It’s thought that to be a success in business you need a new concept, a new angle, something that makes you stand out from the crowd. With web design however, this could not be further from the truth.
In fact, making design choices to distinguish you from the competition can, and will have a detrimental effect on your success. We’ve chosen five example ecommerce websites to compare, all of them extremely successful at turning visitors into sales. You will notice that each site follows the same design style, not because of a lack of originality, but because it works, and it makes money.
Each one of these website has been constructed using a three column layout, with the product information in the middle. They all position the product images aligned to the left, with the information, price and buy buttons to the right. The price is always a different colour, the product text is always dark (usually black) and the background is always white.
The primary navigation is always at the top, usually in a tab layout, and the secondary navigation, or sub categories are always down the left side. The third, right side column is used for adverts and chart listings, always. The website, or brand logo is always featured at the top left of the page, and is a link to the home page of the website.
The secret is, rather than trying to be different from your competition – simply to be better than them. Offer clarity of design, more information and better images. The success of all of these websites can be measured by the volume, and quality of the information they provide. The golden rule is always ‘content is King’. Forget that, and you are doomed to failure.
Source web sites:
www.amazon.co.uk
www.play.com
www.dvd.co.uk
www.game.co.uk
www.sendit.com
Darren Jamieson, former member of the flock & undisputed king of the internet
