It’s one thing having an attractive looking website, it’s another developing one that regularly converts visitors to customers in high enough numbers.

Of course, an attractive, professional-looking site with amazing images and strong content that engages customers is important. But so is the usability. Even adding an extra step or link before a customer gets to buy or hire from you can lead to frustration and an aborted sales process.

1. Look at the World from Your Customer’s POV

The user experience or UX has become increasingly important over the last decade and more. Businesses often take for granted that they know what their customer is looking for but this is not always true.

Successful online businesses drill deep into personas and personalities to find out what drives their customers wants and needs. The better this can be done, the more likely you are to design a website that not only meets their requirements but delivers higher conversions as well.

Modern UX relies heavily on all sorts of data and the more you can collect the better for your online business.

2. Keep it Simple

Another temptation is to over-complicate your web design. In the effort to make it all singing and dancing, the pages end up looking fussy and lacking focus. Each page of your website should have a reason for existing. Think about what your customer wants to know and deliver that along with the next step.

Businesses can also get hung up on SEO and create long pages of content that stretch on forever, mostly so they can rank for certain keywords. Not only can too much focus on keywords lead to confusing text but it more often than not prevents the user from finding what they are searching for.

Our tip: Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and written in plain English and don’t be tempted to add text for the sake of it.

3. Work on Your Navigation

How easily a customer can navigate your site is probably one of the essential factors that impact on conversions. If someone is having to jump across several pages to get the answer to their problem then they are likely to become frustrated. Think about how you get your customer from A to B in the least number of steps and apply that to your navigation.

Of course, some sites are going to be more complicated than others. If you are opening an ecommerce site, for example, you may have many different products. Being able to search your site then becomes critical so that customers can easily find what they are looking for without searching through menus. The categories and sub-categories here are vital and require constant review.

4. Focus on Benefits, Not Features

Many businesses also spend too much time on features. One way to ensure that you are creating an environment where people are more likely to convert is to focus on benefits. What is your product or service going to do for your visitor?

Focusing on benefits also helps keep your content on track and prevents you from running off at a tangent, something that could easily confuse your customer and send them in the wrong direction.

5. Ensure Your Call to Action is Visible

Finally, calls to action are great online tools that quickly get the user doing what you want them to, namely buying your product. The positioning of these is critical and something businesses too often get wrong.

Make your call to action visible and clearly defined, for example, at the top of the page in a side panel. This applies whether you want someone to buy a product or contact your business to hire your services. Don’t leave that CTA to the end of a very long page of text as your customer is probably not going to scroll down that far. And make it big and bold enough to attract their attention.