Website Design: How It Engages Customers & Boosts Sales

There are few aspects of business that matter more to e-commerce than website design. Ensuring that your online presence is built around a website that is easy for users to navigate, and even simpler for them to initiate purchases, is perhaps the most important component of online commerce, even more so than brand presence.

Even if you're the top rated brand in your respective industry, consumers aren't going to tolerate website design that makes it difficult to complete purchases, view past orders, or other actions that well-designed websites provide easy access to. This article discusses some of the reasons it's important that website design be simple, intuitive, and visually engaging.

Increased Traffic & Sales

The most tangible reason for having professional website designers construct your online presence is because doing so can lead to significant increases in traffic and sales. Especially in 2015, it's important that your e-commerce website be compatible with mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. As mobile technology becomes more and more advanced, consumers are afforded the ability to browse and shop directly from their mobile devices.

Ultimately, this ability to shop 'on the go' means that website design must be clear and intuitive for the customer. On mobile devices, consumers should have little doubt regarding how to view the items in their cart, check out, or contact customer service in the event they are dissatisfied with their purchase.

Specific Designs (Or Lack Thereof) Affect Consumer Engagement

One of the things that professional design firms aim to eradicate is the inappropriate utilization of text and pictures. Studies have found that consumers tend to focus their attention on either text or pictures, and not both, given their layout on a particular webpage.

In lieu of these studies, web designers take into consideration the arrangement of products on a page, the ratio of text to images, and the alignment of both relative to one another. For instance, you might have product pictures situated to the left of the product description when the particular layout would lead to more traffic with pictures above the description, or beneath it. The possibilities are limitless here, but website designers understand the importance of web page composition and how it relates to sales and web traffic.

Overall, a well constructed website includes aspects of web design that focus the consumer's attention on the products for sale, and makes it easy for those customer's to complete purchases, whether they're shopping from their computer at home or at a coffee shop on their mobile phone.