By Anthony Tisara
Anyone who has a website for their small business that pulls in a decent amount of traffic and gets a respectable ranking in the search engine results pages should be happy. After all, it’s not easy achieving both, so webmasters who own popular sites that rank well should give themselves a pat on the back for a job well done.
What would make them even happier, however, is if their websites did well on the conversion side of things. Sadly, not all sites with significant traffic and rankings manage to get that many people to sign up for their newsletters or buy whatever product or services their small business is offering.
If sales are slow despite heavy traffic and Page 1 SERP positions, then it might be the web design that needs a bit of tweaking.
Web design does more than prettify a website. It also has a lot to do with drawing people in to make them give you leads and conversions. Yes, web design impacts sales, which many consider as the ultimate conversion.
So make some changes to your website design to drive sales for your small business, and here are 10 tips to get you started.
When people complain that they tend to get lost while exploring your website, you can expect to lose them, too. Navigating your site should always be easy, with a working search feature and clickable navigation elements. Ease of navigation makes visitors stay longer, which means better chances for them to give you that all-important conversion or sale.
2. Create a Great Landing Page
A strong headline, an image of superb quality, and a clear, well-written description of the benefits of whatever it is you’re offering are what you need for a superb landing page. So make sure your landing page has all of the above to boost your chances of getting more sales.
3. Use Short Contact Forms
Not too many people like filling out forms. Even fewer people enjoy filling out very long forms. Your contact form is crucial to generating leads that eventually become conversions, so it’s important to keep it as short and sweet as you can make it. A contact form asking only for a name, an email addresses, and a zip code should do it.
4. Have a Highly Visible CTA Button
There’s no sense putting in a call-to-action button that’s not easy to spot, so if you can put it above the fold or somewhere prominent on your website, that would be great. The same goes for making the CTA red or orange, both of which are good for attracting attention.
5. Create Video Content
No matter how well-written your posts are, content in video form will still draw more attention. Videos, after all, are more engaging and a lot easier to digest. Make sure, however, that your videos featuring your products or services don’t run too long. A video that’s around the three-minute mark should do the trick.
6. Boost Your Page Loading Speed
We live in a world where speed in just about everything is crucial. That is also true of page loading speed. More than half of Internet users won’t hesitate to drop a site if the page they want to access takes more than three seconds to load.
To boost loading speed, you might want to optimize images, upgrade your site to a new PHP version, and minimize your redirects, among other things.
7. Put Up Testimonials
A testimonial from a previous customer — a real one, that is — goes a long way in shoring up your credibility in the eyes of visitors who are all potential customers. If the testimonials come with the real names and contact information of the customers, then that would be so much better.
8. Offer Freebies
People like free stuff, so offering freebies should trigger their interest and make them stay on your website longer. You can provide anything you want, from free trials to free shipping.
9. Put Those Badges in View
If your site has acquired trust, security, and awards badges over its existence, then you should give them a prominent place there. These badges, after all, are proof that your site is worthy of trust, and people will always be more willing to do business with trustworthy entities.
10. Improve Responsiveness
With the widening gap between the number of mobile and desktop users, there is never a better time to be fully mobile-friendly than today.
Mobile users also do a lot of their shopping on their devices, so making your site easily accessible across all screens is a no-brainer.
These are just some of the changes you can make to your web design that can help improve the sales figures for your small business. Implement them now, and watch many of your visitors turn into buyers.
