Master eCommerce Website Design Without Losing Your Mind
Has a foray into website design got you sufficiently frustrated? Have you been toiling away trying to pick the right font for your product description for what feels like an eternity?
Standing out in the world of eCommerce can be extremely tough, but there’s no need to let the stress take over – not when there are plenty of ways to make your life as a digital designer so much easier.
Your website is the virtual storefront that serves as the hub of activity for all your needs as a seller. Suffice to say, it needs to resonate with your customer.
Don’t worry if you’re feeling stuck right now; this is a common pitfall that you’ll need to jump over at some point.
If you need a helping hand, here are some tips to point you in the right direction, and they don’t require you to lose your mind at any point.
Optimizing for Sales
Website design differs slightly from eCommerce website design in that the core objective of the latter is to make sales, but this doesn’t mean you need to forget about the user experience at the same time.
In fact, optimizing for sales means creating the best user experience you possibly can. Your products need to shine out on the page in all their glory and to do this, they need to be accessible and eye-catching.
Your product pages need to be functional and accessible above all else. There’s no use creating a densely populated product page with beautiful descriptions, fonts, and images if your prospective customer doesn’t know where to click.
Going for clarity and high functionality is key, and there are some simple enough ways you can do this, such as:
Cutting out clutter
Overly cluttered pages are a nightmare to navigate around. Less is often more when designing a good product page, so make sure you don’t overuse a wide color palette or inundate the page with redundant images and distracting banners. It’s always worth keeping the customer’s shopping experience in mind.
Write short yet snappy hooks for your products
Good product descriptions are vital, and it’s important to keep the audience’s attention by writing short and snappy hooks. You can elaborate in the product specification section later on (it’s important for SEO, more on that later).
Work on your site map
Your site needs to be easy to navigate from the checkout to the homepage and everything in between. The next destination should only be one click away. Don’t forget to include a search bar! Product categories are also handy for organizing your goods.
Work on Your SEO
You don’t have to lose your mind over SEO, despite how complicated it might seem at first. As long as you can target relevant keywords and insert them into your product descriptions and home page text naturally, you’ll be sure to drive traffic before too long.
Mastering this part of eCommerce website design is critical as it can put your products ahead of your competitors. Search engines need to be able to recognize your products, so make sure you do your keyword research.
Don’t panic, this is fairly straightforward, particularly if you use a tool like Google Analytics. Ultimately, SEO is an intricate and constantly evolving landscape, and making it work for your website is an entire job in itself. If you’re lacking the skills or the time in this area, it’s worth reaching out to a dependable full service digital marketing agency; they’ll be able to bolster the visibility of your online store manifold.
Streamline Your Design Choices
Every design element matters, from the color scheme on your home page to the shape of the buttons below products.
Admittedly, this can feel like a huge upheaval and in many ways, it is, but to develop the best eCommerce store around, every detail counts.
You can reduce the time this takes by choosing a good base theme. WordPress has plenty of great eCommerce business themes, as does Squarespace and Shopify. Once you get a good theme in place (even if it’s a placeholder for now), you can start to put your own unique twist on it.
Another alternative is to hire the services of some graphic designers. This can be expensive, but if you’re serious about carving out a foothold in the online world, it’s worth it.
Again, a good digital marketing agency will be able to get a lot of this done for you, so it’s worth thinking about your budget and taking a long-term view of your web design choices.
Professional designers can help you get your eCommerce store looking beautiful, and it may be the best way to go for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the design process.
Build Your Brand
Your brand should be coherent, aesthetically pleasing, and eye-catching. No eCommerce site stands out without some careful branding, so it’s worth taking some time to figure out what kind of image you want to portray to the audience.
Is it sleek and hyper-modern with a minimalist vibe? Or is it retro and rugged with bright colors that pop on the screen?
As long as your images and your copywriting are high quality, you can begin to start developing an authentic internet presence.
Leverage Social Media
Social media has many, many downsides, but marketing your business to the masses is certainly not one of them.
It doesn’t cost anything to send a quick tweet or post some pretty product images on Instagram, and it’s a great way to get your goods noticed online.
Any marketing agency worth their salt will tell you that there is still power in social media marketing, particularly when you can integrate it into your website design. For example, people need to be able to find your products in a way that suits them best, so it’s worth linking all your social media platforms to your site to get maximum coverage.
Don’t Give Up
Building a website takes time, and it constantly needs updating and altering, making it an ongoing pursuit.
Whether you go it alone or use the services of a marketing agency, don’t give up, you’re always learning and moving on to the next level as long as you keep trying.
Ryan Flannagan is the Founder & CEO of Nuanced Media, an international eCommerce marketing agency specializing in Amazon. Nuanced has sold $100s of Millions online and Ryan has built a client base representing a total revenue of over 1.5 billion dollars. Ryan is a published author and has been quoted by a number of media sources such as BuzzFeed, CNBC, and Modern Retail.