Web Design & Navigation (Part 4 – 5 essential elements of an Ecommerce Website)

This is part four of the series: 5 essential elements that form the backbone of an ecommerce website. Check out part three here.

Essential Element 4: Web Design & Navigation

Designing a website (by designing I mean planning and strategizing) requires you to get into the psyche of your customers. The sitemap should be well thought out or else a customer might feel lost, get frustrated and leave without making a purchase. Since, there is no easy way to figure out what is intuitive to your customers, two ways to ensure good web design are:

1. Using SEO to guide your website’s design will help you come up with a smooth navigation flow, right content and more pragmatic technical choices (e.g., which CMS suits your needs best.)

2. After your website is finished, sufficiently test drive it, keep asking for user feedback and use that feedback to refine your website.

Let us now look at the three important parts of your website that you should take care of:

1. Software: Content Management Systems are the best choice these days. They are highly modular, flexible and customizable; you won’t have to rely completely on your web developer for managing content and products; and, they are designed to be SEO friendly. The hard part is that with 10,000 CMSs floating in the web, which one suits your needs best is a tough decision to make. We recommend that you let your web developer choose one for you.

2. Banner messaging- Advertising through call to action phrases through banners is the most effective way of building trust with your clients, and, informing them about the latest in your online store (deals, media or press releases, events, product recommendations, your value proposition etc.). Just two important facts about banner messaging:
a. Customers don’t like flashy, extremely annoying flickering banner ads. Be simple, assertive and use catchy phrases on non flickering stable banners.
b. Flash banners equals long loading time equals customer frustration (and you definitely don’t want that.)

3. Get an SSL security seal to indicate that your website is secured. Nothing makes customers more relieved and trusting than this small seal. Also, provide your contact info, disclaimers, customer confidentiality policies etc. The more informed your customer is, the better he feels about being on your website.

Next: A well designed Feedback system