Exactly how your website looks and feels plays a very important role in the world of ecommerce. The fonts and images combined with the colors you use can mean the difference between a successful website with lots of conversions or one with a very high bounce rate.
Start with a polished and professional looking logo linked to your home page
Regardless, of how much money and time you spend on getting a professional website designed if you don’t have a logo everything goes to waste. You need to consider the fact that a logo is a very important part of your brand, so it should appear prominently on your website. A high res image should be used, ideally placed towards the left side of your page. You should also link your logo directly back to the homepage of your site since visitors often click on your logo to go back to the main page.
Make sure of intuitive navigation
Your primary navigation should be located in a horizontal menu bar usually either along the top of your website or to the left. You can line up a secondary navigation bar underneath the primary bar, or have one in the left which is also known as a sidebar. Intuitive navigation is very important especially since you don’t want people to get confused when on your website. Make sure not to cram the top part of your page with links that are less important or which can distract from making a sale, place them at the bottom or the footer of the page.
A clutter free page
Many websites today are overloaded with images and videos to the point where the visitor’s brain simply refused to process all the information on the page. Presenting too much information even in the form of images can be detrimental to the objective of your website. In order to retain visitors on your website and ensure that they follow through your sales pitch and call to action you need to remove all competing calls to action and clutter from the site.
So, as a rule of thumb anything that draws a visitor’s attention away from what you’re selling should be removed. Try to narrow down the focus of the page as much as possible. Images and a video should be used sparingly only when required.
Give your visitors some breathing room
Many websites make the mistake of cramming too much information on to their page. They forget to add paragraphs and spaces that give a reader room to breathe and absorb all the information provided. While, some people may think it is counterproductive to give people a chance to think when making a sale the fact is that on the internet impulse purchases can often mean that the buyer either asks for a refund or goes for a chargeback later on.
In most instances you end up losing money. By controlling the whitespace on your page you can keep a user focused. Right whitespace management will in fact help to improve user experience which means better returns from your site.
Using color strategically
One of the keys to great professional website design is using color in a way so that it does not distract or look cheesy. Using a neutral color palette can help to make your website look more clean, modern and elegant. Set a color policy for your website that is followed through out regardless of what happens. For instance, you can have all headlines bold and red, all secondary heads in black and the comments in blue.
The idea is to use color in order to help visitors find what they are looking for by drawing their attention to either a summary of features, discount or a specific category of items. You may also want to stick to a color palette that will compliment your logo and is consistent with all your marketing material.
Designing a website is something that anyone can do using modern software. That said it takes a professional with years of experience to design a successful website that does what is intended to do i.e. provide information, sell a product or market a service. With close to a billion websites and new ones popping up everyday this is an ongoing web design challenge that few measure up to.
Citations:
- Web Design
Featured images:
License: Image author owned
License: Image author owned
Mark is an experienced web designer and creative head of a leading online advertising company. He is one of the leading experts when it comes to design and marketing.