Optimizing User Experience In Ecommerce: Design Strategies For Higher Conversions
If you’re running an online store and need help meeting sales goals, it’s time to take a serious and closer look at your user interface to assess whether it’s optimized for conversions. Fortunately, there are many great ways brands and small businesses can compete with big names online, even without a massive marketing budget. Following are some of the most effective ways to develop a good UX design to improve the shopping experience and conversion rate.
What is e-commerce experience?
User experience refers to customers’ general experience when they visit your website. Simple.
Crucially, UX includes a specific set of emotions that users feel when interacting with your store – comfort, ease, satisfaction, etc. A “good” user experience is one in which the customer can fulfill his requirements (whether implicit or explicit) in as easy and pleasant a way as possible.
User experience optimization is different from conversion rate optimization. User experience improvements focus on satisfaction, ease of use, and “willingness to recommend to a friend.” Other forms of optimization are specifically aimed at improving certain metrics, such as conversion rate, AOV that is average order value, and CLV customer lifetime value.
Tips to Enhance Web Conversions and Improve User Experience
If your business operates online, the web conversion rate is one of the most important metrics you need to get right. A higher conversion rate means more leads converted, which leads to higher profits.
By using effective design techniques to increase this web conversion rate, you will establish your website for long-term success. The following principles are important to focus on as you improve your site.
Be consistent in language, tone, and design.
While change is an inevitable part of life, it’s not everyone’s favorite. A website design regarding fonts, buttons, tone, graphics, and spacing is critical. This helps reduce users’ hesitation when moving from one area of your site to the next, only to be confused by a page that looks different from where they came from.
Familiarity with this experience creates a sense of trust that keeps your users on your site. This gives you more opportunities to convert their experience into sales or signups. In an age when internet users are becoming increasingly aware of online scams, the last thing you want is for users to think about your page simply because it needs more consistency.
Make sure your pages load fast.
People are getting impatient. Not only has the general attention span of the world’s population been shrinking for years, but the growing popularity of bite-sized content means this trend will only worsen.
However, if you want your users to have a flawless experience, you can’t make them wait. Your page should fully load within three seconds. You can use several tools to check page speed for different platforms.
Remove popup
Allow your customers to buy what they want on their terms quickly. The constant popup of sales codes, requests for charitable donations, and loyalty program perks prevent consumers from quickly finding what they’re looking for. Yes, extensions have value to marketers (and social causes) – but paying for them before someone finds what they want is a quick way to lose them.
Embrace Visual Hierarchy
Online shopping is all about convenience. It is important when users browse any online store; they want it to be there and easy to navigate. The more cluttered the website, the more likely potential customers will swipe left and find other places to spend their money.
A clean and logical visual hierarchy is a convenient but effective way to ensure this doesn’t happen. This may sound basic, but the general idea is that a simple design with a logical flow and as few elements as possible is the best way to structure a website. A great website that drives high-quality conversions depends on smooth, frictionless interactions. The better and smoother the flow of your website from one point to another, the more likely you are to convert prospects into future customers.
Use high-quality photos and videos.
As a designer, you are uniquely aware of our human visual abilities. Everything in your career depends on appealing to one of our basic instincts. So it’s no surprise that photos and videos play an important role in achieving your goals. Images with high-quality and HD videos are crucial for increasing conversions and improving your website’s customer experience.
The visual presentation of these products or services can decide whether a customer purchases. Our brains analyze images in fractions of a second, so great photos are the best way to make photos on the fly.
Not only is video the media format that dominates the Internet today, but it’s also the most likely to engage users effectively. Marketers from every corner of the world are increasingly harnessing the power of video to increase lead generation and conversion statistics.
Focus on simplicity
Minimalism is one of those design buzzwords that conjures up images of empty white rooms or says “less is more” faster than you can Google it. While there’s nothing wrong with having those links, minimalism doesn’t mean any content but doing more with less.
If you’re in the competitive field of e-commerce or any Internet-based industry, getting the most out of your time with your users is critical. Every piece of information, text, or content must serve a purpose for you to get full value from it. Information overload is one of the biggest obstacles to a good user experience, especially when dealing with pages that tag items individually.
Don’t force buyers to create accounts.
E-commerce consumers are very savvy shoppers, used to a quick and easy checkout. Can you reduce the steps involved in completing the checkout process by eliminating the need for users to create an account before making a purchase? This can help them reduce the likelihood of cart abandonment and look for more user-friendly alternatives.
Use all spaces
A clean, easy-to-use website directly relates to a good user experience and high web conversions. One of your best assets as a designer is the white space you use throughout your website. Great websites with high conversion rates employ two basic UX design principles. While somewhat self-explanatory, white space is the space between page content. This includes margins, spacing, the space between images and graphics, and the space between text and columns. Your user experience on the page is critical to generating conversions.
White space has been proven to increase user understanding and interest by around 20%, making your pages cleaner and less cluttered. That means fewer distractions and more focus and engagement. The more interested your users are in your content, the easier it is to direct them to your advanced marketing: call to action (CTA).
Have a clear call to action.
A clear CTA is your website’s best friend for increasing conversions. Calls to action can be large, bold, and easily defined with contrasting text that performs the action you want to convert. Calls to action are buttons that lead users to “Buy Now,” “Sign Up,” “Start Trial,” etc. This improves user experience by clearly defining what they need to do.
A call to action should be the first thing users see. It should be a color that contrasts with the color scheme of the web page. Calls to action should be short (less than five words) and action-oriented to drive users to take action. A clear and specific call to action is critical to creating a great user experience. They drive actions that will lead to conversions and sales. It’s also an integral part of creating the kind of simple navigation that will stay on your site.
Improve checkout process
The checkout process is critical, so any snag can lead to cart abandonment and lost sales. Improving the checkout process by simplifying the checkout process, offering various payment options, and optimizing for mobile users can increase conversion rates. Include trust signals such as safety badges and customer reviews. Finally, incentivize customers with free shipping or a minimum order quantity for free shipping.
Conclusion
A website with a high conversion rate provides users a consistently good, fast, and engaging experience. Educating, informing, inspiring, and entertaining your users is essential to selling your products or services online. Doing this means you must have great content and a design that stands out and elevates your content.
A clean, efficient, and frictionless design determines how users interact with your website. Great designs sell and keep customers coming back. On the other hand, an outdated and inconsistent design can cause users to hit the back button and never return.