First impressions do matter. The first time users access to your site; they’re already making split judgments about your web design. Most consumers base their perception of a brand’s credibility based on its design. That’s exactly why choosing a high-quality website designer is worth the investment.

Even before they can read your website’s copy, they already formed an impression. So, it’s crucial that you follow the best website practices to boost your conversions. Don’t go for a website that aesthetically pleasing. Instead, structure your site so that it functions as a conversion machine.

In this post, we’ve compiled the nine best web design practices in 2019 that you can follow:

1. Clear Purchase CTAs

A clear call-to-action or CTA is essential as it easily grabs a user’s attention, and encourages them to click. Usually, CTAs are in the form of a ‘Add to Basket’ or ‘Buy Now’ button. Keep in mind that they should have the right design elements with contrasting colors to stand out.

Your CTAs should be directly in line with the interest of your visitors. For instance, a user hovering in your product page is more likely to click ‘Buy Now.’ Meanwhile, someone in the content page is more likely interested in clicking the ‘Read More’ button.

As much as you can,  keep your CTAs short and sweet. Don’t forget to incorporate a sense of urgency in your site, as this can also increase conversions over time.

For instance, making small changes such as replacing ‘Shop Here’ to ‘Shop Now’ can do wonders in encouraging a shopper to check out.

2. Apply Persuasive Design and Copy

Here’s the thing, if your site isn’t designed to keep visitors on your page, then all the tactics we’ll discuss are useless.

With that being said, your website should be:

Visually appealing

A visually appealing site should have a solid design with an excellent color scheme. Note that using various colors resonates a variety of feelings to your users. You can select the right hue depending on the emotional response that you want to elicit.

You also need to choose high-quality images that brings instant visual appeal to users. Aside from that, you need to maintain a sense of consistency in all site elements (texts, photos, site copy, etc.)

Visually persuasive

Direct your visitor’s eyes on a specific part of a page. Usually, it’s the part wherein it takes them one step closer to converting. Your visitor’s eyes should be directed instantly to the following elements (in the same order)

• The primary image
• The inlaid text
• The CTA located just below the inlaid text

3. Increased Usability

Usability can determine the success or failure of a site. The visitor of a page is the one who clicks the mouse and virtually decides on everything.

Therefore, having a user-centric design is a standard approach for having a successful (and profitable) web-design. Think about it ‒ if users can’t use a particular feature in a site, then it might as well not exist.

4.  Use Consistent Branding Throughout The Site

A lot of brands and marketers still don’t know how branding works. Most of them aren’t aware of how website branding can directly impact conversions.

Developing a brand is pretty much like storytelling. Focus on telling the right story for your audience, and stay away from the ones that convey the wrong feelings for your brand.

Before you decide to start your web design, ask yourself these questions ‒ what story do you want to tell? Does it align with your brand values, beliefs, and target audience?

5.  Product or Company Reviews

Reviews are powerful conversion machines that can quickly turn an interest in your product to a sale. Potential buyers, want to hear from other people too, and see if the product they’re interested in is any good.

A staggering 87% of consumers believe the reviews that they read online on various products and services. So, why not show product reviews directly below or next to your product? It simply goes to show that you’re a trustworthy seller.

The bottom line is ‒ you’re reassuring your customer. Without those reviews and recommendations, customers might wonder if your site is genuine or not.

6. Be As Informative As Possible

If you want prospects to be comfortable in transacting with you, you always have to keep them in the loop at all times. In other words, be as informative as possible.

For instance, you must work towards making excellent product descriptions. Since most customers can’t see or touch the actual products before they buy them, you have to bring these products to life.

Also, ensure to include the best features for your products, and provide an in-depth Frequently Asked Questions page so that you can give appropriate answers and solutions.

7. Mobile Optimized

Do you know that approximately 50 percent of website traffic now comes from mobile? With the numbers increasing every year, it makes sense that you should make your eCommerce site mobile friendly.

Back in 2015, Google officially announced that mobile searches are quickly outnumbering those on the desktop. That’s why a mobile-optimized site can lead a significant uptake in improving your conversion rates.

Work on creating a simple check-out process on your mobile site. Since most users will need to work on smaller screens, try to minimize any distractions. As much as you can, try to keep it simple and develop an easy-to-follow check-out. Most users want to add an item to their cart, pay, and then check-out.

Also, ensure that you have the smallest page size. Doing so guarantees that you’ll still get fast load times despite a relatively slow internet connection.

Making simple tweaks like these can make a significant difference whether or not you’ll gain conversions on mobile or not.

8. Reduce the Number of Choices You Offer Your Visitors

Don’t give users an overwhelming number of choices that it becomes virtually impossible for them to make decisions.

So, instead of giving your audience 15 products on a single page, try to suggest just one. Moreover, emphasize CTAs during the conversion rate optimization (CRO) as well.

9. Minimal Layout

Your goal here is to adopt an easy-to-follow journey from the moment users lay their eyes on the homepage up to the check-out.

To reduce bounce rates and increase your conversions, create a cleaner look for your site. For instance, try to generate more whitespace, bigger photos, minimal texts, and so on.

While it’s relatively challenging, here are some easy guidelines to make your site look minimalistic:

1. There should be fewer design elements as well as distractions on your product pages. Focus on product imagery instead.
2. Direct users to CTAs that stand out.
3. Test your website regularly. Make the entire check-out process as streamlined as possible.
4. Keep colors to a minimum. The fewer the distractions, the better. The focal point should be on the product itself and how you can make the user click the check-out button.
5. Adopt the mindset ‒ less is more. Think about the end goal, and that is the check-out!

About the Author

Kenneth Sytian is the CEO of Sytian Productions a web design company in the Philippines. He has been designing websites and developing web apps for more than a decade. He is regarded as one of the top influencers in web design and development in the Philippines. You can connect with Kenneth on LinkedIn and Follow his Company page on Facebook & Twitter.