17 ways to use website design to make your website sell more
A great website design is a balance between form and function. This means that you need to have a website that has an appealing design without sacrificing any of the websites functionality or usability. When an online user is coming to a website for the first time, they quickly do a visual skim of the website to see if what is on the screen matches what they are looking for and meets their expectations. If it doesn’t, the user quickly goes back to the search results and clicks on the next website. Your business is being judged within a matter of milliseconds by what the visitor sees. In order to get your online visitors staying longer on your website and viewing your unique product or service offering, you need to be making a better first impression.
How do you make a beautifully designed and user-friendly website sell more products for your business? Here are 17 first impression design tips to help increase sales from your business website:
1) Don’t stun your new visitor like a deer in the headlights
Make sure that the content on your homepage is visually organized and neat. There is nothing worse that going to a new website homepage and it is filled with bright bold colours and sale items everywhere. Too much information all over the place hurts my eyes. I just don’t know where to look. Generally with website design – less is more. Just think about Apple’s website. It is simple and extremely successful.
2) Dare to be different
Be unique in the design of your website. Don’t use readily available templates that a million other businesses are using. Anyone who knows what they are looking at will be able to tell that your website looks just like a clone of other sites. If you have a product or service that is offered by other businesses then this is a way to make your stand out with a unique website design and layout.
3) Pleasing fonts
A website’s typography plays a big role in retaining visitors. Have a think about the demographic of visitors that are going to be coming to your website and using your product or service offering. Use an appropriate font and text size for the personality and nature of your target audience.
4) Colour combo’s
Once again keep your target market in mind when choosing the colour scheme for your website. Consider their age, gender, maturity, personality and purchasing power. Understanding colour psychology is critical for increasing online conversions on your business website. Colour is one of the most influential visual cues when influencing a visitors purchasing decisions. Make sure you do a bit of research into colour psychology before picking out the colours for your website.
5) Say it with images
If your choice of colours are an important conversion element of website design, then your choice of pictures are right up there as well. High quality images (that don’t take forever to load) go a long way to making a positive first impression on your online visitor. Spend the cash and get a professional photographer to photograph your products and the store. If you are selling services and want to do things a little bit cheaper. Invest in some stock images to add visual value to your businesses website.
6) Time is of the essence
I alluded to it in the previous point. Load speed for a website is another super important factor. Your online visitors have no patience whatsoever. Don’t keep them waiting with a slow loading website. Yes it might be great to have a whole bunch of high quality pretty pictures and videos on your homepage, but what is the point in having them if the visitor is clicking off the site before they get a chance to load? Work out the balance between having a large amount of content and having a fast load time. Use a free online photo compression software to get those images loading faster without sacrificing quality.
7) Don’t listen to the girls – Size matters
Online visitors are browsing the web and accessing your sites on a range of different devices such as phones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers. Your website needs to be scalable so that it still looks good no matter what device or browser your online visitor is using.
8) Grab their attention
Use one of those great images of yours as a header image to attract the attention of your visitor. A Great header image should be able to convey to the visitor what you will be talking about on your landing page. A nice bold visual summary in one image that will assure the visitor that they are on the right page and have found the information that they are looking for.
9) Proof read
I am absolutely horrible at this but it is super super important. Check for any spelling mistakes or typos in your online content. I know it is easy to quickly scan and think that everything is ok, but trust me, nothing screams unprofessional more than poorly edited text on a website. Tip- don’t write when you’re tired. Read it through – Slowly – multiple times. Get a friend to proof read it, whatever it takes. If all else fails, write it in a word document first or if you use a chrome browser, download the Grammarly plugin.
10) Don’t piss them off with pop-ups
You might think that using a pop up on your website will help you convert visitors, but the truth is you will most likely just be pissing them off. A great conversion website is all about the user experience. Keep them happy, not annoyed. Do pop-ups have a place in website conversion? Of course, if used properly. Just don’t be tacky and bombard the user right away.
11) “WTF is that noise?”
If you have an auto-play feature for an audio track on your website give the user the option to turn it off. Or preferably don’t use it. The online user likes to be 100% in control all the time. If an audio track is popping up on their computer unannounced then it will lean more towards annoying then making the user happy.
12) Play it cool. Ask for their number a bit later
A website that asks for a users personal details straight away will not see a high conversion rate. Let the online user spend some time on your website. Once they have had a look around, read some text, looked at some pretty pictures and decided if they like what you have to offer, then ask them for their registration details. Most online visitors would rather leave straight away then be forced to hand over their name and email address to access more information.
13) The dreaded 404
Check for 404 errors or Broken image links on your website. Just like a spelling mistake it looks unprofessional and ruins the user experience as their first impression of your businesses website is tarnished.
14) Space out the ads
If advertising on your website is a way that you generate revenue then make sure that you put some appropriate space between the advertisements and the main content of the site. Ads should be placed on the periphery and be as small and discreet as possible to not detract from your main online content.
15) If it is not available, don’t talk about it
Avoid putting up links or advertisements about pages or services that are not yet available on your website. It can be really disappointing for the user if they go to a landing page that says “under construction” of “coming soon”
16) If it is irrelevant then get rid of it
If you have animated text of image content that does not add value to your site and other content then don’t put it on your website. These animated graphics will slow down the site and take a long time to load. Also they may be an immature attention to grab an online visitors attention and detract from your other online content or overall design of the website.
17) Ditch the flash
Flash is so 00’s. Websites with flash content are not popular anymore. Avoiding making your website look dated and being punished by search engines who no longer look kindly on flash content. Again it slows down the site and will make the online user wait whilst your website loads. Flash’s time has passed. Just forget about it.
Use these 17 first impression tips for your websites homepage or landing page to increase online visitor conversion. If you have any more website design tips to increase conversions on a website’s landing or home page please feel free to comment below.
