Intuitive and visually appealing web design lies at the heart of every effective content marketing strategy. This is then supported by engaging storytelling. Crafting quality content that’s both useful and relevant is just part of these efforts. If you have a poorly designed website, you won’t be able to keep traffic on your pages for very long. Approximately 40 percent of all web users navigate away from websites that have technical flaws or unseemly layouts. At the end of the day, a poor website experience is virtually guaranteed to kill your conversions.
You only need to consider the number of times that you’ve left websites that were slow to load, unattractive, or just outright difficult to navigate. Good website design takes users through a journey that’s both persuasive and engaging. To ensure that your content marketing campaign is generating the conversions you need and deserve, take the time to consider these seven best practices:
1. Give Users A Clear And Intuitive Path
Site visitors should be able to find what they’re searching for with ease. If someone lands on one of your blog posts, this individual should be able to quickly determine what he or she should do next. Visitors should clearly recognize the purpose for every section or page within seconds. You can make this happen by always using language that’s both consistent and clear.
2. Practice Design Consistency
Much like your content has a consistent style and voice, there should be a consistent flow to your web design plans as well. Flow is the manner in which the eye is led through the overall composition of your website. Although each of us will likely move from element to element in our own, unique ways, strategic website design makes it possible to control the direction in which the visitor’s eye moves. This way, you can effectively present your information in the order in which you want it to be viewed.
3. Show People What You Want Them To See, Don’t Tell Them
Tell your story with plenty of videos, images and other visuals rather than attempting to use wordy explanations and descriptions. Let readers truly experience your story through feelings, senses, thoughts and actions.
4. Create A Responsive Site That’s Optimized For Multiple Devices
With more people using tablets, smartphones, and other hand-held technologies, responsive website design has become more important than ever before. It’s vital that your content is visible and viable on all screen sizes and device types. The average person is not going to wait longer than six seconds to find out whether your content is available on his or her device.
5. Sharing Should Be Enabled
Be sure to add buttons for sharing for every social network that your typical buyer persona uses. This will encourage sharing on social platforms to greatly increase your audience. When you make it easy for people to share your content, you can help your videos and your blog posts go viral.
6. Create Calls-To-Action That Inspire A Sense Of Urgency And Stand Out
Your calls to action have to incite a sense of urgency. More importantly, you want these to stand out clearly so that people can easily see where they should click when they’re ready to move on in the purchasing process.
7. Offer Incentives That Incite Action
To optimize your conversion rate, make offers that are worth the amount of effort that people have to invest in order to obtain them. If you want your readers to complete a form, this form should be easy-to-use and brief. You always want to collect user information in a seamless, convenient and totally hassle-free fashion.
If you think your current website design is hindering your conversion rate, contact us about developing a new website.
