Ecommerce websites by nature can get pretty big and detailed. Some ecommerce stores have hundreds or even thousands of products. However, ecommerce entrepreneurs can be a little overzealous in including too much information and data-heavy features. This can often lead to problems for your customers, and for your business.
Remember, the most effective websites are simple websites. Avoid using large images, bad code, and other detail-heavy features. Too much detail confuses customers, slows the loading time, and ultimately hurts your rankings in Google.
To keep your customers happy and able to find you via search engines, it’s important to avoid overloading your ecommerce website. Here are a few concerns associated with having too much going on with your website:
Confusing Your Customers
Have you ever visited a website that had way too much going on? You probably left that website right away. Websites with too many images or code-heavy features like JavaScript or Flash tend to have high bounce rates and low time spent on site.
If you’re putting in effort to drive traffic to your ecommerce store, don’t put your website at risk of losing all those potential customers. Internet users expect websites to load quickly. They also expect easy navigation and professional design. If your website visitors have to wait too long or struggle too much to see what you’re all about, they will leave.
Negative Conversion Effect
When there’s too many things happening on your ecommerce website, your visitors will get confused and leave without taking any desired action.
Remember, each page on your website should have a purpose and desired outcome for your user. A product page should lead a customer to purchase, or at least add to their wishlist or share on social media. A category page should display multiple related products that can easily be browsed. Even a blog post can have a purpose of collecting email addresses in exchange for a content bonus.
Websites with too many details often lack a clear direction for visitors to take. Keep it simple and always keep conversion goals in mind.
Mobile Consequences
More and more consumers are visiting websites via their mobile devices. Websites that have too many detailed features tend not to load well on smartphones and tablets. Not only will code-heavy features and large images slow the load time, they may be broken or unable to function on mobile devices anyway.
Mobile compatibility is another compelling reason to keep your website simple. Skip the pop-ups for mobile devices too, as they are especially interruptive on smaller screens. Google will actually be penalizing websites that use pop-ups on mobile websites soon.
Slow Load Time
Arguably the worst effect of detail-heavy features is the effect they have on load times. Website visitors expect your website to load quickly. In fact, surveys have found that over half of customers will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. There’s no time to waste!
Lots of large images files, embedded features, and other heavily coded features will severely affect the speed of your website. Keep your image sizes small and web friendly. A lot of ecommerce website builders, such as Shopify, offer resizing tools built in to their platforms.
Negative SEO Effects
Did you know that load time is a key factor in your Google rankings? It’s true. Google looks at how quickly your website loads when determining how to rank your site in search engine results. If your site has too much going on, customers who are looking for your products are less likely to see your business when they search on Google.
Remember, keep your ecommerce website simple and easy to navigate. By avoiding data overload, your customers will have a much better experience and will thank you for it by returning.
