Over the past few years, the number of online businesses has skyrocketed. Today small and medium retailers face stiff competition from big brands as well. Customer-centricity is essential for online stores to thrive and survive. An upcoming eCommerce business must first create an extremely user-friendly website. The prime requirement of a user-friendly business website is that visitors and customers find the website simple and easy to use. Today’s visitor to your online shop will be your customer tomorrow. The customer must find it easy to understand your website. The moment the customer gets stuck up, they will lose interest and skip your website. You must ensure that no visitor or customer leaves the site because of a complicated format. While finalizing the design or the website, see to it that the usability is in no way compromised. The format must be easy to understand, and the layout must be appealing to the visitors.
The online shop cannot drive in more customers just by making special offers or by offering a wide range of products. A website that ensures a seamless browsing experience for visitors and end-customers can impress them and make them buy products from the online shop. No doubt, an eCommerce website must have amazing features and functionalities. However, simply filling the site with visuals and functionalities will be ultimately counter-productive. Your clients should not get perplexed because of the features and functionalities. Every eCommerce company is eager to make their website user-friendly. Our eCommerce Development Company India gives the following tips to make your eCommerce website user-friendly in all aspects.
1. Ensure seamless navigation
When we are moving to a new destination, with perfect directions, we will arrive at the destination easily, quickly, and comfortably. In the same way, if the website is clear and well-formatted, the customers and end-users will know exactly where or to which page they should go and also how to get the exact product they require. While structuring the navigation for your website you must identify and follow the best practices of navigation. In the menu, you must highlight your main categories. Under sub-categories, you can list any number of categories. However, when you give a specific name for a category, it must be with proper intention.
When you want to ensure the best user experience of your website, your prime concern should be seamless navigation. All the categories and labels that you make must be user-focused. Make them simple and easy to understand. There must be a visible difference between navigation and the page. All pages of the site must be interconnected in terms of logic and links. Without seamless navigation, the webpage cannot be achieve its purpose.
The following tips will help you to improve the quality of navigation :
- ensure a flattened structure for the website
- stick to your Users’ vocabulary
- have a well-planned structure and navigation
- never violate established Standards
- try to avoid Dropdown Menus
- keep navigation separate from the other elements using White Space or Colors
- get the benefit of the Footer Menu
- make use of Responsive Menus
2. Optimize Website Speed
The page loading speed of the site is a decisive factor for the success of eCommerce websites. Slow loading will spoil your business because when a prospective customer finds that the website is slow he will instantly leave your store and make his purchases from another online shop. Also, he may ignore your shop forever. Researchers had come to the conclusion that no visitor/user waits for more than 3 seconds. So, in case your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, the user may close the browser window. At the same time, a faster website can provide a better user experience, and the conversion rate will be higher. The bounce rate of a faster website will be much lower and the ranking in organic search also will be higher. So the fast-loading website will be synonymous with more traffic, client retention, and sales.
Common reasons for slow loading:
- use of a slow network connection
- server/hosting plan is not good
- Images are too large
- browsers are old
- traffic volume
- use of heavy JavaScript and CSS
- excess number of widgets and plugins
- browser cache not used
- resources including Hot-linking Images come from slow servers
How to increase Website Speed?
- optimize the size of images
- make use of CDN (Content Delivery Network)
- write Mobile-First code
- eliminate unwanted FTTP Requests and minimize the number of HTTP Requests
- switch the website to HTTP/2
- opt for the most appropriate Hosting Plan
- ensure minimum TTFB (Time To First Byte)
- JavaScript to be loaded asynchronously
- minify JavaScript and CSS files and combine those files into single bundles
- make your HTTP servers capable of Gzip Compression
- use the minimum number of Plugins
- use website Caching
- use cloud-based website monitoring tools
- use advanced performance optimization techniques such as Prerender, Preconnect, and Prefetch techniques
3. Simplify search by adding search functionality to your website
As a result of allowing searchability in your eCommerce website, your customers can easily find the exact product they require. When we develop eCommerce websites for our clients, the web developers of our eCommerce Development Company India will incorporate the search functionality into the client’s website. The website owner must decide a location for the search bar. When relevant keywords are added in the web pages, they will appear in related searches. Search functionality enables customers to find the required content easily and quickly. By providing search functionality to your website you come to know the shopping behavior of the customer. Conversion is possible with those who type a search word than with those who browse. Most online shoppers enter the website with a clear idea regarding the items they want to purchase. The online store must ensure that the customer is able to find out the product of his choice with no hassles whatsoever. The search functionality must provide seamless experience for the customer while shopping at the website.
Why the search functionality is very important for your website?
- enables the customer to find out a specific product easily and quickly
- in most of cases those who type the search word will buy the product
- you can understand the shopping behaviors and needs of the customers and can make correct decisions
Tips to improve site search
- improve visibility of search
- make the search “NLP enabled” so that the queries in natural language will be processed and results will be delivered with exact meaning and sentiment of the search phrase
- drive more traffic by focusing on mobile search
- include filters so that customers can filter the results
- provide a third-party search tool
4. Select the right colors to update your website
Many researchers agree that more than 80% of customers take their buying decisions based on the color schemes of your business website. So while designing your eCommerce website you can’t afford to ignore color psychology. Ultimately it affects your business. Right color schemes will have more impact on customer interaction. The final outcome of these interactions will be more sales for your online store.
Tips for selecting the best color scheme
- follow color psychology
- consider the industry and the products that you want to sell
- take into account the demographics of your target audience
- understand user experience
- follow the set pattern of color usage
- select colors for the brand and not for your website
- beware of the fact that color psychology may not fit with your business always
You can create a trendy and attractive website by choosing the best color palettes for your site. Today, selecting the right color palette for the website is not a difficult task. Using CMS tools such as Hubspot’s free CMS tool you can provide new color schemes to your website. The new color scheme will effectively highlight your brand and as a result, there will be a massive flow of prospective visitors to your website.
5. Opt for Mobile-first Design and Development
Today more online shoppers the world over search and purchase through mobile devices. Mobile-first design may soon become the permanent design for eCommerce websites. When mobile devices are becoming more popular and customers using mobile devices are steadily increasing worldwide, mobile-first design for your website is very important.
Advantages of Mobile-first designing and developing of websites
1. Speed, Convenience, and Efficiency
While designing Mobile-first websites web designers give priority to the most valuable content. So, those who search for particular information can get the same  easily, irrespective of the type of device that they use. Those who visit Mobile-first websites find it easy to make decisions on the go since they have instant access to superb-quality content. Mobile-first websites can achieve more customer satisfaction by providing the exact piece of information through efficient browsing in a very convenient way.
2. Fewer chances for bugs
Mobile-first websites require less code and consequently, bugs will be very few. Prevention and detection of problems will be easier when the focus is on the mobile experience.
3. Pages rank higher on Google search results
Pages of the Website with Mobile-first design load faster than their desktop counterparts. Page-loading speed is a Google ranking factor. As a result, pages get a higher ranking, more visibility, and more organic traffic.
4. Increase in conversion rates
As a result of high page-load speed, easy search and navigation, and high ranking of pages in organic search results, the rate of conversion also will be high.
6. Analyze and Update your CTAs
An eCommerce website without the CTA (Call To Action) buttons cannot be user-friendly. Those who want to design and develop customer-friendly website must incorporate the CTA buttons. The CTA buttons direct the customer to that part of the website where the conversion will happen. CTA buttons lead the traffic to those web pages that make conversion a reality. CTA enables the end-user to know the steps to purchase a product. In the absence of CTA, the visitor is likely to leave the site without doing what he wanted to do. CTA gives instructions to the visitor at the appropriate time so that the visitor will not fail to take action. CTA comes as a simple instruction as a text like “subscribe to the newsletter”, “know more”, or “call us now” etc. Through this, the visitors are encouraged to act. CTAs effectively eliminate confusion and uncertainty. CTA communicates the offer of the online businessman to the customer.
Benefits of CTA
- CTA facilitates the conversion of visitors into customers and improves the click-through rate.
- higher the click-through rate, the higher the ranking in SERPs.
- CTA enables the user to know what to do next
- More than 90% of visitors to the website can read the CTAs
- CTA is the fastest way to make conversion 2-fold and also generate more leads for your products.
7. Update your contact page
It is very important for every online business to keep the trust of its customers intact. They buy various products directly from your eCommerce website based on their trust in your online store. They take it for granted that the products you supply from your store are genuine. They do not bother to check whether the products are genuine because they trust you. Hence you are expected to keep the contact page of your website updated. When customers find that you are approachable and can be easily contacted, they trust you more. So, keeping your contact page updated is a simple and easy way of building trust. When the visitors to your website find that the online store is run by a real person who can be easily contacted, they will trust the website and will be more likely to start buying the products from your website.
You must provide a contact form on your contact page. By providing the contact form, you can reassure your customers that their queries and grievances will be listened to and promptly replied to. Even though you manage the business efficiently, mistakes are bound to happen. Whenever there is a missing shipment or a defective or damaged product, the customer can immediately inform you through the contact form and get the same rectified. It is the most effective way to save the business and save customers. When customers know that in case of a problem, you are there to take care of their interests they will remain with you and will never think to switch over to another online store. Also, the contact form facilitates conversion. When a visitor to your website receives an immediate answer to his query he is more likely to become your regular customer.
Purposes of Contact Page
- Prompt customer support: Customer’s doubts can be cleared immediately. All issues pertaining to an order can be resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
- Increase your sales: You can encourage a potential customer to decide to buy and convert prospective visitors into customers.
- PR: Contact Page enables the Press and the Media Personnel to contact you to talk about your business
- Provide Information: Through Contact page those who seek employment can contact you directly and those who want to know more about your company can talk to you.
Conclusion
There are numerous ways for online businesses to make their eCommerce website more user-friendly so that they can remain firm in the market and your business will show steady growth. The most important ways to make your website User-friendly are given above. However, this is a never-ending process. Online businesses should keep improving the quality of their websites and making them more User-friendly. While trying to make your website more user-friendly you may search and select the best option to make the website more interactive. You can also contact experts from our eCommerce Development Company India to make your website more user-friendly.
