It's got nothing to do with fancy graphics, flash animations or dedicated web servers. Good site design for ecommerce involves just 2 things:
1. Focus on the most wanted response for conversion (i.e., what you want customers to do when they arrive at your site. This could be subscribing to a newsletter or making a purchase).
2. Make your site easy to update so you can rapidly implement and test new conversion ideas.
The problem with ecommerce websites is that too many entrepreneurs think that fancy sites with flashy graphics and impressive presentations will work.
They rarely do. When it comes to creating sites that sell, designers are often your worst enemy. Here's what you need to know before designing your site. Ecommerce websites need to be focused on getting customers to respond in a specific way.
This is called the most wanted response or MWR. The MWR on a landing page may be to get the customer to subscribe or make a purchase.
The MWR on a signup confirmation page would be to have the customer download a free product or to forward your free gift to a friend. The most important thing to realize is that each page must focus on ONE most wanted response.
You must identify the optimal conversion path and lead your customer down this path. For example, your main page may not be designed to sell your product but to sell the customer on downloading a free 30 day trial. At the end of the 30 days, the customer then gets an email offer attempting to bring her back to the site to purchase the full version.
Once back on the site, the customer sees compelling copy explaining why she needs to upgrade from a demo to the full featured product. The conversion path of this site is as follows:
1.Customer provides email address and downloads free software. 2.Email sent to customer after 30 days to bring her back to site. 3.Customer reads site copy to sell her on making the full purchase. On a site like the one above, the conversion path is well defined. Each page is designed to get the customer to accomplish a specific action.
An example of a bad site is one which offers the customer multiple options and multiple paths. This almost always reduces conversion rates.
Keep every page on your site focused on generating a single action from the customer.
A brief disclaimer: I don't advocate or encourage directly stealing designs, images or text from other people's websites. For more detail go to: www.29-web-design-tricks.com.Don't do it. It's not nice. So how can you rip off someone's website?
Recently a client was in a website planning meeting with me. "What other websites do you like?" I asked him.
"Tim," he said, "I want my website to look exactly like this website," and he typed in the address of a website into my web browser.
"Err, okay," I intelligently responded. Meanwhile, I was thinking to myself, "I can't just steal the design of the website." So I told him, "Let's make a list of what you like about this website. Then I can make sure I don't forget anything."
So here's how you steal from other people's websites without getting caught. First, make a list of 5-10 websites you like, and somehow want to emulate. As you're making the list, jot down anywhere from 2-10 things you like about that site.
Next, break that list up into two different lists. First copy down (and number) the websites you like. Then, on a separate piece of paper, copy the list of the things you liked, but put them in order of importance to you. for more help visit to:www.great-links-toyour-website.com.Do not put the website they're from. Rather, use the number off the other list to indicate what site they're from.
Now, unless you're giving this to a designer, throw away the original list. Seriously. Don't refer back to it. If you are giving it to a designer to actually design the site, that's fine, but give that person the two new lists as well.
It may be that, like my client, there's really only one website you like. Do the same thing. Make a list of the attributes you like about that site, and then make a new, prioritized list. It will probably still strongly resemble the original site, but it will not be a direct rip off of their design.
Here's rule number one. In the designing process, do not look at websites you liked. And the second rule is this: occasionally break rule number one.
You should definitely not constantly look at the other websites while you're designing. However, you will occasionally ask yourself something like, "How did they do #5 on my list?" In that case, it's okay to take a quick glance at that other site. But look at it, then close that browser window.
These are the methods I used when designing my client's website that I described to you. At the end, I looked at both sites, and showed them to my client. I was happy with how different they were, and he was happy with how similar they were. So the process works for me.
Both Bjorn Brands & Rozy.jan2009 are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Bjorn Brands has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Marketing. Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned from having his own building company to a great online business. Check out his site and see for yourself how he can help you do the same at. Bjorn Brands's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.