If your business sells tangible products, you need to have a strong online presence.
But with so much competition in the ecommerce space, it can be tough for you to establish your ground. Not only are you competing with local and regional brands, but you also have to deal with international giants such as Amazon and Walmart.
That’s why it’s important for you to focus on every detail of your ecommerce website and learn how to design a homepage that converts.
This guide is useful to everyone. Whether you are a brick and mortar retailer expanding into online business, a company that operates strictly through the Internet, or something in between, you’ll benefit from these tips.
It also doesn’t matter whether you’re building a new website or making changes to your existing one.
Following these 21 best practices will help you increase conversions for your ecommerce store. You’ll also be able to generate more leads and add additional sales revenue to your bottom line.
1. Avoid clutter
Ecommerce websites with simple designs have higher conversion rates. Take a look at your homepage right now.
What’s the first thing a visitor sees?
There should be a clear point of focus. The visitor’s eyes should be drawn straight to a CTA button or products you sell.
Avoid visual noise that competes with your primary action. If a user can’t immediately tell what to do next, they bounce—often within seconds.
2. Simplify your menus
Menus are a great way to stay organized and group what you’re selling. But as just mentioned, you don’t want to overcomplicate things.
Too many menu categories will confuse the consumer, preventing them from finding what they’re looking for.
Your menu shouldn’t be super specific. Instead, use broad terms to categorize your products.
For example, let’s say your ecommerce brand sells clothing with items such as:
- T-shirts
- Long sleeve shirts
- Sweaters
- Tank tops
- Vests
Rather than having five different menu options for each of these choices, you can group them into one category: “tops.”
3. Add a search bar
Let’s continue talking about simplicity.
Now that you’ve removed some clutter and simplified your menu options, you’ll still need to make additional changes. Since visitors will have fewer menu selections, they’ll see more products when they click on each category.
We know some of you may not have a ton of products for sale, but other ecommerce sites could have hundreds or potentially thousands of options to choose from.
Forcing users to scroll through these choices randomly won’t drive sales and conversions. Implementing a prominent search bar with helpful filters (brand, size, price, availability, delivery speed, etc.) is the best solution.
If you use this strategy, make sure all your products are clearly tagged with the appropriate labels. Then the search results will be accurately displayed for each shopper’s query.
4. Buy a premium web hosting service
Speed is one of the most important elements of a successful ecommerce website. Each page needs to load fast to yield high conversions.
But if you buy a budget web hosting plan, it’ll cost you in the long run.
Google’s research shows that as page load time goes from 1 to 3 seconds, the probability of a bounce jumps by 32%—and it gets worse from there. Source.
Beyond raw speed, aim to pass Core Web Vitals—LCP within 2.5s and INP under 200ms—since these are tied to real-user experience and search visibility. Source.
Even worse than a slow loading time is site crashes, glitches, or error reports.
That’s why you’re better off spending the money on a premium web hosting plan now as opposed to dealing with these headaches later. Trust us, it’s worth the investment.
5. Eliminate steps in your checkout process
Once a website visitor decides to buy something, they should find it easy to complete the purchase. It’s your job to make it so.
Each additional step in the checkout process increases the chances of abandonment. “Too long/complicated checkout” remains a common reason shoppers quit.
The key here is to get only essential information from the buyer.
There’s no reason to ask for their mother’s maiden name, the first concert they attended, or their favorite vacation spot.
Get their billing information and shipping address. That’s all you need to process a transaction.
6. Don’t force shoppers to create a profile (but encourage it)
As we just said, you want your buyers to go through the checkout process as quickly as possible.
Offer a guest checkout option instead of forcing visitors to create a profile. Forcing account creation is still a top abandonment driver (roughly one in five shoppers). Source.
That said, you can still encourage profiles by clearly showing benefits like order tracking, faster returns, saved addresses, and express checkout. If you collect marketing consent, don’t pre-check boxes in regions that require explicit opt-in.
7. Send shopping cart abandonment emails
Once a user sets up their profile, you can tell when they add something to their shopping cart without buying it. Don’t ignore this.
You’re missing out on money.
Often, they were just a click or two away from completing the transaction. Clearly, they were interested in the product enough to add it to their cart.
Sending an email reminding the shopper about the item—ideally with a product image and a direct “Resume checkout” link—can be enough to finalize the sale.
8. Prioritize SEO
Not everyone who wants what you’re selling will navigate straight to your website.
More US shoppers start their journeys on marketplaces than anywhere else, though search engines have been gaining share again—so you need both strong organic search visibility and a marketplace strategy where relevant. Source.
If your ecommerce site isn’t among the top search results, many buyers will choose a competitor or even buy directly on a marketplace. Invest in technical SEO, intent-matched content, and product detail pages that can rank.
9. Write blog posts on a regular basis
How often will the same person visit your ecommerce website?
Chances are, they’re not buying something every day. They probably won’t buy something even once a week. Only your top customers might shop once per month.
If people aren’t on your website, they obviously can’t spend any money.
Running a blog in addition to your ecommerce site is a great way to build a strong following. Now people have a reason to check out your site on a daily or weekly basis.
Once they’re on the site, they’ll be more likely to buy something.
10. Build an email subscriber list
To have a successful ecommerce site, you need to have lots of visitors ready to buy. But how are you planning on driving traffic to your site?
Building an ecommerce email list is one of your best options. Once you have a subscriber’s email address, you can contact them with special offers and promotions to entice sales.
Collect email addresses during checkout and on key pages, but use clear value (welcome discounts, early access) and explicit consent—especially for regions with strict privacy laws.
Once people are added to your list, it’s the perfect opportunity for you to send them personalized offers to drive traffic to your website and increase sales.
You can even offer an incentive for shoppers to sign up for emails, such as a discount off their next purchase.
11. Accept as many payment options as possible
You can’t assume everyone has a Visa or MasterCard.
Even if they do, that doesn’t mean it’s their preferred payment option.
Offer major cards plus popular wallets (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay) and, where appropriate, BNPL options. “Not enough payment methods” still causes some shoppers to abandon. Source.
12. Write informative product descriptions
You can’t sell something with just a name. Each product on your website needs to have an informative description.
But make sure you avoid large blocks of text. Keep these descriptions short and to the point.
Explain how the product works by highlighting the key benefits. You don’t need to explain the entire history of the product or how it was made. That won’t drive sales.
You can even use bullet points to make it easy for consumers to scan through the text and read the description.
13. Get rid of ads
Some of you may be using your ecommerce site as a platform to sell advertisement space to other brands. Don’t do it. You could be making a big mistake if you do.
Sure, you may get some additional income. But it’s not worth turning away your own customers.
Sidebar ads and popups can look like spam. A visitor may be afraid to click through your site for the fear that they’ll be redirected somewhere else that’s untrustworthy.
Shoppers still report that intrusive ads disrupt the buying experience. Remove them and reclaim the space for value props, social proof, and clear CTAs.
14. Provide easily accessible customer service
Not all of the transactions on your ecommerce site will go smoothly.
Customers will have questions and problems. This is inevitable.
When people are experiencing an issue, such as finding a product or troubleshooting an item they have previously purchased, you want to make sure they can get help as soon as possible.
Offer multiple support options (live chat, email, phone). Publish clear SLAs and hours, surface help on PDPs and cart, and consider proactive live chat for checkout friction.
15. Run tests and analyze the results
How do you know if your ecommerce site is set up for the highest possible conversions?
You don’t.
But if you run A/B tests on a regular basis, you’ll have a much better understanding.
Now you can adjust the CTA placement, its phrasing, or button color. Determine which landing pages are driving the most sales.
Based on the results of your tests, you can make the necessary adjustments, increasing the chances of your success.
16. Go mobile
Your ecommerce site needs to be optimized for mobile devices.
Mobile now accounts for roughly half of US ecommerce sales and a majority of global ecommerce.
You can’t afford to exclude mobile shoppers. If you want to take your mobile strategy to the next level, consider a high-performing app or PWA for your ecommerce business (apps capture a significant share of mobile orders).
This is the ultimate way to personalize the consumer shopping experience. Plus, you can save user information on file, such as their payment options and shipping address.
Now they can check out and complete each purchase in just a few clicks as opposed to having to enter their credit card for every transaction.
17. Offer free shipping
It’s simple: don’t surprise customers with shipping costs.
Extra costs (shipping, tax, fees) remain the #1 reason shoppers abandon their carts. If you can’t offer blanket free shipping, use transparent shipping calculators and set clear free-shipping thresholds.
If needed, price products to cover average shipping or bake it into bundles to avoid sticker shock at checkout.
18. Partner with brand influencers
Establishing credibility is one of the best ways to drive sales and have a successful ecommerce website.
Having a creator with a strong social following (and real audience fit) endorse your site will make you seem more legitimate. This won’t be free, but it can yield a high ROI—especially with creator-led product demos and authentic UGC.
Just make sure you’re working with someone related to your industry.
If you’re selling skateboards and related products, having an influencer who has never skateboarded won’t have much of an impact on your sales.
19. Display high quality product images
Having an ecommerce shop means customers don’t get to touch and feel the products the same way they can in a physical store.
They rely on pictures to give them a sense of what they’re buying.
Take multiple pictures from every angle of each product you’re selling, include 360°/zoom where it helps, and show scale and materials. It’s tedious—but necessary.
Zoom in and highlight all the top features and benefits.
20. Give video demonstrations
Sometimes, images aren’t enough.
If you’re selling something requiring a demonstration, add a video.
Recent surveys show the large majority of consumers say a brand’s video has convinced them to buy a product or service. Source.
Use short, benefit-led clips on PDPs (and longer how-tos post-purchase) to reduce hesitation and returns.
21. Feature customer reviews and testimonials
Testimonials and reviews are another way to add credibility to your products and brand.
It’s important that you include these on your ecommerce site.
After a customer buys something, send them a follow-up email asking them to review the item they bought. Just make sure you give them enough time to use it before you ask for their feedback.
We realize this can be scary for some of you. Not everyone will be happy with your products, and the idea of negative comments being publicly displayed can be frightening to some brands.
But that’s OK. Don’t let a few bad reviews discourage you. Look on the bright side of it.
This will show shoppers the reviews and testimonials on your site are legitimate and trustworthy. A couple of negative remarks can make your positive reviews appear that much more powerful.
Conclusion
Running a successful ecommerce website is not an easy task.
Fortunately, you can do many things to improve your chances of driving sales and keeping your customers coming back for more.
Don’t let this list of best practices intimidate you. We don’t expect you to implement all 21 of these overnight.
That said, you should start to identify changes that need to be made and prioritize the ones you think are the most important.