Tweet

25 Ways to DESIGN Your Way to Higher Conversions

Written by: Stoney G deGeyter

Article Overview: How the site is developed, along with the underlying coding structure, plays a significant role on whether your site meets the usability requirements of your audience. Below are a number of individual elements that must be considered in every website design. While each plays a minor role over the total usability of a website, together they add up to be much more than the sum of their parts.

25 Ways to DESIGN Your Way to Higher Conversions

During the design phase of building a website all too often we find that the end result is really nothing more than what somebody decided "looked good". In some cases it's a combination (or compromise) of what a handful of individuals have determined to be "good enough". What many fail to realize is that web design and visitor usability go hand in hand.

How the site is developed, along with the underlying coding structure, plays a significant role on whether your site meets the usability requirements of your audience. Below are a number of individual elements that must be considered in every website design. While each plays a minor role over the total usability of a website, together they add up to be much more than the sum of their parts.

*** Look and feel***
The overall look and feel of your site must meet your target audience’s expectation. It's not enough just to look good, you will have visitors with industry specific wants and needs. Meet them.

***I ndustry best practices ***
Site must be consistent with best practices and usability guidelines established by other sites in the same industry.

*** Design simplicity ***
Reduce visual noise as much as possible. Keeping the website design simplified keeps visitors interacting with your website rather than hunting through unnecessary design elements.

*** Searchability ***
Information on your site, including content, navigation, product categorization and site-search, must be clearly laid out and easy to understand and be effective at getting visitors to areas of the site they need.

*** Link descriptions ***
Adding descriptions such as link titles and alt attributes within each link can help overall usability, providing a reference to what should be expected if the visitor clicks the link. Encompassing more descriptive text within the link text is also highly valuable.

*** Links organized with lists ***
When referencing specific areas of your site and/or products all in a single paragraph, it can be beneficial to break the content into bulleted lists. This allows for easy scanning for desired information.

*** Breadcrumbs ***
Using breadcrumb menus provides an easy reference to the current page a visitor resides on, as well as their location in the overall site structure. These visual cues enhance the user's experience, even if not actually used.

*** Contact and support info ***
Links to contact, about us, and other customer support pages must be easy to find and obviously accessible to all visitors regardless of page or architectural location and obvious to access.

*** Font size ***
Font size should rarely be less than 10 points. Larger fonts are easier to read which can help gain conversions.

*** Font face ***
The Verdana font was developed specifically for web use for its ease on the eyes when viewed on a computer monitor. Serif fonts such as Times should be avoided. Also keep the number of fonts used to a minimum.

*** Font scalability ***
Allow visitors to resize the text size in their browser by using scalable rather than fixed-width fonts. This allows visitors additional convenience based on their needs.

*** Short sentences ***
Long sentences can often be difficult to follow. Sentences should be kept short (under 15 words) in order to enhance overall comprehension.

*** Paragraph width ***
Using a fixed-width website design can improve readability of content. Variable width designs cause sentence stretching, making it more difficult for the reader to maintain their place as they read.

*** Color usage ***
Important visual cues should not rely on color only. Site must be able to maintain navigation effectiveness without color dependency.

*** Contrast ***
Provide significant contrast between text, background and other elements on the page. Dark text on a light background is preferred for easy reading.

*** Saturated colors ***
Avoid the use of saturated colors. Such colors can quickly cause eye fatigue, forcing the visitor off the site looking for more browsable websites.

*** Animated graphics ***
Repetitive animated graphical content is distracting and reduces retention. Avoid any animations that don't specifically enhance the user-experience and keep visitors focused on what's important.

*** Action objects ***
Areas and objects of your website that request/require action should be visually different from other objects. Linked images and text should stand out significantly from non-linked.

*** Graphics, multimedia & plugins ***
All additional components added to the website must be more than mere eye-candy. Each graphical and multimedia addition should enhance rather than distract from the visitor's experience.

*** Link formatting ***
Standard link formatting (blue and underlined) should be used for textual links and it should be apparent when a link has been visited.

*** Text coloring ***
Standard paragraph text should not be the same color, or near the same color, as standard link text. A clear distinction should be made between the two.

*** White space ***
Site should use white space liberally and avoid cramming pages with too much information, causing unnecessary clutter.

*** Horizontal scrolling ***
Site design should never require visitors to scroll horizontally when browser is in full-screen mode. All information should be assessable with only vertical scrolling required.

*** Printing ***
Pages should be designed to provide easy-to-read documents when printed. Printer friendly pages or a print version of the CSS file should be considered.

*** Browser functionality ***
Site should not disable visitor's normal browser functionality such as right-click mouse, back button navigating, and forcing links to open in new or resized browser windows.
When it comes to improving usability to achieve higher conversions, there is no more obvious place to start than in your website design. More often than not we've seen websites undergo a complete re-design and then find their conversion rates jump overnight, without any additional traffic being brought to the website. Usability should not be an afterthought to the design process, but should be on the forefront driving the design from the ground up.

Related Articles
  Techniques to Increase Conversions
  Increasing the Effectiveness of PSD to HTML Conversions
  Ways of Increasing Conversions
  The Best Keywords Ever for Your SEO Campaign
  Google Analytics - How Accurate is it?

Article Tags: attributes, best practices, building a website, compromise, content navigation, descriptive text, design elements, design phase, design simplicity, end result, expectation, handful, industry design, link titles, navigation product, product categorization, target audience, usability guidelines, usability requirements, visual noise



Related Forum Posts
Re: Search Engine Optimization Guide for All - I see...[i:dvipfcie]Quality[/i:dvipfcie] content wins every time, as the saying goes. Thanks for the resource. It looks like a great site and Higher quality then some that i've seen so far. I will [u:dvipfcie]definately[/u:dvipfcie] use them soon.
Re: Ideas For Business - Stas and lucy, Could you guys give us a recap of your entire business idea as it stands now. Seems like it morped a bit. Let us know: 1. Start date 2. Ways you will Market 3. What you will offer 4. How much will your charge for your offer
Startup Pitches - Although I am a newbie to this site, I am not new to owning a business. I have read some great comments on this post. Specifically Michele52, Andrew and Connie. My advice comes from a different background, one heavily relying on design and marketing. Once all of the business research has been completed, keep in mind that people buy DESIGN. Sometimes they don't even understand that is what they are buying, but they are. Take two products that are exactly the same. Put one in pleasingly designed packaging and watch how people will purchase it over the other. I am a graphic designer and partner in a design agency. We have also guided one of our clients through most every stage of their start-up business from securing business vendors to all of their direct mail marketing, website, event booth, uniforms, packaging, logo and corporate identity, you name it and we have probably provided it to them. It has helped us gain invaluable experience to be able to pass onto others. If you have specific questions for me, please do not hesitate to ask. Giving back is something that I truly enjoy. Also, read the eMyth Revisited. The best book I have found that really explains indepthly what to expect when starting a business and the roles you must be willing to play in order to make it successful. Good Luck!
Re: 7 Top Blog Design Tips - [quote="TannyL":2l8p7aqt][quote="Alan Mater":2l8p7aqt]I only mentioned that the design of a site should be just as important because I personally won't stay at a site very long if the design looks like "crap." I'm not very picky by any means, but it's easy to tell if a site is just thrown together or whether the person took even a small amount of time to make it somewhat appealing. If the site looks horrible, it doesn't matter how good the content is, I'll leave. That's my own personal preference, so when creating my own sites, if I don't like how something looks, I'll change it until I like it. There's a good chance that there's someone else out there that will think close to the same as me. Meaning, if I think it looks appealing, then others out there will too. Hopefully, anyway. Also keep in mind you only have so many seconds to grab their attention, and chances are that they're looking at the overall design of the site before the awesome content.[/quote:2l8p7aqt] Hi Alan, I completely agree with you. I will leave a massy website, or even if the color is too bright. Like you I will take the time to work on my site until I am happy. It took me a long time to get my site to its look today, and guess what, now I am working on changing the entire layout.[/quote:2l8p7aqt] I know the feeling. I have changed the design and layout of my site three times now. I'm finally happy, for now, with how it looks. Conversions seem to be decent as well.
Re: Improving Cash Flow - Thanks for your information. guide on how to avoid the problems of over trading. <-- Where is this guide? Any URL? guide on debt factoring and invoice discounting: the basics. <-- Where is this guide? Any URL? I just want to learn more about this. I am also looking for a good article on: What exactly is Cash Flow? Ways to improve cash flow at individual level and organizational level? I think it is a problem of thinking and mind sets problem. If we can change the way of spending, we can have more Cash. Robert


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Your Local Small Business Online Marketing Funnel

Promoting your company and self with verve

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.