The ability to turn spectators into loyal consumers is a result of multiple techniques and methods that marketers from any seasoned UX company usually implement to create web content. Your website is more than a platform where you display your offer or provide online services, it’s also a negotiation tool that can persuade a visitor to sign up for your newsletter or buy a certain product.
Most business owners aren’t satisfied with their conversion rate, mainly due to the immense competition, which is why we have created this article. We’ll take a look at five pieces of advice that can help boost website conversion rates using design techniques that enhance usability, performance, and overall user experience.
Have a Clear Value Proposition
Your website should be user-oriented, as many marketers and web designers propose, but it should radiate your brand and everything your business stands for. The Unique Selling Point (USP) or Value Proposition is a short message that outlines that one aspect of your brand that separates you from the rest of the market.
Unless your product is unique and there’s no competition for your business, you need to give people a practical, financial, or some other value that other brands can’t compete with. Furthermore, message design should keep up with the rest of your brand identity in terms of typesetting and voice.
Besides the design features, which should follow your visual brand identity up to a fault, your USP should be easy to notice on the spot. This way, you’ll grab the attention of your audience and give them an extra reason to consider your offer.
Leverage the Rule of Thirds
English painter, John Thomas Smith, coined the term “Rule of Thirds” to explain his view of ideal photography composition. This rule dictates that we can pinpoint four focus points on any image by placing a 3×3 grid over the canvas. The four points, where horizontal and vertical grid lines intercross, grab our eyes’ attention immediately.
If you create a grid with two horizontal and two vertical lines forming nine equally-sized boxes within your webpage display, you can distinguish four major points of interest where you can place your USP, Call to Action, or whichever content that you wish to draw the attention of your visitors.
If your budget isn’t big enough to hire a professional designer or SEO specialist, there’s a website analysis tool that can help you to find all technical issues on website and improve website’s ranking.
Reduce User Clicks
Speed is one of the most important internet features and one of the main reasons why this technology took over the world in such a short time. Internet keeps us from standing in queues, waiting for days to receive a mail, lets us send digital content immediately as well as digitize printed media for online sharing and streaming. It’s fair to say that the internet made us less patient and always in need of faster and more efficient solutions.
If your visitors need to go through a series of steps before finishing a certain task on your website, it’s not going to keep them around for long and you’ll see your conversion rates dropping like the rain. However, reducing user interaction, automating a certain process, and generally creating an intuitive website design makes it easier for a visitor to reach a certain page or sign up for a service.
It’s a good idea to offer your visitors the chance to buy products on your website without creating an account. The signup process takes time, and if a user is not interested or in a hurry due to a limited-offer you may lose a potential sale simply because you asked for too many clicks.
Use “Hick’s Law” in your design
Understanding the difference between web design and web development is very important. There’s a psychology principle, called “Hick’s Law“, that shows that providing more choice options to a person will prolong the decision-making process, ultimately even leading that person from making a choice. The same rule is one of the cornerstones of high-converting websites which provide visitors only with the most essential, while also leaving room for more specified adjustments for those who need such perks.
This includes removing unnecessary fields form your subscription form, personalized content display, and in some cases even removing Anti-Bot confirmation. Keep your design simple and smart, making sure that each page gives your viewers just what they need. A good example of the use of Hick’s Law is Coca-Cola’s website design that shows nothing but reveals everything with clever MENU categorization.
Use the 8-Second Rule
According to scientific research published in Time magazine, the human attention span is reduced to a period of eight seconds before we start losing interest. This means that from the moment a user clicks the link to your landing page, the 8-second countdown begins. If the visitor doesn’t reach your content on time due to slow website performance, too much useless content, or simply the lack of valuable website design tips, it’s likely that you’ll lose that person together with the hope for improvement of your conversion figures.
To ensure the full measure of your 8-second window keep your website performance optimal, emphasize Call to Action buttons, use colors that grab attention or post multimedia content with attractive visuals and audio.
Conclusion
These were five pieces of advice that should let you in on how to design a website that drives conversions. It’s of utmost importance to implement these tips creatively and according to your target audience and industry. Perhaps some of these options aren’t suitable for your niche, so pay close attention to your needs. Analyze your traffic data to understand the weak points that prevent growth and see if any of these tips hold the solution for your problems.
