Designing an online store or an ecommerce website could seem like a rather straightforward process. It’s really not. While you can relatively easily and cheaply create an online store, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will be able to sell successfully. It’s usually due to making the following mistakes during the design process. Read ahead to learn about potential mistakes you can make and ways to avoid them:
Not Choosing the Right CMS
The content management system, or the CMS, is the program you use to design your website, like WordPress. The problem is, most amateur online store designers don’t know how to choose the right CMS for their purposes. WordPress is easy to use and has the convenient WooCommerce plugin for ecommerce sites. However, it’s not the only one available out there. CMSs like Magento are better suited for designing online stores that you hope to grow. Shopify and Drupal are also great choices. So, spend some time researching to make sure you choose the right CMS for your website.
Unwillingness to Invest
If you are serious about growing your ecommerce venture, then you must be willing to invest in its site design. Unless you have extensive experience in web design of any kind, you will definitely have to depend on professional site developers for your online store. It will ensure that your site looks professional and trustworthy, and not like something an amateur put together. Costs will vary depending on the firm you hire and the CMS you use. However, hiring local developers in your area may cut costs. For example, if you live in Brisbane, hire Magento Brisbane developers to get the best price.
Prioritising Design over Security
Yes, the design aspect is huge when it comes to building your online store. However, do not give priority to the aesthetic aspects and ignore security aspects, as many digital entrepreneurs tend to do. You must give both equal importance. Security is rather important; if you get hacked once, then your venture is done. You will have to start again all over. Consumers are ever more vigilant regarding cybercrime these days. Therefore, make sure you design the site to be as secure as possible.
Not Paying Attention to CRO
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is what you do to increase the chance of a visitor becoming an actual paying customer. Your site’s success will be determined by the conversion rate, not the traffic numbers that the site attracts. CRO can be done during the designing process. Rather, it must be done during the design process. CRO will involve making the layout visually appealing, easy to scroll, and more important, easy to navigate to the desired product and make a payment. From the get-go, pay attention to CRO to make your website viable for selling products.
Ignoring Page Speed Requirements
During the design process, do not overload your site with various components like plugins. While certain plugins may be useful for things like collecting data, get rid of plugins that you can live without. Additional components like plugins add bulk to the site, which makes it slow down. No one buys from a slow online store. Keep the overall layout minimalist to avoid a slow loading website.
Next time you are building an ecommerce website or are editing one, avoid the above mistakes.
