaches. The same goes for using numbers in your website address as it usually causes confusion for customers.

2. Say More about You

Take the guessing game out of your business website. When a visitor comes across your website, it should take no time for him/her to understand what you do/offer. In other words, you should clearly state your name along with a brief introduction of your products or services right on the homepage.

This is why experts often advice against using homepage carousels, especially for B2B websites. If possible, avoid them for any kind of websites as they are frustrating for users and bad for both SEO and usability.

As an entrepreneur, your goal is tell people who you are, what you do and how you can help them through your website. A clear description is what you need to tell your visitors that they have come in the right place. In fact, a proper description of who you are and what you do can help you attract visitor’s attention within 2-3 seconds and also encourage them to stay longer and browse through your website.

3. Easy Navigation

Your visitors are no explorers; so stop expecting them to browse through the website to find what they are looking for. Instead, you need to guide them through your website. Clear links and a site map to take your visitors to the important pages of your website is crucial here.

In other words, your navigation should be clearly laid out. Using dropdowns in your navigation menu is one of the best ways to ensure that your visitors can easily see the content you offer throughout the site under every heading.

4. Incorporate a Proper ‘Call to Action’

Just like you need to show your visitors where to go, you would also want to tell them what to do. And while you are at it, make sure you use clear tones of commend to do it. Also use the special call to action (CTA) buttons or at least highlighting the text to make your message stand out again the background and other content.

There are several types of call to action buttons and each serve a different purpose. So the first thing you need to understand is what the purpose of your call to action is – do you want your visitors to sign up or call for free quote, or to download what you have to offer.

It is the most significant part of your landing page. And if you don’t want to join the list of pathetic CTAs avoid using term like “submit,” “buy now” and “click here” etc. Your web designer should also avoid these CTA mistakes that cost you a lot in the long run.

5. Add Fresh, Quality Content

Your website is an opportunity to make a great first impression on your customers. Content is your secret weapon to do it. When you provide your customers with exactly what they’re looking for, they are more likely to come back for more and perhaps also do business with you.

The content therefore should be valuable, original and well written. Besides, Google’s obsession with fresh, quality content is another reason why you need to start adding valuable content to your website on a regular basis. It is a goldmine for SEO.

Incorporating a blog into your business website and updating the same with insightful posts related to your domain, is a great way keep your content fresh. This also ensures that Google and other search engines crawl your website on a regular basis, which again is key to improve your ranking on the search engine result pages.

For example, a web design firm based in Charlotte that keep its blog updated with regular and high-quality content has better chances of ranking on the search result pages when someone searches for a “Web Design Charlotte” company.

Additionally, you can connect your social media feeds to your website for the same purpose.

Conclusion

When developing your business website, remember that it’s not about you but your customers. This is applicable to all aspects of your website, from design and usability to content. Consider what your target audience needs. For every decision you make, ask yourself: “Will my target audience find it useful?” If not, think what you could do differently to increase its value to your target audience. Finally, remember that your focus should be on “user experience” and you goal is to make it as “seamless” as possible.

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