How do we turn a user’s experience from a simple visit to a successful purchase of your product?
The aim of the game is to give your users no reason to look elsewhere other than your website, and with poor website design, you will forever face an uphill battle. Today we’ll talk about some design aspects needed to give your business the best chance at success, and ways in which you can see whether or not your website’s design needs a rethink.
What design aspects do we need to consider?
First impressions
User experience and user journey
UX or User Experience is the Feng Shui of the digital landscape. It’s how easily (or not so easily) a user interacts with and experiences the whole website. Building a straightforward, simple user journey allows a user to browse and purchase from you with ease.
Hard to find buttons, confusing layouts, difficult checkouts and annoying pop-ups all contribute to making your user’s life harder; which in turn leads to a significant lack of conversions.
Consider your target audience, building out fancy buttons and funky animations may appeal to a younger audience, but irritate the less technically skilled users.
Aesthetics
The power good design has is the ability to induce emotions or impulsive actions that would otherwise have not been made possible. It’s a beautiful act of persuasion and it’s the reason why big companies invest so much time and money into their own.
Does your design match the brand? Are you using big, bold, all-capital text for a sleek and subtle fashion label? Do your brand colours match the emotions you’re trying to evoke? Are you using green for your sustainable gifts?
Security – uniformity in design
Uniformed layout, typographical errors, consistency and broken buttons all significantly damage a site’s credibility almost instantly. We often see small design errors and attribute these to unsafe or fraudulent practices, permanently marking your brand’s impression.
Like a meerkat poking her head up above the ground on the lookout for any danger, your users are attuned to the slightest abnormality on the page. Any hint of danger and you’ve lost a potential customer.
How can you tell if your design is poor?
SEO rankings
The design of your eCommerce website can significantly influence how search engines view and rank your page among the sea of competition. If you aren’t familiar with on-page SEO or the effect web design can have on your rankings, speak with an industry expert and get some help and advice.
Your marketing is working, but your bounce rate and abandoned cart percentages are still high
So, you’re nailing your social media, and you’ve got your marketing down to a tee. But the sales and number of new customers don’t add up. Sound familiar?
It can be hard to spot a mistake if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and with web design, there’s no all-powerful software to tell you where your design is going wrong. This is where you have to get creative with your research and start to join the dots yourself. Take a look at your analytics, if your number of abandoned carts and bounce rate percentage is high, and your conversion rate low – ask why? As you run through the list of possible causes you may find the only variable left is the design of your website.
Speak to someone in the know and ask if they can see any areas for improvement.
You got this...
As the competition gets tougher every day, innovative companies recognize that creating good user experiences online is a necessity. Make sure you’re not left behind. Keep your message simple, your brand consistent, and your user journey easy.