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There are beautiful pictures everywhere and beautiful color schemes, with nary a product or promotion in sight. When you use the cleverly-hidden search box that’s blended into the background, all you get is a bunch of product announcements – no actual products. Needless to say then: this is exactly what you shouldn’t do with your e-commerce website design.

You must not think that these websites are designed by inexperienced people. They could be very experienced – at designing art gallery websites with those little merchandise stores at the back. It happens all the time that experienced website designers simply overlook the very purpose of an assignment. They could just be deeply concerned with producing a website that looks very beautiful from an artistic point of view – while forgetting about usability, functional efficiency and maintenance issues – the whole lot. When you hire a website professional for your online store, you need to make sure that he really knows what e-commerce website design is all about.

How can you tell?

Well, you certainly cannot leave anything as important to you as your commercial website entirely to a designer’s best judgment. You do need to educate yourself first and work closely with your web designer to make sure that he does what is best from a business standpoint. You could first educate yourself by looking up the most successful web store design examples that you can think of – Amazon, Converse, Reebok, Sony Style USA, Giraffe, Harry Winston – stores that have won plaudits the world over for their effective and attractive design choices.

Before you do that, though, you really should read up on what the best principles of e-commerce website design are. These pointers below should get you started. Study those award-winning websites with these pointers in mind and you will really know what to look for.

How quick and easy is your website?

No one is just eager to part with money coming to a store. A good part of that eagerness comes from how easy you make it for them to be all over your website and your products on a whim – at the speed of thought as it were. The more hassle-free your customer’s path through your website, the better the likelihood is that he will actually buy. To begin with, the search box is the most important thing to pay attention to.

You need to make sure that the focus is already on the search box when a page opens – with no need for an additional click. You also want to invest in a full-featured auto complete/search suggestion system (perhaps one that uses jquery) that works very quickly. The more quickly you make those search suggestions come on the more certain your sale is.

Offer search clarity

Amazon doesn’t really do this very well. For instance, when you search on Amazon for a product that could appear under multiple categories, the website usually asks you to pick a department before it will let you go on. How is a customer supposed to know if he will find a better selection of calculators in the Office department or the Electronics department? You need to have as few categories as possible, and you need to make the search process as smooth as possible. Whatever category menus there are, making sure that they operate in the fly-out menu style could make navigating easier. Offer a breadcrumb trail wherever your customer goes on your website. These features may not exactly be attractive to look at. But they offer practical conveniences.

Once a customer arrives upon a list of products, you need to let him sort them in as many ways as you could possibly imagine. Amazon offers a number of features to let you filter for what you want. They offer detailed filters for price, brand, customer rating, product feature, shipping charges and so on. As many filters as you offer, your customers are going to be pleased with you.

If you want imagery…

Oddly enough, when the artistically inclined among e-commerce website design professionals try to brighten things up with imagery, they never tend to think of usable product images. They instead think to use clever and artistic pictures.

Amazon slips up in a different way – they don’t have that many product images on every product page. In fact, they only have a couple – offering a poor level of detail. If there were another website that offered a generous range – a couple of dozen close-up looks at every product including a look at every side of the box – wouldn’t you go there first?

It can be very difficult to get people to actually trust a small web store. It can be tough for these stores to actually compete with larger ones that offer the same products at lower prices. What is it that you have to compete with? Amazon has an unbeatable selection of user comments. If you can’t match them here, you should certainly hit back by going overboard with product images and videos for every single product that you carry.

If you do this you will probably have people coming to you first before heading anywhere else. This can be a wonderful way to ensure that your website stays relevant. Some of them may even decide to buy.

A no-click interface

What is better than having plenty of images to each product? Well, not having to click to see those images to enlarge them, of course. Google Images has a version of this no-click interface. On that search engine, each image that you pass your mouse over just jumps forward and offers an expanded view. You could imitate this as far as possible on your website. The more your customers need to click on things, the more tired they get. Delight them with images that expand on their own with no more urging needed than the simple hover of a mouse. You could even use Ajax to make quick product previews blow up from thumbnails this way.

This is the kind of artistry that e-commerce website design needs – artistry that actually gets the job done.

Is it in stock?

People don’t like being misled. When they see a product, they want to know as soon as possible what the price is and if it is in stock. Try to make sure that you list both pieces of information very clearly. You need to understand how frustrating it can be for the consumer to learn a little later than he would have preferred that the product he hoped for is not in stock. That kind of disappointment is hard to overcome. Try not to do this. You need to program your inventory database in such a way that the availability status is clear at all times.

What does your Add to Cart button look like?

Believe it or not, there are many online stores that like to disguise their Buy Now button. They disguise it by calling it Learn More or Details. It’s as if the website designer never heard of such a thing as a “call to action”. Most people do not respond well to veiled invitations to buy. They actually need a good push. You need to make that Buy Now button as prominent as you tastefully can, and word it in a way that is universally understood.

As long as you’re thinking about your Buy Now button, try to read up about color theory before you decide on what color to make it. Amazon uses a light orange Add to Cart button, as do many other successful websites. Some color theorists, though, believe that the color orange is a turnoff. It might have something to do with the culture one is from.

Where’s the shopping cart

When a customer takes the trouble to come in and trust your online store enough to actually add a product to the shopping cart, he actually wants to be able to keep an eye on that cart. Somehow, many online retail stores seem to feel obligated to make the shopping cart button as small and as unobtrusive as possible. It’s as if they are embarrassed to admit that they’re here for actual money instead of art.

This isn’t a good idea. It can be very distracting to a shopper to press on the Add to Cart button and not really know if their choice has been accepted. In fact, it would be even better if you could add a shopping cart widget to some part of the website that really displayed at all times.

This isn’t simply a matter of being sensitive to your customer’s needs. You can’t take for granted that a shopper who adds a product to the cart will actually take the next step. When a shopper is always able to see the shopping cart, you make sure that he never forgets what the next step of the process is. You need to make the shopping cart appear prominent, easy to see, and easy to go to.

The checkout page

The basic rule of e-commerce website design is – that you’re there to inform the customer and to make a sale. You make sure that there are no distractions on any page – especially on the checkout page. You need to design blinkers into your checkout page – remove the sidebar, for instance, if that might make the customer change his mind and go elsewhere. There have been numerous studies done that show that distractions appearing at this point result in a lower likelihood of an actual sale. This is why online retailers don’t even ask you to register for an account anymore. If you’re a new customer, you can just check something out on the fly now. You supply them with your e-mail ID and they automatically register you for an account without involving you with the details. A single-page checkout that doesn’t distract the customer with anything else has the highest chance of actual completion.

The single-mindedness of good e-commerce website design

As with anything else, designing a good retail website comes from knowing exactly what you are designing for. Once you make it clear to yourself what the purpose of the website is, all you need to do is to keep your eye on the ball; so that the customer doesn’t take his eye off it either.

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Base 2013 is a great starting point for any kind of website. Here are some of the key features:

• Responsive Design
• 100% Valid html5
• CSS3
• 11 Custom Templates
• Fancy Product Slider
• Masonry Galleries
• Easy pricing tables
• Contact Form
• Google Fonts
• Google Map

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1. Your visitors are mobile

Use of mobile phones is now at a crossroads. In the past there were very few people uses mobile phones, but now there is hardly anyone who does not use a mobile phone. That is why mobile sector has become an important part of your website popularity. If you see the recent statistics of visits to the most popular websites, you can clearly see the significant improvement to the percentage of visit from mobile devices in comparison to the statistics of the last couple of years and it is getting better day by day.

Number of owners of tablet and smartphone is growing every day. They use the Internet by mobile and therefore more people are coming to your site from their mobile phones.

2. Applications are important, but they are not a magic pill.

For several years, a gold mine in the mobile web space was application development. Distributed through the Apple Store and Android Market branded apps were the main method of distributing content in a mobile environment. Many sites have increased the number of visitors by developing their application. Statistics show that one-third of smartphone and tablet users download new application within one month after its release. In addition, sites that has applications, has a large number of audience and a very high percentage of repeat visitors.

However, despite all the success, the popularity of mobile applications began to decline. Applications began to use only by regular visitors. That is why to increase the traffic of a website, application is not enough. The best way to reach the largest amount of audience is to create an optimized version of your website for mobile devices.

3. Mobile version of the site – the source of visitors.

If we compare the graphs of website traffic through its application and via the mobile version of the website, we can see that the number of visitors from mobile devices is much greater.

Though most of the smartphone and tablet users has already installed their mobile application, many of them go to the site directly using a browser to read news from that website.

So, why is a popular website attracts large number of audience using its mobile version rather than its application?

The answer is simple: a portion of your visitors go to your site by clicking on the link to your site hosted on a different website. Typically, these links are not directed to the main page of your site. Customers who use the mobile version of the site, usually go straight to the page where your content is available.

Why is this important? When visitors go to your website by clicking on the links, they go directly to your site, rather than in the application. The application is good for people who already love you. But with the mobile version of the site you will get new fans for your site.

Due to the popularity of social networking these days, it is recommended that you place links to similar sites like yours. For example, if you have online store for tourist equipments, it is reasonable to place a link to a page of an online travel agency or a travel forum site.

Think about it: in order to use your application, the user needs to remember about it constantly. While the links to the mobile version of your site, it will easily come across in the search engines and social network sites when people search about similar topics.

4. Using a mobile version of the site is more convenient.

Long ago the application was the only way to distribute content. Mobile sites were primitive and could not ensure the needs of visitors. But thanks to better devices and HTML5, this deficiency persists. Now you can create a bright, colorful, branded mobile site which attract many visitors and ensure a good connection.

Of course, this does not mean that you cannot just send your visitor to any of your unoptimized mobile site. In fact, in the small screen of your mobile phone it will look awful and may not even be functional. Then it may not meet the expectations and needs of your mobile visitors. Creating optimized version of the site for mobile devices is a vital necessity if you want to attract more visitors to your site.

Using a mobile website is much easier than the application. Every application is unique, and users need some time to learn how to use it. On the other hand mobile websites has standard outlook and an user friendly interface which is already familiar to users. And that makes them to start using the site immediately.

5. A mobile version of the site is much cheaper to develop and it can run anywhere.

The best part is the cost of creating a mobile version of a website is much less than the cost of creating the application. For application, you have to create different versions of it: like for apple iOS, multiple versions of android OS and so forth. And even then, not all mobile users will be able to use the application.

Instead, site owners can create only one mobile version of the site and it will work on all mobile devices. If you use adaptive design, your site will look great on all devices with different screen sizes and run on all mobile software.

Mobile version of the website is the fastest way to express yourself in the mobile space. If you use an application, you will have to negotiate with different market place owners, to host your one. Also, users will have to look for your application with millions of others. But if you have a mobile website, then it will be constantly before the eyes of the users while they check on Facebook or Twitter, or searching for similar topic in the search engines. To distribute your application, you have to try hard. Developing a mobile version of the site will solve almost all the problems at once.

In conclusion, the creation of mobile version of the site will attract more visitors for less. So what is wrong with that? You should create a mobile version of your site before you lose your potential customers.

Free mobile friendly templates you might like:

• Ultraslim
• PhotoBiz
• Europe

The post 5 Reasons Why you Need a Mobile Website appeared first on CssTemplateHeaven.

Included in this theme:

• Dark and classy design
• Ligature font icons
• Responsive design (based on Foundation framework)
• 11 custom templates
• 5 different Masonry galleries
• Pinterest gallery style
• Products page
• Pricing tables
• Css buttons
• Accordion
• Tabs
• Beautiful typography
• ++

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We have just relased Magni, a brand new mini ERP for small businesses. Manage your website, products and customers from the one place. You should do a test install and test it before you start to use it.

Main features in version 1.0:

• Create pages and articles
• Built in layout templates
• Blog with comment system
• Create galleries
• Drag and drop to re-arrange pictures instantly
• Add customers
• Create invoices (including PDF support)
• Add your logo to your PDF invoices
• Automatic invoice reminders on overdue invoices
• Create receipts
• Create tasks
• Automatic reminder on overdue tasks
• Full history on each customer
• Customer login (not complete yet)
• Smart search (find customers in seconds)
• Product Catalog
• Autofill products (invoices and receipts)
• Automatic price calculators
• Overdue notifications
• Reports (sum invoices and receipts)
• Statistics (best selling products, best customers ++)
• Mobile friendly (responisve design)
• Multilingual
• SEO friendly urls

Support and installation help

Subscribe to our mailing list to get free e-mail support  (we only send 2-4 newsletters a month, and you may unsubscribe at any time).

Quick Tour Video

This video only shows some of the features (enlarge the screen for a better view)

A few screenshots

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Key Features

• Three different skins
• Responsive
• Custom theme options
• Widgets
• Symbol fonts
• Custom post types
• Music player
• Light weight
• Html5
• CSS3
• SEO friendly

Fill out the form below and get news about our free templates and themes on e-mail (Please note that this is a newsletter subscription. To register for the free download you must create an account)

Some Screenshots

Light skin

Classy skin

Dark skin

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An understanding of basic web analytics terms and technologies is vital to anyone with a web site today. Web analytics is like many technology topics and has its own unique vocabulary. In order to learn what you need to know about your own site and its performance, you need to cut through the web analytics jargon.

Hit

A web site receives a “hit” whenever the web server driving it receives a request for a file. The file might be a web page, an image, or a style sheet–any type of file at all which the server makes available.

In the early days of the world wide web, hits were used almost exclusively to measure a site’s popularity. In web analytics today, it has been largely replaced by other statistics.

Page View

Whenever a hit results from a request for a page–such as an HTML, ASP, or PHP file–it’s considered a “page view.”

Page views has almost completely replaced hits as one of the most important measures in web analytics, because page views more accurately reflects how much actual content has been delivered to users.

Visitor

Sometimes called a “unique user” or a “unique visitor,” a visitor is, in theory, a unique person using their web browser to look at a site. In practice, it can be difficult for web analytics software to provide an accurate count of how many people looked at a site.

The number of visitors a site receives is the closest thing web analytics has to the number of real people using a web site. When site owners want to know how popular their sites are, this is the number they usually turn to.

Visit

Also called a “session,” a visit starts with the first request from a visitor and ends when the server receives no more requests from that visitor for some amount of time, usually around 30 minutes.

Because visitors frequently return to web sites they like, the number of visits a popular site receives is usually much larger than the number of visitors.

Visit Duration

Also called “session duration,” this is the approximate amount of time a visitor spent looking at the site.

Like the number of visitors a site receives, it can be difficult to determine just how long a visit lasted for. Still, site owners use a site’s average visit duration as a rough measure of how appealing a site is to its users.

New Visitor

A visitor the web analytics software hasn’t seen previously. Ideally, this is a new person who has just found the site.

How users discover a site is often very important to that site’s owner. Did they click on an advertisement for the site? Did they use a search engine? By tracking the activity of new visitors, web analytics tools can answer these questions and many others.

Returning Visitor

A visitor who has been to the site before. A high percentage of repeat visitors usually means a site is appealing to its users. With so many sites on the internet, a poor site isn’t likely to see a lot of repeat business.

Impression

An “impression” is whenever an advertisement appears on a page. It’s similar to page views, but for ads. Most ads are sold based on the number of impressions it will receive, so having an accurate measurement of this number is critical if you are buying or selling online advertising.

Single Page Visit

A visit which resulted in only one page being viewed. For example, if a visitor looks at a site’s front page, then uses his or her back button to go somewhere else, that would be a single page visit.

Single page visits are usually the result of someone taking a brief look at a site and deciding to go elsewhere. This might mean he or she didn’t like the site, but it also might mean the user found what he or she was looking for right away.

Bounce Rate

This is the percentage of a site’s visits which are single page visits. The higher this number, the more visitors looked at the site and left quickly.

A bounce rate of less than 30 percent is considered very good, while a bounce rate over 60 percent is usually a sign that a site may not be giving visitors what they want.

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