Your Website Layout Is Important

The look and feel of your website is a very important aspect in terms of increasing sales. You want to make sure that customers can easily find what they are looking for, and purchase those products quickly with fewer clicks or looking around. Here are some basic tips when designing your website.

• Clear And Pronounced Calls-To-Action. Create clear buttons or steps for the customer to follow to purchase your products. The more clicks it takes to purchase a product, the more likely you are to lose the customer's interest and their business. You should be able to purchase products on your home page, or within one click of the home page. "Add To Cart" buttons and "Checkout" buttons should be high on your pages and should be a bright or contrasting color so that they stand out. It is also helpful to make the calls-to-action slightly larger.
• Keep Navigation Simple. If you have complex navigation, too much navigation, or any type of navigation that is confusing or that could distract the customer from finding the link that they are looking for, then you are likely to lose their business. Links that are not as popular, or links that customers do not need to use often you should put in the footer, or at least below the fold on the page.
• Display Safe Shopping And Security Logos. Customers should feel comfortable when they are purchasing products from your website. You will want to include different security logos on your website indicating that your website is secure; this will put your customers' minds at ease. You can get these logos by using the ShopSite security logo, contacting your SSL provider to get their logo, as well as contacting your credit card processor to get their logo. At the very minimum, these logos should be placed on the cart pages where the customer is entering their personal information, but it is useful to have them throughout your website.
• Include All Store Information. Providing "About Us," "Contact Us," "Privacy Policy," and "Return Policy" pages and information will allow customers to get all their questions about you and your company answered before they purchase from your website.
• Clearly Indicate Checkout Process. In addition to letting the customer see their final shipping, tax and order costs before continuing through the checkout process, you will want to have a checkout process indicator to let customers know how far along in the checkout process they are. If you have three steps, (1) Shopping Cart, (2) Shipping & Billing, (3) Receipt, you will want to list all three steps on the first page of the checkout, so that customers know how long it takes to checkout. Once the customer moves to the Shipping & Billing screen, the progress bar should indicate that they are at step 2 of 3.

ShopSite On YouTube

One of my responsibilities as a ShopSite employee is to setup video tutorials for merchants using the ShopSite shopping cart software. Now that the collection of video tutorials is getting quote large, we, at ShopSite, have begun uploading these tutorials on YouTube.com. This makes it easier and quicker for merchants to view the videos, and also allows for play-lists of videos. One of the newest play-lists of video tutorials is the Quick & Easy Template Tutorial. This video tutorial play-list shows you how to setup custom templates for your ShopSite store from start to finish using the Quick & Easy Template Tutorial available on ShopSite.

New Release Of ShopSite - New Templates Available

With the new release of ShopSite, v10 sp2, there are new templates available which are built within the ShopSite shopping cart software. 11 new templates to be exact. All of these templates were created by yours truly :). I am going to be introducing templates which you can purchase on my http://www.laurenhillsdesign.com website which utilize the new templates added in this release.

What does this mean for you? This means that with future upgrades, these templates will automatically have the new features. You don't need to hire a designer (such as myself) to add them in for you, they will already be there.

New - Basic Three Column Tabbed

There is a new template available from Lauren Hills Design, Basic Three Column Layout. This template is currently available in three colors, but I will be adding more. The design has a clean header area with the search field being a prominent feature for your customers. Below the header is the tabbed navigation section. You can specify any links that you would like for these tabs. Below the tabs you have three columns, the left column for page links, the center column for your page information including a section for best sellers, and a right column which displays the mini cart and any other information that you would like.

This template is very search engine friendly. The code is setup so that the main content on the page is the first thing that the search engine will index. The template is completely done in CSS. It also has a footer section for you to add more links, repeat your meta keywords and provide additional information about your online store making it better for search engines.

Checkout the new template here.

Certified ShopSite Designer

Lauren Hills Design is now part of the ShopSite "Certified ShopSite Designer" program. This means that I have created enough ShopSite stores with pleased merchants, that ShopSite has approved me as one of their certified designers.

I have displayed the Certified ShopSite Designer logo (shown to the right) on my website. I will also soon be listed as one of the Certified ShopSite Designers on the ShopSite website (http://shopsite.com/csd.html).

The Beginning

New templates have been posted on the http://laurenhillsdesign.com website. These pre-built templates are a great way to start your website. You will be able to get a more customized look than the built-in ShopSite templates, but will save on having a design create a custom design. There are 10 new templates listed. Most are using dark background for an edgy look. I will be setting up lighter, cleaner color schemes for these same templates.