For people that want to work from home, e-commerce can be the ideal industry to get into, but it can also be a challenge. According to Statista, the UK has the biggest e-commerce market in Europe. In this post, we’re going to discuss 11 e-commerce website design features you can’t afford to miss.
The Top 11 E-Commerce Website Design Features
It’s important to note that all websites are unique, and if each followed the same design, then it might not work for specific niches. But, there are certain features you can incorporate into your design while still maintaining your brand identity.
Mobile Responsive Website Design
In this day and age, if you don’t have a responsive website, then you might as well not have one at all. Shoppers want convenience, and it’s a lot easier to use a mobile device to shop instead of turning a laptop on.
When a website is responsive, the content and design features adapt to a variety of screen sizes. It improves the navigational elements of a site, which results in a positive user experience.
Companies around the world realise how important it is to optimise a website. Walmart managed to increase its mobile sales by 98%, which shows that taking a small step and making your site mobile friendly can turn your business around.
User Reviews
Everyone reads reviews. Think about the last time you shopped on Amazon. Did you see a product and click the buy now button straight away? The chances are you scroll down to the user reviews before making a purchase.
Positive reviews can convince a potential buyer that your products are worth their investment. Nobody wants to waste money, so not displaying customer reviews will impact your business.
Negative reviews should also be present on your website. If a visitor sees nothing but five-star positive reviews, they might get suspicious and think your site isn’t reputable. Include a mix of positive and negative reviews so buyers understand the drawbacks and can make an informed decision.
There are plugins available from Yelp, Facebook and Foursquare, so you can choose which reviews to display. Sharing these reviews to your social media profile is a great way to keep your business in people’s minds without spending ages on finding content.
Special Offers
Never underestimate the power of a special offer, because everyone loves to save money. E-commerce websites should always include a compelling offer for their visitors. Popular options include discounts when signing up and buy one get one free incentives.
Another method a lot of e-commerce websites use is the flash sale. For a specified amount of time, visitors can get huge discounts on products. Flash sales are prevalent because they create a sense of urgency and can result in more sales.
If you use regular promotions, you can keep your site in people’s minds and improve your SEO rankings.
Related Items
Related items are so dangerous for consumers but excellent for e-commerce sites. When a buyer makes a purchase, a related items list comes up to show similar products. For example, if someone buys some hair straighteners, a related item could be heat protection spray.
Showing your buyer related items gives them the impression that you get them, and consumers prefer a personalised experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
The biggest issue with e-commerce sites is they lack the face to face interaction consumers often seek out. For example, if someone wants to purchase new makeup, they can head to a cosmetics store and receive advice about which products are best for their skin type and tone.
Online shopping is undoubtedly more convenient, especially for people that have hectic jobs, but it does mean that consumers can’t always get a completely personalised experience. The best way to deal with this issue is to have an FAQ section for each of your products.
FAQ sections can answer the most critical questions a user might have about your product. For example, which skin types and tones do the product suit? How should it be applied? Should people with certain skin types avoid it?
When people have the answers to their questions, they’re more likely to purchase your product. Giving your customers the information they need to make an informed decision means more people will trust your site, and you can generate consumer loyalty.
Security Features
Internet security is vital, especially in this day and age. As you can see from this article in Security Magazine, there are thousands of security breaches each year which expose the data of millions of people.
If your website isn’t secure, people won’t purchase a product. The last thing anyone wants is to risk their personal information from being exposed. Luckily, there are ways you can instil confidence in your users and ensure no personal data breaches occur.
Once you have a secure platform for your e-commerce business, you need four other things; SSL certificates, firewall, a privacy policy and two-factor authentication.
SSL Certificates
An SSL certificate secures the connection between your user’s browser and your website. People know when a website is secure because there is a green lock in the browser bar. Secure websites also display as HTTPS instead of HTTP.
A firewall creates a barrier between two networks and only allows authorised traffic through. It blocks all other traffic which keeps your website secure.
Privacy Policy
Privacy policies are a must-have for your website. They detail the steps you take to protect a user’s personal information. Most websites have a link to their privacy policy in the footer so people can access it easily.
Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication can be annoying for users, but nobody can deny it offers more security. It works by generating a code send to an email address or mobile number when someone accesses a site with their username and password.
Customer Support
Customer support is vital for any business, especially e-commerce sites. People want to access advice and support instantly, so it’s useful to display your contact details throughout your website.
It would help if you made it easy for your customers to reach you by providing numerous options. Include your phone number and email address on your contact page and encourage people to get in touch.
Live chat is becoming increasingly popular because it offers immediate support. If you want to guide your visitors through the buying journey and signpost them to relevant pages on your site, live chat can be incredibly helpful.
Don’t forget; we live in a see it, buy it, receive it tomorrow society. If you can offer immediate support to your visitors, you have a much higher chance of turning them into paying customers.
Returns Policy
Returns policies let users know the steps they need to take if they want to return a product and they’re essential for your website. There might be times when a customer wants to return an item, and if they know the process, they won’t need to contact your customer team.
Your returns policy should detail the timeframe in which a customer needs to return their item, the address they should send it to and whether or not you offer a collection service.
High-Quality Images and Videos
The worst thing you can do on your e-commerce site is to use stock photos. Your customers want to see the actual product, and if you don’t deliver that, then you won’t make a purchase. When you make an effort to showcase your products in their best light, your audience will see that you take pride in your stock.
Instead of using stock photos, display your products on a plain surface and take high-quality images. You should also incorporate videos showing items being used by people if you can. While written content is essential for blogging and telling your brand story, 91% of people prefer visual content.
It would be best if you also thought about how popular the products you sell are. If you use Google Shopping to display your items, then high-quality images will make your stock stand out, and people are more likely to visit your website.
Clear and Concise Shipping Info
It’s so frustrating when you purchase a product and wait weeks for the delivery. People want their items immediately, and if you can’t cater for this, then you need to let them know. Providing clear and concise shipping information gives your customers transparency on what they’ll pay for delivery and how long it will take.
People are always willing to spend more money if free shipping is included. You should always make it clear that you offer free shipping when someone spends a specific amount because your customers might purchase more items to qualify for free shipping.
Remember, if you can’t get peoples items to them within five days, then you need to let them know. If your customers like your products and you cater to a unique niche, most will be happy to wait.
Offer User Accounts & Guest Checkouts
In our opinion, there are two types of customers:
“I need it” people
“I might want it” customers
Type one consumers know they need to purchase an item, so they do some research, find the best price and want a hassle-free checkout process. Type two consumers identify with a brand, enjoy the products they offer and while they might not make an immediate purchase, they can become loyal customers.
Naturally, type one consumers might not want to fill in a form or create an account, but type two consumers will look forward to receiving updates about your products. To cater to both types, you should offer the options of guest checkouts and user accounts.
Users that frequent your site often can benefit from having an account that streamlines their sales process. One-click checkouts are popular because they save time, but never underestimate the importance of guest checkouts.
The Takeaway
A career in online shopping can offer many rewards, but your e-commerce website costs you a lot of money if you don’t include the above features. Your success depends on user experience, so never forget that the customer always comes first.
If you need some help with your e-commerce website design features, Zapp is here to help. Our professional UK web design platform has a wide range of e-commerce packages to fit your needs. You can find out more about what we do here.
One of the most important things for every business to consider is whether they or not they have a responsive website. With technology continuously evolving and consumers getting more demanding, having a mobile responsive website should be at the top of your to-do list.
In 2019, 53% of internet traffic came from mobile devices. What this shows us is that more people prefer to use their mobile phone or tablets to browse the web. Companies need to ensure their websites work well across all devices, but what is responsive design?
What is Responsive Design?
Responsive design is the practice of making sure a website responds and adapts to every user’s behaviour. The main factors of responsive design are screen size, orientation and platform. Mobile devices have a wide range of specifications, and when a website lacks responsiveness, it only works on a desktop.
User experience is everything, and if you don’t have a responsive website, you’ll lose a lot of potential customers. Luckily, some fantastic free tools let you test your websites for responsiveness.
Responsive Website Testing Tools
We’ve searched for the best free tools to test your website responsiveness and here they are.
Responsive Design Checker is an easy to use tool that lets you test your website responsiveness across a range of screen sizes. All you have to do is enter your sites URL and use the features to alter your screen size.
The best thing about Responsive Design Checker is its pre-defined features. You can click on the Kindle, iPhone, Android and a range of other devices to test your website without any hassle.
Google has an impressive range of free features, and its mobile test offers a premium service for no cost. While this tool doesn’t spot UI bugs, it does have the ability to assess how your site performs on mobile devices, and when you run a test, it tells you if you pass or fail.
While designers might find this app a bit too generic, it’s ideal for small businesses to find out if they need to make any changes to their website.
Matt Kersley is a successful web designer, but he upped his game when he released his responsiveness tool. It’s not as advanced as a lot of the testing apps out there, but it’s entirely free and does what it says on the box (so to speak).
If you want to test single pages, then you’ll find this responsive tool handy. It’s also one of the only platforms that has a 240px width default setting.
Designmodo is another free tool that offers a great user experience. You can preview your website to see how it looks across a range of devices. There are lots of pre-defined settings, and you can access them in one click.
Overall, Designmodo is one of the better tools available, because it’s ideal for the less tech-friendly user. You can choose from a wide range of settings and make sure your website has the best chance of providing a superb user experience.
The Bottom Line
So those were our favourite responsive website testing tools. Hopefully, you’ll find one you like and begin the journey of creating a responsive website. Once you do, you can enjoy a broader range of users and look forward to your future as a business.
If you’d like some help with your responsive design, contact Zapp today. As a full-service web design platform, we offer a range of services to help you build, grow and scale your business.
Voice search might seem like a new fad, but large companies realise how important it is becoming. The era of devices such as the Amazon Echo means that more people are performing vocal searches and businesses need to update their SEO strategy to incorporate it.
In this post, we’ll discuss voice search in more detail and reveal some ways you can increase your ranking on voice search engine results.
How Does Voice Search Work?
Voice search is a way in which people can enter queries into search engines with their voice. It’s beneficial because you don’t need to get up to use your phone, and it offers more convenience.
Imagine you’re doing some crafts with your kids and you need to find some information. Using your phone means you’ll have to make sure your hands are clean, but voice search enables people to ask questions from across the room.
The main issue with voice search is we often speak differently to how we type, so companies must optimise their content for vocal queries.
How to Optimise For Voice Search
If you’re wondering how to optimise for voice SEO, we have three techniques to get you started.
Use Google My Business
Voice search is popular for local queries. For example, if you’re driving in a new area and want to stop for food, you can use the voice search feature on your phone to find a restaurant. If you display the right information, Google will automatically display your restaurant, which can lead to more customers.
If you’ve never used Google My Business, follow these tips to increase your visibility:
Display your business name, address and content information on both your website and Google My Business.
Make sure you describe your business accurately and include all of your services in the description.
Use relevant categories to increase your chances of ranking, For example, if you own a sandwich shop, instead of choosing ‘sandwiches’ opt for ‘deli’ or ‘local sandwich shop’.
Improve Your Sites Mobile Responsiveness
Your website’s design is crucial, but you also need to make sure it works well on mobiles. The majority of voice searches take place through a mobile device, and if your website isn’t responsive, Google won’t rank it highly.
If you’re not sure how responsive your website is, use this free tool to analyse how to make improvements to your mobile site.
Answer Questions
One of the best ways to improve your search visibility is by answering questions in your blog posts. A lot of companies write for search engines, but you should create content for your audience.
Don’t stuff it with keywords, because Google will penalise you. Instead, perform research into the questions people ask and use it for your SEO. Most keyword research tools have a questions feature, which shows you your likelihood of ranking through voice searches.
The Bottom Line
Hopefully, you’ve learned a bit more about voice search by reading our short guide and have more insights into how to improve your search visibility. Another excellent tool for enhancing your website’s SEO is through internal linking. You can read the guide here.
Online security is one of the biggest issues consumers and businesses will tackle when buying or selling products on the internet. There are so many opportunities for scammers to get hold of your personal information, and they can use it to sign up for services in your name or steal your money. For this reason, people now understand the importance of an SSL certificate.
So, what is ssl and why does your website need a certificate? Read on to find out more.
What Is SSL?
According to Gov.UK, 46% of businesses have had a security breach online within the last 12 months. But using an SSL certificate can minimise your companies risk of being hacked. SSL certificates are a computer file with a primary function to protect your information.
When you visit a website, you’ll notice that some addresses start with HTTP, while others use HTTPS. The difference between the two is the https websites are secure, while HTTP sites are not. Secure websites use SSL certificates, which act as a binder between your browser and the site you’re visiting.
SSL Certificates make sure that nobody can intercept your connection with a website and steal your information. For example, if you visit an e-commerce site and make a purchase, you’ll have to share your bank details with the merchant. Hackers target websites without SSL because they can easily access and steal your personal information, so it’s crucial you know if a website you’re visiting has SSL features.
The Types of SSL Certificates
SSL certificates fall under three categories: encryption, domain number and validation. The Certificate Authority processes all applications and decides which sites are eligible to receive a certificate. You can view the criteria and application process here.
EV SSL Certificate
EV stands for extended valuation, and its primary use is to show the legitimacy of a domain. These certificates are expensive to obtain, but they can be useful to show visitors that your website isn’t spamming.
All businesses can benefit from the EV SSL, but if you take payments or personal information from your visitors, then you need this certificate.
OV SSL Certificate
Organisation Validation SSL Certificates prove that a business and domain are real. They’re a good option for companies that can’t afford the EV SSL because they offer encryption features at a lower cost.
DV SSL Certificate
Domain Validation SSL Certificates are the most basic form of verification. Most companies have one, and they usually display as a green padlock in the address bar. If you have a start-up or small business, then the DV SSL is a healthy option for keeping your costs low.
SSL Certificate: 5 Reasons You Need One
So, now you know more about SSL Certificates, it’s time to discover why you need one. Here are five reasons you should obtain one.
Promotes Customer Trust and Loyalty
How many times have you visited a website only to find out it’s not secure? The likelihood is you click away from it immediately. Nobody wants to compromise their personal information, and it’s essential to think about how to promote trust among your audience.
SSL certificates show your customers that you care about their privacy, and people are more likely to buy your products/services because they know their data won’t be compromised. Did you know that 69% of people will continue to buy from a brand they trust, even if its competitors have better reviews?
Building trust with your customers takes time, but an SSL certificate helps to bridge the gap between consumers and the confusing online world.
Offers Data Protection
SSL certificates encrypt any data that passes between two browsers. For example, when a customer makes a purchase, the information they send from their device to yours is encrypted so hackers can’t understand it.
With online scams growing increasingly sophisticated, cybersecurity is evolving to protect internet users. SSL certificates are an easy way to protect your customers’ personal information, including names, addresses and bank details.
Google Recognition
Google is the most popular search engine in the world, and websites battle to be ranked by their sophisticated algorithm. However, one thing many people don’t realise is that Google automatically accepts HTTPS websites but shows a warning for HTTP websites.
When someone is warned your site isn’t safe, they won’t want to stay, which will impact your traffic and ranking. Obtaining an SSL certificate ensures Google will display your website.
Improve Your Website Speed
Nobody likes a slow-loading website, especially Google. The search engine includes website speed in its ranking factors, so you must have a website that loads quickly on all devices.
Websites with https have faster loading speeds, which means Google will rank you higher. If you frequently appear in the search engine results, you’ll attract more visitors and be able to secure loyal customers.
Better Experience For Customers
We know how frustrating it is when a website doesn’t perform well, but sites that aren’t secure are even worse. Nobody trusts a website that doesn’t have an SSL certificate now, and user experience is essential for your rankings.
From the moment a customer discovers your website in the search engine results, they should have a positive experience. SSL certificates ensure that your website is trustworthy and protects people from scammers.
Do I Need an SSL Certificate?
As you can see, obtaining an SSL certificate should be at the top of your priority list. It’s easy to get distracted with creating content and finding customers, but if your site isn’t secure, then no amount of marketing will make a difference.
If you’re a small business owner, then obtaining a DV SSL certificate will save you a lot of money on audience retargeting, lead generation and the costly mistake of exposing your customers to scammers. Start by looking at your site and asking yourself what security does my website have? The you can make decisions based on your budget, the information you hold from customers and the level of security you need.
If you’d like to know more about data protection, check out our guide on GDPR here.
WordPress is one of the most popular website builders and content management systems in the world. What makes it so good are the sheer number of plugins available. In this post, we’re going to look at the best WordPress plugins available.
Yoast is our go-to tool here at Zapp Sites. We know how important SEO is, and Yoast makes it so much easier. There’s a free version and a paid version, but both are excellent. Using Yoast means you can update your meta titles and descriptions. It also shows you how many times your focus keyword appears in your test and gives you useful tips on how to improve your SEO score.
The premium version of Yoast has more capabilities, including synonym keywords and other words. It’s an excellent option for larger businesses, but the free version has everything you need to get started with your SEO efforts.
Web designers UK and worldwide use Visual Composer to create their sites. The frontend and backend page builder enables you to modify existing pages and create new ones with ease. Better still, the fully responsive plugin will integrate into any theme you choose, and it has full responsiveness.
Visual Composer isn’t one of the free WordPress plugins, but for everything it offers, it’s worth the money, especially if you want to build high-quality websites.
If you’re already familiar with WordPress, then you know how essential widgets are. The most significant issue users have is that if you don’t give your widgets a title, the word ‘text’ displays. It causes problems if you have multiple widgets on your site, but you can remove the text with this free plugin.
While this plugin might not seem like a big deal, it makes all the difference when you want to manage your widgets and titles from the backend.
Most people think WooCommerce is just for selling physical products, but you can also use it for subscriptions. It’s one of the best free WordPress plugins around and has endless add-on features. You might have to pay for more premium add-ons, but overall WooCommerce is ideal for people that want to maximise their selling potential.
If you want to begin selling on your WordPress website, you can integrate WooCommerce and save yourself some money. The plugin is quite complex to use, so you might find it’s better to get a professional to help you set it up.
Everyone knows how important a mobile responsive website is, especially if your business operates locally With so many people using their phones and tablets to browse the net, you need to make sure your site works across all devices. The AMP plugin enables you to optimise your website for Google and make sure you have the best chance of ranking on mobile searches.
So, those were the best WordPress plugins you can’t live without. If you’d like to learn more about developing your website, check out our helpful guide on web page design and the best practices to make your site stand out.
Do you remember the simple websites of the 1990s? Take a look at Amazon through the years, and you’ll see how technology has advanced. One of the latest and most significant advancements is UI and UX design. But, what exactly is it, and why is it so important?
In this guide, we’ll cover UX and UI design, and guide you through the best practices.
What is UX Design?
User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are both different practices, but they’re equally important. While user experience focuses on how users experience and interact with a website, user interface refers to the more technical design elements such as colours and typography.
In this guide, we’re going to focus on user experience, which refers to:
The experience of purchasing, opening and experiencing a product for the first time
How products work
Learning how to use products
Upgrades
Educating people about the product and customer support
So what is a good UX? It offers ease of use and is a mixture of strong marketing and seamless engineering. UX can only be successful if it’s supported by UI design because without essential elements such as text and typography, the user won’t have a good experience.
Now we’ve covered UX design meaning; we’ll talk more about the process involved and how you can make sure you create a strong user experience.
The UX Design Process
You can split the UX design process into five stages, which are research, design, prototyping, testing and measurement. While there are no set rules about the user experience process, you should follow these steps to ensure you cover all the bases.
Research
Research is the most important aspect of UX design because it enables you to understand your end-users. What are their pain points? Which products do they use already? Some companies can access their current customer base and find the information from them, but others might need to conduct research and create personas.
Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are fictional representations of a real audience, and they can help you to market your products. For example, say you conduct research and find that your product is most suitable for young, professional women. You can create a persona to cover the following points:
What products do they currently use?
What do they look for when they’re purchasing a product?
Where do they shop?
Which social platforms are they most active on?
Once you have one or more buyer personas in place, you know where to access your audience and how to market your product/service effectively.
Design
The second part of the UX process is designing your site. After you collect and evaluate your research, you can start to think about the customer journey and develop your product around that. The customer journey refers to the content and marketing collateral that will convince the buyer to make a purchase and the steps they’ll take when using the product.
A lot of companies use the process of wireframing to plan, structure and organise their product. Wireframes help you and your team to build a blueprint for future designs, and then you can expand on the interface elements by creating a mockup based on that blueprint.
If you’re not sure about how to use wireframing, there are some excellent web design templates to use here.
Using this technique enables a company to focus on providing the best experience for users and make sure elements such as responsiveness and page navigation are effective.
Prototyping
It’s essential that you don’t skip to creating and marketing your product straight away because the prototyping stage allows you to test your product and correct any bugs that occur.
The prototyping stage includes:
Experimenting with various designs until you find one that fits your product/service and your customers’ needs.
Checking for bugs and inconsistencies.
Gaining valuable data and using it to improve your product.
Presenting products to management and investors.
Evaluating the functional aspects of products.
Most designers conduct the prototyping stage before they even think about coding.
Testing
After you create your prototype, you can start to test your product on your audience. You can do this in many ways, including conducting customer research, surveys and using website testing companies.
You can also conduct your own form of A/B Testing and present different versions of your product to test groups. Once you gather your data, you’ll be able to see which product receives the best response. It’s also worthwhile to note that different demographics might prefer a specific version, so you can consider targeting various age groups and genders with their chosen product versions.
The primary purpose of testing is to evaluate how effective your product is and fix any bugs or issues that arise during testing.
Measuring
If you think that once you release your final product, the UX process is over, then you couldn’t be more wrong. UX design is a continual process, and you should continuously evaluate and make adjustments throughout the products lifecycle.
For example, if you operate an e-commerce website, it’s recommended that you implement a live chat feature to offer better levels of customer service. However, technology advances all the time, and as live chat features improve, you should make sure you update your chat to the latest version.
Only with constant evaluation can your product continue to provide a good experience for your user and retain the relevance of your product in a competitive market.
The Bottom Line
UI and UX design are vital tools for every company to utilise, and with time and practice, you can learn to implement both of them across your products. Remember, UX is applicable for websites, products and even services, so if you want to access professional support, talk to a top web design company in the UK.
If you’d like to learn more about UX design, then check out our guide on how to create the best web pages. Also, feel free to add your comments below. We’d love to hear your thoughts on UX and UI.
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