1. Prioritize site speed over all others
It’s perhaps one of the least-discussed truths in the world of web design that speed is critical. It has been shown through research that it has an impact on everything from bounce rate to customer retention to sales and sales. If your website design is sluggish, visitors may leave. Additionally, since consumers care, search engines care as well and take the website loading speed into account when rating your page. As a result, you must invest in optimizing your site’s speed and efficiency to optimize your digital marketing.
2. Capitalize on the Fold
The existence of the fold is a point of contention. According to others, the fold no longer matters due to the variety of screen sizes available today. Others have a contrary view. However, in 2018, people spent 57% of their time outside the fold, followed by a rapid fall. They spend 74% of their time on the first two screenfuls.
This is an important function of graphic design. Thus, it seems as if the fold is still important. For your website, this involves prioritizing your material and using the limited room to entice visitors to stay. Here are few pointers about how to do that: Utilize an evocative yet succinct headline. Describe what the platform will do for tourists and emphasize the advantages. Be succinct and use strong language.
To maximize conversions, the fold is the optimal place to begin the consumer journey. Ascertain that the CTA is both transparent and noticeable. Including visual and audio elements – Images, videos, and audio both help to highlight the argument.
3. Capitalize on Hick’s Law
According to Hick’s Law, the more options a person has, the longer it will take for them to make a decision.
There is interesting research on this phenomenon in which people were offered more or fewer kinds of jam to sample in a supermarket. Finally, people with more options were significantly less likely to purchase jam than those with fewer options. How important is this for your website? Are you willing to increase conversions simply by restricting the options available to consumers? The following are a few descriptions of how it could look:
-Reduce the menu’s amount of products
-Restriction of type fields
-Concentrate on a single call to action.
-Display social buttons only for networks where you are an active user.
-Maintain a single target per website.
4. Maintain simplicity
Continuing the concept of minimalism often extends to your overall style. Google conducted a large survey and discovered that travelers dislike visual ambiguity. The gist is that the more complicated your architecture is, the less attractive it is considered to be by users.What does this imply for your website’s performance? Apart from the argument made previously, below are a few suggestions:
Consider the sidebar – The sidebar is being phased out of an increasing number of websites in favor of a single-column style (for example, the one you are on right now). This implies less obstacles and a strong emphasis on the material. Maintain consistent formats – People crave comfort and may be taken aback by unusual website designs. As a result, it might be prudent to adhere to well-known style tropes and layouts. You should also make an impression in some respects.
5. Limit the usage of carousels, sliders, tabs, and accordions.
Carousels are a favorite of website users. It’s perhaps the most often asked function. Regrettably, evidence indicates that they are mostly ineffective.
Notre Dame University has some of the most mind-blowing numbers. The webmaster found that the first slide in a carousel got nearly 90% of clicks, while the other slides were virtually overlooked.
Tabs and accordions have the same issue as sliders and carousels in that they are often overlooked. This is exacerbated even by the fact that few users read the whole website. The majority of people search and are therefore unlikely to make additional clicks to see your stuff.
However, what if you need to incorporate the data contained in those areas in any way? We are rapidly approaching that stage.
6. Give Scrolling Priority Over Clicking
So, if you’re not going to compact data onto sliders and/or accordions, how are you going to show it? The solution is to condense all into a single long list, even items that are typically hidden away. Seriously, this method works. Crazy Egg has an interesting case study that demonstrates this argument. They went from an easy, brief sales page to one that was 20 times longer. As a consequence, conversions increased by 30%! That is unquestionably not trivial.
Users seem to like scrolling far more than they do tapping. Therefore, if you are already dispersing product details through several sites, it is time to rethink.
7. Use Visual Cues to Guide Attention
One of a web design company’s primary duties is to direct people. This can be accomplished by assigning varying weights to various components, thus focusing attention in the desired direction.
However, you can do this with more simple visual signals. One is by capitalizing on the idea that humans have a natural tendency to glance in the same direction as people they see in advertisements.
Does direct visual focus see how more viewers are reading the text the baby is staring at in the picture above than when the baby was looking at the camera? This is a true reality, and you will use it to focus marketing emphasis on specific areas on your website.
However, you do not need to be as discreet in directing visitor focus. Occasionally, it helps to be direct about it. For instance, in one analysis, researchers compared the above effects to those of a clear arrow pointing at something.
Visual indicators surprisingly, the more straightforward approach outperformed the indirect cue.
8. Have People in Your Photographs (But Avoid Stock Photos)
Apart from using them to draw publicity, having other users in the website’s photos is a good practice in general. Humans crave social interaction, both in-person and online.
This is shown in one of Basecamp’s case studies. They increased conversions by 102.5 percent when they switched from a text-based landing page to one that featured a big picture of a human in the background.
Utilize human beings in website graphics Uncomplicated but successful. However, there is one caveat: stock images will quickly undo the entire impact. According to a Nielsen Norman Group report, we are extremely adept at identifying and tuning out these generic videos.
As a result, if you want to include photographs of individuals on the blog, ensure that they are genuine and authentic.
9. Use the Appropriate List Order
Utilizing collections, both arranged and unordered, is an excellent way to increase the accessibility of content. However, it points out that human attention is indeed fickle in this case.
This is due to the phenomenon known as the serial position effect. It essentially states that you are more apt to recall all the things at the beginning and the end of a list. On the other side, the middle segment is largely ignored.
The lesson here is to choose the most critical qualities of your product or service while listing them.
10. Capitalize on Social Media
Our final website design tip concerns the so-called conformity bias. This is the human proclivity to copy others, including through graphic design. That is, if a community of people approves of anything, it increases the likelihood that others may feel the same.
One way to demonstrate this on the website is by the use of social media. If you can demonstrate that others value your blog, material, commodity, or service, new users are more likely to feel the same way.
This is most readily shown by the number of Facebook followers, retweet counts, media references, and testimonials.
Which Web Design Tips Are Your Favorites?
Website design is a complicated subject and has a significant impact on the success of the website. As a result, it’s important to understand what you’re doing. If you are confused, don’t worry, just use the above tip and watch your conversions soar to the top.
Here are a few more great resources:
https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/10/5-design-tips-for-a-professional-site/
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/web-design-beginners-tips/
We hope you enjoyed our tips from one of the first Website Design companies in St. Louis. If you are a St. Louis company looking for web design services, please keep us in mind.