Leads and your Web Design

By Kris T. Larsson


If you are upgrading your website or starting out and creating a new site, be sure that the overall plan of your site is based on the best marketing and conversion strategies available today. Best design practices are now supported by empirical evidence. It's important to be aware of the basics. You can't be expected to master conversion marketing, if this is not your field, but you should do some general reading so you can ask the right questions of the company you work with.

You're site cannot just be beautiful. This can be a risk of working with a designer with little or no business experience outside of design. Without an understanding of conversion marketing, there is the potential for a site that misses the mark. You need to ensure that your designer is not treating your website as an outlet for their creativity. Usability and business goals should drive your website design.

You site needs to be your best salesperson... in the form of sales, leads, or sign ups. Accurate or not, people will evaluate your company based on their experience with your site. The science backs up this claim. Whether or not people will buy your product, is strongly influenced by their experience with your website.

An Overview of Web Design

Think about color contrast when you are contemplating your site. And don't forget to consider how those colors will look across different devices. While some designers love dark backgrounds, they can present some real challenges for the user. And it looks terrible on smartphones. Test your site on different browsers and devices. Get a feel for what your user may experience.

Don't jam everything into your site. There is a tendency for people to try to put everything on a single page. The web is a place where attention spans are insanely short. You have to keep it simple. If at all possible, aim for one clear goal for every page. There is a tendency to emphasize the homepage at the expense of the other pages. Every page needs a purpose and every page needs a call to action.

Page speed is vital. If your site takes more than three seconds to load, you've lost your visitor. Just search google for the term "test your website speed" and you'll find a number of free services where you can simply add the url of your site and click a button to get the results.

Video is king. You need it. It's no longer optional. People expect you to have video. Conversions increase with video. Both time and engagement levels are improved when you put video at your site. It's become a relatively minor expense nowadays. The quality of everyday video equipment is sufficient for most online video. It should also not look like your fifteen year old nephew took the video on your vintage sony camcorder.

Testimonials are social proof and are absolutely necessary for your site. If it is possible, do your best to get your client testimonials on video. And make sure your testimonials don't look like they were pushed or staged. Keeping it natural and in the words of your clients will lend itself to a more genuine and valuable testimonial.




About the Author: