Creating a great website involves more than color and stand out call-to-action (CTA) buttons. In general, your website has about 10 seconds to make an impression on prospects — to offer them a value worth staying for. By applying some proven tips on website redesign strategies, you can make sure your website makes that lasting good impression on new visitors.
While good conversion rates hover around five percent, some industries see 11 to 27 percent (see below). What are the odds? These overachieving converters land in the top 10 percent of their industries. What is their secret? What are the website redesign strategies of the elite?
The probability of users bouncing increases after 10 seconds. While some continue to browse into 20 seconds and then bounce, the likelihood of leaving decreases greatly after half a minute. Evidently, the top converting websites figured out how to hold visitor attention.
Check out these five pro tips on website redesign strategies — to land you among the elite.
Before you begin your website redesign, you need to target your efforts.
– Know where you are headed: What are your company goals? What are your marketing goals? What action do you want visitors to take on your site?
– Know your audience: Who do you want to attract? What are their interests, questions and online behaviors? How can you segment your audience for more targeted efforts?
– Plan your testing: How will you know you reached your goals? What tools help you get insight into what works and the adjustments you need to make?
After you layout a plan, work to make your website…
1. Easy to Use
Clear and focused content keeps visitors from bouncing. You get 10 seconds to make a good impression, remember? You need to give them a reason to stay in concise, understandable language. Large, attractive CTA buttons and less physical navigation work best.
While creativity and a unique presence help you stand out among the competition, familiarity on crucial pages, like checkout, eases visitor worries. Who wants to wonder if they are inputting the right information or clicking the right button when personal data is at stake?
2. Attractive
White space, color and font merge to create an attractive user experience and convey a powerful message to your audience. In the right combination, visitors are drawn to convert.
– Capitalize on white space to keep visitors focused on vital information.
– Use the psychology of color to motivate your audience to click your CTA.
– Understand how font builds trust when used correctly.
Caution: Redesigning a website motivated by aesthetic alone spells failure. Personal bias enters when redesigning on these terms. Updating an “outdated” or “ugly” site may make it look modern while achieving less than contemporary conversion rates, if this is your sole focus.
3. Valuable
Scams and other questionable content hide among the good on the internet. Even well meaning companies fill inboxes with email junk with the click of a CTA. These facts raise consumer suspicions — they need to know you offer high cost-to-benefit value.
All pages, not just the first landing page, need to assure your visitors of the value you offer them. Highlight your benefits throughout the sales funnel to give visitors peace of mind as they follow your CTA process. (And, keep the message and journey short.)
Use remarketing to draw those who visited but did not engage. Targeted, valuable messages through email, video and social media put your benefits in front of the 96 percent of visitors who leave without converting.
4. Personal
Over the internet, the firm handshake, friendly smile and sincere tone of traditional sales get lost. However, you can create a similar “feel” on your website. Extending a welcoming smile with photos which represent your demographic does just that.
Part of a sales experience includes knowledgeable, honest information. Engagement analytics on your top landing pages offer insight on content which works with your audience. Designing content around your best performing blogs, videos and CTAs drives more conversions.
Tailoring layouts and content around visitor experience metrics gives prospects the experience they want. And, this influences website visitor behavior which in turn impacts organic traffic. Test different layouts in segments of your audience to learn what performs best from the data.
5. To the Point
Web users skim content. The internet gives them access to a great deal of information in short order. Busy people on the go, your site visitors do not have time to read long blocks of text or wade through lines of instruction or multiple sales funnel clicks to convert.
This calls for ruthless editing:
– Cut your text to the bare bones while still getting your message across to your audience.
– Use simple, concise language to explain how you benefit the visitor and how to convert.
– Decrease the clicks required to get information.
– Eliminate any and all optional fields.
– Avoid hard to understand content which only breeds suspicion.
– Ask only for basic information for prospects to take advantage of an offer.
Getting the Most From Your Website
Applying these simple principles in your website redesign strategy reaps significant return on investment. With planning, thoughtful integration and testing, you may just find yourself at the top of your industry’s conversion rate stats.
