I frequently see businesses that fall into the trap of thinking that they just have to get visitors to their site and once that is done everything will work itself out. It’s almost as if they believe that once someone discovers their site, that person will be instantly enthralled and convert without question. This is almost never happens, but businesses still tend to focus on driving traffic to their site and pay less attention to converting that traffic once it is there. With this blog, I would like to shed a little light on how to make a website that converts.

Why Conversion Centered Design is as Important as SEO

SEO is important and there is now way around that. However, rushing to drive traffic to your site before it is optimized for conversions is basically putting the cart before the horse. Yes, you may get lucky and have some people muddle through you site and convert, but these will be only a fraction of those you could be converting. Instead, you should focus on ensuring that your website is designed to make the most of every visitor, then promote it aggressively through content, social media, and PPC.

Tips for a Conversion Centered Website

1. Make sure your website is designed with buyer personas in mind. This should be your starting point for the whole website. If you haven’t done so already, identify your buyer personas, then create unique pages that target those personas. There should be a logical progression to the pages as well, with some pages targeting a specific persona in the early stages of the buying cycle and others targeting the later stages.
2. Filter your different personas through your homepage. If you are targeting more than one persona, then you need to make sure that you guide them to appropriate pathways for your website. If a particular persona comes on to your site and doesn’t see where they are supposed to go, then they will either bounce or potentially visit a page which doesn’t target them.
3. Use different types of content. Different individuals respond to different types of media. Mix things up with video, infographics, print, images, SlideShare presentations, and other forms of media that help to communicate your value. Also, no matter what type of content you use, make sure that it offers some real value to your visitor.
4. Create a hierarchy of information. Conversion focused web design is about guiding the visitor through the site, and a hierarchy of information helps to achieve this. Starting with a basic overview of things at the top of the page and filtering down to more specific details is one way to achieve this. Using visual cues such as contrasting colors and arrows pointing to key information is another.
5. Have clear, targeted calls-to-action. You should have CTAs which are different for each persona and which offer clear value to them. They also need to stand out in a way that even if you were to just see a quick flash of the page you could identify where the CTA is. The color of the CTA should contrast with the elements around it. Also, the text needs to direct the reader on what to do and inform them of the value that they get for taking that action. Finally, you need to make sure that the CTA matches the offering exactly, otherwise the visitor will be disappointed and most likely bounce.

Have any questions about conversion centered design? Please let me know in the comments below!

Image by :  KROMKRATHOG