E-commerce is big business – growing. The design of an e-commerce website plays a huge role in its success. In addition to being attractive, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali it must persuade and inspire confidence. A well-thought-out visual is a crucial factor in encouraging sales and keeping the customer’s interest as soon as they arrive on the site.
As an e-commerce store owner, you don’t need something flashy, but you MUST present your brand and your products in a clear, consistent and attractive way.
Researchers now believe that in e-commerce, the choice of illustrations is as important as ease of use. So how should they be used?
Understanding The Visual Hierarchy
Whether you are a freelance web designer or an ecommerce store owner, the key is to understand the visual hierarchy. This includes the arrangement of elements on a page (text, graphics, and the like) and how their positioning affects their importance. In short, visual hierarchy is the order in which we look at each part of a web page – what catches our attention first.
When working on the visual hierarchy, the designer should consider common page scan modes, such as f- pattern and z-pattern. For example, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali Western users naturally look at the top left corner of a page, since that’s how you learn to read.
- This tendency can change depending on the size of the items – people always look at the largest item first.
- It is always better to work with user habits in mind, rather than ignoring them.
- To make your illustrations stand out, make sure they have enough space.
- White space is your friend – you don’t have to try to fill it.
- The space will enhance your images.
- Large, impressive images are often used on landing pages – be it a lifestyle image or a product banner.
- Use your images from the start to respond directly to the expectations of your customers.
Similarly, with your product pages, it’s a good idea that your product photos take up the widest portion of the page. The images of your products will be your most convincing argument when it comes to selling.
The “Science” Of Selling With Pictures
The best ecommerce web design is persuasive in a subtle way, but not offensive or annoying. Images, icons or symbols will serve to persuade and guide the visitor in the desired direction, e.g. towards a purchase. Well-designed, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali an e-commerce website can be your first selling tool. Poorly designed, it’s a waste of time and money.
Common visual elements are often associated in the visitor’s mind with positive or negative emotions, so it’s important to get the balance right. The use of colors and shapes says a lot about your brand – are you warm and friendly (reds, oranges, yellows) or calm and centered (greens, blues)? Are you orderly (symmetry) or unconventional (asymmetry)? These are the characteristics that we instinctively apply to branding – check out our previous post on How Color Theory Plays with Emotion in Design and Marketing.
According to Hubspot, colorful visuals increase people’s willingness to read content by 80%. Also, when they hear a piece of information, they are likely to retain only 10% of that information three days later – but if combined with a relevant image, people retain 65% of the information. Images are an effective selling tool, if used correctly.
A strong brand is built on consistent use of color and imagery, even at the scale of individual product images. In terms of what customers retain, it is the images that will have marked them and will make them come back to your store. And not only that, but strong images also inspire trust – one of the most important factors to consider when committing user money.
SEO: How Visuals Improve Interest
We know that content rich in images and visual elements retains the user more, and increases the number of likes/shares on social networks. After all, people can’t help but be drawn to visual content. But did you know that images can also affect your positioning in search engines?
Graphics, photos, videos, GIFs and infographics can all be optimized for search engines to boost your relevance to Google, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali and your customers. And luckily, it’s pretty easy to do. Just be sure to target your main keywords in the image title, filename, alt text, and description.
None of this will show up on your web page, but it tells Google what the images are, and improves the relevance of the page (and the domain in general). It also means that your images will appear when the keywords are used in a Google image search. Here’s a helpful guide to optimizing your images for search.
Images and Conversion Rates
So not only can images boost engagement and even SEO rankings (as we’ve seen), they can also have a significant impact on your conversion rate. Remember that when it comes to sales, pictures speak louder than words. The images you choose, and how you display them, can help close a sale.
- With e-commerce sites, it’s good practice to show photos of the product in use, and of the product on its own.
- Studies show that as humans, we are drawn to images that contain a human face.
- Images of customers enjoying the product also allow the customer to imagine how he himself could use it.
- If you get good feedback, consider creating ways for customers to post their own Notices d’Use.
- It’s a great way to advertise – and get images for free!
One last point – don’t be afraid to use videos. Four times as many customers would rather watch a video of a product than read about it (Source). If you have the budget, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali creating a video can really affect the conversion rate.
Split Testing For Your Designs
As a digital entrepreneur, you’ve probably heard of split testing. It’s definitely something worth investigating. If you’re starting to get traffic to your site and you want to see what works. It’s no coincidence when it comes to your own business.
Split testing allows you to compare the behavior of two web page versions, and measure which works best. You can use this to find better ways to encourage visitors to take action, and see if there are any trends. Metrics to consider include conversion, page views, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali bounce rate, and email signups. Know what you are looking for before you start testing.
Split testing is effective because the results are right in front of your eyes. Tools like Optimizely make the process pretty straightforward – or if you’ve built your online store using Shopify’s e-commerce builder. Then you may find you get better results with Convert Experiments or Visual Website Optimizer.
Get A Good LOGO DESIGN
Having a good logo design design is essential in ecommerce. At a minimum, you need to get a professional logo that suits your domain name and your offering. We recommend either:
- DesignCrowd (a logo crowdsourcing site)
- A professional e-commerce logo maker.
- Avoid free logo makers that use free icons in logos (and therefore logo designs aren’t unique) and won’t help your brand or e-commerce site.
Conclusion
I hope you are now convinced of the power of images when used correctly in your ecommerce store. Just remember to choose your images wisely, give them ample space, offer a range of lifestyle-oriented alternatives, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali and optimize properly for SEO to get maximum returns. And finally: TEST. To be successful, you need to know what works. And when it doesn’t work, you know what to do.