• De-clutter your site landing pages. A site that has too much going on will leave visitors both overwhelmed and confused. They won’t be able to spot that CTA button amidst all that clutter. It can also leave users under the impression that you are trying too hard to win them over. You want to keep your site design simple and appealing.
• While it’s not a bad idea to do up your site a little differently than other sites out there, you don’t want to miss out on the basics in the process. Online users have come to expect a certain few basics on all sites- About Us, Careers, Investors, Social Media, Store Locator, Privacy Policy, and Contact Us pages for example. You will usually find most of these tabs on the footer of the page. Make sure your website has these basics covered, so site visitors do not feel as if they’re in unfamiliar online territory.
• Icons and images do a good job of upping that professional quotient of your website. Images are great storytellers. In fact. some of the biggest brands out there have full-blown images as the backdrop for their site. Icons are equally important for a professional touch. Whether you’re talking about the features of your service or why customers should choose your business, the use of icons makes it look more professional and believable.
• Keep the navigation simple, so visitors easily find what they’re here for. Online users are usually quite impatient to find things. A site with navigation that is complex or not user-friendly will negatively affect user experience, and may cause users to leave the site. A search bar and site map are indispensable for professional sites. A smooth, intuitive navigation could mean lower bounce rate and higher conversions for your brand.

A quick site audit from a professional Brisbane web design agency can reveal what changes your site needs to appear professional. Remember, how your site looks not just affects whether or not users decide to stay on your site, but also their purchase decisions with your brand.

The post How to Give Your Website a Professional Appeal appeared first on Stacked Site.

Clear message

Can a user understand the service/product/value you offer within the first few seconds of visiting your site?

The average site has under 7 seconds to help make a visitor understand what it does, according to digital marketing Brisbane experts. Given how user attention spans are getting lower, don’t be surprised if some visitors spend as much as just 3 seconds to decide whether or not they want to stay on your site.

Your website should be designed so it sends through a clear message to the visitor. Ask any professional Brisbane graphic design agency and they will tell you how image sliders and too much information translate to higher bounce rate.

Businesses like the idea of using clever tag-lines and quirky web design formats for their pages. But given how little a time users take to decide whether or not they want to stay on your website, you are better off sticking to standard web design formats and punchlines that convey a clear business message.

Visual cues

Visual cues are a great way to capture the attention of users. However, if you include too many visual cues, you will leave the user confused. So you want to use visual cues sparingly, and strategically, say advertising agency Brisbane experts.

You may be tempted to use stock photos for your website landing pages as it an easy option, but they don’t always have the intended impact. Try using exclusive images of your business instead, so you can connect better with your customers.

For instance, if you operate a food delivery service, have a professional photographer take pictures of your staff in action during their workday, and that of happy customers, instead of run-off-the-mill photos.

Videos can be a great way to keep site visitors hooked as well, say marketing agency Brisbane. Rather than explaining what your business does in page-long content, put up a video for users to watch so they can understand what you do.

Of course, you do not want your video to be set on auto-play; if anything it will dissuade the user from watching the video, as most users like to choose the what and how of consuming online content.

The post Is Your Web Design Aligned With Your Digital Marketing Strategy? appeared first on Stacked Site.

• Conversion-focused websites cleverly guide user through their story or service offerings, onto the CTA button. Make sure your website follows a logical eye-path, so it achieves the same. The design aesthetics should draw the visitor’s eyes to your CTA. While we are on the subject of CTA, know that having multiple CTA buttons will leave users confused. So stick to one CTA for each page.

• Users have a short attention span, and you want to convince them to buy your product/ service within a few seconds. Videos and images can be a great way to support your conversion strategy, and get them to hit that buy button. Of course, you do not want to overdo it with either of them, or visitors will be clueless as to where they are supposed to look.

• Swap a pretty website layout to one that is functional; pretty will catch the eye, but good functionality means easy usability. Make sure users can easily find what they came to your site for in the first place. A search bar and site map can make your website go a long way!

• Make sure your website load speed is fast. A slow page load speed is one of the main causes for high bounce rate. You can lazy load images so your page loads faster, and get a reliable hosting service on board, so your site speed does not lag. Visitors expect site pages to load as quickly as 3 seconds, and much faster for mobile-site pages. In fact surveys have shown that you can lose out on 11 percent of your conversion rate for each one second delay in your page load speed.

• Social proof can be a great way to build user trust in your brand. If your business is not a well-known name in the industry, you want to use other means such as testimonials and reviews from trusted sources to foster trust in visitors. Researches have shown that users trust reviews online nearly the same way they would trust recommendations from friends.

You may not be able to pinpoint what exactly is affecting your site-conversion rates, in which case you want to get in touch with a Brisbane web design agency, so they can evaluate your site and recommend changes.

The post What Do Conversion-Focused Websites Have in Common appeared first on Stacked Site.

A/B tests can offer you helpful insights on optimizing your site. Here’s what you need to know about A/B tests according to the top digital marketing agency Brisbane.

Common A/B tests

• Free vs purchase: You can test how your site fares when you offer free trials as opposed to just the purchase option. Some businesses have reported an over 100 percent increase in the site visitor sign up rate on switching to free trial from purchase option.

Some users may drop out during the course of the trial, say marketing business solution agency, but if you have a sound conversion rate, then retaining the free trial might be a good choice.

• Chat help: While you may have a search bar and site map in place (so visitors can find what they came looking for on your site), it may still not helps solve all site visitor queries. Many businesses include a chat help for this reason. You want to include one on your site to see if it makes any difference to your site conversion rate, as it answers customer questions instantly.

• CTA: The colour and placement of the CTA button could make a difference to your conversion rate. Consult your website design Brisbane agency to evaluate what changes you should make to your CTA button, before you test it out.

How to choose an A/B test

Some businesses go wrong with their A/B testing, as they randomly try and pick tests. If you are unable to decide which A/B tests suit your website’s needs it is best to outsource business solutions to an expert.

The point of A/B tests is to identify problem areas in your site that are negatively affecting the conversion rate and fix it.

This is where random A/B tests fail, according to business process outsourcing experts. You want to carry out a site analysis to determine which parts of your site appreciate good or poor traffic, and the corresponding conversion rates as well.

Check out the user drop-out points in fill-out forms, and the pages that get the most number of hits, so you know what aspects to focus on while picking A/B tests.

These tests will be able to pinpoint what is/isn’t working for your site- whether it is a long form or complex navigation that is causing users to leave the site. Once you have fixed the problem areas on your website that were leading to a high bounce rate, the next step is to check out what your competitor sites are doing, so you can up the ante.

The post Using A/B Tests to Drive Your Conversion Rate appeared first on Stacked Site.

CTA

Don’t place your Call-to-action statement in the corner of a page where it is hard to find. You want your CTA to stand out against the rest of the page so the site visitor’s attention is naturally drawn to it. You want the CTA button to be placed off the grid that has the rest of the site content.

Use directional cues, if you can, to lead to your CTA button. Ideally, you do not want the user to scroll down the page to locate the CTA button, and it should be easily accessible at first glance.

Next, if you have a form that visitors have to fill to subscribe or inquire about your service then keep it short. Users will think twice if they have to fill out a long form, and it could mean lost conversions for your business.

You should know that visitors can be directed to any page on your site, and not necessarily the home page. You want to make sure that there are relevant CTA buttons placed on other site pages as well.

Keep it simple

We have all come across those sites which have a lot happening, and leave you confused as to where to look.

No doubt, you have a lot of information to convey to visitors, whether it is the customer testimonials or accolades that you have won. However, it may not work in your favor to have it all displayed on your home page.

Your home page should have a clean visual hierarchy, with the layouts logically placed and broken into different grids. Add a search bar so visitors can easily find what they came to find on your site, and a site map as well.

Trust quotient

What’s the one thing that makes or breaks user’s decision in investing in your service? The trust quotient of your business.

If your website looks unprofessional, or has broken links, the credibility of your website naturally takes a hit. Make sure your site design and content are both updated and consistent.

Don’t forget to include stories of customers and employees on the site. It can add a personal touch to an otherwise robotic site, and in turn gain the trust of users.

The post Web Design Tricks For Higher Conversion Rates appeared first on Stacked Site.

Advertisements

If ads are hogging most of your website real estate then you are in for some trouble. Most website visitors leave a site when the ad content on it is overflowing. What’s more is it also makes site trust quotient take a hit, as users now recognise that you have an ulterior motive.

Of course, if your website primarily depends on ads to stay afloat, then you cannot scrap all ads on the site; you do not have to scrap all the ads on your site even otherwise. What you want to do is to keep the ad versus actual content balanced, giving more space for the latter.

Understand that ads tend to distract your user from the actual content on your site. Now, this may not be a bad thing if you depend on just ads for monetization. However, if you have a business product/service that you are trying to sell, ads will take the focus off it.

Pop-ups and auto-plays

Pop-up displays and auto-play videos are among the most common reasons why users leave a site. The problem with both these website features is they materialise unannounced, when in reality, users would like to be in control of the information that they see on the site.

You would also want to check if pop-ups or auto-play videos may be causing your bounce rates to increase. No doubt, a video that displays how your product/service works or a pop-up that asks users to register to your newsletter could help drive conversions; at least that is the idea behind these notorious visitor rebound features.

However, they may not be having the same results as you expect. You want to use measuring tools to evaluate whether it is benefiting your site or working against it, and then decide whether or not you want to keep it, say Brisbane search engine optimisation experts.

Lack of trust and/or personality

It’s interesting how traits that visitors look for in a website vary around the world. A business is France would do better focusing on how trustworthy their website appears, while one in Mexico would do better focusing on how desirable the design of the site appears.

Australian users look for a mix of both, so you may want to get your site evaluated by Brisbane website design agency to see how your site scores on these factors. Build a distinct personality for your brand if you can. A run-off-the-mill website won’t garner the same attention as one with a distinct personality and creative website design.

The post What's Making Visitors Leave Your Website? appeared first on Stacked Site.