13 Web Design Tips to Boost Your Conversions

Whenever people browse your company's website, they will form an opinion about its web design in a matter of seconds. Now whether or not people will view your business as trustworthy is in fact based on your web design. This means that your visitors do not even need to read your engaging copy in order to make up their minds regarding your business.

So, to ensure that your web design does not fail your business, here are thirteen terrific tips that will help to increase your conversion rates.

Make Space For White Space

When the different elements of your website are too close, users will drown beneath a mass of information. So, make sure that you remember to incorporate margins so that there is more space between your copy and graphics.

Adhere to the Rule of Thirds

You probably know that the rule of thirds apply to photos. Though, you can also use this principle when you are designing a website. For example, you can use it to know where to place your call-to-action buttons and other key elements so that these will stand out.

Compress Your Photos and Other Images

Ideally, your website should load in just a couple of seconds! This is of utmost importance as the attention span of your visitors is extremely short. So, to increase your conversions, you will have to find a way to boost the loading speed of your different web pages. One such way is to compress your images.

Avoid Using Any Carousels or Sliders

Carousels and sliders are no longer desirable web design features! In short, they simply waste your users' precious time. So, if you do not want to let your web design and conversions slide, it is time to wave goodbye to sliders.

Add Some Contrast

To emphasise a specific website element, you can use contrast. For example, you can use contrast to get your visitors to click on your call-to-action buttons.

Animate a pop-up

When it is done right, a subtle animation will let certain call-to-action prompts stand out which will ultimately help with conversions. Though, - and this is important - it is has to be low-key. Whenever animation becomes irritating, your visitors will simply hop on over to another website which is definitely not good for your conversions at all.

Include faces

When we see a human face, we experience some form of emotional reaction such as sympathy or joy. It does not matter if we see the person in the flesh or if it is merely a photo on a website. One practical application is that you can include photos of people in your web design to suggest to your visitors where they should look. For example, if your web design includes an image of a person looking at the “Order Now” button, your visitors will actually feel like they should look at it as well (and there is no need to explain why this is good for business).

Limit the Number of Options

In many instances less can be more effective. When it comes to the number of choices your customers are presented, it is for sure the case. It might sound paradoxical, but whenever you add more options, people will take longer to reach a decision (if at all).

One of the best ways to get visitors to reach a decision is to recommend the next step that they should take. So, there is a reason why call-to-action prompts are so important when it comes to web design.   

Place Similar Elements Together

To increase your conversions, you can play around with different sizes, shapes and colours. Whenever a visitor looks at your web design, he/she will group things that appear similar together.

On a practical level this means that you can group a promotion and a call-to-action button together by using similar colours. This way your visitors will view these two distinctive web design elements as one which means that they are far more likely actually to click on that call-to-action button.

Use Familiar Call-to-action Buttons

Whenever a visitor browses your website, he/she has been trained to anticipate specific things. In short, they have been taught to look for the "Proceed to checkout" button and other similar call-to-action prompts. There are many aspects of web design that allow you more freedom and the chance to have fun and play around a bit, but when it comes to your call-to-action buttons it is better to stick to the norm. In fact, your call-to-action buttons play an important part of best web design practice and if your call-to-action prompts are not familiar to users, you will not see the desired results as they will simply not know where you want them to click.

Incorporate Your Branding Throughout Your Website

It is key that your web design reinforces all the correct feelings regarding your business. So, prior to starting your next big web design project, be sure to ask yourself, "Which story do I want my web design to share?" Then, use the values of your brand and your target market to tell this story.

Learn More About How Your Visitors Navigate

In order to find out whether or not your web design is as effective as it can (and should) be, it is a good idea to find out how your visitors actually interact with your website. Luckily there are tools that enable you to view how visitors move the mouse around when they are browsing your website and when they click on a call-to-action button. You can then use this info to make changes to your web design so that it actually adapts to how users use your website. By doing this, you can expect to see major changes in your sales.

Gather Specific Info From Visitors

It is great that you want to employ web design tactics that will help to increase your conversions, but you should also remember to share with your visitors what they are actually interested in. Therefore, remember that these different web design tactics are in fact only a place where you can start. Then, once you have launched your new website, begin to test it so that you can get a better idea of how people interact with your website content.