1 0 s e c r e t s t o
h i g h - c o n v e r t i n g
w e b s i t e s

1 0 s e c r e t s t o
h i g h - c o n v e r t i n g w e b s i t e s
There are many attractive websites online. There are also many
websites that don't have the best appearance. However, while good
design is a key component of website conversions, if you place too
much emphasis on the most recent design trends and not enough on
the conversion principles, you risk distracting users from the content
and activities that really matter. No matter how appealing your
website is, you risk losing out on a lot of revenue if you don't follow
the fundamentals of conversion!
We provide our top ten tips for building highly effective websites in
order to assist you in doing the same.
1. Define ‘conversion’
Seems so obvious we almost didn’t put it in here, but since
you’re reading this, we’ll assume you want to convert more on
your website, so it’s pretty important we first define what a
‘conversion’ is.
A conversion differs from website to website, but essentially,
conversion is what you want the person visiting your website to
do. So think about it, do you want your users to:
Book a call with you
Sign up to your newsletter
Make a purchase
Request a demo
Start a free trial
If you have chosen more than one thing off this list, nul points
for you.
The secret here is to choose just one overarching goal and drive
all users towards that one goal (we’ll cover micro-conversions
later). By focusing your attention on one key desired action that
will lead to actual business growth, you can better design a
website to funnel users to that action, even if you don’t manage
to convert them all on their first visit.

2. Design matters
Although a high-converting website is not only dependent on its
overall aesthetic, it is a fantastic place to start. You know you
won't get another chance to make a good first impression.
Additionally, this ConversionXL blog post demonstrates that
initial impressions are 94% tied to design.
An essential and fundamental part of getting consumers to
convert is design. Adding visual components to your material
may assist make it easier to read and will keep readers
interested. Ultimately, keeping readers interested could be the
difference between making a new convert and not.
For help with designing a high-converting website, we advise
you to speak to one of our many web design experts, but here’s
a quick breakdown of our top design tips for creating a high-
converting website:
Use your layout and images to guide the user’s eye to your key
text and CTA.
Use images that your target audience can relate to or better yet
aspire to.
Make sure that your colour palette is accessible. You can use a
site like Color Safe to make sure your colour palettes are based
on WCAG Guidelines of text and background contrast ratios.
Don’t be afraid to use white space.
Do make sure your most important content sits ‘above the fold’
(the upper part of your website that the user does not need to
scroll down to see).
Make sure that your website is just as good on mobile as it is
desktop (see secret 8).
Make sure your images and design do not cause a delay in your
website loading speed (see secret 9).

B E S T S E L L E R
3. Content that converts
Or, to put it another way, specify and emphasize your value
offer. Your value proposition should rapidly explain how you
plan to address the user's problem and how you differ from
your rivals to your audience using headlines, graphics, and
prose (USP). Your USP should be succinctly described in no
more than ten words, according to several marketing trials.
Some top tips for creating content that converts are:
Write with clarity and conversion front of mind.
Write with a sense of urgency.
Make use of strong call-to-actions (CTAs) throughout the website
that compliment the natural thought process of the user.
4. Clear CTA
The ideal area to draw a user's attention on your homepage is
the first section. It's common to refer to this top area as the
"hero" section since it sits "above the fold," but whether it
comes to your aid or not mainly depends on your CTA.
Call-to-action, or CTA, is an acronym. CTAs are frequently
presented as clickable buttons that direct users to the key
conversion point. Your website probably has several CTAs,
therefore it's critical that your primary CTA stands out from the
rest and requires a clear action that appeals to your audience.
A top tip for CTAs is to make sure your designer knows which
CTAs are most important so they can create a hierarchy in their
look and positioning. A good designer will also design content,
images and layout to draw the user directly to the main CTA.

5. Less is more
The idea that "less is more" is not just for minimalist artists; it
truly appeals to our primal desires. Did you know that because
there are fewer potential for unpleasant shocks, people tend to
favor simpler things? Once you've finished your initial website
design draft, carefully review it to see what you can eliminate.
Are all those links in the header truly necessary? Are all those
words necessary? Is each image necessary?
Reducing your website to its bare basics helps clear up any
uncertainty, improve your communication, and more
successfully guide users to the conversion you're after.
6. No one likes change
There is a narrow line between being distinctive and annoying
consumers with an abundance of gifs and odd animations.
Naturally, you should feel free to represent your business
uniquely, but for the best conversion rates, abide by some of the
more common web design principles. Although you could think
it's quite "kooky" to put a navbar in odd locations, be aware that
your user might not like this "scavenger hunt" CTA method.
In general, consumers prefer familiarity since it speeds up
processing time when they can recognize something from prior
experience. The user may locate what they were seeking for
more quickly with faster processing times, resulting in speedier
and more effective conversions.

7. Don’t forget about micro conversions
Conversions come in two flavors: mega and micro. Macro
conversions are user behaviors that directly increase your
company's income. A macro conversion often occurs when a
user makes a purchase from you. On their initial visit, not all of
your users will be prepared to convert, though. Did you know
that the typical user may require up to 8 marketing touchpoints
before converting? So you successfully converted 30% of your
users—well done! But what about the other 70% who left and
never came back?
This is where micro-conversion comes into play. Here are some
examples of some micro-conversion CTAs you can include in
your website design:
Getting visitors to sign up to your email list
Luring visitors to sign up for a free trial
Asking users to fill out your contact form
By capturing the user’s details, you’ll have more opportunities to
nurture them with insightful information and shout about how
much your customers love you until they’re ready to make that
ultimate conversion.

8. Mobile first
Have you created a wonderful desktop website and then
thought, ‘I guess we should make sure it looks ok on a mobile
too’ ? Join the big club. But unfortunately, Google does not apply
the same order of priority when ranking your site.
In 2015 Mobile search officially overtook desktop search, and
when this happened, Google made it very clear that mobile is
critical to search when they started using mobile–first indexing.
This means that Google predominantly uses the mobile version
of your website for indexing and ranking.
By making sure your website is just as good on mobile as it is on
a desktop will not only help you convert more of those mobile
users, it will also make sure you rank better on Google. So
thinking mobile first really is a win-win.
While their forever-changing algorithms can be annoying,
Google has tried to help people out with their mobile website
tester. This test can quickly tell you whether your site is
functioning well on a mobile device.
9. Fast loading
Don’t underestimate the impact that website loading speed can
have on conversions. We’re an impatient race, to say the least,
and the stats back this up showing just how long users are willing
to wait for a site to load. Spoiler alert, it’s less than 1 second!
According to Portent, “When pages load in less than 1 second, the
average conversion rate is almost 32%. At a 1-second load time,
the conversion rate already drops to 20%.”
For optimal conversions, you should be aiming for a 0-4 second
load time.

10. Testing, testing
How will you know if all these super-power conversion
modifications to your website have had an impact? Simply
comparing the quantity of conversions and the percentage of
user conversions to your previous website might be one
strategy. Then, you may assess how many conversions you
received before to the improvements against how many you do
now. However, a major issue with this kind of benchmarking is
that you can never be certain that some other influences aren't
distorting the results.
The best way to test the effectiveness of changes to your
website is to run A/B testing. This is where 50% of users see
your old website and 50% of users see your new website. You
then compare these figures.
With websites like Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer,
setting up A/B testing is relatively easy. The difficult part is
choosing which tests to run and how many changes to make
before each test. No doubt you’ll be in a hurry to make all the
changes at once, but if you have a bit more time available, try
and make some incremental changes to the site, so that you can
really pinpoint what changes are most successful and fully
optimise each change before moving on to the next.

Thank
You