Down and Dirty Marketing Tips for Website Design

Thinking about giving your website a makeover? While many people tend to view web design as a means of making a website “prettier,” there’s actually a whole lot more to it than that. Sure, you want your website to look great, but you also want to make sure that your website is doing its job: getting more people to buy more stuff from you. No matter what industry you’re in, your web design’s primary purpose is to help you make your money.

The good news is that reconfiguring your website to become a cash-making machine is simpler than you might think. In fact, you don’t have to change a whole lot in the way of aesthetics in order for your site to start performing better. Here are a few smart tips for improving and streamlining your web design in a way that’s extremely simple while creating improved outcomes.

Get Rid of Bottlenecks

Eliminating “bottlenecks” is a critical part of web design. Ideally, you want your customers to be able to enjoy just enough structure and style to find what they’re looking for, and then get out of their way. If you’ve got bottlenecks blocking their path to their goals, though, customers are going to ditch out. Make use of Google Analytics to figure out which of your pages have the highest bounce rates, the lowest conversion rates, and the slowest loading pages to give you an idea of where you need to start axing certain pages or completely revamping them.

Try A/B Testing

Anyone who has ever been to the eye doctor has heard the question, “Which is clearer: A or B?” Here, the doctor is trying to figure out what image makes the most sense to you and appeals to you most. Google Optimize A/B testing services lets you do the same thing with your web design. Test different areas of your site to see what’s yielding the most positive results. You can test colors, headlines, images, and so much more.

Keep It Simple

Guess what? People don’t like complicated websites! Google partnered up with a performance monitoring service by the name of SOASTA last year to conduct web design research. At the end of the study, they found more complex web design led to fewer conversion rates. Ask your friends and family to test out the navigation of your site. How intuitive is it? How simple or challenging is it for a user to find what they’re looking for? In addition to simplifying navigation, be sure to cut back on your use of images and videos to what is necessary.

Update Your Unique Value Proposition

UVPs are frequently the weakest link in any business web design. Although it seems like a pretty basic concept, many businesses get so caught up with the idea of making their websites “pretty” and flashy that they don’t spend enough time on making it known what the business does or how it can help consumers. Look at your site through the eyes of a brand new prospect. Do your images, titles, subheadings, and content make it immediately clear how you can solve your reader’s problems? If not, it’s time to do some editing.

Be Tech Savvy

Look at the tech you’re using for your website. If you’re still running on flash or overly complicated technologies from the past, it’s time to ditch them. Instead, you should make sure that your site is 100 percent optimized for mobile devices, as a large chunk of consumers are making purchases from smartphones and tablets.