Tips for Creating the Best Ecommerce Website Design

First impressions matter, especially for ecommerce websites. Studies show that it takes no more than a second for visitors to decide whether to leave or stay on a site. That’s where web design is crucial, but not only at that point. Web design is more than just about visual appeal; it is also about clear site structure, navigation, and a smooth user experience. Here, we have compiled recommendations and the best tips for ecommerce website design to make your store attractive and high-converting. 

Appealing visual elements

Clear visual hierarchy, high-quality images, and consistent branding design form a foundation for a store that attracts people’s attention and makes them stay and explore products.

The ecommerce best practices include the following: 

• Photos should showcase your products from various angles and have a consistent background.
• Smart use of colors helps emphasize brand identity, navigate users across the website, and direct them to target actions.
• Use fonts to communicate emotions behind your words and leverage font hierarchy to clarify your site structure.
• By applying physiological design principles, you build customer journeys in line with your business goals. 

Ensure your ecommerce web designs are coherent with your overall brand identity, values, and aesthetics to create imagery that will stick in customers’ memories. To create your store in accordance with best practices and ensure fast and efficient development, reach out to an ecommerce web design company. This will streamline your design process and help you build a store that meets your expectations.

Building trust

Some essential elements are a must for all stores that strive for great ecommerce website design. They give a first-time visitor a sense of confidence regarding your company. Otherwise, they have no foundation to trust your brand or consider it worth their attention. 

What are they?

• Contact information: Create a Contact Us page and add your email addresses, phone numbers, company addresses, and contact forms for quick requests. The About Us page is also essential for building a clear narrative about your company’s history and mission.
• Return policy: By including a return policy, you help customers make purchase decisions and lower cart abandonment rates. If it’s easy to send purchased products back in case they don’t fit, customers are way more confident about buying from you.
• Customer reviews: Add a review section for customers to provide feedback. This will give other customers more actionable information about your products and services and, at the same time, provide you with data about customer experience for further improvements.
• Security badges: You must ensure the safety of your customer data by following security standards with SSL certificates and other security measures. Don’t forget to add information about protection measures in the payment section, as this could also reduce your abandonment rate.
• Sustainability badges: Follow international sustainability standards and inform your customers about your activities in this field, like issuing sustainable packages, by adding badges and banners on product pages. 

Responsive design

A mobile-first approach is critical, given that mobile usage is already more intensive than desktop. Popular ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, provide responsive themes for their stores out of the box. So, typically, you don’t need any particular development to make your site adaptive and responsive. However, you can improve default mobile functionality by testing your store on different devices and adjusting its look by optimizing images, sections, navigation, and more.

Clear navigation

Good navigation allows users to easily browse through your store and find the desired products and features in seconds. At the same time, clear navigation improves your SEO rankings since search crawlers better understand your site and its content. 

Some of the best practices for straightforward navigation are as follows:

• Stick to a maximum of a few sections in the header, such as Shop, Bestsellers, About Us, and Contact Us. This way, your site won’t be cluttered and complicated to understand at first sight. Generally, people don’t want to spend a lot of time finding out how your website operates; they only need the products you sell.
• Add other links, such as Terms of Service and Return Policy, to the footer to avoid cluttering your landing and provide customers with easy access to such information once they want it. 

Performance optimization

Improve your page speed whenever possible, as it plays a crucial role in user experience. Do this by optimizing images and videos, resizing photos, leveraging lazy loading, and reducing HTTP requests and redirects. 

Simple checkout

Add only the most essential elements to the checkout page, such as fields for card information and contact details, and let your customers purchase through guest checkout since many prefer it. 

Try to include as many payment options as possible to give your customers an opportunity to choose between them. Quick payment through Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Amazon Pay are among the most popular options, so make sure to add them as well. Some other options, like Buy Now Pay Later, will also improve your conversion rate. 

Conclusions

How to design your ecommerce website in line with your objectives and best web design practices?

Follow these steps and extend your range of practices once you’re done:

1. Showcase your products from various angles with high-quality photos.
2. Use colors to emphasize your brand identity and attract user attention.
3. Leverage font variability to communicate the emotion behind your message.
4. Apply psychological design principles to direct customers towards target actions.
5. Include contact information to build trust with your customers.
6. Add a return policy to give users a sense of confidence regarding your company.
7. Let customers add reviews to get honest user feedback and share information with others.
8. Implement security badges to show compliance with security standards.
9. Apply a mobile-first approach and adapt your store to different device sizes.
10. Stick to a maximum of a few sections in the header for clear navigation.
11. Add more essential links to the footer for easy access to other store sections.
12. Pay attention to performance optimization to reduce page load speed.
13. Simplify your checkout process by adding a guest checkout option.
14. Add multiple payment gateways and quick payment options.