concept image for website design for sales

When new users visit your e-commerce website, you want to make a good first impression. Potential customers will want to know what your products or services are, the pricing and whether your e-commerce business offers informational resources. If users can’t easily find this information, they may search elsewhere. In fact, 60% of users will abandon a site because of bad web design.

Every e-commerce business wants a website that promotes its products while giving customers a good user experience. However, so many aspects go into web design that it can be challenging to know what the most effective strategies are to appeal to both new and existing customers.

Learn more about how web design can improve your e-commerce site and help you become a successful business owner.

How Can Website Design Improve Business?

A top priority for an e-commerce store is to increase sales and improve revenue through lead generation. You may use digital marketing techniques, such as social media posts, to reach potential clients and raise awareness of your products. While social media is a useful tool to draw customers in, a strong e-commerce website design will encourage them to stick around.

Let’s explore how exactly web design affects the success of your e-commerce business:

  • Credibility: Users may judge the credibility of your e-commerce business based on web design. If you have an outdated website, visitors may question the reliability and trustworthiness of your business. A clean, modern website can make users feel more comfortable shopping through your e-commerce store. Creating a space for customer testimonials also shows that others have purchased products from you.
  • Visual appeal: People tend to gravitate toward things they find attractive or appealing, and websites are no exception. If the site looks outdated or doesn’t offer any product visuals, customers will most likely lose interest and take their business elsewhere. Investing in web design services can help boost your site’s visual appeal.
  • User-friendliness: Take a look at how your web design affects a customer’s experience with accessing information. This can include site speed, website navigation, clarity and device compatibility. If users have to hunt down what they’re looking for, don’t understand what your online business sells or can’t get a landing page to load on their smartphone, they may leave your site.

Ways to Improve Website Design for Sales

Paying attention to web design elements that boost your credibility as a business, appeal to your customers and make your site easy to navigate are all great methods to gain more sales. If you aren’t sure where to start and need some design inspiration, explore these six methods to improve your website design.

1. Easy Navigation

Trying to navigate a poorly organized website is frustrating. Poor web design can consist of vague or misleading hypertext, overstuffed navigation or a lack of organization altogether. Your website’s design should include an easy-to-use navigation system to help customers find critical information.

Simply put, users should be able to find exactly what they’re looking for when they visit your website. Creating a navigation hierarchy can help with this. For example, your primary menu can include categories for your products, services, pricing and other resources you offer, such as blog posts or informational content.

The options underneath each category should get more specific, helping users pinpoint what they need. A clear and transparent website design is a great way to boost customer satisfaction. They may end up spending more time on your site, resulting in more online sales and less shopping cart abandonment.

2. Creative Calls to Action

If you want to grow your e-commerce business quickly, motivate your customers to take action. You can do this by including creative and persuasive CTAs. Integrating clear CTAs into your web design ensures customers know exactly where to go and how to purchase a product or service. Without this clear guidance, you may miss out on a client’s business.

Online stores don’t have the luxury of in-person employees being available to guide customers, which is why CTAs are important. A basic CTA is an icon that encourages customers to “shop now” or add an item to their shopping cart when they’re on a specific product page. CTAs should stick out on a landing page and clearly reference a specific action.

Incorporating CTAs into your web design that are easy to find and provide clear direction can encourage more people to click them, leading to more sales for your company.

3. Use of White Space

Adding white space to your web design is another technique to increase sales. You may feel compelled to fill every inch of your website’s design with information or images to make it more visually appealing. This can be more distracting and overwhelming than helpful for your customers, though.

White space refers to the empty areas around design elements that lack content or visuals. It enables you to break up the page and make your content more readable. For example, on portfolio sites, you’ll want to ensure each item has enough empty space in between so it’s clearly displayed and doesn’t overlap other items.

By using white space in your website design, you help customers stay focused on crucial information, and they may spend more time browsing through your site.

4. Relevant Headers and Footers

Clear headers and footers are important components of web design because they guide your customers and provide crucial information about your site. The area at the top of your website is your header. This part of a site’s design typically contains the company’s name, logo and navigation links to find specific pages. The header usually appears on every page of your site.

The footer is at the bottom of your site’s design and also appears on every page. This area usually contains your contact information, links to social media pages and copyright information. If customers want to find out more about your business or reach out to you with questions or comments, the footer can provide them with this information.

Integrating relevant headers and footers into your web design can make your business seem more legitimate and help users get to know your brand better.

5. High-Quality Visuals

Including high-quality visuals in your website’s appearance can keep customers engaged on your site. Images make your website more visually appealing while breaking up blocks of text. This increases readability and prevents your customers from feeling overwhelmed with too much text.

High-quality visuals are also important for giving your customers a good idea of what your products look like. For an e-commerce store, images or videos are the only references users have for what your products look like and can do. If your product images aren’t high quality, your customers won’t be able to see them, and they may view your site as untrustworthy.

If possible, use original visuals on your website. Generic stock photos can feel impersonal and repetitive, especially if a user has seen them on another website. Unique, creative visuals are better for sales.

6. Website Speed

If a customer clicks on your website and it takes too long to load, there’s a good chance they won’t wait around. Using good design trends can help improve your site’s load time and drive more sales for your company. You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to determine your site’s current load speed by inputting your URL.

If your site isn’t up to speed, Google will offer suggestions for improvement to help your website load faster. You can also reach out to a web design business and invest in page speed services if you aren’t sure how to improve your site’s loading time.

7. Responsive Design

Many customers will use their mobile devices to access your website. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that 76% of American adults use their smartphones for online shopping. Developing a responsive design ensures the website will adapt to any device and function correctly.

When someone accesses your site on a mobile device, a responsive design will format your website to fit the smaller screen. This provides users with the same web experience as on a desktop computer. If a website isn’t mobile-friendly, customers may get frustrated and leave the site. A great website design that’s mobile-responsive can lead to more sales.

Use a Digital Marketing Agency to Design Your E-Commerce Website

Learning about web design techniques is just the start of building a better website. Partnering with a web designer at a digital marketing agency can help you create a website that establishes you as strong competition among similar businesses.

Lead to Conversion offers a variety of services designed to expand your website’s reach and drive sales. Contact us today at (855) 473-6582 for more information, or fill out our form for a free consultation.