At Pistachio, we’re known for loving a bit of good old website design. You can even take a look at some of our recent work here. But only after reading this enthralling blog post, obvs.
Recently we’ve been thinking a lot about web design, what we know works (and what doesn’t) and most importantly, what our clients need from it. Long story short, it’s not just about pretty pictures and flashy animations (but they do help, of course).
It may come as little surprise to learn that there’s a fair amount to consider when building or refurbing your website. But at its core, your website should always be working hard for you. Humming away in the background and converting visitors into paying customers, even while you eat, sleep, rave and repeat.
Handily, we’ve come up with our top 5 tips to ensure your website is optimised to convert customers.
But enough lollygagging (there’s your new word of the week) let’s get to it…
1. What’s your purpose?
Unfortunately, we’re not talking about the ultimate meaning of your transient time here on earth. But you may find it hard to believe that even now, in 2022, many businesses pay top dollar for a brand-spanking new website without once considering what they actually want it to do. Muggles, am I right?
So, take note, a website really has only 7 purposes:
1. To sell
2. To generate leads
3. To inform
4. To entertain
5. To serve
6. To present
7. To connect
If your website isn’t doing one or more the things above, it’s time to ask for a little help.
2. What’s the journey?
Every business has a customer journey, so where does your customer sit on the journey when they come to your website? Have you considered the stages of awareness and education? Do you customers arrive at your website already knowing who you are, or do they land cold? These are the things you need to know in order to convert visitors into loyal customers.
Taking a few minutes to answer the questions above will not only help you understand your business’s customer journey better, but you’ll also know the purpose of your website too.
Two birds, one stone and all that.
3. What do you WANT?
Or, most importantly, what do you want your visitors to do next? Having a lot of users visiting your website is great and all. But how many of these are turning into actual customers? A lot of the time users end up leaving a site because they couldn’t figure out what to do next.
We’ve all been there. How many times have you personally searched, found, and visited a website (maybe for a hair salon or to book a round of golf) and left, frustrated that you couldn’t find contact details, location, a sign-up button, or an obvious price list…the list really does go on and on.
So, after you’ve considered the purpose of your website, where your site fits into the customer journey…next on your hit list is to tell visitors what to do!
4. Pretty doesn’t always mean profit
Yes, we know that’s strong talk coming from a design agency, but it’s not all about what your website looks like. When most businesses set out to design (or redesign) their site, they often continue to make the same old mistakes. It goes a little something like this, find an eye-wateringly hip web design agency with an even more painful price tag, ask for something ‘avant-garde’ and end up with a trendy labyrinth of a navigation that would make Luke Skywalker dizzy.
The reality is, a functional website that converts visitors to customers, far outweighs a pretty website you can show off to your friends.
Now, we’re not saying good-looking websites don’t make a difference – because they really do. It’s just there needs to be a solid strategy behind it.
5. Test it!
Imagine, you’ve just spent a lot of your hard-earned pennies on a website, and you can’t wait to drive users to it. But shock horror, launch day arrives, comes, and goes, and your website isn’t delivering the heady heights of sales and enquiries that you’d hoped for.
This is because a lot of design is based on assumptions. Assumptions made from years of experience and hard graft, sure, but designers are still working from assumptions about your brand – they’re not the ones living it. That’s your job. And it’s why tools like Google Analytics exist. So, test it out. Use the insights at your disposal to keep your finger on the pulse to discover what’s working, and what’s not.
Even tinkering with things like the lead image or the colour of a CTA button can make a big difference, driving higher conversions and generating a multitude of loyal customers.
All in all, it’s essential to keep your website design and content fresh, up-to-date and working hard for you. You wouldn’t buy the car of your dreams and not make sure it’s MOT’d and serviced every year, would you? Well, ok some of us may have done (once or twice) but that’s no excuse to let your website, your virtual shopfront, go stale.
Thanks for reading our top 5 tips for better website conversions, we hope you’ve learned a thing or two and are feeling dutifully inspired. If you’d like any help with your website, whether it’s starting from scratch, updating what you have, or maybe you simply have no clue where to begin – just drop us a line today, we’d love to hear from you.
