Let’s say you’ve already gotten users to check out your site. The visits keep piling up every day, but you’ve started to notice that these users aren’t converting into buyers.
Wondering what you’re doing wrong? Don’t worry! Here are four simple website design tweaks you can make to get your users converting.
Consistency is key
With too many ideas and themes, your site may end up looking messy and disorganized.
It would be helpful to think of your site as a visual story that you want to tell your users, where your CTA (call-to-action) is the protagonist.
The first step is consistency, which will help you keep your web design clean and uniform. For your background, you might want to use white or lighter colors to keep your viewers focused on your CTA.
For your color scheme, keep in mind that different colors trigger different responses. This infographic of what kind of message colors typically convey may help guide you in making your choice:
Image source: ideas.overnightprints.com
Think of what response you want from your target viewer. You can also appeal to what experiences users associate with certain colors.
For example, if you are selling a line of summer wear, you might want to use light blues and yellows to call back users to sunny beaches and light breeze.
You can also check out LOLcolors for more color schemes.
Typography is essential to creating a good look for your site. Always prioritize your content, so choose fonts that are simple and easy to read.
Use a maximum of three fonts, which should complement each other. Good font pairings make your site more pleasing to the eye.
Use videos and images
Users these days will only stay on a site for a short amount of time before moving on to the next. You can keep your user’s attention by making use of quality images and videos.
Choose an image or a series of images that represent your CTA well. Like with your color scheme and typography, your images must also be consistent and striking.
Make sure your images are of good quality. PNG files tend to look better on the Web than JPG, so try to choose images in this format.
You can also replace categories with images, since images don’t hurt SEO (search engine optimization) and actually generate traffic from search engines.
This can also encourage conversion, as your users will have help understanding or relating to your CTA.
A video might be a better choice than long paragraphs of text because users will likely opt to watch a video with good quality rather than be forced into reading a lot. Try to keep it to one or two videos.
Make it interactive
A good way to get users converting is to get them to interact with your site.
By allowing them to engage, you are making users feel comfortable with your site and at the same time directing them to your CTA more efficiently.
The Urban Ministries of Durham’s Playspent site is a great example of this.
To raise awareness about poverty and homelessness, they have users play a game in which they are unemployed, have no remaining material assets, and only have $1000 for the rest of the month.
This helps users understand their CTA better and encourages them to donate.
Image source: playspent.org
Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be too complicated! For example, you can create quizzes where users can find out which of your products best suit their personality.
Getting users to interact with your site also triggers a feeling of reciprocity in your user; meaning they are more likely to perform your CTA because they feel they’ve already benefitted from you.
Manage your priorities
Keeping unnecessary elements makes your site seem unprofessional and difficult to navigate. This might lead to users losing interest in your CTA, if they are overwhelmed by too many distractions.
To declutter, consider what each page on your site contributes to what you want to achieve. Ask yourself the following:
- Is it a working link? Will the user have any difficulty accessing it?
- Does it inform your user about and encourage users towards your CTA?
If any part of your site doesn’t meet those standards, it might be time to remove it.
Fix broken links and, just in case you missed a few, create a creative Error 404 page that allows your user to inform you about it.
Provide ways to lead your user to your search button using design. Some websites that have the goal of leading users to their directory have search buttons on their landing page.
Otherwise, place the search button on the header or anywhere visible and easily identifiable by the user.
Conclusion
Don’t be intimidated by design! Just remember to keep your site simple, navigable and creative.
With a few easy tweaks, you can improve the overall user experience and increase conversions on your website.
About the Author
Michie Victoriano is a Marketing Researcher and Analyst with more than 6 years’ experience in marketing, research, analytics and online marketing; with 2 years experience in Search Engine Optimization. She is a freelancer who also enjoys playing video games and basketball, and loves coffee way too much.
Featured image:
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
