What Is Website Conversion Optimization?
Website conversion optimization is the process by which visitors to your website convert to purchasers of products or services from your website at an increased rate over time. This process leads to increased sales and a growing business. Technically it means increasing the percentage of website visitors who perform a particular action on your website. This is often done by enhancing the prompts, tools, design and calls to action on your website. The following is a list of website design tips that have successfully increased conversions on websites and will likely increase conversion rates on your website.
Using Website Design to Increase Conversions
When we talk about using design to increase conversions on your website, we are not only talking about creating a beautiful website that wows your users. Great website design also includes tools that allow for you to track conversions and adjust elements of your website to test different designs so that you are able to optimize your website design for conversion.
Enhance the User Experience
Design your website to be super friendly and easy to use for visitors. Make sure it runs fast because delays in downloads and response times are a real turn off. Make sure that your website is attractive and reflects your brand accurately and boldly. Incorporate your logo and color scheme on every page of your website. Your logo is the visual representation of your brand. Make sure it is prominently displayed at the top and bottom of each page and in the pictures of your products. Use high resolution images for everything on your website! Nothing tells a user “cheap” like poor quality images.
Optimize Your Website for Mobile
If your website is not mobile friendly you are losing customers! Even if your business has actual store locations and customers are standing in your store they may also be searching your website. They want to get a feel for your brand, test how savvy your business is, read reviews, find out if you support important causes with your profits, donations or services and to search for more information about your products. If they can’t navigate your website on their phones because it isn’t mobile friendly, you will likely lose customers who have already walked into your store. And they probably won’t come back.
The F-Pattern
The F-Pattern has been identified, through numerous eye pattern movement studies over the last couple of decades, as the way our eyes move while reading online content. In just seconds, our eyes move rapidly across the written material, images and other visual elements. The F-Pattern represents the most common pattern followed as we scan:
- We read the top of the page for the most important headlines to us.
- We scan down the left side of the webpage looking at bullet points and numbers.
- We scan across the page again and read bold text, subheadlines and information we are looking for in our search.
When creating your web design for conversion optimization, it is easy to see how important the F-Pattern is to your website page design. Creating your website layout to adhere to this natural flow by providing clear and easy to understand topics across your headline banner leading viewers to drop down bulleted subtopics that easily navigate to clear and concise information across the page takes advantage of our natural human tendencies making your website feel natural and pleasing. Placing appropriate CTAs in spots where people’s eyes will be immediately drawn after getting the information they want is a great way to optimize conversions.
The Rule of Thirds
The Rule of Thirds is a compositional technique that creates especially pleasing images. The rule divides the frame of your image, painting, composition into three equal grids with two horizontal lines and two vertical lines intersecting at four points. The Rule of Thirds creates a visually pleasing composition by placing the subject on the left-third or right-third of the frame.
Applying the Rule of Thirds to images on your website will add to the visual appeal of your webpages leading people to remain on your site longer which increases the chance of them getting more information and responding to your Calls to Action.
Easy Navigation
Simplicity, clarity and easy navigation are key to creating an enjoyable experience for your customers. Clear directions, simple explanations, a very focused homepage that offers clear navigation to exactly what your customers are looking for is essential! It is so easy for all of us to get excited about lots of images, colors, information and bells and whistles. This has always been true, which is why decades ago someone came up with the KISS acronym. Keep It Simple, Stupid! It is easy to forget that uncluttered clarity and simplicity is always better for the customer.
At the top of the list of ways to simplify is to design a website that is easy to navigate. Clear headings that identify your users most common and most likely needs that include drop down boxes that appear when their cursor hovers over the titles makes it so easy for them to navigate to exactly what they want. Fast speeds are vitally important so make sure your website runs fast! Check it frequently because when people have to wait for pages to open up they get frustrated and try the next website.
Strong CTA Buttons
Design your call to action buttons to be visible, bold and state clearly what you want from your visitor. Ensure that your calls to action are easy to understand, located in the right places and quick & easy to fill out for your visitors.
One design technique that has proven helpful to increase conversion rates is A/B testing. Have your website designer place your CTA buttons in different places on your various pages and track responses to see what design placement works best. Play with things like the size of the button, the color, various designs and different wording in these CTAs. Track the results to determine what combination leads to website conversion optimization.
Another helpful tip is using a trick called directional cues. This just requires some planning so that if you choose an image of a person, you can place your button in a place that it looks like the person is pointing to and thereby encouraging people to look at and respond to your call to action. The flow of your images, banner and layout is designed to lead users’ eyes in the direction of your CTA.
Conclusion
To increase conversion rates on your website it will be necessary to test all of these tips and play with various locations, colors, simple designs, catchy phrases, clear CTAs and various tweeks to your layout. Tracking the responsiveness of your various design adjustments is essential to settling on the design that leads to website conversion optimization!
If you don’t already have a team working on your website then you may be thinking, how in the world will I carry out all of these fantastic tips and tricks and track the responsiveness of our website customers while keeping the business running smoothly? Hiring a great web designer is an option, but it involves a lot of unknowns and fixed costs.
Another option is to contract with a full service marketing agency that specializes in website design, tracking and brand awareness. zö agency has decades of experience in website design. We know the tricks of the trade and will implement all of the best and most effective design elements to optimize your website for conversions. And we will do it quickly, beautifully and at a fraction of the cost of hiring another employee. Check us out at zö.agency!
