Building A Design Strategy For eCommerce Websites

Creating custom online shopping experiences starts with designing an eCommerce store that fits your customers' needs. To help enhance your online brand and encourage more visitors to convert, we recommend optimizing your website for the user experience.

So, we're sharing 5 design strategies to help you create a seamless experience from the moment a visitor lands on your site to checkout.

Design Strategies: eCommerce Optimization Strategies

1. Keep visual hierarchy in mind
2. Make content readable
3. Use consistent branding
4. Use a sticky navigation
5. Create a one-page checkout

Keep Visual Hierarchy In Mind

It's human nature to read from left to right and from top to bottom. When designing your eCommerce website, it's important to consider how your visitors are consuming your content.

Keep visual hierarchy, or the strategic layout of your web pages, in mind to ensure that people digest your content as quickly as possible. Many people skim or browse a site that's new to them, so it's critical that your web pages are organized effectively to prevent them from bouncing.

Some of the most essential components of visual hierarchy include business name, logo, UVP and CTAs. Though it may seem obvious, a business's name and company logo should be placed at the top of the site, with a larger font and boldness than the rest of your site's content.

Next, we recommend placing your unique value proposition (UVP) above the fold so that visitors understand within seconds what your brand offers. Also, place call-to-action (CTA) buttons prominently in the center of your home page or directly next to products on product detail pages to help guide visitors to where you want them to go.

Make Content Readable

A website could have extremely valuable content but be of no use if its visitors cannot see or understand the copy. Before launching your site, make sure that the type of font, font color and font size are easily readable.

If you're on the fence about a certain font, err on the side of caution and choose another. Be sure to conduct user testing among your colleagues, family or friends to ensure that the content is readable and understandable.

Though there is no universal rule for the number of fonts allowed on eCommerce sites, we encourage our clients to use the same font throughout their entire site. However, a good rule of thumb is to use no more than 3 different fonts to avoid confusion and ensure your visitors are focused on converting.

Use Consistent Branding

When visitors land on your site, you're going to want them to know that it's your brand. Avoid confusion and make your eCommerce website easily recognizable by using consistent branding.

Use the color scheme of your company logo within your typography so that visitors easily associate your site with your brand. However, just like we mentioned above, be sure that the copy and font color is readable with your color scheme. Using a color that contrasts from your color scheme is okay if it helps make fonts and CTAs more readable.

Use A Sticky Navigation

Of all the design strategies discussed, this one is most important when creating a mobile-optimized eCommerce store, though it applies to desktop as well. A sticky navigation enables people to view the top menu without having to scroll all the way back to the top − no matter if they're at the beginning, middle or end of a web page.

Sticky navigation improves the overall eCommerce experience by saving people time and making it easier to navigate around a site. We also want to touch on sticky CTAs − which are great to use on product detail pages.

Rather than requiring people to scroll to the bottom of a page to add an item to their cart, sticky CTAs are visible to people no matter where they're at on the page. Just like a sticky navigation, sticky CTAs help guide shoppers throughout a site and streamline the purchasing process.

Create A One-Page Checkout

This is another one of the best design strategies when optimizing your eCommerce store for mobile. It's also a great optimization strategy in general to improve the customer experience. Streamline the checkout process, reduce friction and increase conversions by building a one-page checkout.

Using one page for checkout helps to minimize distractions in the checkout process and prevents shoppers from exiting prior to purchasing. Be sure to show security badges and assurances in the checkout page to build trust with customers, and increase perceived value by displaying promotional codes or product reviews in the checkout.

Conclusion

We hope that these design strategies help you build and design a beautiful eCommerce website that is optimized for the user experience. If you have any questions, need help or want to learn more about Groove Commerce's eCommerce website design services, contact our team through the form below. We can't wait to learn more about your unique business needs and help build and grow your eCommerce store!