How to optimise your website for conversions
24th April, 2021
By Elliot McHugh
It’s one thing to have a great-looking website, but if it’s not optimised to convert visitors, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to bring in the website leads that you need to keep your business going. Many web designers in the UK focus merely on design and nothing else; but in fact, nowadays, it’s crucial to use the right on-page formatting to have your website generate the leads it deserves!
There are a variety of tips and tricks you can use to help increase your conversion rate – not just for click-throughs on Google, but also contact forms on your site.
1. Add testimonials, reviews and logos
Adding a range of testimonials and reviews helps to build trust between the web visitor and the business. This is because consumers feel more comfortable purchasing goods or services from a business that that is widely used. If your company or brand is not well known or has never been used, some consumers may be “put off.” If you don’t have any testimonials on your website yet, reach out to existing customers or family members who have used your product or service and ask them to leave a positive comment (if they had a good experience of course!)
Remember to place your testimonials in a visible part of the page – an ideal place to put testimonials is at the checkout on e-commerce sites. This way customers will see product reviews as they are paying and it might encourage them to add something else to their basket! Remember to also use your brand’s logo sitewide as this is another great way to establish brand credibility and a sense of identity on your site. Make sure the website logo is cropped to size and not covered by text or other images. Check out this site example below:
2. Remove distractions
Keep the noise on your website to a minimum – for many consumers, having content and images piled up in one section of a page can be off-putting, especially for sites that offer things like web design or architectural services.
A great way to avoid having too many distractions is to install the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. This plugin will give you a readability score, telling you if the page is too crowded and if it is easy to read for the consumer. Remember to also make use of high quality stock images – you can source these for free from sites like Canva. Pretty images always help to keep web visitors engaged and staying on your web page.
3. Make use of Popups
Popups are a great way to keep visitors engaged. There are a variety of different ways you can use popups to engage website visitors. One way is to create a popup that initiates when a user clicks away from your site. You may wish to include a special promotion or offer to keep them hooked and continue browsing your website. You can also use popups on e-commerce sites at the checkout to upsell specific products. Don’t overuse them though, as some users find them annoying!
4. Remove Form fields that aren’t required
Keeping the noise on your website forms is also critical. If you’re trying to get customers to sign up to a mailing list, for example, just take their first name and email. There’s no need to store their phone number next of kin and date of birth!
On mobile devices, you can also shorten field sizes so that the website visitor doesn’t have to scroll down too much when reading the form. Tools like Elementor enable you to easily reduce column width to 50% which is great.
5. Think about adding a live chat to your website
And don’t just add a HubSpot ‘bot’ chat where the website visitor is not even talking to a human. If you have the resources, have one of your staff man the live chat for a few hours at popular times to respond to any queries that your customers might have. Keep it friendly and informal everyone likes to have a good old chat!
And there we have it – our best tips for optimising your web design for optimal conversions. If you have any question’s or need a website designed for you, we can help! Just drop us a message below or on info@ejmwebdesign.co.uk
