subject: The Important Features Of An Effective E-commerce Website [print this page] Anyone who wants to purchase services and products on-line will be heavily reliant upon the way in which an e-commerce website has been designed, because it is such websites that connect Internet users to the most user friendly way of shopping. In order to ensure that you do not let potential buyers slip through your fingers due to ineffective website design, you should select a good website design company. However, in order to be able to do this, you need to be familiar with the essential features that make e-commerce website design competitive and functional.
In order to have a professional look and feel to your e-commerce website, you need to ensure that the website has a formal style and look. This is important, irrespective of the products and services on offer. Prior to selecting a web design company to build a site for your business, take a look at other sites they have produced to see if you like the look of their work.
Your website needs to have easy and practical navigation, so once built you should check to see if the links to the other web pages on your site are clearly visible on every single page of the website. The navigation bar should be clearly and strategically placed on the web pages so that anyone visiting your site will find it easily. In addition, the navigation anchor texts should be relevant to the message you are trying to convey and be easy to understand.
Good website design means fast loading pages. The number of flash objects and background images should be kept to a minimum, as they often contribute to slow loading of the pages on your site. People looking at your web pages will not want to wait for the pages to load, as this will try their patience and may convince them to look at another website out of frustration.
Try to ensure that once the design is completed, the pages look uncluttered and have a clean look to them. One of the big mistakes made as far as e-commerce websites are concerned is that they often look cluttered with too many product images and product descriptions that are crammed into a space on a website that is too small for them. The pages should look relatively simple and be informative as far as the content is concerned. Anybody visiting your website will want to be able to see quickly whether they are on the right website for them.
Your website should have good search tools because if there are perhaps hundreds of products to sell, they need to be easily found. Many visitors will want to avail themselves of search tools that you can provide. Often, people know exactly what they want to purchase and will not appreciate having to trawl through masses of web pages to find what they want. A good e-commerce website should have the quality of a good search engine.
