Top Ten Tips for Designing your BigCommerce Online Store

I don’t know about you, but the first time I designed my online store it felt like a daunting task, fortunately there are a few great tips and best practises to help you get up and running in no time, and best of all making money!

Chris Reeves our Senior Marketing Executive (Frooition – World Leading Designs) discusses ten great tips to consider when designing your BigCommerce store –

Design is all about confidence, the more confidence you can inspire the more likely your visitors will engage and buy with you. When designing your online store consider:

1- The CARP design principle

Contrast

Contrast is key to making your site appear crisp, sharp and organised. Try to ensure your site is not a sea of similarity by using different sizes, shapes and colors to distinguish different page elements.

Thought: Can you see a difference between your page headings, body text and side panels?

Alignment

A successful site is designed and aligned, visitors like to browse intuitively, if your site is not aligned and broken down into clear clean elements buyers will become frustrated and less likely to buy with you.

Thought: Are all of your page elements in alignment or do you have elements floating on their own?

Repetition

Your site needs to provide a consistent and coherent browsing experience to sustain buyer confidence and encourage engagement.

Thought: Do you have a consistent branding theme throughout your site?

Proximity

Encourage interaction by grouping related information together, visitors should be able to find what they want with ease and move to the next logical piece of information intuitively.

Thought: View your page as a visitor, is your site intuitive? Can you find what you want without difficulty and within 3 clicks?

 

2- Lifestyle Images

Choose images which inspire personal engagement and are relevant. Try to select images that reflect the lifestyle of your product, for example, if you sold hiking boots, don’t just display a picture of a hiking boot but rather an image of the boots being worn on a forest walk or mountain trek.

Thoughts: View your site as a visitor, are your images interesting, relevant and engaging?

 

3- Large Quality Images

Use high quality large images throughout your site which are both clean and consistent (i.e. product images on white backgrounds), try to ensure these are optimised to load quickly so users remain engaged. Nothing decreases confidence more than a pixelated product image which takes ages to load with random pink borders and red text.

Thoughts: Are your images of consistent high quality? Do all your products have the same clean white background? Can your clients zoom into see your products in more detail?

4- Font

A good site design will use at least three different text font types/sizes across your site headings, main body text and side panels. When used correctly text fonts can enhance your store design and increase visitor engagement.

If in doubt, select a font that is easy reading and relates to your company signature i.e. company logo font type.

Thought: Have you used at least three different font types/sizes in your site design? Can you easily skim read through your site?

5- Colour Choice

Colours quite literally make or break a brand. A good choice can increase engagement, sales and brand loyalty, while a poor choice will create hesitation, reduce sales and ultimately have a detrimental effect on your business.

Your choice in colour needs to reflect and compliment the moods and feelings associated with your brand or product for example, a forest green can reflect a relaxed and peaceful environment while a vibrant red has connotations of aggression, fast paced and in some cases debt.

Thought: Are your website colours balanced? Do they complement each other? Ask friends and family for feedback and thoughts?

6- To the right…

As we read left to right our eyes naturally rest towards the right of a page, save your most valuable content for this space to help convert more visitors. For example, you may place your best offers in this section or outline your company’s unique selling points.

Thought: What is currently on the right hand side of your site?

7- Call to Action

Don’t be afraid to tell clients what to do next, often visitors will land on your site in a subjection state looking for guidance and intuitive direction. Write compelling call to actions to encourage the client to take the next action on your site such as ‘Click Here’, ‘Learn More’ or ‘Buy Now’.

Remember you only have 3-5 seconds to capture a visitors interest before they bounce away from your site to another, call to actions are a great way to encourage interaction.

Thought: Have you used strong call to actions on your buy buttons, checkout option and special offers?

8- Data Capture

Whether using a newsletter signup form or enquiry contact form encourage data capture at every opportunity. Once you have a means of contacting prospecting clients you can reach out to them to encourage new and repeat sales.

Thought: Have you given visitors a compelling reason to stay in touch with you? Can they clearly see and understand the value of these reasons?

9- The Power of Testimonials

A good testimonial will tell visitors of a buying experience they are yet to enjoy; ask existing clients to provide testimonials on how they found your site, what they thought of your product and service or even how quickly the goods we’re delivered. By displaying testimonials and product reviews you will increase buyer confidence and sales.

Be sure to display at least one testimonial on every page of your website.

Thought: View your site as a visitor; can you see product reviews and client testimonials?

10- Brand Consistency

10 years ago it was about which businesses could shout the loudest and had the largest budgets, today your clients are in control deciding how, where, when and if they want to engage. To succeed in today’s multi-channel environment you need to reach your clients where they feel most comfortable engaging and buying with you.

You need to remain brand consistent throughout all of your sales channels to encourage maximum engagement and increase brand loyalty.

Thought: Are you on eBay? Are you on Amazon? Do you have a presence on Facebook or Twitter? Are these channels brand matching with your ecommerce sales channel?

There are many more points to consider when designing your website but by following these few key points you will increase visitor engagement, enhance your store and best of all increase your sales!

Who are Frooition?

With over 100,000 online client’s and a reputation of ‘World Leading Designs’; Frooition are a world leading design company. Working with both enterprise clients and new business start-ups Frooition create custom ecommerce store and listing designs that are proven to enhance clients buying experiences and increase sales. Our corporate branding portfolio includes Calvin Klein, Karen Millen, Laura Ashley, Speedo, ToysRus and many more.

If you need help with your eBay, BigCommerce or ecommerce online store design, why not check out our design services here:

Don’t forget our designs are proven to increase sales by up to a massive 30%! (on average).

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