When a shopper lands on your online store, they’ll decide within the first few seconds whether they want to stick around and shop or look elsewhere. The initial impression your site makes on new visitors needs to count, which means that it needs to be simple and professional.

Don’t be tempted to cram too much information or too many elements above the fold (the part of the page you can see without scanning). Include only necessary information and elements, like your name and logo, your navigation bar and buttons — and focus on only one call to action.

In most cases, the first thing new website visitors will notice are your images. In addition to keeping your e-commerce website design simple, to create a professional online store, you also need to use beautiful, high-quality images.

Don’t be tempted to use manufacturer’s images or stock footage. Have professional pictures taken of your products from multiple angles, giving your shoppers the best possible preview before they decide to buy.

If you’ve had a chance to read many Websites 360® blogs, I don’t need to tell you how important quality website content is for your user experience — not to mention your organic visibility on search engines. But, on an e-commerce website, content shouldn’t be the star of the show.

The content on your e-commerce website needs to be informative, keyword-rich and well-written, but it should also be easy to scan so that your visitors can get what they need and move on. This is especially important for mobile users who will get turned off by a wall of text.

Unless you have a truly niche product offering, chances are, you have lots of competition out there vying for the exact same shoppers. You need to give shoppers a reason to choose you, and nothing is more convincing than customer testimonials.

While you should absolutely have product reviews on your product pages, you should also highlight customer testimonials on the homepage (and landing pages) of your website. You can never have too much social proof!

Regardless of whether someone lands on your homepage, a product page, your About Us page or any other page on your website, there should be no question as to whether or not it’s your site. This is accomplished through consistent branding.

Branding is more than just using your business name and logo. It also involves keeping the colors, font sizes and styles, imagery and more consistent across every page of your e-commerce website.

Some of your website visitors will be there to browse and shop around. Others are looking for a specific product, and the ease of which they find what they are looking for depends on how you design your website navigation.

Make it easy for your shoppers to find exactly what they are looking for by using a simple, menu-style navigation, with your categories and subcategories laid out intuitively. Also, if you have lots of products or categories, consider adding a search bar where shoppers can type in what they’re looking for.

On most small business websites, the homepage is the star of the show and where most of the effort goes. On an e-commerce website, however, almost no other page is more important than the product pages.

Your product pages need to have everything your shoppers are looking for: a good description of the product, beautiful product images from a variety of angles, product specifications and features, price and customers reviews.