The coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses to change courses of action, and that's putting it lightly. One such change is the drastic dip in overall retail sales and a simultaneous increase in that of online sales. In fact, there has been a 21.2% rise in online and other non-store sales.

Entrepreneurs have to be willing to adapt if they want to survive (and potentially thrive). So, if the National Retail Federation statistics are any indication, things are looking brighter for online e-commerce store owners.

But there’s a catch. If you want to boost your e-commerce sales, the first thing you need to have is a great website – not an average one, but a great one. This is where website redesign comes in.

Read on as we discuss ways to help you identify when it’s time to redesign your e-commerce website, along with the importance of having a good website in place.

What are the things you should know before building an e-commerce website?

There was a time when most marketers didn’t even use e-commerce, but luckily, things have changed now. Businesses have understood the power of having an online presence and how it can be one of the best ways to drive revenue.

Online retail is a booming business, with four out of every five Americans shopping online. It’s also a complex process that involves so many other things than just choosing a brand name, writing the descriptions, and selling your product or service.

There are ultimately several qualities your website must meet: it must elaborate quickly on the services you have on offer, use a reliable host to ensure it has fast load times, and make navigation easy for customers. When designing your online store, make sure it looks attractive to customers and that it's secure from looming threats in the form of cybercrimes such as phishing or DDoS attacks.

Otherwise, your website can lose serious business if it doesn’t hold the attention or has the trust of customers.

How to know when it’s time to redesign your existing e-commerce website?

Did you know that over 60% of online shoppers will not shop from a business that they perceive to have an obsolete website?

With that said, here is a list of the five most common indicators that practically scream for a website redesign.

Visually Outdated and Text-Heavy Website

Here’s a cliche for you: first impressions are incredibly important, and your website is your first impression to visitors. If potential customers don’t find it visually appealing, they’ll be gone!

If you have a visually outdated website, your visitors will think you are out of touch with current trends, hence you won't be able to position yourself as a leader in your niche. In addition to this, you might also be losing customers because your visitors probably have no idea what your company offers.

Your website design plays a crucial role to put your visitors at ease, so make sure you keep it updated to make the content look innovative and easy to digest. Take a long, hard look at your website to understand how it looks. Long navigation menus, a flash player requirement, or just a haphazard presentation of useless data are the most common signs you need a website redesign.

We would highly recommend making your website less “text-heavy” and, instead, incorporating more images, icons, and graphics. Text-heavy sites aren’t easy on the eyes and might leave the visitor overwhelmed.

Low Search Engine Rankings

Securing a higher Google ranking is very important when you consider statistics. Over 75% of people don’t click past the first page when searching for anything online. Hence, if your website has low search engine rankings, you won’t get traffic.

If you do find that you have low search engine rankings, start working on a website redesign by adding meaningful content that actually adds value and is relevant to user’s search queries. You can also take the help of an SEO specialist to add useful keywords that fit in naturally instead of shoehorning it into different sections of your website. You’ll also need to ensure your URL structures aren’t broken and use relevant keywords for greater visibility.

Higher Bounce Rates

Experiencing a higher bounce rate, especially on your homepage or landing page, is a key indicator of the need for a better website redesign.

Higher bounce rates mean your visitors form a negative opinion about your site on arrival or find navigation a challenge – both of which will reflect badly on sales. This can either be because of a wrong layout or that the website isn’t built properly. This can mean that it isn’t mobile-friendly, has poor (or incorrectly placed) contact forms, or has copy problems. To enhance user experience and increase engagement, consider adding an Instagram feed to your Squarespace website to showcase your brand’s visual identity and attract potential customers. This will also help to decrease bounce rate of your website.

Avoiding copy problems includes making sure that your web copy has a persuasive tone and is curiosity-provoking. Overly detailed pages can actually become obstacles to lead generation.

You should try to make users spend maximum time on your website. The longer they are on it, the higher the chances of them converting or at least returning at a later date. You can do the following to ensure more website engagement:

• Make all the pages on your website easy to read, irrespective of the device. This can include making your font large to improve readability, but it should still be small enough to avoid unnecessary scrolling.

• Incorporating high-quality images can be an excellent visual tactic for higher engagement. In fact, visitors prefer looking at images more than reading text.

• Internal linking is another way to keep the visitor on your website for extended periods. Plus, internal linking can also be great for your site’s SEO.

• You can add videos, which are one of the most interactive and engaging forms of content on your website.

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Slow Load Time

40% of online shoppers will abandon a webpage if it takes more than three seconds to load. This is how important time is in the e-commerce niche.

Slow load time will kill conversions since it’s highly toxic for great user experience. It can be caused due to multiple reasons, such as improper image optimization of image sizes, bad code, etc. Nevertheless, whatever the misstep, you should always prioritize developing a website that is speedy and loads fast. This is why as long as you are going to be redesigning your website yourself, you should invest in online tutorials that teach you basic coding skills over a four-to-six week period as it relates to web development.

Moreover, even Google penalizes websites that have low page speed scores. Take Google’s ‘Test My Site‘ to find out whether or not it’s time to change. If the results don’t look good, you can opt for a simple and clean design built on a platform after considering speed.

Not Mobile-Friendly

To give you more perspective, let’s consider some stats: Up to 70% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, and a consumer spends an average of five hours every day on their smartphones. And if this wasn’t motivation enough, even Google is now basing its rankings on mobile phones rather than desktop versions of websites. In short, a mobile responsive site is now a mandate – not an option.

Hence, if you want to be where your market is, you need to optimize your website for the mobile phone. After all, people want information while they are on the go, and they want it fast.

Try to give your customers the best experience, irrespective of the type of device they use. Work on having a responsive design in place, and avoid using flash. We would also recommend turning off autocorrect for forms, which will help your mobile visitors save time and effort.

What are the crucial elements for every e-commerce website?

You require certain crucial elements to ensure progressive online functioning, especially if you want to present your products and services in an appealing manner. The following are some of the key elements that can help you convert customers through your e-commerce website:

1. Take professional quality images of your products, and add thorough descriptions that include their size, textures, colors available, uses, and benefits.

2. Have a simple and efficient checkout process to reduce cart abandonment rates. Your users should be able to add items in the shopping cart without any confusion.

3. Offer email support, online chat, or 800 numbers – whatever fits your budget – and just do your best to solve the queries in a timely manner.

4. Try to take the necessary measures to make customers feel secure when they place orders on your website. This will help you earn their trust and develop a lasting relationship.

5. Make sure you have a contingency plan for if your site ever is hacked to assess the damage and then scrub directories, servers, and databases. If any data has been breached, you should be transparent about what happened, as this will reflect on your being more honest and forthright.

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Conclusion

You should take a customer-centric approach when redesigning your website. Taking simple steps like adding CTAs (call-to-actions), categorizing your products, and so on can be enough for cross-selling and upselling by generating more traffic.

Always define your website goals after careful thought and consideration. Do your best to provide your customers with a stress-free shopping experience, and things will automatically fall into place.

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