What do you think web design is? Is it just the visual representation of the website?
Well it’s more than that. A few years ago, late Steve Jobs gave us more details where he said “ Design is how it works.”. We can all agree that it is important your website appears nice and attractive but it is even more essential that it functions correctly, that is converting traffic into leads and new customers.
It’s not the case always though. The common features that appear on the top websites have been shown to put the conversions into jeopardy. Having these features will put your website on the road to decline. There are few other features that sabotage your website’s conversions. Here are few other things that can cause harm to your website.
1) High Resolution Large Sizes Images –
High resolution or big sized images doesn’t necessarily mean that it is visually good-looking and attractive. These pictures stretch on the large desktop monitor and might look perfect concerning the quality. These pictures also take a lot of time to load. People don’t prefer to wait, doesn’t matter how good-looking the website is. These images might take about 12 seconds and will surely lose about 30% of the traffic.
Speed have also proven to hurt the conversions and SEO as well. Even though the speeding up a page loading might be a complex topic, there are few pointers that you must keep in mind. Crop and resize the images to fit a specific dimensions for your website. If possible, compress the file size with some software. Finally, You can use a CDN to deliver and host your images.
2) Equally Weighted CTA’s –
You need to understand where people can get the most value. Provide them with a clear and decisive direction to the call-to-action. Illustrating the point, there were various marketing experiments that ran tests to show the impact that can be generated if you change the design of your CTA buttons. Avoid long sentences for giving a call to action. If you want people to engage and expect conversions, you can put down small jargons or scripts that can attract people.
E.g.,. How not to write : “ Click on the ‘Buy Now’ button to get started. You’ll be taken to a purchase options page for subscribing to the newsletter.
”E.g.,. How to write : “ 7-day: INTRO OFFER: 50% OFF first 8 weeks : $25.00.”
The conversations that can be generated by changing just the CTA can go up by 64% which helps the customers to make simpler decisions.
3) Muddled Messages –
You land on a page of a website and the website has a wall of message. You are not going to read the entire content right? No. Nobody is going to read the whole script. Also, the very formal sophisticated corporate language makes it more boring. Always keep your level reading of a website lesser than a 7th or 8th grade reading level.
According to the studies, things that can be understood are actually believed to be seen as more legit. If you’re asking what messaging has got to with the design, well it does. The text can bring more sophistication and more attractive if used properly. Designs can emphasize white spaces around the header and call for attention in the blue-shaded CTA section.
4) Flat Design –
Make the design simple enough that the people don’t really have to break their heads on how to do go about it. A small example, if you give an iPad to a kid, you will see that the kid will learn to operate it with a few minutes only. Your websites should also be the same way, easy to go about which is not the case always. Having a flat design can be a trend but can be taken too far. Although it can simplify the pages making it easily understandable, only if its done right.
For Examples, adding a small indicator on website denoting a call to action can be helpful. You are aware about what you have to do and adding little details will also help you to decide why you should click on it.
5) Page Organization –
Page organizations play an important role in bringing in conversions. To start with, you can name your “About” page as “About” only and not “Team” or “Who We Are.” Keep it simple. It may not be clever but it is quite easy to understand what the function of each button is.The IA that is Information Architecture is quite similar to page organization.You must try to organize specific pages similarly so that people will find it easy to search for a product even if they’ve visited your website for the first time.
To end with, its important to focus on the appearance of the website but it is equally important to focus on its working as well. Give a thought about all the points that were mentioned above. Now that you know what features jeopardize your conversion, make sure to avoid them and design your website in a better way. Hope this post was helpful.
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Thanks for reading.