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5 Website Design Mistakes Killing Your Conversion Rate

5 Website Design Mistakes Killing Your Conversion Rate

It appears you have properly designed your website, putting all the necessary elements; yet the conversation rate doesn’t seem to go up.

So what went wrong?

It is important to know there are some elements of website designing that might actually be lowering your conversion rate without you knowing it.

Website design is not only about enhancing your site’s aesthetic value; it is also about focusing on fulfilling its goal. So whether you want to gain readers, add subscribers, or sell products, the entire purpose of your site’s existence is to convert. Some elements that make your website aesthetically pleasing can also kill your conversions.

Here are some of the crucial website design mistakes that kill your conversion rate:

1. Poor landing page with too much clutter

While designing the landing page, too much clutter makes the page complex and uninviting. So overwhelming your visitors with an endless wall of text will make them go away before conversion. While educating viewers on your product offering is important, but too much text will make the page appear cluttered and hard to process.

Whenever your visitors’ attention is being pulled away in different directions, they are less likely to convert. Rather, keep your design clean, put necessary information, and eliminate distraction and unnecessary elements from the page. The effective way of displaying your key benefits is using bullet list and your customers will quickly grasp the main idea. It conveys the same message as do long paragraphs but in a more attractive way.

The following webpage is a perfect example of a poor and cluttered landing page:

According to a study, it needs only 5 seconds to convince viewers to stay on your page. If you can’t impress them within this timeframe, they will most likely end up on your competitors’ page. Therefore, the volume of text on your page impacts what your visitors think of your offer.

2. Lack of prominent CTA

The call to action, better known as the “CTA,” is an appeal to users, inviting their response. Your CTAs are arguably the most important part of your website. A proper and prominent CTA button directs users, gets them to take the desired action, and thereby improves conversion rates. A poorly placed and unclear CTA button, on the other hand, will do very little to get your users’ attention. So, how to revisit your call to action strategy?

There are 4 key considerations for every CTA:

• Text: Is your call to action clear? Does it create a sense of urgency? Is it action-oriented?
• Placement: Is CTA button properly placed above the fold? It is at a place where users would most likely to take action?
• Size: How easily can users find the CTA tab? Is it easily identifiable?
• Color: Does your CTA button visually appealing? Does it stand out from the rest of the page? Is there enough white space surrounding it?

It is important to understand that your Call to action should communicate value; it should have strong and relevant text. Where you place your CTA on your landing page can impact its performance. Regarding the placement of CTA higher or lower on a page, Contentverve carried out some testing. It found that there is a correlation between complexity and optimal placement. According to the test, “CTA placed way below the fold at the bottom of a very long landing page significantly outperformed a variant with the CTA at the top of the page above the fold. The increase was 304%.”

3. Low-quality content and imagery

The quality of content on your webpage along with relevant and visually pleasing images creates a significant impact on your visitors. When it comes to B2C campaigns, the approach is more customer-focused. Therefore content written with a clear vision of what must be conveyed to readers should be built on understanding their pain points and emotional connection. Another thing that affects the decision of your visitors is boring or bad product descriptions, especially on e-commerce websites. The way you describe your website’s product-items should be unique. The problem ensues when a user stumbles upon similar or even the same product descriptions on other websites. So a rule of thumb is, whether you write a blog post or describe products on e-commerce webpage, you need to create high quality content for your visitors.

The heading is an important part of your content that plays a critical role in grabbing your visitors’ attention when they land on your page. Not having an informative heading leaves potential leads confused as to why they’re on your landing page.

Imagery and visual cues are often the first things seen by users that invite their attention. The chances of conversion rates go high when your website’s images are meaningful, relevant, high-quality, and authentic. If you use the images that can be found on hundreds of other websites, then they may work negatively.

4. No responsive web design

Today, one of the key metrics for a successful business is enhanced user experience. A responsive website, therefore, is the best solution for a better user experience. A responsive web design includes a flexible, liquid layout that adapts to fit various screen sizes, resolutions, and devices. More and more people are using smartphones for shopping and various other activities. According to Search Engine Land, mobile searches now outnumber those that take place on the desktop. So if your website doesn’t change layouts according to your visitors’ screens, you will likely to miss out heavily on conversion rates.

Google also prefers responsive design because it doesn’t create different versions of the same website. Rather, it creates a single site with the same URL and HTML that can adapt, fit and retract to accommodate different types of devices. From 2015 onwards, Google started rewarding responsive websites by giving them high preference in search engine rankings.

One of the most prominent advantages of switching to a responsive website design is that your online store is ready for any future technological changes. Due to increased innovation, new devices are launched frequently and responsive sites providing high scalability can fit into any screen size.

5. Confusing navigation

However visually rich your website might be, whatever number of features you may have added in it if your visitors find navigating around your website is an uphill task, the conversion rate gets a serious beating. The design of a website’s navigation has a bigger impact on success or failure than almost any other factor. Visitors need to know where they are at all the time in order to orient themselves and find their way around your site.

Easy browsing experience, logically organized content, and a sound design is crucial navigational details that make a measurable impact on your traffic and conversion. Having a confusing navigation and not investing in an engaging website layout (with good structure) may cause you losing your ground to your competitors. A clear navigation, on the other hand, will make your audience effortlessly find their way towards your desired action.

Navigation should be descriptive, so avoid using generic wording in your structure. Always remember that your content should be organized for your target audience, not for you. Labels like “Products” or “Services” do nothing substantial to communicate with visitors. Save their clicks by making your website’s navigation descriptive. Your navigation is also a huge opportunity to indicate your relevance to search engines; thus it will be helpful to use popular key phrases.

Conclusion

The conversion rate is an important marker of your website’s success that depends upon various factors. It is possible you can unknowingly commit many big or small mistakes during designing your website. You need to continuously test various elements on your page to ensure any possible mistakes are removed as soon as possible. If the objective of your website is to serve your customer better, make sure design it in a way it attracts potential leads and steer them towards conversion.