10 Tips for Web Design That Drives Sales

Whatever you have heard about how good it would be for your website to get a considerable amount of traffic and rank high in the search engine results pages, you can bet that they are all true.

Impressive traffic and high rankings will always be a notch in the win column of webmasters. It means the SEO strategies they have implemented for their websites are proving to be quite effective. The question is, how are sales going?

If decent sales figures are coming in because of the improved visibility of your website in search results, then good for you. However, if it’s not having an impact on your sales, perhaps you’d like to try something else.

A website may exist to achieve any number of goals, but its ultimate goal is to get conversions. A conversion is anything a visitor to your site does that completes a desired goal of yours.

A visitor signing up for a webinar is a conversion. So is completing a contact form. A user subscribing to your newsletter is also a cause for celebration. Of course, the ultimate conversion is when people purchase the product or service that you’re offering.

Believe it or not, your web design can have an impact on your sales.

The idea of web design is closely associated with making a website easy on the eyes, but it’s so much more than a matter of aesthetics.

Not many people realize this, but the design of a website can actually have an impact on a visitor’s decision to either stop exploring it and bounce off to another site or stay longer and eventually purchase something.

So what can you do to your web design that will help drive sales? Here are ten tips that will help you do just that.

1. An effective landing page

The road to conversions starts with generating leads, and there’s no better way for your website to attract potential leads than to put a good landing page in place.

Navigation or menus have no place in a well-designed landing page. What it must have to draw people in is a strong headline, an attention-grabbing image, clearly-defined benefits of what you have to offer, a solid call-to-action, and a short contact form that obtains all pertinent information without being too intrusive.

2. A prominent call-to-action (CTA) button

If there’s one thing that your call-to-action (CTA) button has to be, it’s being hard to miss. It is, after all, the one part of your landing page that actually calls people out to do whatever it is you’re asking them to do.

You can put it above the fold, or you can give it a color that can immediately catch visitors’ eyes.

3. Stir visitors’ emotions with color psychology

There is a sub-field of behavioral psychology called color psychology, and it revolves around understanding the emotions and values commonly associated with colors.

Web designers worth their salt know how to put these colors to use to get a desired reaction from users. A page for a clearance sale, for example, could use a little red to foster a sense of urgency. Yellow, on the other hand, can be used to project cheerfulness and positivity. Black exudes elegance, while blue oozes coolness and reliability.

4. Short and sweet contact forms

Do you know anyone who loves filling out very long contact forms? In all likelihood, the answer is a big, fat no. Not only are long forms tedious, but they can also seem to be very prying with all the information they’re asking you to provide.

The ideal contact form is one that asks only for names, email addresses, and zip codes. Anything beyond that, and you’re risking those visitors moving on to another website.

5. Freebies!

Everyone loves free stuff, so if you’ve got something to give, why not offer it to your visitors free of charge? Freebies like free subscriptions, free shipping, or free trials are crowd pleasers. For all you know, that freebie you so generously gave away is what will make visitors provide you with the lead or conversion that you need.

6. Customer testimonials

Webmasters can brag all day about how fantastic their offerings are, but that wouldn’t be nearly as effective as when it’s the customers that are doing it. Of course, for the testimonials to have credibility, they must come from people who have availed of your product or service. So customers giving testimonials must provide their full names and pictures as well.

7. Make navigation easy

The chances of visitors making a purchase increase with each minute they spend on your website. That is why you must do whatever you can to keep them engaged, like making your site a breeze to navigate. To spare your visitors from getting lost or frustrated while exploring your website, you have to keep your sitemaps and navigation bar organized, and organized well.

8. Make a video or two

In a world where attention spans are getting shorter, a video is often preferred over an article about the products and services you’re offering. Then again, while videos are more engaging and easier to digest you have to keep them short to avoid boring the people who watch them. A video that runs for two to three minutes should be great.

9. Display your badges

Were you a recipient of trust, security, and awards badges in the past? If so, then show them if you got them. Those badges prominently displayed on your Home Page are a great way of telling visitors that your company is credible and worth their time, trust, and money.

10. Responsiveness is a must

Mobile-influenced offline spending has already breached the $1 trillion mark. If you want even the tiniest piece of that pie, you have to make your website appeal to mobile users, and the only way to do that is to make it responsive.

Considering that mobile users do intensive mobile research before making offline purchases in almost all categories, a responsive website design will do wonders for your sales. So if your site isn’t responsive just yet, then you should get it done as soon as you can.

These are just some of the tweaks you can make to your web design to boost your sales figures. While they are by no means a guarantee that the money will come rolling in, they should at least give you a better fighting chance of seeing that happen.