Website Design For eCommerce: How To Build A Site That Sells

If you’re producing products or services that you want to get out into the world via the means of our trusty pal the internet, it’s not going to take long before you discover there are a lot of other people out there with the same idea. With so many sites on the web to choose from, how can you make sure potential customers pick yours, and that once they’re on your site, they’re actually spending money on it?

No doubt, you’re providing high-quality goods for your target market, but seeing is believing – and until a web user becomes a customer, all they have to go off before making that all-important purchasing decision is how your website looks, how easy it is to use, and how well the products or services are displayed.

In this article, we’re going to walk you through how to build a site that sells, and how website design can be the difference between problems and profit when it comes to eCommerce.

The Importance Of Pictures First

Web users want to feel like they know what they’re buying, and where they’re choosing to spend their money. This is especially true for businesses that sell physical goods like clothes, homeware, sports equipment, and health and beauty products. That’s why it’s imperative you provide ample, high-quality photos of your products to showcase it in every different angle.

Getting to grips with easy picture manipulation tools like a photo resizer will allow you to display smaller versions to create a list-like format on your website, allowing users to quickly scroll through your range of products to find those they like best. They can then click through to find enlarged photos of what they’re most interested in.

The same goes for icons that provide clear signposts throughout the website to direct the user – think of a shopping basket to represent a checkout, or your company’s logo to navigate back to the homepage.

Understand Your Target Audience

When designing your website, always keep your target audience in mind. That’s not just important when thinking about sales tactics, but also more generally in terms of trying to pin-point who your potential customers are, what they need, and what would make their life easier. Then, utilise that information to optimise your website design.

For example, most younger demographics are likely to be browsing on their phones, so a mobile friendly site is a must. If you’re selling products aimed at teenagers on a website that only works on desktops, you’re almost guaranteed to be giving yourself away to your competitors. On the other hand, if your business is geared more towards an older crowd, ensuring your site does not get too complicated and is especially easy to navigate with larger text and images will work wonders in your favour.

Focus On A User-Friendly Experience

Regardless of who your key demographics are, every eCommerce website should prioritise designing a site with a user-friendly experience. That means implementing features to optimise clear navigation, with a simplified check-out process and clear instructions throughout. There are many easy to use templates on sites like Adobe Express you can access to help simplify the process for you as well.

Remember that you as a business owner are incredibly familiar with not only your site, but the products or services on it. For a web user clicking on to your page for the first time, they are faced with a load of information that may be completely new to them. If you design a website that is overwhelming and too difficult to navigate, users will not feel comfortable spending very long on it, and will not convert to customers.

Clearly label the categories on your website, make sure you have clearly defined the shipping process, and ask a few friends or family to test out the customer experience, so you can make changes to the site if you need to.

Add Trust Signals To Your Website

In line with what we just mentioned, creating a user-friendly experience all ties in to creating trust signals on your website. This isn’t only for potential customers, but also search engines like Google that scan thousands of domains to work out which ones are actually authorities on the goods they’re offering. The more trustworthy your website, the more likely it is to rank higher on search engine results pages, so the more people will see it.

There are easy ways to signal trust on your website. Maintain a quick loading speed, and data encryption for all sensitive information shared by your customers. Display this clearly on your site, and go one step further by acquiring an ISO 27001 standard, which is an internationally recognised system of cybersecurity information management that you can prove to be in place within your company.

Make positive reviews from previous customers easy to find across your site, and add a few testimonials from loyal shoppers to bolster your reputation.

Up-selling And Cross-selling

A customer may know exactly what they want when they click onto their site, and head straight to checkout once they’ve found it. But, if you’re fortunate to be in the position where a user is already intent on spending money on your site, why not coax them into spending a little more? Up-selling and cross-selling are easy tricks to get a user who is already on-side to spend a little longer browsing, and potentially add a few more items to their basket.

If you sell clothes, provide a ‘shop the look’ option, where browsers can buy all the items worn by the model instead of just the singular item of clothing they were initially interested in. Featured categories such as ‘goes well with’, ‘customers also bought’ and ‘best-sellers’ are popular methods of upselling because they make logical sense to the customer.

You could also offer bulk buying and product combo deals, such as ‘buy 5, get 1 free.’ No one is ever going to set off intending to buy 6 pairs of socks in one go… but who can resist a good deal?

Utilise SEO And Digital Marketing

If we take the web user out of the picture for a moment, it’s important to recognise there’s another player that has a huge role in affecting how likely you are to attract attention and clicks onto your website. Google Crawlers will scan all the information across your domain before suggesting it on a search engine results page, so the best thing to do is appeal to them too, by designing an SEO friendly website.

It’s not all about where to place your headings and what to name your URL though (although it is that too). Search engine optimisation is also about creating engaging content aside from simply listing your products. They may include blogs, tutorials, enhanced product descriptions, and anything else that shows Google (and your users) that you know what you’re talking about.

Then it’s time to share that valuable wisdom, be it through paid advertising online, social media campaigns or through word of mouth. Don’t just stick to one approach and you’ll reap better results.

Conclusion

So, now are you feeling more confident on how to design an eCommerce website that sells? These pointers offer a great perspective on all the many subtle but significant changes you can make to turn your website into a stellar online marketplace that reflects the quality of the goods and services you provide. With some hard graft and the right insight, it won’t be long before you have a site that sells.