Blog: Website design that converts your visitors into customers

Did you know that approximately 96% of visitors that come to your website are not ready to buy? Having reviewed and designed more than my fair share of websites, there are some really key components that you can implement to really maximize your chances of converting a visitor on your site, into a customer.

Your website is your first impression and just making it look pretty unfortunately isn’t enough anymore. Further down in this blog I go into detail about the purposeful design, and basically, without knowing your strategic direction as a company, your why, or whom you are targeting, your website will most likely resemble an online pinboard with zero purposes and zero conversion. Here are my five ways, that have been tried and tested, to maximize your chances of your web visitors turning into customers that will purchase your product or service.

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1. Make your USP clear

 Your unique value proposition needs to be nailed down. As I mentioned earlier, you need to know your strategic direction and what value you give to customers. Why should they do business with you? How does doing business with you benefit them? All of these questions need to be answered using one simple, strong statement. This should hold a prominent position on your website, perhaps as a caption near the top of your homepage, not hidden a million clicks away.

"To [target audience], our product is the [category] that provides [functional, symbolic or experiential benefits] because [support/reasons to believe].”

Once you nail down all strategic brand fundamentals and your USP, everything else that follows (i.e. the design & creative) will become a lot easier. This is in no way shameless self-promotion, but this is the first thing I pin down with all of my clients. We take them through our Branding process, and by doing this it helps us truly understand their vision and translate it better in all of the creative (brand design, photography, and web design).  

2. Turn fear into trust

How are your customers supposed to trust and buy from you if they don’t know who you are? In today’s competitive landscape you need to have more than just a good product or service, you need a brand with personality (read more about Brand Personality here).

There are lots of elements you can add to your website to build trust, such as:

• Providing social proof – number of reviews, satisfaction rates, number of Facebook page likes, etc.
• Adding credibility indicators – qualifications, number of years’ experience, etc.
• Behind the scenes pictures & videos – customers love seeing the people behind the brand, how you work with clients or how you produce your products.
• Customer testimonials & case studies – who knows your product/service better than a customer that’s just been through it/bought it. Capture their experience working with you and share it to bring in new customers!

3. Create purposeful journeys

Going onto your website for the first time, in a potential customer’s eyes, is like exploring a new town they’ve never visited before. Your customers need to be led down a purposeful journey with all roads leading to your end game, which could be to get in contact with you or to buy your product. Your online ‘town’ needs to:

• Have a logical flow

Your website isn’t a bunch of pages chucked together. It should be meticulously mapped out to give you a birds-eye-view of how the website experience will look for your visitors.

• Be clearly signposted

Make it easy to navigate and put key information in obvious pages. Don’t assume that they know where it is because you do.

• Have clear call-to-actions
• What is your objective? Where do you want them to go? What do you want them to do? Book a consultation call with you? Make all CTA’s clear and stand out!

4. Images of people

20% of our brain is purely there for vision and visual processing. Including photos of people on your website can increase empathy and as a result increase conversion.

Images give your brand personality. By including images of you with your customers, for example, visitors will have a good idea of what it’s like to work with you. People want to see you in action, in an environment that is reflective of your business. It’s important to get a variety of shots that reflect the quality of your work, show the authenticity of your business and the distinctiveness of your brand.

5. Mobile

In 2015, Google changed its search engine algorithm to reward mobile-friendly sites, which is probably in response to the fact that in 2021, the number of smartphone users worldwide is projected to reach 2.87 billion.

Having a well-optimized mobile version of your website can double conversions. Pretty much everyone is on mobile, and your website needs to provide a seamless and easy experience for your visitors. If your website is difficult to navigate via mobile, or takes too long to load, users won’t hesitate in leaving your site to look at one of your competitors.

It shouldn’t be painful having to ensure your website is optimised for mobile. Squarespace for example, has built-in styles that optimise sites for mobile devices and we use this platform for all of our clients, so they don’t have to even think about it! If you are finding that this is becoming a bit of a hassle it might be worth trying a platform such as Squarespace.

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This case study was first written and published on Visuable.co