eCommerce Website Design That’s Great For Your Business
An eCommerce website for small business clients doesn’t have to cost a fortune. You don’t need a massive budget, but what you do need – what you really need – is a web design agency committed to providing value for money.
The best value for small business clients can be found in the form of established web design agencies that have a great track record for designing eCommerce sites, and a reputation for working with small businesses. They know how to focus on what’s necessary to make your eCommerce business successful, and they won’t try to sell you features you don’t need.
Designing an eCommerce Website For Small Business Clients
Imagefix has been working with small businesses since 2006. Many of our clients have been with us for over a decade, and their eCommerce website has evolved with the size of their business. We have a team of expert web designers, with experience across a range of commercial sectors; as a result, they know exactly what to prioritise when designing an eCommerce website for small business clients.
5 Priorities for eCommerce Websites
- SEO To Ensure You Can Be Found
- A Mobile-Friendly Site
- Good-Looking, User-Friendly Product Pages
- Easy-to-Use Checkout
- Trust Signals
1. SEO To Ensure You Can Be Found
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. If your website is search engine optimised it’s ‘Google Friendly’, which is essential to your online success. Your site gets shoppers visiting because Google or Bing use bots to read it, and find out what it is you do. The clearer your site’s purpose is, and the easier it is to read, the more likely that you will be matched with online searches, and get a good ranking position.
In order for a search engine bot to read your website, you need to have certain technical and on-page features in place. These include a sitemap, indexing, correct use of H tags, appropriate keyword usage, alt.tags, internal linking and back linking. SEO ensures that everything is in place for the bots to be able to read, understand and promote your eCommerce site.
2. A Mobile-Friendly Site
Most of your eCommerce visitors will find you by searching on their mobiles, so it’s critical that your site looks good and works well on mobile devices. A ‘responsive’ eCommerce site is one that loads in less than 2 seconds, is easy to read and navigate on a mobile.
For the best results, mobile first features should be included as part of the initial design for an eCommerce website for small business clients, but they can be retrofitted, too. It’s easy to check how good your website looks on a phone, simply take a look.
3. Good-Looking, User-Friendly Product Pages
When customers buy online, they’re trading convenience for a ‘hands on’ experience of the product they want to buy. The job of the eCommerce website, especially in the case of small businesses, it to offer value and a great experience for shoppers.
One way of doing this is to invest in great images, that offer an accurate 360° view of the product, and original, well-written content that describes products accurately, offers detailed information, size conversion charts and a clear returns policy.
4. Easy-to-Use Checkout
The shopping cart abandonment rate at checkout is 69% across all industries. For mobile users it’s 85%. That’s an awful lot of custom lost. The top reasons shoppers give for abandoning their carts are:
- Barriers to Fast Checkout – the need to register in order to make your purchase.
- Limited Range of Payment Options – not allowing shoppers to use debit/credit cards.
- Added Costs – shipping costs are added at checkout.
- Clear Returns Policy – no clear statement on the returns procedure.
5. Trust Signals
Online shoppers need to be persuaded to trust your site with their data and their money. If your site doesn’t have a security certificate, for example, (the web address begins with http rather than https), this is taken as a warning sign to buy from another site.
Other ‘trust signals’ include financial regulation badges, customer reviews displayed on the site, and a data security policy which clearly describes the way your data is managed, and how long it is held. Finally, you should have a number of ways to contact your business; ideally there should be a phone number, email address and a geographical address.
Working With Imagefix
We’re a web design agency that specialises in deigning eCommerce sites for small and medium sized businesses. Every eCommerce website for small business clients is unique, and emerges out of detailed discussion, careful research, and specialist input from web designers, copywriters, SEO experts, and graphic designers.
Would you like Imagefix to create an eCommerce website for your small business? Call us today for an informal chat with one of our web designers – 01525 715608
