Many e-commerce websites face the big challenge of converting traffic to recurring sales. It goes without saying, that if your website isn’t designed with UX in mind, it can really affect your e-commerce business.
Users might just exit your site, purely based on the fact that it isn’t very user-friendly. With the product in mind, they will then search elsewhere for a more accessible website. This means that you’ve lost out on a valuable sale.
Likewise, Google prioritizes websites that are the easiest to navigate.
What are UX practices?
UX practices stand for “user experience.” It’s an approach to design that takes the user into account.
Aspects like beauty and function are heavily considered in this sense. How will a designer make sure the site is easy to look at and functions well as a website?
With UX, every part of the website is considered, in regards to the user. This also includes emotion – something a little harder to achieve.
When a user enters your site, you want them to feel happy or optimistic. That’s the whole point of UX design.
Here’s how UX has changed e-commerce campaigns, and how you can incorporate them into your own website.
Signup forms
Most campaigns incorporate some kind of signup form. This includes a newsletter form, which is a potent tool for engaging and communicating with customers.
When you’re on the internet, newsletter forms are prevalent. Using UX design, you can create a really perfect signup form, that’s easy to understand and super quick.
The more customers have a chance to consider something, the less likely they are to carry on. If the signup form is too long – there’s a chance they will give up.
By using UX practices, you can increase the number of subscriptions, and encourage customers to follow through to your site.
Customer-centric searches
Have you considered that your search bar could be affecting your sales? With a campaign, more people will be entering your site – making it user-friendly is crucial.
Salesforce stated that 40% of customers turn to intelligent assistants before making a purchase. Believe it or not, you can implement this into your site too.
Voice searching is a great way to stand out from competitors. Voice recognition is a technology that enables people to ask questions, verbally. This helps with accessibility and convenience, resulting in better customer engagement.
The best example of voice search is, obviously, Alexa. Customers can search for products, using Alexa. This has elevated Amazon as a brand and given customers even more reason to shop with Amazon.
Image recognition plays by the mantra; a picture speaks a thousand words. Sometimes, you don’t know how to explain a product, which is where image search comes in handy. Humans are visual creatures, which is why images are so important – especially with e-commerce.
With a campaign, you might want to consider using images throughout. Some e-commerce campaigns revolve around a “shop our Instagram” idea, which is really successful.
Pagination
Pagination is the process of splitting up the content in a website, into discrete pages. For instance, if you have a large amount of content, you might want to consider splitting it up into several pages. This makes the entire site more user-friendly.
Pagination includes things like infinite scroll, and “load more” buttons. Ultimately, this makes scrolling through your extensive catalog so much easier. So, how does this relate to campaigns?
If you’ve created an e-commerce campaign, you can dedicate a specific page to this particular promotion. For example, if you have collaborated with an influencer, you can create a specific page named “influencer X e-commerce store” This is really popular with fashion brands, and works superbly.
The text
When people are shopping, they don’t like to read huge chunks of text. That’s why its best to make everything short and sweet. Better yet, make sure your text is comprehensible for everybody.
This includes the rules to your campaign, and any further pages linked to the campaign.
Before you even begin writing for your campaign or website, think about your target audience. What do u think they will want to see, that will make them click, or engage?
Make sure your message is clear and creates a connection with your target audience. This is absolutely crucial for campaigns and your entire website.
You also need to make sure that your call to actions is clear and concise, too. Again, this is especially important for campaigns – be a little bit creative with them. Instead of just saying “click here” say something relevant to your industry that would be impossible to resist.
UX practice is so important with this, as it ensures that you have text that your user will appreciate. You need to write in a way that your user will respond too and engage with.
Popup windows
Colorful, eye-catching, and engaging popup windows are a great way to grab the users’ attention. With campaigns, a separate popup window is something you should consider – as it puts all eyes on the campaign.
Popups are a tricky art to master, though. You risk making them annoying or putting the user off. We’d say, avoid the element of surprise with popups and campaigns. Don’t interrupt them, and always be super precise with ways that they can cross off them – and don’t keep popping them up.
The best popups give the user a little bit of time to look around the website. When done correctly, it is one of the most effective ways to get more subscriptions and engage with your audience.
Your popups should be vivid, but also very concise. Make the text short and simple. If you’re advertising your campaign through a popup – make it incredibly clear. Your users will ultimately decide in a few seconds if they’ll enter their details, or cross off your popup.
The hero area
The hero area is the main area on your website. It’s the first thing that your visitors see when they make their way onto your site. This is such an important thing to consider, especially in terms of UX practices.
If you’re running a campaign, and you feel like your users will respond well, you can consider adding it to your hero area.
Most notable is the hero image – the large banner image pinned to the header section of every webpage. It’s usually situated at the top of the page, but every site differs.
The hero image’s a prominent place, and visual hierarchy means that it is very often the first place thing your user sees when they enter your site. If you take a look on websites now, you’ll see hero images that might even feature a deal or event.
It could be a great idea to feature a campaign on your hero image. This way, your users will see it as soon as they enter your website.
The cart and checkout page
As an e-commerce site, your campaign is more than likely for sales. You’re looking to find meaningful leads and valuable purchases. That’s why you should use UX practices on your cart and checkout page.
Nobody likes long checkout processes, and it can actually put people off from going through with the sale. There are specific steps you can take to make this a little bit better.
You can make on-boarding quick and straightforward. Don’t ask them too many questions, or make it really longwinded. This won’t help with your campaign or sales.
Use a single-column structure throughout. In fact, this is something you should practice throughout your website and campaign. User’s eyes move from the top to the bottom along one line.
Multi-column lines can be complicated and harm the user experience. Make sure your signing up and checking out pages have single columns.
Your cart should also be shown throughout your website – Your user shouldn’t have to click on the checkout page to see their cart. That’s another UX practice that has been proven to be successful.
Social media
UX and social media can work beautifully together and elevate your campaigns. Social media, in the modern age, plays a big part in the design process. Not only that, but social media plays a huge role in campaigns.
UX combines creative and scientific methods to delight the user but also works around their every move. Of course, it’s commonly associated with web design and product development, but it’s now being incorporated into social media.
Creating content your users want to engage with, and easy to find is absolutely crucial. This means that when you finally post your campaign, you can be sure that it’s being consumed by as many users as possible.
Importantly, 92% of consumers are more likely to trust an influencer than an advertisement. Taking the time to develop relationships with industry influencers, can be one the best moves for your campaign and your company.
Next time you start to create your social media content, remember your UX practices. It has to be useful, desirable, accessible, valuable, usable, credible, and findable.
Creating relationships
UX is excellent at building essential relationships. To do this, you need to make your website credible and deliver an experience that meets the user’s needs.
Perhaps the most critical aspect of establishing relationships is design. The website design is the first impression that your customer gets, which is super crucial, especially for campaigns.
Make sure that you’re always fighting for your user’s attention, tell an authentic story, and offer reliable products. This way, your campaign will be interacted with and shared.
If you launch a campaign, your users might just begin to research their company. Make sure you about page and contact page look professional and provide factual information.
Conduct usability testing
With e-commerce sites, every little detail can have significant consequences. Usability testing is crucial for every business, especially when it comes to campaigns.
You have to find if the design and function are working well, and which one is better for users. This might take a few tests, but business and web design is an ongoing process.
Experimenting and testing is the most important way to optimize the performance of your campaign. When you are conducting a UX usability test, make sure that your user isn’t left with any questions. That the graphics are eye-catching and that the call to actions is clear.
This will help e-commerce business get more leads, more signatures, and more sales – depending on what your campaign hopes to achieve.
With usability testing, you’ll save money and time, increase your revenue, and give your e-commerce site a better reputation.
Make sure your campaign is tested and optimized.
Track your metrics
To make sure your campaign is running smoothly, metrics are essential. This will provide insights into how your campaign works and how you can improve. Not all metrics are relevant to your campaign or your e-commerce site, so make sure you are tracking the right one.
To help in defining which metrics are essential to you, and which ones aren’t, you should split them into vanity and actionable metrics. This is a common UX strategy.
Vanity metrics include site visits, page views, social media engagements, and the time of the site.
Actionable metrics include usability, how your user interacts with the website, and conversion rate.
Use analytics to check these out, and find out how well your campaign is working.
Conclusion
UX practices ultimately impact and effect out campaigns in more ways than you might initially believe. The design of your website, your text, and your usability could make or break your campaign.
Ultimately, how usable your website is, will change who and how people interact with your campaign. You could be focusing all your attention in the wrong areas, which is where UX practices really benefit a campaign.
Whether it is on social media, a popup, or an exclusive email campaign – UX influences the campaign.
Daniela McVicker is a blogger with rich experience in writing about UX design, content planning, and digital marketing. Currently, she is the chief contributor at TopWritersReview where she helps individuals and organizations improve their web content writing, design, and planning skills. Her posts are always packed with examples and actionable content that readers can put straight into the action.
