We’re about to look at 3 things every web designer needs to consider when developing a site. Regardless of the purpose of the site or the industry of the business, these are universal musts for engagement and conversion.
1. Keep CTAs Above the Fold
Your call to action (CTA) should be visible as soon as the website loads. That means keeping it above the fold (so your visitor doesn’t have to scroll down to see it). The problem with keeping CTAs above the fold has been the trend to make attractive sites using full-width sliders. To keep the CTA visible, it either needs to be on the slider or the slider needs to be shorter so that a contact from can be placed right below it. Never make a visitor scroll to take action.
2. Design Every Page Like It’s a Landing Page
This goes along with the idea of keeping CTAs and contact forms prominent on every page. The fact is that very few of your PPC or SEO efforts are going to drive traffic directly to your homepage, so all of the other pages need to be able to convert as well. Rather than redirecting everyone to a contact page and just having a lot of content on each page, save content for your blog and social media posts and direct each actual webpage toward creating an immediate conversion.
3. Develop for All Mobile Devices
Developing with mobile in mind is a two-part process. First of all, responsive design allows your site to function on any size screen. This is an important part of catering to mobile site visitors. The other factors to consider include:
Dump Flash – It immediately alienates iOS users.
Use the Right Font – Some fonts and kerning lose readability when compressed for a smaller device. Visitors don’t like to have to zoom to read your text. That added step can be the difference between getting a mobile conversion and ending up with an increased bounce rate.
With the sheer number of searches that are taking place on mobile and Google’s penalty for unresponsive sites, it’s mandatory to think mobile first when designing a site.
Design Needs to Lead to Conversion
You probably noticed a common thread to these 3 tactics. They all drive conversion whether it be on your homepage, other pages of the site, or when the site is accessed from a mobile device. SEO and PPC are important, but you have to make sure that traffic becomes revenue.