Your eCommerce website design must give visitors the information they want about your products, your organisation, and your capabilities to deliver …. and you must give it to them quickly, in a concise, easy to follow manner!

Visitors come to your website because they are searching for a way to fulfil a need, not to be entertained.The intention of your website should not be to entertain visitors with non-relevant graphics, flash, or audio presentations. They are probably visiting several eCommerce websites in the process, including your immediate competition.

One of the traps many website owners fall into is thinking they have to make a BIG IMPRESSION on visitors through fantastic web design, graphics, flash movies, and sound.

Yet if you visit websites of successful online traders - the ones making real money on the internet - such as Amazon, Google, MSN, LlBean.com, Landsend.com, etc, their websites get straight to the cut – product comparisons and the benefits they can offer consumers!

THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL because they give web visitors what they are looking for and they give it to them without a lot of fuss and bother.

Yes, you need good design and yes you can use flash, videos, and sound providing it is relevant and necessary to give your reader the information they require to make a decision.

But keep in mind the faster you serve up relevant information to your eCommerce website visitors and the more chance you have of a sale.

On arriving at your eCommerce website visitors are not necessarily looking for the cheapest price – they are more likely comparing reliability of supply, quality, product options, and features of your product or service that gives them benefits over what your opposition has to offer.

You need to offer benefits to the visitor that they cannot obtain from your competitor …. and that should not just be “lower price” unless you have a buying advantage that lets you do so profitably.

Even in cases where online opposition is offering exactly the same product at a lower price, you can win the sale by providing a higher perception of your services and reliability through benefit-rich web content.

Information, such as non-relevant links, over-the-top design, looney characters running around the screen, visitor counters, etc, simply distract visitors and encourage them to leave your website.

Trust can be built through providing full contact information, i.e. legal name of company, street address, telephone numbers, the names of key people in your organisation, real testimonials from previous customers, and by ensuring your website looks professional.

Build on that trust through maintaining on-going contact with your visitors and customers. You can do this easily by integrating email newsletter and promotion software, coupled with an autoresponder program into your website.

By offering incentives in your email newsletter, such as user tips, detailed product information, comparative shopping articles, discount vouchers, special offers, etc., visitors will be more inclined to opt-in to your ecommerce newsletter and to buy with confidence.

Visitors often do not buy on the first visit to your website. They may be surfing information to assist them in a buying decision at a later date, or they may be collecting information for someone else.

By keeping your business in front of prospective buyers you build their trust and position yourself ahead of competition when they finally do make a buying decision.

In summary, make your eCommerce website content-rich, remove non-relevant content and distracting elements, and build trust through ongoing email newsletter contact. You will be amazed at how quickly your online eCommerce business will grow.