In today’s competitive times, developing a website that converts has never been tougher.
Users have more choice, more distractions, and more power than ever before, so your site needs to deliver on user experience and make it as simple as possible for visitors to find what they want.
If your site doesn’t respond in the way users expect, your content is too hard to find or you use outdated practices, potential customers won’t stick around for very long.
Below, we’ve put together five ways user experience design can improve conversion rates, with some eye-opening statistics and tips and tricks on maximising sales and enquiries…
Helping users locate your products, services, and information in the most convenient and shortest time possible is what user experience is all about.
37% of consumers say that poor navigation is enough of an annoyance to make them press ‘close’ on a site, so optimising and tweaking your navigation bar is critical.
Cut out the unnecessaries, add additional links to your footer, and keep your core navigation straight-forward and easy for everyday users.
In fact, the simpler your navigation, the better.
Choose buttons for your calls to action.
Play around with the order of your navigation.
Optimise text to attract and define experiences for user segments (for example, a university should change ‘2020 application form’ to ‘apply’).
And use the recognisable ‘hamburger’ menu icon on mobile browsing experiences.
Finally, make sure your logo links to your homepage.
36% of consumers click on a logo whenever they want to visit a homepage, rather than swiping or using the back button on their browser.
What does this mean for conversions?
Simplifying your navigation puts focus on your product and services and encourages users to head to your “money” pages rather than get bogged down reading about your services without buying.
On landing pages, removing your navigation entirely could further increase conversions, driving sales by removing distractions.
According to one study, using video can increase conversion rates on your landing pages by a massive 80%.
Why? Today’s consumers are watching more videos than ever, and people are lazy and prefer to watch content than read a block of text.
By summarising the benefits of your services or products in a 30-second clip, you’ll persuade visitors to buy there and then.
Videos also encourage consumers to spend more time on your page, which gives marketing messages more time to sink in and have the desired effect.
Add in a case study or feature your staff in the video, and consumers’ interest will perk up.
Research shows that human faces increase sales by as much as 48% and engagement by 17%, so don’t be camera shy!
To further optimise your user experience and drive conversions, test autoplaying (be mindful of the fact that autoplaying videos can increase bounce rates) and add a clear, succinct call to action to your videos, either permanently visible or shown at the end of your presentation.
Add a skip button mid-video to appease consumers who are impatient or short on time and captions for those who are out and about and cannot play your video content out loud.
Shopping cart abandonment has increased in recent years, partly because consumers have more choice than ever before when shopping online.
If your shopping cart user experience isn’t as good as Amazon’s or eBay’s, then consumers will be less likely to commit to a sale.
Optimise your shopping cart by displaying complementary products to increase impulse buys and offer multiple payment methods.
Data suggests that 50% of e-commerce buyers will cancel or abandon their purchase if they can’t use their preferred method.
On top of card payments, you should accept PayPal, as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay on mobiles.
Make sure your cart page is clear, displaying the important information about the buyer’s order, including pricing, shipping costs, delivery dates, and product images.
Simplicity is also key – don’t overwhelm users with information or content that’s no longer relevant to their experience.
Finally, speed: you want to get buyers over the line as quickly as possible, and they want to purchase without having to fill out a thousand forms.
23% of users will abandon a shopping cart if they have to create an account, so allow guest checkout.
This subject has been done to death, but worth a mention nonetheless.
A one-second delay can reduce page views by 11%, customer satisfaction by 16%, and conversion rates by 7%.
A one-second delay can also increase bounce rate probability by 32%, rising to 123% for sites that take up to 10 seconds to load.
If your site isn’t lightning fast, you need a new host.
We recommend hosting your website on a UK server and using a content delivery network such as Cloudflare to increase speed to users in other territories.
Optimising your code and using cache tools such as WP-Optimize is a great way to cut down on loading speed times, whilst smushing your images and minifying your JavaScript and PHP can also be beneficial.
If your website is more than five years old, then it might be time for a redesign. Modern web design takes into account loading times with a greater focus on optimisation.
There’s only so much a WordPress plugin can do. Building from the ground up will keep customers happy and encourage them to return to your site, rather than putting them off from their first visit.
Finally, a quick note on CTA placements.
According to the NN Group, content above the fold is seen 84% more than that below the fold, so putting your most important content – such as buttons, videos, and products – at the top of your pages is critical.
Don’t litter your header with unnecessary images, sliders, videos, or navigation – keep it simple and guide users towards the buttons and pages you want them to visit, whether it’s your product pages, signing up to a free trial of your software, paying for an order, or getting in touch for a quote.
Consider A/B testing and experiment with CTA locations and copy, taking into account users’ devices, locations, time of day, and previous experience on your website.
If you discover that first-time visitors respond differently to a large CTA and button, then create a dynamic website that shows different content to different user groups to increase conversions.
And test, test, test: your showstopping call to action might lose its magic in three months’ time.
Need help developing a website or optimising a landing page for conversions? Let the user experience experts at Zudu help. Give us a call on 01382 690 080 today to find out more.
