Establishing an online presence with a website for a business is all about one thing—converting an audience into customers. To make that more likely, every aspect of the website should be focused towards that goal, including its very design. Web design is not just about looks, but also how it directs the users’ overall experience with the website. Therefore, to have a website with a good conversion rate, it should have a web design that makes it easy for potential customers to get into whatever you are offering them. Here are some of the things you can do to make that happen.
Fix Broken Links
One of the things you don’t want your visitors to find in your website is a 404 error. Broken links are a sign of sloppiness, which makes for a bad user experience. That results in potentially lower conversion rates, which is certainly not what you would want. When a user encounters a 404 in a website, they either look somewhere else or just give up altogether.
One of the major ways for preventing 404 errors is fixing all the broken links in your website. There are a few ways you can do this, like certain tools or plugins for searching broken links. You can also allow users to contact you to inform you of broken links and other problems. People do appreciate it when their concerns are given proper attention.
Clean and Simple Navigation
Having well-designed navigation helps users see what they are looking for quickly and easily.
This can be achieved by knowing what customers are likely to look for in your website, then making those things easily accessible through your navigation.
When something they want is difficult to find, potential customers will just get frustrated, leave your website, and find what they are looking for in a competitor’s website. If you want good navigation for your website, you should plan out its information architecture. Figure out the major categories of content in your website, boil it all down to the most important and sought-after ones, and feature them in your navigation.
Pick the Right Font for Your Website
You may not think that fonts are that big of a deal, but they pretty much make or break the web design. They dictate how readable the text on your website is, which has a direct correlation with the overall user experience and thus also the conversion rate.
There are a lot of good fonts that are free these days, such as those in Google Fonts and Font Squirrel. There are also premium font marketplaces like MyFonts and TypeKit that may have something you really want for your website and even your brand. Choose between Serif and Sans Serif, depending on what kind of brand you have, then go from there.
Whichever you choose, make sure you don’t end up using more than three of them in your website because that is just confusing. Have one for your body text, another one for your headlines and sub-headlines, and maybe another for other things. More than that, you are making your design look like a mess and it takes away from your website’s overall identity.
Go for Responsive Design.
Nowadays, not considering mobile platforms is a gaffe you can ill afford when it comes to your website. Around 31 percent of all traffic to the top websites in the world are said to be from mobile devices. The actual number may be more or less than that, but it is still a significant chunk that you should take mobile seriously when it comes to your web design.
Therefore, responsive design is the way to go in order to cover all your bases. Whether the website is being viewed on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone, it should look right so that it is accessible to whoever visits it. To not provide a good mobile user experience on your website is to exclude those potential customers, especially with the number of mobile users continuing to steadily rise.
Have a Blog
If your website does not already have a blog, then make one right now and update it regularly. The blog is a great way to create transparency as you can talk about news and whatever goes on inside your business (whatever you can talk about anyway). You can also talk about plans for expansion and announcements you may want your audience to know about.
If you already have a blog, then update it regularly. Make it and perhaps your business’ primary social media base of interaction with your audience.
Use High-Quality Images
Few things are worse than having low-quality images in a website. Not only does it give off a lack of professionalism, but also make your website less informative by having images that are not as clear as they should be.
If those low-quality images happen to be part of your web design, then you will have to replace them with custom graphics or photos you have taken yourself. Do whatever you can in order to improve those images without bloating the file sizes too much by using compression in order to maintain quick page loading times.
Maintain Quick Page Loading Times
If there is one thing that can tick people off, is a slow page loading times. Doing things on a website should have almost no delays going from page to page in order to give a seamless user experience. It should be fine to have a second or two of loading time, but more than that will result in lower conversion rates due to users no longer finding your website as useful as it could be.
The three main factors in page loading times are server performance, file sizes, and code. Having a web host that is fast in the first place with good network infrastructure is paramount for optimal performance. On your end, you should make sure that images and other files being regularly loaded are small while still maintaining a standard of quality. Finally, your code should be clean with little to no excess, so make sure you remove code that is not being used from your CSS and HTML files.
Simple Design Over Complex Noise
Web design is long past the time when having as many bells and whistles were the norm. Nowadays, minimalism is best, with only the most important elements being visible and everything else thrown out. This style of design became popular for one good reason—lack of distractions.
It is often said that less is more, and it is indeed true in today’s web design as people now favor a less cluttered design that can be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, some spring cleaning on your old web design would not go amiss.
Another benefit of keeping your web design minimal is faster page loading times, which is good for both user experience and search engine optimization.
Be Easy to Contact
Potential customers may want to get in touch with you, so you should make it as easy as possible for them by providing multiple channels of communication, with details visible right on your website. You can also have a contact form with a field for the name (optional), email address, and text for whatever they wish to ask or say to you.
That is also a good way to collect email addresses for your mailing list. You can then maintain some form of correspondence through your newsletter, thus reminding them that you are around.
Remove Your Social Media Feeds
Social media is everywhere at this point, so most people would think that it is a good idea to have a piece of it on their websites. However, having feeds in your website may be distracting and draw attention away from what can help with conversion. If you must have social media, have icons that link to your social media accounts placed in your footer or sidebar. This will ensure that they do not distract your audience and they can look at your social media only if they really want to.
Social Sharing Buttons Should Be Prominent
While you may want your social media to not be a distraction, users may still want to be able to share your content to their social media. That is why social sharing buttons should be readily accessible in order to let users know that they can share your content if they like it. It is like a call-to-action that is not too overt. If you can, place the social sharing buttons where they can be easily seen, like on top or on the side of the content. Make them prominent so they know they are there.
Minimize Errors
Whenever a potential customer sees an error on your website, like a typo, a wrong fact, a broken link, or an element out of place, that person may take it negatively. Such an impression may lead to that person not thinking highly of you and the brand. Some may be kind enough to drop a comment or contact you to make you aware of the error, while most would not want to waste their time on such frivolities.
If possible, do try to make sure there is nothing outright wrong on your website, whether it is the content or the other parts. Having other people look at it for you helps as well.
Determine Your Home Page Layout
The home page is the hub for all of your content. It also contains the links that lead to the other major pages on your website. To make it presentable and engaging at the same time, you must hit a balance between aesthetics, clarity, and usability at the same time, which is no easy task.
The simpler it is, the better. Take a look at the websites of the major competitors in your niche and see what they have in common. Take what you can use and add a bit of what is essentially your own in order to come up with a layout that can lead to higher conversion.
Make Call-to-Actions Prominent
The call-to-action is pretty much the most overt element in the website that is meant for conversion. Since the goal with a CTA is to have it be clicked by as many people as possible, it has to be visible while not being too distracting from the main content of your website.
Using a complementary color that perfectly contrasts the primary color of your design can do well for your call-to-action, especially if it is a button. It should also be supported by a good copy that does not just sell the point of the call-to-action, but also offer them a value they would gladly click for.
Keep the Trust Factor In Mind
Potential customers usually do not get converted due to a lack of trust, not knowing if the business is good enough to merit their patronage. Then again, even when there is no selling of products of services, building trust is still imperative.
There are various ways web design can build that trust, in both subtle and overt ways, to increase conversion rate. Every bit counts, after all, when it comes to the goal of conversion.
For instance, having social proof is one of the best ideas to build trust as you can show how other customers have put their trust in your business. You can put in reviews and testimonials that can be easily verified to have that social proof built into your website. If your business ever got featured on a well-known website, then you can show them off. Other than that, just having a good design is in itself a factor to building trust with potential customers.
Conclusion
These are only some of the things you can do to have a web design that helps maximize conversions. If you wish to ask a question or share something you may know about how web design can encourage conversion, please feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you for dropping by.
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