Nowadays, nearly every business needs a robust digital presence. Creating an easy-to-use, beautiful website design with a strong user experience is imperative to cultivating loyal customers and increasing conversions, online sales and, ultimately, your bottom line.
However, it’s easy to get swept up in the never-ending tasks that come with a new business, or get bogged down with the daily tasks of an established company. But that doesn’t mean we should forget about the importance of website design, particularly because it has a direct effect on online sales and conversions.
According to Iron Paper, 57.7 percent of companies are planning on investing in newer, trendier websites – so don’t get lost in the shuffle of your visually-pleasing competition. Below are three easy tips to quickly improve your company’s website design and, thus, increase sales.
1. Optimize for mobile
We all know that e-commerce is overtaking brick and mortar stores, but its easy to overlook the importance of mobile phones when constructing the perfect online shopping destination. However, purchases on mobile phones accounted for 34.5 percent of all e-commerce sales in 2017, and that number is expected to keep climbing for the foreseeable future.
So, it’s important to place emphasis on creating a seamless experience for your users, no matter the medium they’re using. Take a cue from Zappos, an online fashion retailer. They created an augmented version of their desktop site for mobile, featuring a prominent search bar, easy-to-find cart and fast-loading product images for an easy shopping experience.
2. Include prominent calls to action
One of the hardest things for new business owners to learn when creating the best website design is that consumers need to be told what to do over and over and over again. In many places. On many pages. In many ways.
Don’t believe me? The proof is in the pudding. Hubspot showcased a company who increased their conversions by nearly 106 percent simply by altering their homepage design and adding prominent calls to action.
You can’t argue with that…
While revenue is important, calls to action don’t have to be purchase-based – after all, most companies have blogs and social media accounts that foster brand loyalty, which is just as important. Digital design magazine DesignRush.com incorporates various calls to action throughout their website design, encouraging users to engage in conversation, share articles and sign up for their newsletter.
3. Feature compelling multimedia
A picture is worth a thousand words, so videos are likely worth a million. Users both enjoy multimedia more than text on website designs AND remember the information better. Fifty percent better, to be exact.
In fact, up to 60 percent of users prefer videos to text, according to 17Production. Plus, website bounce rates are significantly lower and the time users spend on a website is significantly increased, meaning that videos are unequivocally a great idea for any website.
Unfortunately, videos can be time and money-consuming to create, and not every young business can implement them immediately. Don’t fret, though! There are plenty of multimedia design elements that you can incorporate into your design that will replicate at least some of the benefits videos bring, including high-resolution original images, tiny animations, parallax scrolling effects and GIFs. For example, the creative agency We Are Young Blood incorporates a colorful, layered GIF-like effect to pull users into their unique website design.
Conclusion
All in all, freshening up your brand’s website design is an easy task. By ensuring it is functional across all platforms, instructional, and visually pleasing, you’ll increase your e-commerce sales quickly and boost your bottom line in a flash.
