With COVID-19 wreaking havoc in 213 countries and territories, businesses are in a tight spot as they have to change their strategies.

Since remote work is gathering significance, the profitability of major industry sectors is taking a hit. We are looking at a global recession, since global trade supply and production of goods has ceased completely.

With lockdown imposed worldwide, the brick-and-mortar businesses will remain closed. And, people will have to rely on e-commerce websites for basic commodities required for sustaining life. Now, to cater to the surge of demand for consumer products, web designers have a huge responsibility on their shoulders.

Let us see how they can cope with the pressure.

There is a Steady Increase in Online Grocery Stores

The demand for web designers had been low all this time. But, there’s a chance that COVID-19 could radically change the equation in favour of the web designers. If the statistics are to be believed, then there has been a 600% rise in the delivery of vegetables (as per French retailer Carrefour), and the scenario is similar everywhere around the globe.

To meet the enormous demands, the skills of the web designers will be put to test. Some of the web designing skills that will prove to be beneficial in this black swan episode have been highlighted below. Furthermore, if you are writing an assignment on the skills that web designers should master, you will get optimum assignment help here.

Web Designing Techniques that Will Play a Crucial Role

The onus will be on the web designers, and they need to focus on the following:

1. User Experience (UX)

User experience is the key to fetch more sales and traffic for the e-commerce website. Moreover, UX is a concept that deals with the perception of the consumers after they have interacted with the website. 88% of online consumers say that they won’t return to a particular website if they have a bad experience. Thus, the interface has to be top-notch so that consumers can notice products and read the description along with the pricing.

Therefore, as a web designer, you must check:

• Bound Percentage and Time Spent: Go to Google Analytics and click on “Behavior”, ‘Site Content” and “All Pages” to see the metrics of your website.
• Heat Maps: It is a tool that lets you know the areas where the users click the most. It will help you optimize the product cards and find the drop-off points.
• Web Architecture: 70% of online businesses fail because of poor usability. Thus, you should structure the categories and subcategories in the product list so that the consumers can find what they need in an instant.
• Breadcrumbs: These are like route maps that inform the consumers the path they have to take to reach their destination. For instance: Pantry/Cooking Essentials/Vegetable Oil.
• Infinite Scroll and Lazy Loads: Since most consumers rely on smartphones to place their orders, the infinite scroll feature will enable the consumer to move around without clicking on buttons.

Moreover, you must also modify the auto-completion process so that the website engine displays more options from which the consumers can select the desired result.

2. E-Commerce Analytics and SEO

To maintain social distancing, people will be buying groceries, medical supplies and other essentials online. So, the competition between the various e-commerce websites will be fierce. If you have been tasked with the enhancement of the web design, your next focus should be on e-commerce SEO strategy. This involves:

• Keyword Research: Check for the keyword types that the customers are searching. It is predicted that inbound marketing or leads will have a close rate of 14.6%, in comparison to 1.7% for outbound leads. If you want your website to get a higher ranking on Google, you must optimize your website accordingly.
• On-Page SEO: Through strategic keyword optimization in meta tags and content, you can improve the On-Page SEO.
• Technical SEO: To make sure that the search engines can crawl your e-commerce website effectively, you have to look into the technical SEO.
• Local SEO: To ensure more engagement in the e-commerce website, check the Local SEO. It is extremely useful in optimizing the online presence and helps in drawing more attention from the relevant local searches.

Apart from this, you have to gauge your SEO success from time to time. It will help you analyze whether the strategies you have put in place are working or not.

3. CyberSecurity

With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading like wildfire, hackers have targeted individuals and industries with coronavirus-themed cyberattacks. They are sending phishing emails, and have started campaigns like COVID-19 tax refund, Click here for a cure, Little Measure that saves, etc.

Thus, you have to be cautious so that there is no malicious activity in the e-commerce site you are designing. You need to prevent:

• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
• Malware and Ransomware attack
• Cross-site scripting
• SQL Injection

Moreover, you need to have the following:

• A proper backup system to retrieve the data easily if the website is compromised.
• A strong firewall to make it difficult for hackers to breach the network
• Monitor cloud-based resources (cloud security) to ensure that there is no unauthorized access from third parties

Big enterprises like Amazon, eBay, etc. have a robust cybersecurity system in place. And, there is 24*7 monitoring. Thus, you can use certain pointers from these big establishments and enforce it in the e-commerce site you are handling.

Due to the unbridled spread of SARS-COV-2 virus, the attitude of people is likely to change. There will be less human contact, and social distancing will prevail for the next three to four months, if not more. So, people will be heavily dependent on online retail stores for purchasing daily products.

Thus, if you had been waiting to show off your skills as a web designer, you must keep an eye out. There is a chance that the demand for web designers will increase in a year or so.