7 Best Practices in Web Design for a Higher Conversion Rate

Key Takeaways

• You’ll learn why first impressions matter to a user when visiting a website.
• Why a clear and concise intro to your business helps.
• How font size, color, typography, and other design elements make a website better.
• Why are we emphasizing responsiveness and loading speed?
• The importance of good CTA and strategic button placements.
• Strategic content placement.
• The Importance of A/B testing.

Picture this: You represent a clothing brand and launched your business online with a website. Around three or so months, you notice people getting on your site and leaving. There’s hardly any purchase happening. It’s time to get back onto the drawing board.

You need to ask yourselves: Are my customers greeted by a well-designed website when they arrive? Or, just random gibberish and some ads on the side?

Are the buttons in the right place? Are there enough text and images on the website that speak about my brand? Are the UI and UX on point?

If the answers are mostly negative, you need to redesign your website for a better conversion rate. This is where we come in!

In this article, we’ll discuss 7 of the best practices in web design for a higher conversion rate.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• Does Your Website’s First Impression Matter?
• What are Some of the Best Practices in Website Design for Conversion Optimization?
  • A clear, Compelling Introduction to Your Company on Your Homepage
  • Don’t Aggregate – Do Little Tweaks One at a Time!
  • Make Navigation Easier for Your Visitors
  • Optimize Your Website for Loading Speed and Mobile Responsiveness
  • Come up with Action-Driven CTAs
  • Short and Sweet Copy
  • Test, Analyze, and Launch (And never stop)
• Our Last Two Cents

Does Your Website’s First Impression Matter?

Yes, a lot. If we are speaking statistically, according to the Stanford Web Credibility Project, a customer/visitor judges a site’s credibility 75% based on its visual design. 

Your customers visit your website with intent and urgency, and your job is to deliver that within seconds and as conveniently as possible. 

According to Microsoft’s study in 2015 in the book Attention Spans: Consumer Insights, you can grab the attention of a potential customer for only 8 seconds in total.

If we consider that study, you only have 8 seconds to do what you gotta do – to communicate trust, value, and relevance. And you must do it keeping the convenience in mind.

It’s not just about the aesthetics – it is the layout, color, and clarity that lead the users to the next step. Your work is to make it easier (read: motivate) for the user to go to the next step. 

What are Some of the Best Practices in Website Design for Conversion Optimization?

Since you have only 8 seconds to leave a lasting impression on your website traffic, motivate and convince them to take an action, small yet actionable web design tweaks can do you a world of good. Let’s discuss them in detail, shall we?

A clear, Compelling Introduction to Your Company on Your Homepage

Your homepage is the most important page of your website. It should immediately attract and orient the visitor, show them what you have, and make them feel like they have come to the right place. You all know what the catch is, right? The 8-second rule. 

So, what should you do?

Focus on and prioritize the essential things you want on your website’s homepage. Make it about the buyer, not just about you. 

If we think about a website that sells cat food, that means showing the visitor that this is the place for a wide range of quality cat food. 

The homepage needs to be clear, compelling, and professional. It has to show the socks and help people find just the socks that they need. 

Whether your website sells a single product or multiple services, or the goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to –

• Know what you are offering.
• Encourage them to make a meaningful decision. 

Don’t Aggregate – Do Little Tweaks One at a Time!

Your prospects will decide or have already decided what they want. Either way, you need to guide them towards that decision. Having your own “Brand Voice” makes things easier. 

For example, your design team should know what offers to highlight, when, and how. They should come up with their own type of CTA buttons and color schemes for pages and navigation, and catchy messages. Try to make them unique for each product. 

If not, and if you put equal emphasis on all your different products or calls to action, you’re likely to confuse your visitors. You need to decide which product and which conversion behavior is the most important on your website, and get your visitors to focus on that. 

When designing a website for higher conversion rates, you can keep these factors in mind:

• Font Size: If the font is large, it will naturally attract more attention. We suggest using this to your advantage when you write important headers and CTA buttons. That way, the prospect will find it easier if they want to interact with the website.
• Color: Vibrant colors that stand out against the background through contrasting or highlighting specific elements rarely fail to catch the attention of the visitor. PathEdits is a good example where vibrant colors are a synonym of the brand.
• Alignment: One of the most important yet neglected parts of the website is the lack of order within the style and the content. This drives some of us crazy who are obsessed with neatness and order, let alone scrolling further. People generally appreciate it if there is an alignment within the concept, style, and action.
• Typography: This is directly related to the visuals. So, you have to be very careful in the choice of font styles, color, and overall typography for a better conversion. Look at different “Book review websites” to see how they use typography to their advantage. However, don’t forget about the readability by giving everything to the aesthetics – it’s no use if the font is fancy but your visitor does not understand the meaning of it. 

Make Navigation Easier for Your Visitors

Your audiences should reach the intended page within three clicks. This is a must. Design your website’s menus, plan your CTA buttons, and make sure things are easier to get to when browsing your website. This will increase your website’s conversions.

Simplicity is key. The more options you give to the prospect, the more confused they are with the actions. So, keep it simple, and sweet!

Optimize Your Website for Loading Speed and Mobile Responsiveness

Your website should be compatible with both personal computers and portable devices like phones, etc. Suppose you want to create an interactive website that moves when you scroll down.

Great, it looks amazing on your personal computer or laptop.

But the moment you switched to your smartphone, it started glitching. Now, that is a real problem. 

If we ignore the UI and UX (which is a big issue here), the user will feel comfortable taking an action because of the scrolling inconvenience. Because of that, we now have a lower conversion rate. Before launching, see if the design serves the following purpose –

• Aligns with the smartphone.
• Aligns with small devices’ screens.
• Follows the standard size for all devices.

Come up with Action-Driven CTAs

All it needs is a single, clear, easy to follow CTA per page to multiply the conversions. Every page should have one clear goal set in mind – to make the visitors do something – whether it’s signing up, purchasing, or keeping it on a Wishlist. The path to it should be concise, visually prominent, and beneficial.

Think about it, what would YOU like to see on a website? 

• Would you prefer seeing ‘Submit’ or ‘Get Free Samples!’?
• Does ‘Learn More’ or ‘See how it works!’ sound more inviting to you?

No, we are not claiming this vaguely – a research study by Hubspot found out that personalized CTAs convert 202% better than normal ones. 

Short and Sweet Copy

Content is king. Words have their own value in a website, sure. But using too many may have an adverse effect on the visitor. From what we have seen, it is almost always recommended to get to your point as quickly and precisely as possible. 

Avoid writing unnecessary words and remember the 8-second rule. In today’s world, we are guessing it is less than 8 seconds now. 

Use short paragraphs and effective “Power Words” to direct your visitors to the desired action you want them to take. If you want to educate your audiences, come up with blogs and guides, sure. But at the end of the day, remember to make them subscribe to your newsletter for more offers!

Test, Analyze, and Launch (And never stop)

The best and final answer to the perfect website design will come from the data, not the guesswork that we love to do. A small tweak here and there can change a lot and have a large impact on the conversion rates. 

Use tools like Google Analytics 4 or Microsoft Clarity to see the changes and interacts of your website with the users that visit. 

We call this the ‘A/B Testing method’. Experiment with images, slight changes, different button placements to test out the result for each change and to see if that change is necessary. 

It is seen that businesses that test their landing pages every now and then have 49% higher conversion growth year-over-year. 

It goes in a cycle: 

1. Design. 
2. Test. 
3. Analyze. 
4. Refine.

Our Last Two Cents

In today’s world somehow fitting with the fast-paced technologies, users can allow a fraction of time to decide if your website is worth their time and interest. 

Overall, it is a tough battle to win but never impossible. That’s IF you follow these 7 best practices in web design that we have just discussed. That’s how you enhance the look and the usability that builds credibility, bounce rates, and successful CTAs.  

Remember these great words: Attracting visitors is half the work, our holy grail is to find ways to convert them.