Building a website is the most fundamental step in establishing an online business. Website owners spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to create a website for their business and yet struggle to get the expected outcomes. Relentless efforts in SEO, social media marketing, and ad strategies don’t seem to improve their website conversion rate. Ever wonder why? One can find the answer by putting themselves in the customer’s shoes.
A customer visits multiple websites in search of a product or service. Hence, implementing the best practices can help you ace the fierce competition of the online marketplace. Web design is one such practice that is believed to improve website conversion rates by enhancing the customer browsing experience.
How does web design impact the website conversion rate?
A website’s conversion rate defines the success of an online business to a greater extent. It very well translates the hard work that has been put in to increase customer reach. Around 75% of internet users believe in evaluating a company’s credibility by its website design. Thus, apart from the content, the dynamics of a website also contribute to the conversion rate.
On-page & off-page SEO can help up to a particular stage only, i.e. bringing the customer to the website. Overall, the website’s appearance, usability, navigation, and design keep the customer engaged. This is why expert web designers emphasise website elements like typography, responsive web design, colour scheme, etc., to improve the user experience.
The web design should complement the branding of the business. This way, it looks more appealing to the target audience. Businesses need to ensure that the first look of their website conveys all the information in the most simplistic & fastest manner. A website with aesthetic visuals and smooth functioning has more chances of sustaining traffic. Some statistics related to website design that you should keep in mind are:
- A study by Adobe shows that 59% of people would prefer browsing a beautiful and creative-looking website over an ordinary one
- 89% of visitors switch to competitors’ websites if they experience poor browsing
- 53% of mobile users tend to leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load
Essential Web Design Elements to Keep In Mind
With internet users and online businesses on a hike, businesses should follow the best strategies to stand out in the crowd. To secure higher conversion rates, it is suggested to work upon the following web design elements:
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Colour Palette
The colour palette of a website is a double-edged sword. It can either make or break the overall look of the website. Hence, the website designer must choose it carefully. To narrow down the colour options, the designer can examine the background of potential customers. It could be factors like age, sex, place of origin, etc. This will help establish a connection between the business and its customers. Website designers can use techniques like image overlays or filter effects to enhance the colour part of web design. Also, the colour contrast should be made carefully & aesthetically while maintaining a decent colour contrast ratio as per WCAG guidelines. Because around 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women suffer from colour blindness. To make the website easily accessible for specially-abled people, the design should satisfy the WCAG guidelines, including a colour contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
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Carousels
The website should aim to ease the customer’s browsing experience for a better conversion rate. Information can be conveyed in different forms, but a business website should convey it in a way that the visitor or potential customer finds most suitable. Carousels can be one of the great ways to do the same. They attempt to hold visitors’ attention by making the content easy to read. Content like testimonials, reviews, quotes, and features can be better put in a series of carousels. For listicle content too, carousels display the information in a more portable manner than it would have been in the form of broad & long paragraphs.
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Illustrations
Apart from images and videos, illustrations can leave a significant impact on the visitor’s mind. It could be a unique character, an emoji, or a group of symbols that adds uniqueness to the website. Out of a billion websites on the internet, a distinctive and creative illustration will create a distinct brand identity in the minds of visitors. Anything that looks cool, funky, and resonates with the brand can be used as an illustration to make the web design more stunning.
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Mobile Compatibility
More than 50% of online traffic comes from mobile users. Keeping in mind these statistics, the website needs to be well-optimised for mobile users. Internet users are more active on smartphones than desktop screens because mobile phones are portable and easy to carry. Thus, to stay connected with your customers, ask your web designer to make a mobile-friendly layout that can keep your customers engaged on the go.
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Interactive elements
Blinking buttons, moving elements, background videos, and music can catch the visitor’s attention and improve engagement. The standard website template everyone follows has a background, foreground, text, images, etc. In the absence of customisation, these ordinary templates will appear mundane to customers who visit multiple websites during a product search because they get bored after viewing the same template repeatedly. Hence, the inclusion of interactive elements could be a great way to encourage them to play around with the website and see through the products and services effectively. The simplest way to start with could be animating some buttons or text or adding a serene video in the background. However, the smart use of interactive elements can divert visitors’ attention towards essential things like the product catalogue or the ‘Contact Us’ section.
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Call to Action
Call to action is the one thing that remains on the top of the list for all online businesses. And simplifying it for the customers has to be a high-priority task. The website designer should design this part by keeping the customer’s use cases in mind. Be it filling out a form or the ‘Request a call back’ button, the call to action section of the website should be easily recognisable and accessible.
Quick Takeaways for Website Owners
For business owners who want to take their business online or entrepreneurs who want to build an powerful website platform, the above-prescribed tips can be of great use. The practices stated here are general in nature and up-to-date with the latest trends.
