If you listen to rags-to-riches stories of modern CEOs, it’s easy to be fooled by how seemingly easy their journeys were. However, what people usually get is an overly summarized, watered-down version of the whole battle. What is hidden from news headlines and rankings are the setbacks, the amount of effort they put in, and all the smaller battles they lost.
The truth about being in a highly competitive industry is that you have to keep improving. When you enter the business world, you have to improve not only your ideas but also yourself. Do you want to make your network bigger? You need to start attending events where like-minded people go. Do you want to be effective at communicating as a business leader? If you do, you must learn the basics of effective leadership communication.
So far, these things are what you need to improve about yourself. However, the competition also involves improving all aspects that affect your sales. And believe it or not, even the most minor things matter. What does this mean?
Have you ever given up on a website because you cannot find what you are looking for? Say you are looking for an inflatable swimming pool, but you cannot proceed to checkout because of an error. Or you are trying to pay, but the payment page looks sketchy.
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. A slow website is annoying. And so is a cluttered-looking one. If you are in the field of e-commerce, then you should start taking notes.
How Important Is Web Design?
In e-commerce, how you present your product will make or break your business. Your relationship with customers is purely online. And so, you have to maximize all resources to make sure that their experience browsing, adding to cart, and checking out is seamless. A lead that could have been converted to sales could go down the drain just because you failed to secure a good web designer.
What Are the Examples of Good and Bad Web Design?
Even if you are not a trained designer, you know when a website is poorly designed. All you need to d is try to use it. If it makes you exit the website in just a minute, you know it’s poorly designed.
The human eyes hate clutter. It’s just naturally unpleasant to see. And the same applies to the principle of design. A website that doesn’t look put-together and well thought of will turn off customers. Especially today, where people equate being professional to neatness, an organized and neat-looking website is necessary. Designers know how important a grid is. It helps them decide which elements should go together on which part of the screen.
Neatness aside, a website that is hard to navigate is a big no. Where is the shopping bag located? Is it easy to spot? Are there categories that make it easy for customers to see what they are looking for?
What color schemes are you using? Aside from clutter, the visual appeal does not exist in designs that use bad color combinations. Think again if you feel that intense purple works well with bright yellow.
The same goes for a design that lacks contrast. Using dull gray with white and nothing else results in a boring website. No customer would enjoy browsing on a web page that reminds them of storms and lonely nights.
Aside from the elements that affect visual appeal, you should also focus on responsiveness. No one likes staring at that “loading” loop for minutes on end. People would not hesitate to click the “x” button on a website that takes forever to load.
You have to make sure that your website runs on mobile devices as well. You could lose a customer if their only device does not support your website. Clicking on “desktop mode” could help, but trying to read ultra-tiny fonts is not exactly a good user experience. Nor is tapping your screen twice to zoom in.
Don’t try to bombard web visitors with loads of information. This is why there are categories. Some websites are designed in a way that a visitor has to scroll all the way down to get the information they need. Other websites automatically play music which is something that no customer asks for. Don’t try to follow suit.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know how important web design is in e-commerce, you might need to schedule an appointment with a web designer that can help you convert web visits into sales. Web design is indeed an investment.