7 Tips for Great Ecommerce Website Design

Optimization, content and design are three major components to a successful website. As marketers, we tend to focus heavily on optimization and content, with design sometimes falling to the wayside or considered as an after-thought. But taking the time to create a clean ecommerce website design can significantly improve the way visitors interact on your site and ultimately lead to more conversions and sales.

Keep reading to get your 7 tips for creating a great ecommerce website design.

Pick two to four main colors.

Using colors properly can help you draw attention to select elements such as call-to-action buttons. It’s also important to keep your main colors limited to just a few in order to establish trust and consistency. Think of all the big brands you know: McDonalds, Coca-Cola, BMW… all of these companies’ websites and logos are based on two to four colors. This lets visitors know that they have come to the right place the moment they land on your website.

Avoid flashy and unnecessary elements.

Think background music, flash animations, and other gadgets. These are things you want to avoid, especially on the homepage. Anything that is going to distract your visitors from the main purpose of your site should be eliminated. Only use these when they fully support your website content. Do NOT use these just because they look cool or grab attention.

White space is your friend.

Talk to any designer about this topic and you’ll be sure to get an earful on the importance of white space. Sure, it’s tempting to cram in as much info as you can into your website, but if it looks too cluttered no one is going to want to read the information or take action. People need white space in order to easily digest website content, especially on ecommerce websites where the user if viewing a lot at once.

Keep it organized.

Make sure you have clear navigation on your site so that visitors can find their way around without any issues. Beyond navigation, pay attention to how all the elements on each page align with each other. Are your pages scattered with random blurbs of texts and buttons? Tighten it up so that elements align in a grid. Keep it organized to keep your visitors on your site. Here’s a great study on for navigation for ecommerce websites.

Pay attention to your typography.

Long blocks of text generally scare people. Break up your content with sub-headlines, bullet points, and lists. Make sure your font, font size, and font color make it easy for visitors to read your website text. Keep your paragraphs short and sweet. Make sure visitors can easily grasp the information and you will have better chances at converting them to leads and customers.

Consistency is key.

When visitors navigate from your homepage to another page on your site, they should get the sense that it’s the same website! Maintain the same colors, font-sizes and general layout from page to page in order to continue building trust among website visitors. Your navigation menu should look the same on every page as well as your logo. Keep it consistent to keep your visitors coming back for more.

Make it accessible across all devices.

People are consuming website content on tablets and smartphones more than ever before. Your website should display properly across all devices if you want to maintain and increase overall website traffic. For more on this, read our blog article on how to make your website mobile friendly in 10 minutes or less.

The same goes for different browsers. Make sure your site looks the same across Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. This will give you the best chance for success.

These ecommerce website design tips will help you streamline your site, which will help you gain more visitors, decrease bounce rates, and ultimately make more money.