Visually Appealing Websites

By Adam  |  24 Jun 2015 09:00:00

When you're putting together your eCommerce website, there are several important things to consider. Of course, you need a unique selling point, a quality product, good deals and so on, but something which is quite often overlooked is the need for things to be aesthetically pleasing. I don't want to suggest that you should go for style over substance, but getting people to find your website is only one half of the battle; once a potential customer has found you there's no guarantee that they'll ever use your service, so you should be doing everything you can to make your website look exciting and interesting. You don't need to be an artistic or web design genius for this either, there are a few simple things you can do to make your eCommerce website look more appealing.

The first thing to avoid is symmetry. I know that may sound weird, considering ideas about the beauty of symmetry, but think of it like this: if a customer comes to your website, they'll want to see something friendly, something they feel they can trust and, importantly, something that feels human. If your website is all symmetrical it will look cold, boring and unengaging. Make it look fun with different things on both sides of the screen; popular products one side, the latest deals the next. For most businesses, you should use a few colours as well; if your website is just a big block of grey, for example, it will seem uninteresting and customers will leave. Having said that, certain services (funeral supplies, for example) should avoid too many colours, as with a more serious service like that, it will be expected that it will have a more 'mature' look.

What's also important is professionalism; does what you've made look like it was made by somebody who knows what they're doing? For example, you may be an extremely intelligent business person with fantastic deals and an invaluable service, but maybe you don't have the skills to create a good logo for the website. You put something together, as best you can, and post it on the site, but the logo you made really does reflect that you don't really have any graphic design skills. When people come to the site, they might see the logo as a reflection of the entire site and decide not to use your business, even though it might be fantastic. With logos, if you don't have the abilities or resources to create your own graphic design, it would be best to simply write the title in a font that suits you; maybe put that in front of a photograph which is relevant to the business (and which you own). The point is that it doesn't matter if you don't have good design skills (it's very easy to put some text over a photo) but, if you don't have those skills, don't try to be over ambitious, as it could well backfire on you. Sometimes less can be more.

Above, I touched briefly on the subject of colour and I'd like to talk about it in a little more detail. As much as we may not be very conscious of it, different colours evoke different emotions in us. You should use colours which evoke the appropriate emotions for your product. It sounds a lot trickier than it is. If you sold romantic items (the kind of things couples give to one another on Valentine's Day, anniversaries and other occasions) then you'd go for light reds and pinks, as those are the colours which evoke feelings of friendship, sensitivity and passion. If you're selling point was that all your items are 100% environmentally friendly, then you'd go for soft greens and light blues as they are colours associated with nature and evoke feelings of peace, tranquillity and understanding; exactly the feelings you want associated with your business. If you're still unsure, here's a helpful guide about what colours you should use for your eCommerce website.

Of course, these aren't the only things that need to be considered from a visual perspective (everything does!) but these are probably the most important factors to keep in mind. If possible, you should try to get pictures of your product against a pure-white background too; this is the practice of Amazon, one of the most popular places to buy things online, and so it has come to be what people expect when buying from eCommerce websites as it reflects a nice air of professionalism.

So be sure to keep all of these things in mind when designing your eCommerce website. They're all things that anybody can do! If you don't yet have a Sellr account, you could sign up and give it a try right away; it's free, after all. If you've got a business idea, you could work on your store for just a few minutes every day and eventually have something you can make money with.