How to Design Your Ecommerce Site for More Conversions

In order to increase the conversion rates on your e-commerce website, no part of the customer journey can be overlooked. From your landing page to your checkout page, every aspect of your ecommerce website needs to be carefully designed.

However, it is easier said than done to maintain a user journey that successfully reconciles a pleasant shopping experience with a clear path to conversion.

To help you design a more engaging and deliberate conversion path on your ecommerce website, we’ve compiled a list of best practices that you should follow.

10 ways to customize your ecommerce website for more conversions

As you design your ecommerce website, keep the following tips in mind to improve the user experience for your visitors and customers.

1. Add unique CTAs.

Having a clear call-to-action (CTA) is essential to converting website traffic into sales.

Ecommerce website CTAs are often “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” buttons that stand out on a web page to grab the attention of visitors and encourage them to click. This is usually done through contrasting colors and unique design elements, among other things. And as in the examples above, the wording in the CTA should be kept short and sweet.

Also, make sure that your CTA is aligned with the intent of the webpage it is on. For example, the CTA on your product page might read “Buy Now” while the CTA on a content page might read “Read More”.

2. Create a sense of urgency.

Consider creating a sense of urgency on your ecommerce website. A CXL study found that creating a sense of urgency on an ecommerce website increased the conversation rate by over 330%.

This can be done simply by changing the way you phrase your CTAs. For example, changing the CTA from “Shop Here” to “Shop Now” can give your visitor the kick-start they need to convert.

3. Offer all customers an easy one-click checkout process.

By using a one-click checkout process, customers can skip the “Add to Cart” step and check out quickly and efficiently while still on the product page. This way, one-click check-out can shorten the ordering process by 90%.

This is important because by eliminating the extra steps that are required in a traditional checkout process, the streamlined and simple process makes it less likely to leave the shopping cart.

Even if you don’t implement a one-click checkout, optimize your website buying process as much as possible to increase conversions and reduce shopping cart abandonment. You can do this by requiring minimal data entry from your customers to make the process efficient for them.

4. Add SSL with green bar.

It has been found that when you view the green SSL bar on your website, shopping cart task can decrease. This is what it looks like in various search engines:

The Greenbar SSL helps to convey a trustworthy and reputable website. Not only is it a visual cue for customers, but it also plays an important role in the security of your website.

A Greenbar SSL encrypts the visitor’s payment information, making it difficult for hackers and fraudsters to steal their information. Simply put, users don’t want to buy from an unsafe website.

In a test, two forms were created that customers could fill out – one without the Verisign seal and the other with.

Conversions on the Verisign Seal form increased 42%. This shows that visitors are more likely to share and convert personal information if they are sure that it is safe.

5. Offer different payment methods.

There are hundreds of different online payment methods that don’t rely on a card, including direct debit, bank transfers, digital wallets, e-bills, digital currencies (like bitcoin), and more.

While it is impossible to offer more than 100 payment methods on your website, it is important that you understand your target market and be able to offer the most suitable payment methods for them.

For example, a website that spends an average of $ 50 may benefit from mainly offering credit and debit card style payments, while a website like overclockers.co.uk may want to push a funding option as the value of the products it sells is much higher.

Try to deploy the top three payment methods in your industry. This has resulted in a 30% increase in conversion rates for businesses.

Overclockers do a great job of displaying all of the purchase options available on the product description and near the CTA.

6. Integrate product or company reviews.

Reviews are one of the most powerful tools for converting interest in your product into a sale. Potential customers want to hear from other buyers like them.

Add customer reviews right next to or below your products to demonstrate your trustworthiness. Customer recommendations determine buying decisions because customers are more likely to believe the reviews of the customers they are referring to. To do this, give customers the opportunity to provide instant feedback on the quality of your product or service.

Amazon manages its customer reviews well – one of the first things you see when you search for a product is a list of customer reviews.

7. Add selected images.

Great pictures of the product or service you are selling are crucial when trying to increase online conversions – as the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Make sure you have high quality photos of your product that cover all angles and details. This gives the buyer confidence in what the product is, its quality and what to expect when it receives it.

However, when you have poor quality images with no zoom and no level of detail, your prospects get anxious and wonder what to hide.

In all fairness, only a fraction of your website visitors will go through the entire page and read it word for word. This means that your images can influence a customer’s understanding of your brand and product.

8. Optimize your website for cell phones.

Mobile accounts for around half of web traffic worldwide. With that in mind, it is important that your ecommerce website is cell phone compatible.

A simple checkout process is even more important on mobile than on desktop. Users work with a much smaller screen. The fewer distractions, the better. Keep it simple

It is also important to remember the unreliability of phone data. With the phone signal dropping in a split second and slowing down a user’s download speed (at a snail’s pace!), It is imperative that your website is mobile optimized. This enables fast loading times, even when there is a slow internet connection. Simple steps like this can mean the difference between a customer converting on their phone or visiting a competitor’s website.

9. Write concise and effective product descriptions.

Product descriptions are an important tool in your ecommerce sales arsenal. Without effective product descriptions, you’ll have to miss out on clicks and purchases.

Focus on your ideal buyer and target them with words and descriptions of your products that relate to them, their goals and challenges. This makes customers feel like you understand who they are and what they need from you – which ultimately makes them feel more confident about doing business with you.

First and foremost, the most important factor to consider when writing your product descriptions is to keep them short. As mentioned earlier, users skim anything longer than a few lines. If you have a huge amount of information to convey to your customer, you may be able to hide it behind a read more button, or break it down into easily digestible bullet points, or even include an infographic.

10. Design a simplified layout.

Creating an easy to understand and cohesive journey from home to checkout is one of the most important factors in reducing your bounce rate and increasing your conversion rate.

One study shows that websites with a clean look and feel (i.e., more white space, larger images, and less text) have significantly higher user engagement rates than websites without it.

It might seem daunting to make your ecommerce website more minimalistic, but it’s relatively easy if you follow a few simple rules:

1. Focus on product images with fewer design elements and distractions on product pages.
2. Direct your customers to your CTA buttons and make sure they get noticed.
3. Test your website on different devices to ensure that the shopping and checkout processes are streamlined no matter how customers visit your website.
4. Avoid distractions on your website – less is more. Usually, if the page works without something, you can lose it.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for completeness.