Essential E-Commerce Design

Hi!

In this article I am going to cover essential e-commerce web site design for success. (Of course you can see these principles in action on our web site at http://www.wyka-warzecha.com !)

This article is divided into two sections, a checklist and reasoning behind each item, and then web site dos & don'ts to save you time and increase productivity.

I wish you the best, for web site success! (Great sounding slogan, eh?)

I am surprised how many sites are lacking the following, especially when some of these same sites spend millions in advertising! Make sure you include the following, preferably as a navigation bar that is on every page.

In this Internet age, where people want results yesterday, you need to make it as *easy* as possible for people to find out *what* they want, *when* they want it, and at the same time establish a level of trust.

Remember, every person is important. And every person's time is important.

When you were in school and had class pictures, who was the first person you looked for? Unless it was a girl you really liked, it was yourself!

And if you buy groceries--do you prefer standing in line for half an hour, or going in the express lane that takes a couple of minutes? Hmm...! Tough question!

An FAQ section lets clients get results 24/7 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Break your FAQ down into product sections so your client can easily find what he is looking for. Also, have a 'products' and 'purchase' button/section clearly visible.

There is nothing worse then having to navigate millions of links to find something.

When someone contacts you via e-mail, contact them within 24 hours. It adds the personal touch, which makes clients feel important. Also make sure your salespeople can answer the questions!

Make your client happy, which makes you happy!

A privacy policy should explicitly state how any personal information that is collected is used and/or protected.

A company profile lets a client know who you are (so they know they aren't dealing with a 15-year old kid in his basement. Especially if summer or winter holidays are almost over!)

Testimonials help prove that your product has been used successfully.

In this section I will discuss:

Use an 'ARIAL' instead of 'Times New Roman', because it is associated with successful/respectable sites.

If you use style sheets to increase functionality (such as the popular 'underlining' mouseover), that is great! But don't use it to control fonts, because not all browsers fully support stylesheets (and will not display fonts correctly).

If your web site uses dynamic scripts (i.e., .asp or php3 pages) you can do the following to save time.

Use 'include' scripts for information that is consistent across a set of pages. Then, you can easily make global changes. Also--use global variables to control items such as fonts (which is much more reliable than style sheets).

• Design your site for an 800x640 screen. Practically all Windows 95/98/NT machines come pre-installed this way.
• Make sure you do not nest tables too deeply, otherwise
• browsers can crash or take too long to load.
• If you sell advertising, at most use 2 banner ads per page. Otherwise your page looks like a personal homepage, because many subscribe to banner exchanges & your site will look just the same.

Remember when you went for your first interview, and were told 'Dress for Success'? Do the same for your web site with these techniques, and 'Dress your Web site for Success'!

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