The first (highly inadequate) title of this article was: “Five Quick Tips for Making Your Website More Effective”… and then I woke up. Thank goodness. What does that even mean?
Website conversion, put very simply, is how well your website “converts” a casual browser into one who acts.
Although the specific “action,” depends on your goal and site type – blog/informational, direct sales/mini-site, e-commerce retail shop, etc. – a website can only be considered effective when it achieves your intended goal. That’s the key.
I’m redundantly breaking down website conversion in this way to get you thinking about the critical question: “What is my website designed to do?”
What goal do you expect it to achieve? Get specific and keep this objective in mind while we cover five website conversion basics below. To be considered effective, your website must:
1. Use Navigation and Design to Direct (actions) and Serve (audiences)
And not just any audiences – yours. When people come to your website, they are there to achieve a goal. The good news is the action you want them to take and the action they are there to achieve is the same, but articulated differently.
For example, you want visitors to buy your grant-writing book. Visitors want information about grant writing. What a match. And while they probably didn’t come “to buy,” they have come in search of information.
According to expert Jakob Nielsen: “Users don’t see stuff that’s right on the screen. Selective attention makes people overlook things outside their focus of interest.”
You can capitalize on that fact by leading potential customers right to the goods:
* Is your site designed in such a way to allow them to easily achieve their goal?
* Can they navigate easily … or are they easily lost?
* Does your site load sluggishly, causing visitors to bail before seeing your offer?
* What information does your average user most want, and is this provided in the right away?
In other words, is the path to your desired goal – a sale – perfectly clear?
If you’re even slightly uncertain, meet with a business Web designer who has a marketing background – or one who at least understands website conversion and results-focused design – to discuss ways to streamline, focus and direct your Web traffic.
2. Remove Anonymity to Boost Credibility
Does your site offer an e-mail address or a contact form? Does it offer a phone number and a P.O. box?
There’s nothing wrong with having those things, but having them and ‘embodying’ them are two very different Mohicans. Website conversion suffers drastically from excessive anonymity.
Exactly what are you hiding from? Better yet, why?
According to Stanford Web Credibility Research: “Make it easy to contact you. A simple way to boost your site’s credibility is by making your contact information clear: phone number, physical address and e-mail address.”
Hint: Solopreneurs can use a service like Mail Boxes Etc. for a physical address.
Remember, most customers in most industries don’t want that “big business” feel; they want to be able to associate a face and a name with the company to which they’re about to give their money.
3. Choose a Website Size and Layout Suitable for Your Audience
You don’t want your visitors to say your website doesn’t suit them, do you?
Analyze your website’s stats. Find the most common screen size and use that information to make design and layout decisions.
No website just yet? For a simple site with seldom-changing content, try a resolution of 1024×768 to accommodate the narrower screen widths of those running a little behind the times.
Don’t feel pressured to use “responsive design” if all you have is a simple three-page website for a service-based business, with content that never changes. A fluid-width website with a companion mobile site can be more than sufficient.
Likewise, if you have a blog or frequently changing news section on your website and want this information reflected across all media channels – desktop and mobile – it may then be in your best interest to take your “fluid width” website a step further, to consider a completely responsive design.
Here, website conversion rates hinge upon how well your content adapts to the user’s needs and how accessible you’ve made it.
4. Use Font to Convey Credibility… and Personality
Font choices add character to webpages and logos. They play a very important role in your audience’s perception of your business – and of you.
Don’t think something as silly as the appearance of words on a page would have any effect on website conversion?
Think again.
“Research has shown that the typeface (i.e., font) that is chosen for a website conveys mood, attitude and tone; and can impact the perception of a company’s credibility.”
“Web pages presented in either a neutral or inappropriate typeface resulted in lower ratings for trust, professionalism and believability.”
[Source: S. Furman, Usability.gov - "Credibility"]
Unless marketing directly to children, avoid using kiddy-style fonts like the dreaded Comic Sans (good heavens!). Even when marketing to children it is not the best choice.
5. Use Colors to Influence Action
Color plays a critically important subliminal role on your website. For example, green is often referred to as a “concentration” or “harmony” color. On long-copy sales pages that feature a lot of text (where website conversion increases the longer they read), use of a green border, highlights, or background could be a very good move.
However, take care to note the nuances between meanings in different shades of the same color. For instance, in some sources, dark green is seen as a money color, while only the standard Kelly green would be the concentration color. Sometimes, the effects you want can be interchangeable between color shades, but not always.
You can use color to your advantage, to make your website visitors feel energized, relaxed, focused, scared, angry, more prepared to buy – almost any effect you can think of. The important thing to note when attempting to increase website conversion in this way, however, is to use colors that contrast enough to prevent parts of your website from becoming invisible for color-blind users.
Color blindness is definitely a consideration when using this website conversion tip. When designing with this disability in mind, you should avoid green because the most common type of color-blindness (99 percent) is the red/green deficiency.
For more information on color psych, read the Psychological Properties of Colors. It offers interesting details on how color can influence.
The Reveal: There are certain foundational principles every website must implement to be worth an organization’s time and investment.
Does your website make the grade? If not, begin tackling and testing the above five aspects one-by-one. Website conversions will surely, and quickly, increase.
Harmony Major began building business websites and marketing online in 1999, converting her e-biz to full-time in less than one year – at age 19. These days, she does simple, conversion-focused websites and redesigns for service professionals, non-profits, and minority- and woman-owned businesses. Find Harmony at: ExcellentPresence.com or blog: http://blog.excellentpresence.com
Improved Website Sales Conversion Is The Best Answer
Pourriez-vous me dire si vous pouvez m’aider à référencer mon site sur google, et autres moteur de recherche?
The basics to increase conversion rate is that your website should be easy to navigate and when you are going to develop or design a new website you should keep in mind that it if for users i mean for human not for machines therefore you should design and develop it according to human’s interest. Your points are very effective in this scenario especially these points easy navigation, attractive font style, easy readable, easy layout and design, should show physical contact along with email and contact form.
Really good, solid advice, Harmony. Good article!
I followed these tips and it has changed a lot. I liked the concept of using colors to indicate the action, it really grabs the audience mind.
Hi Harmony,
I have read through this article you have on conversion basics, and the 5 Tips you have given, have been very informative and I will keep these in mind.
Thank you for taking the time to write this article.
You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something which I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and very broad for me. I am looking forward for your next post; I will try to get the hang of it.
Awesome article, vivid and to the point. I work in the field of web design and psd to html conversion and would like to confirm that all of these tips are extremely important and practically effective.
Don’t force your visitors to your mobile site. I use an ASUS ePad. It’s capable of viewing desktop websites. I leave sites that make me have to ask for their full site.
Keeping those useful tips I have created my href=”http://www.webbizsol.com/seo.htm”>website-Hope to achieve goal
These tips may be useful but most of the Web designers overlook it
Good, informative post, tks for sharing
Good post. Love what you’ve written here, but I’d love to see more in-depth stuff on this topic. Different industries have different conversion rates, and it would be interesting to look at some good case studies.
Awesome article. Sounds about right to me. Recently went on a web redesign project because these things were lacking in our corporate site. Now I am further convinced that this is what i need to do to make it happen.
Great article Harmony. This reinforces some of the methods we’ve been using for years and also gives us some new pointers on improvements we can make.
One thing I’ve noticed though about the sitepronews site is that the main font is very hard to read. I think it’s Helvetica. This font looks great when used in graphics but when rendered in HTML looks blocky and thick. Maybe it looks better on mobile devices?
These are are cool tips.
However, one thing that I am still skeptical about is the relationship between website size and response. Is there any study/proof of their relationship?
Having said that, I do agreed that overall UX (User Experience) of the site do have direct relationship with the response (probably website size is one of the consideration in overall UX)
Thanks.
@ Web Design Maryland
The better designers out there use tips like these in their design. It’s what separates the men from the boys so to speak. title=”Web Design” Web Designers should be able to research the industry of their client to get the best conversion rate in their design.
I learned about some of your tips the hard way, unfortunately.
I’m not sure if I agree about providing all my personal details on the web if I am just a ‘solo performer’, though. BTW, private mailboxes no longer allow one to use ‘Suite’ or some other abbrevation on the mailing address. It’s now required that the address contain ‘PMB #####’, which stands for Public Mail Box, just after the street address. IMO, that doesn’t look so good anymore, and it definitely triggers a feeling of mistrust in a lot of people. Great tips, though. Thanks for sharing.
I have taking note of these five tips you presented.
i discovered also that offering a free but very useful e-book with the intention to collect email addresses can help to reach later those who may not buy your product immediately
I just use html on my site. A move to css style sheets and java would simplify fonts and formatting.
cybersleauth
Surprisingly helpful tips! I particularly agree with the layout colors one. I will have to redesign my website now. Thank you, Harmony!
Hi Harmony,
Almost all necessary points covered to achieve more conversion which gives basic idea for increasing conversion rate.
Fantastic article thank you. Fascinating about the colours and what they can mean.
I really enjoyed reading that Harmony. The psychology behind colour is so interesting and one that many people/webmasters underestimate.
Sorry for my delay, guys, I’m just seeing these comments.
@Daniel, the presentation of the mobile site is what’s important. I agree that users shouldn’t be “forced” to one or the other. It’s really about each individual site and the best way to present *its* information, instead of trying to do a “one size fits all” copy-cat strategy… which most website owners unfortunately default to. We often lower conversion that way, not increase it.
@Carl, yes, conversion rates do vary across industries — a very good point. I’m working on an article containing exactly this, actually: case studies on specific response rate improvements seen across various industries, comparing the company’s initial website conversion rate to the increased rate they got after a redesign. If you care to subscribe to my ezine, you’ll be notified when it’s out.
@PlatinumLoops, I agree, Helvetica is kind of a bummer to read onscreen… and a little bland. Because of its weight (or lack thereof), I also think that it can be a little difficult to read. (Sorry, SPN.
@Richard Ng, no need to be “skeptical” of the effects of website size (or resolution) on conversion rates. Remember, any expert advice or research you ever take in should only be used as a *guideline* for your own business and marketing efforts. The only truly important statistic you should eat and breathe by is one gleaned from YOUR OWN website’s stats.
For instance, if you’re using something like Piwik (cool) or Google Analytics (not recommended) and look at your bounce rate, you’ll notice that you have a DIFFERENT bounce rate *for every screen size*. This is your starting point to know what converts best for YOUR audience, my friend. Don’t make the mistake of getting caught up in “reports” and “statistics” and “numbers”… unless they’re your own. And waiting for someone else to “run the test” so that you can see the results is success suicide.
@Bradley, you said: “I’m not sure if I agree about providing all my personal details on the web if I am just a ‘solo performer’, though.”
No, I never recommended that.
I’m also vehemently against putting it all out there as a solopreneur. Especially in today’s world, it’s beyond risky — it’s dangerous.
You also said:
“BTW, private mailboxes no longer allow one to use ‘Suite’ or some other abbrevation on the mailing address. It’s now required that the address contain ‘PMB #####’…”
Hmm… It may depend on your locale, but this isn’t the case. In a recent article on my own blog, I mentioned “Street Addressing,” a NEW service offered by U.S. Post Offices, that allows you to use a “prettier” street address with no P.O. Box or PMB. You should check it out; maybe it’s now in your area, too. Because you’re right, those stupid PMB addresses are unsightly!
@Ethel, there is no “wrong” color for a website, per se… so I wouldn’t do a complete redesign just yet. Instead, perhaps try something fast and basic — like changing your background from black to a light color — and split testing traffic to see what’s converting best. If you’re using external CSS, it’s only a line of code. Then, after some conclusive results, only at that point would I recommend molding a more complete redesign around your new color palette.
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Thanks, peeps, for all your comments and kind words. I appreciate it!
-HM
Color does have unique effect on blog performances, so choose it wisely