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Monday, September 8, 2014

40+ Tips to improve website Conversion, Sales and Generate Leads

It very important to know how we can improve conversion on website and specially when starting a new project. Non of the website is useless which we are creating. We always want to get some benefit from our website. And only generating traffic on our website will not help us in generating leads or business.
We have to design and develop website in a specific way so we can get the maximum benefit from which we are doing.

Here by doing A/B testing and researching on many website while working as a Art Director, Designer, SEO analyst and PHP Developer I learnt many things and with my experience I am sharing this precious information with all of You.

I may be not very good in writing. But I just want to share the information point wise. I want to make it as easy as I can.
1/ If you are planning a new website then first step me to check some popular websites of the same category and you will definitely get an idea for the content placement and functionality. These website must did some research that is why those websites are popular. So take some ideas from these site but DO NOT COPY
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2/ It’s a good thing that you have many interesting features for your users But do not clutter everything on the home page seriously. Pick the most important and easiest to understand feature and concentrate on that only.
If you have an Offer or discount then mention that here.

3/ Always take care of the users with the slow internet connection. No body want to wait for a long. So Simply Speed up your website to make people stay on your website.

4/ On Home page if you have a introductory video and many bullet point text then please please remove those things and try some Image Slide show to make it easy to understand for users.

5/ Everybody want to make website very attractive but do not overload it with many attraction points. Because it will distract users from your CTA (Call to Action). So, try to make website in 1-2 colors with the same shade and make your CTA buttons or forms in some contrast with the website color scheme. Give your eye only one thing to foucs.

6/ Make your form stand out and for this you can use strong shapes like bound it with box of lil different color to separate it from the rest of the page.

7/ Put your forms in the left side of the page for better conversion.

8/ If Possible then make your home page as short as possible. Give your users only few options so they can choose easily and your conversion will improve with least traffic.

9/ Some designers only make icons buttons but according to research I found that button with a descriptive text are more user fiendly and get more clicks than only icon buttons.

10/ If you have a long description for a button for example “SignUp now, Its Free” but  it will not look good in design then Simply use the word “SignUp Now” in button and “Its Free” right below the button.

11/ If you have shopping website or if you simply have a form where you want customer information or their credit card information then always give some “Trust Seal” or “Guarantee Seal” “Privacy confirmed Seal” with customer support  information like email id and Phone no.
It will generate trust in users and they submit the form easily. One of its good and simple example is http://www.saleandtolet.com/tolet-or-sale-property.php#saleproperty

12/ To Generate Trust in users you can use the Testimonials in your website with real looking user images. Or real business image, or social chatting.

13/ Make your Text CATCHY. First two words of any line are most scanable so start your sentence with effective words.
Other things you can do is make important word CAPITALIZE or bold or change the color or underline to get focus on that.

14/ Website typography should be good. Use some good fonts like “Gotham” and font size for paragraph approsimate 14px-15px and line height 19px approximate. Because this is most easy to read. Do not make the paragraph big, break them after each 5-7 lines.
You can also use the text in column view for easy scanning.

15/ By using these magical words you can improve the conversion “You, Free, Because, Instantly, New, Get

16/ Never use the word “Submit” on any form button. Instead you can use “Get your Free access by joining this…” or “Get your free copy” etc.  Another example, if you have the link or button “Request a Quote” then you can write it as “Request Pricing”. This is simple and easy to understand.

17/ These buttons and links are used to redirect user on submission form to to get information from user which are already on a Form.  But here is more scope to make improvements in the form by simply deleting the fields which you do not want. Make the Form as small as possible. Ask for only those information which you really need. For example if you want a user to signup then just ask for email id, name and password. And rest of the information you can get after he signed in.

18/ You can do one more thing to make the form small by hiding the unimportant fields in advance option. Like in this form http://www.saleandtolet.com/tolet-or-sale-property.php#saleproperty

19/ Try to reduce friction as much as possible. So if you have the dropdown for example cities or countries then you can simply put the popular city and countries in top of the list.

20/ In another technique in country, State, City dropdowns you can use the Ip or geolocation technique. With this these dropdowns will fill automatically with user’s current location according to his IP. Check this for example but it supports only indian state and city for now http://www.saleandtolet.com/requirements-to-search-property-or-tolet.php#buyproperty

21/ Make the searching as easy as possible for your customers. To do this you can use any script so when user type something in search box he will get some suggestions like google. And you can do one more thing, When user type something then result will load automaticall same as google instant results.

22/ if you have the form with multiple steps then get all those fields on single page. And slightly change the background color to differentiate.

23/ If you want to sale something then always try to give some easy comparision to users. So user an easily find the best thing and can purcahse.

24/ Another thing you can use to improve sales are urgency (limited time) and scarcity (limited supply). In these give the user a “limited time” offer or “stock limited” alert.

25/ Always make your CTA button Big, Near mouse cursor position and with visible contrast color. And links like cancel and unsubscribe away from cursor reach and these should not be very highlighted. For example in newsletter if you have to give the unsubscribe link then write it like this “Click here to unsubscribe” so user will only catch the word click here not the unsubscribe.

26/ Your main concentration is that visitors should click your CTA buttons so to do this take benefit of Human emotions and use an interactive human who is looking towards your CTA button (I prefer female pictures). Most of the people will surely follow gaze of the person in picture and will click on your CTA button.
Avoide using stock images.

27/ Make your webiste according to audience. Take a survey and decide which is your audience and what they like and what language they use. Good example of this is http://www.saleandtolet.com  here they used the hindi language in tooltip and in placeholders also.

28/ Avoid using popups.

29/ Coders beautify websites with hover effects but understand that it is for mouse cursors not for fingers. Users can not mouse over using fingers.

30/ You can use the facebook like box with fans pictures on home page to generaet trust. And I suggest to use floating share widget in the left side of the window.

31/ Avoid Horizontal design. Because in these scheme most of the users will not scroll down because they do not see any continueous  content and if you use the vertical style design then most of the users will scroll to completely check the uncomplete information. And that is why there is more chances of clicks.

32/ Always try to collect users email. Because in later stage you can take benefit of these emails during email marketing.

33/ Every website have its own priorities and taste. So do not depend on on these tips. Install analytics code in your website and experient regulary with your website. I prefer to do experiment each month with my sites. It is compulsary because sales depends on the season and many more factors. So make habits to do experiments and take full advantage of google Analytics. If you do not have much knowledge about this then Hire a google analytics expert

34/ To get focus of more visitors use this cheap trick :P of animated favicon.

35/ People are habitual of internet websites and they have an idea that where a website will have a advertisement. So surprise them and put your ads in a place where they can not guess.

36/ To get foucs of users on your CTA button you can use arrows, or you can lil rotate the button or you can use special shapes or triangles to get foucs. When you use arrow then user will follow the arrow and thenchances increase of getting click on CTA button. I am impressed with this line somewhere in other article “Call attention to your most important page elements by using strangely placed and angled arrows. Tie a sequence of arrows together to define a path for the visitor to follow, ending at your CTA.”

37/  Use the right social media on your page. For example twitter is not very much popular in local indian market so if you use twitter, digg, reddit etc as a sharing button the you surely loose control on facebook and this will affect your promotion surely.

38/ In my personal opinion consider one purpose for one page or screen. Give your 100% to one  section or functionality for wach page. Because in this way if any customer will reach at this page then he will defenitely click on CTA.

39/ Do you know that colors can also help in improving your CTA? Yes you can use them for this purpose because every color have its own meaning  and demand.
Red – danger, stop, negative, excitement, hot
Dark Blue – stable, calming, trustworthy, mature
Light Blue – youthful, masculine, cool
Green – growth, positive, organic, go, comforting
White – pure, clean, honest
Black – serious, heavy, death
Grey – integrity, natural, cool, mature
Brown – wholesom, organic, mature
Yellow – emotional, positive, caution
Gold – conservative, stable, elegant
Orange – emotional, positive, organic
Purple – youthful , contaporary, organic
Pink – youthful, feminine, warm
pastel – youthful, soft, feminine, sensitve
Metallics – elegant, lasting, wealthy

40/ If you have a long page for example a website hosting website with the plan and pricing on the same page. Then you want a link some where in the top then do not only give the link, use some descriptive text for those buttons and links. For example you can write “See plan below” so user will know that he will not going on any other page and that is why he can click this button.

41/ If you have the long headlines then you should not write that headline in a single line and same size font.  You should divide that into 2 lines one big and other line in small font.

42/ Always make your website mobile friendly and easy for fat fingers. Give some more space between links to easily get clicks from people with fat fingers. And Remove all unimportant and un neccessory items from mobile site.


Author :- Rashtra vijay Choudhary 
Website :- www.baagdi.com
Web designer, Art Director, Web developer 
Portfolio :- http://www.ilifestudio.com/portfolio/

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