eWay Corp A website forms the face of any business. It defines the brand. Plus, it creates a positive impression on the visitors. So, business houses need to produce a bespoke website design that offers a great user experience (UX). One must remember, a poorly designed site will not only create a negative impression on the mind of the audience, but will also impact sales.
When a business is not making any sales, it becomes hard for the business to survive the competition. Therefore, it is evident that website design matters. In other words, website design is associated with user experience. To improve the user experience, good website design is a must.
Why Does Web Design Matter?
Millions of websites are selling the same kind of products and services as you are. So, to bring your business under the spotlight and to pull the crowd, creating a unique user experience for the visitors is important. As a part of creating a unique customer experience, proper web design is very crucial. This calls for quick user experience research.
The research on user experience clearly defines what type of experience customers are looking forward to. For instance, discover whether customers are looking for a responsive site with smooth navigation or if they want a customized UX design that well-represents the brand value.
Based on a survey, more than 80-90% of customers/online audience evaluate a brand based on the website’s look. A site design will determine whether a customer stays on the site or simply leaves the site. Moreover, site design and user experience are interrelated. In fact, the poor design offers bad user experience. To improve user experience, a good user experience design is important.
In a similar manner, a brand’s reputation and even its sales will greatly depend on how well the site is designed. As web design correlates to brand value, website developers need to create a site that perfectly reflects the brand image or value of the business.
Plus, the site should offer a great user experience design whenever a customer visits a site and explores it from any other device. So along with improving the site design and user experience, it will help to boost the sales for any business.
Still not convinced?
Let us go through some facts that show how impactful web design can be for any business.
1. User Experience in Web Design
First, we need to understand the user experience in web design. Only then will we understand how the web design process impacts sales.
A user experience design refers to the process of the experience that an end user is going to have while interacting with the website. In other words, user experience means the experience of the end-users on the website.
The experience can be anything, right from their thoughts to the feelings they go through right from the time they land on the home page to the time they stay on the homepage.
2. User Experience is Responsible for Image Creation in Mind
There is no denying that the user experience is responsible for creating an image in the mind of the audience or visitors. Based on the experience of an end user, a positive or negative image is created about a website or the brand.
To help users get a positive image of a brand or a website, it is important to ensure customers are having a good user experience across any device. This means whether a visitor accesses a website from their desktop or tablet or mobile device, it should offer a uniform user experience.
Only when the user experience design is a good one, will it convince the customers to stay on the site for a long time.
Why Does a Good Web Design Matter?
UX is the pillar of good web design. The design of a website should be carried out keeping the end-users or visitors in mind. It must be remembered that a user-centered website is always a high-performing one. Also, a well-designed site helps with conversions and sales.
According to a study, an excellent user interface (UI) can offer a 200% increase in the conversion rate of any website. Improving the UX design or user experience design can also result in a 300% increase in conversion rate.
In the meantime, a good web design is always linked with credibility, user engagement, brand image, and many more things.
Without further ado, let us see how a good website design is associated with the user experience of a site.
1. Improve the Website’s Credibility
It is a known fact that a website’s credibility comes from web design. This is evident from a study conducted by Stanford University, which showed that around 46.1% of people consider web design as the supreme element for judging the credibility of a website.
Along with web design, content is the second element for determining the website’s credibility. So, website design should be given a great deal of emphasis. After all, web design is related to the user experience.
This indicates when a visitor looks at any website, they gauge the brand based on its design. So, the design of the site greatly determines whether a visitor will stay on the site or will just leave the site without making any purchase.
Also, if a website’s look is outdated or is not optimized for other devices, then visitors lose trust in the brand. Hence, they will not convert. Therefore, businesses need to create websites including user experience design in a manner that will create trust and generate conversion.
If you want to gain back the trust of your audience/ customers, simply revamp the site design as per the industry trends. This, in turn, will offer a great user experience and win back the confidence of the visitors. Moreover, they will spend more time on the site.
2. Retaining the Customers
The objective of any business or website is to retain its customers. According to a study, when a website can hold back its potential customers for a little longer, preferably more than 90 seconds, then they can stay assured of some conversions taking place. However, retaining customers does not always prompt sales for a business.
Rather, one must ensure that the site contains powerful visuals that reflect the brand message very well. Likewise, powerful visuals will not only grab the attention of target customers but can also make them stay on the site for a long time. In short, powerful visuals are responsible for ensuring a good user experience.
For this reason, the visuals need to have the right amount of contrasts and effects in them. This calls for producing creative CTAs and engaging content for the site. Only then will the job of retaining customers become easy.
3. Increasing Engagement
Another important point that shows why web design matters so much for any business is to ensure proper engagement. Studies have shown that 38% of users never go back to a site that is outdated or lacks visual appeal.
Visitors or end users are directed toward visually appealing websites. The moment a site fails to entice their senses, they stop engaging with the site. So, businesses should invest in a website design service that will allow them to get visually engaging websites.
4. Improve the Branding Image
It is a known fact that a website is an ultimate tool for creating a brand image. So, within the space, one will get to express the brand in a better way.
This space can be used wisely by combining the message with the right kinds of visuals and site structure. Only then can a memorable picture be created for the audience/ visitors. In the event a site is poorly designed, it will send the wrong message about the brand. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that the website meets the design and content standards.
5. Improving the User Experience
Another crucial reason for maintaining a good website design is to improve the overall experience of the users. The user experience indeed plays an important role in ensuring customer retention and conversion. If a site is going to offer an improved user experience, then visitors are more likely to convert.
6. Win Back Audience Trust
Around 80% of visitors leave a site the moment they have a poor user experience. For any informational site or an eCommerce site, audiences always look for convenient ways to shop or for navigating the site. When a site does not offer ease of navigation or shopping, they are more likely to look for an alternative.
The moment a visitor finds a site not meeting their convenience, they will not hesitate to look for alternatives. But the moment a business creates a responsive site coupled with good design and the best services, winning back customers is very easy. This is when a customer starts to trust the business/brand again.
7. Create a Good Impression
In today’s age, when it comes to buying any product or seeking any service, most people resort to the online platform. So, to capture the online audience, business owners are looking forward to establishing a strong online presence.
We should not forget that web design is vital for the success of any business. Why? The ranking of a site greatly depends on the website’s design quality.
For instance, websites with good design and high loading speed are more likely to get a high ranking on Google or any other search engine.
Similarly, creating the right impression on the audience is important. This is because whenever a visitor visits a website, they consider how easy the site is to use or if the site is pleasing to the eyes. A site failing to meet these two qualities increases the bounce rate. For this very reason, a good design will easily create a good impression.
Whether you believe it or not, a good web design can have a great impact on the buyers’ minds and their choices. A study showed product assessment takes less than 90 seconds. Hence, websites get only a fraction of those seconds to create the first impression. Often, those first impressions are design related. Moreover, the credibility of a brand is judged based on the website design.
Often, it has been seen that most business owners underestimate the importance of website design. Rather, they place a great deal of emphasis on marketing strategies to increase their customer base. But what most businesses fail to understand is that their marketing efforts will go in vain if the website does not create a good impression.
So, business owners should make it a point to use custom web design services for improving the look of their websites.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) to Boost Sales
Studies have shown that 96% of visitors do not convert. This means websites are not able to take their audience close to the sales funnel. This happens due to poor UX and content. Conversely, smooth navigation and exceptional design can keep visitors hooked to a site for long hours. CRO techniques are likewise known for improving sales results.
To ensure a top-performing sales funnel, each conversion point on website pages must be supported by time-tested SEO and digital marketing strategies. These strategies are essential for boosting a site’s online presence and tailoring the message for the target audience.
A website must be professionally optimized for search and conversions. After all, a robust SEO strategy can help websites with a strong online presence.
Having a good SEO foundation is sufficient for bringing organic traffic to a site. This can boost conversion. But even when a site has a lot of traffic with minimal conversion, it is a thing of concern. That is because minimal conversion means poor sales. So, if you want your site to have good traffic with sales, bringing changes to the web design is important. This will automatically improve the conversion rate.
Why CRO is Important for Improving Sales
When you have a website, you look forward to conversions from your visitors. Conversions are not always about making a sale or a purchase. Rather, they can be scheduling a call for a certain service. For instance, for a B2B company, website conversion is about another business or enterprise scheduling a call with the sales team of another company for a certain service they want to explore.
So, the conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that converts. This is a crucial benchmark since it tells how effectively a website brings quality leads to the business. A proper strategy for improving the conversion rate will automatically boost sales.
CRO is not only interested in reducing the friction within the design elements, but also tries to ensure that the digital strategy is going to add value for the potential audience. So, conversion rate optimization for web design indicates creating a sale and conversion-based website that not only looks good but is also effective enough to get leads that convert.
Know How a Conversion-Based Web Design Improves Sales
One needs to have a clear understanding of UI and UX. Without a proper understanding of the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX), a business stands to lose a significant amount of revenue.
Why? The reason is very simple. Any business starts to lose its revenue as soon as its site lacks the design elements that help to convert. In simple words, UI is the look and the functionality of a website, whereas UX is the overall journey of any visitor.
Unless a site’s UI or UX is optimized, it will not boost sales. Only when a site offers intuitive design and easy navigation does it make the visitors more engaged with the site. This in turn increases the conversions.
Two Site Elements That Boost Conversion & Sales
Businesses or site owners must ensure their site meets two critical site elements. They are:
- Design
- Navigation
1. Design
We all know that creating the right impression is important. Websites have less than 90 seconds to create a good impression on the users. In fact, within that fraction of time, users/visitors form an opinion of the site solely based on the visual appeal.
The poor design of a site is known to impact the bounce rate. However, the moment changes are made to the site design, it easily creates a lasting impression on the audience. Plus, it gains the trust of the audience and encourages them to engage with the brand.
2. Navigation
To market a brand, one needs to show themselves as solution ready. One way to show that is to offer a clear and concise navigation bar. For desktop sites, the navigation bar is on the top of the site. This allows the users to quickly search for the required information from the site.
Audience/visitors come to a site with multiple questions. Hence, a site with good navigation will be able to offer the following:
- Make visitors browse through the main menu
- Offer seamless internal linking
Hence, it can be said that a good design coupled with seamless navigation helps to offer a web design that focuses on conversion. This can help a site to improve its sales.
How to get More Sales with Some CRO Best Practices?
Do you want your traffic to be converted into sales? Here are some well-defined ways to make that possible.
1. Simple Contact Forms
There is always a need to collect information about your leads. Filling out long contact forms is not only tedious, but annoying. The best way out is to keep the contact forms short and simple. So, as a part of the web design process, keeping a short and easy-to-submit form is crucial.
2. Prioritize Homepage
Visitors spend around 15-20 seconds viewing the site’s homepage and another 20 -30 seconds glancing through the content of the page. As a part of the website design process, site owners should make it a point to include such value propositions that will keep the audience/visitors engaged with the site for a long time.
3. Clear CTA Button
The CTA buttons help the audience or visitors to take a step towards conversion. So, the design of the CTA button should be enticing enough to push the visitor to take some action. Also, the placement of the button should be done strategically so that it compels the visitor to make a call or carry out a purchase.
4. Ensuring Fast Page Loads
According to a study, 47% of users leave a site for a competitor site due to slow loading speed. So, businesses and site owners must ensure their site offers a quick loading speed. A site that does not take much time to load will easily earn the trust of the visitors. This will eventually help the business to improve sales.
Design Tactics That Can improve User Experience & Drive Sales
Want your site to generate sales? Remember, just creating an attractive web design with the necessary design elements is not enough. Rather, some design tactics should be followed. They are:
1. Simple Navigation
Navigation is a kind of sitemap. The web design should be such that the users find it easy to use or navigate from one page to another. Also, the site should have a prominent search bar on the top right corner of the website so that customers can use it to find any product or service.
At the same time, the site should not be overloaded with unnecessary design elements. Only when a site offers necessary navigation features, such as clear labels, well-defined page layouts, etc., will help to improve sales.
How? When customers can move around the website easily or find the relevant information they are looking for, they are likely to stay on the site longer. So, making navigation a part of the web design will improve sales.
2. Cohesive Colors and Fonts
When considering the design elements of a site, designers get to see an endless amount of color and font options. While these endless options might be endearing for the designers, they can be overwhelming to users. Remember, visitors always look forward to a site that is clean yet well-designed. Hence, maintaining uniformity for the colors and fonts throughout the site is important.
Uniformity will indicate that each page has been given the same importance. Also, the user can intuitively navigate the site. Following these rules will not only improve the user experience, but also encourage the visitors to take the next step, i.e., buy the product/service. This means sales for the business.
3. Accolades
Businesses should make it a point to add images or logos of all the awards received as a part of their website design process. Your business might have received many awards from time to time. So, including the logos of the awards is a way to show your expertise in a certain field. Plus, the representation of various accolades is a way to convince visitors to choose you over your competitors. This, in turn, will increase sales of the business.
4. Customer Testimonials
Just like any award images and logos help to win the trust and confidence of the customers, the same can be said for customer testimonials. Adding client testimonials on the website is a great way to win the trust of potential customers regarding any service or product offered by the business house.
The moment any existing customer shows complete confidence in your business, it is more likely to influence any potential customers to pick you over others, ensuring sales for the business house.
These are some components that make any web design successful and eventually help a site to boost its sales.
How improving Web Design Can enhance User Experience & Boost Sales
A good web design can make potential visitors/customers feel confident in you/your business. Plus, it can make your business stand out from the competition and help to increase sales.
So, if you are running a business and have an online presence, make sure to work on the design elements of the site.
1. Responsive Web Design
Firstly, ensure your site has a responsive design. This means a site should be able to adapt itself to any screen size. In other words, apart from the desktop version, the design should also look good on mobile or laptop devices.
Having a responsive web design will allow shoppers to easily use/access the site from any device and have a positive experience while using the site. At the same time, it allows visitors to purchase any product or acquire any services at any point of time.
2. Use of White Space
The importance of white space should not be overlooked. White space is the empty space between the elements. Without the white space, a website will be a complete mess. So, the best thing about white space is that it easily separates the components and creates an order for the pages. The effective use of the white space helps to keep the visitors involved with the site for a long time. After all, increased engagement will lead to improved sales for the business.
3. Trust Badges and Security Signals
To improve sales, adding trust badges and security signals are extremely important. The job of linking a brand with other respected ventures offers social proof to visitors that you can be trusted. It also offers the audience some peace of mind. This in turn can bring more sales or deals. The badges often show that your words can be trusted. So, these trust badges must be made a part of the design elements.
4. Create a Sales Funnel
The sales funnel defines an action sequence and components that compel a new visitor to become a customer. It allows you to state what potential clients go through at every stage of the purchase process. For instance, there needs to be a landing page that will allow the prospects to put in the required information, such as name and email address in return for something.
5. Add Videos
Adding some videos on the landing page increases the conversion rate by 80%. Our brain process visuals faster than text. For this reason, businesses should take the opportunity to share video content and attract the audience to their website.
6. Make Your Email Address Accessible
One crucial mistake that most designers or businesses make in the web design process is hiding the email address. Sometimes a user/visitor might not get what they are looking for from a site. This is when they look for contact details, such as email addresses. So, if the email address is not present on the site, a business stands the chance of losing customers. Hence, it is important to make the email details accessible.
7. Create Value Proposition
Brands should have a financial goal. Apart from that, brands should also have a solution to a problem that is taking place within society. So, businesses should have a proper value proposition. For instance, you should talk about the offerings that make your brand very valuable.
In simple words, the value proposition must point to the mission and goal of the company. Also, there should be a proper connection between the web and brand value. After all, the website is the best place to showcase the brand’s value to the audience. Make it a point to design the website in a way that the audience understands the brand value.
8. Create Organized Navigation
In case you are wondering about the ways through which a web design helps to improve sales, then you are on the right page. Looking into one of the critical aspects of web design and user experience design is important. This calls for considering the navigation. Organized navigation is more likely to impress the audience and thereby improve sales.
9. Speed Up the Site
Slow loading results in loss of revenue. However, with a good web design, it is easy to improve the site’s load time. This, in turn, helps businesses earn more sales.
Google PageSpeed Insights helps to check any site’s current load time. In case a site’s loading time is not up to the mark, follow Google’s suggestions to improve the load time. When the question of improved site design comes, make sure to work on the loading time that will eventually increase sales.
10. Install Live Chat
Another way to improve sales is to install live chats. The live chat element is an integral part of the website design process. Basically, a live chat is a pop-up message that appears on the screen to greet visitors whenever they visit a site. This is a great tool to boost eCommerce sales.
11. Carry Out A/B Testing
The last thing that needs to be added to the user experience design process is to carry out A/B testing. This is to see whether the site is performing well or not. Some of the tests that can be carried out are:
- Try out different headlines with different keywords.
- Replace the stock images with candid photos of your business.
- Test contact forms that only ask for credentials.
Businesses should try to implement any one of these steps that bring more traffic to the site. If A/B testing is properly done, it will surely enhance the website metrics. This way, one will be able to understand what kind of audience visits the website.
Understanding the User Experience (UX) Honeycomb
We know very well that good web design is associated with a good user experience. And a good user experience will eventually bring more traffic and sales for any business. But have you ever wondered about the qualities that are responsible for bringing a positive user experience? Read on.
- Usable: The site should be easy to use and very efficient.
- Useful: The website must contain original content that serves its purpose to the user.
- Findable: Users should be able to easily locate the content of the website.
- Desirable: The site, through its user experience design and branding, should evoke a positive feeling among the end users.
- Accessible: The content of a site should be accessible to everyone, including those with difficulties.
- Credible: End-users should be able to have complete faith and believe in you.
- Valuable: The website needs to deliver value to the business and to the customers.
These are some qualities that help to build a good user experience. Follow these qualities during the user experience design and see the amazing results.
Steps That Help Focus on User Experience & Improve Sales
1. Create Relevant Content
To improve the sales funnel, you must create visual elements and content that will support the user experience design or customer journey. For instance, producing attractive offers and discounts makes the purchase decision easy. Also, it increases the chance of form submissions.
2. Revamp the Sales Funnel
It benefits the business to reassess the customer journey. Site visitors should have a proper path toward the desired action without friction in the process. This calls for having a proper CTA across all pages.
3. Redesign the Website
The main goal of a website is to present itself as a strong sales asset that will facilitate online conversion. This calls for a 100% custom web design that will offer the best design and navigation for a smooth user experience.
4. Regular CRO Audits
If CRO web design initiatives are in place, a dedicated CRO team will help to improve website conversion. Regular CRO audits will identify areas for improvement for the user experience and help businesses stay ahead of the competition.
User Experience Design: How to Deliver an Amazing User Experience
It is true that good web design is highly responsible for amazing UX. To improve the user experience and thereby improve sales, the following actions can be taken.
1. Create User Persona
A user persona is the depiction of an ideal user base depending on the user experience research and data of the current customer base. By creating a user persona, it becomes easy to determine what the website is serving. This, in turn, will help create a user experience design that offers an amazing user experience to the end-users. In short, informed decisions regarding web design can be made.
2. User Interface Testing
User interface (UI) testing is equally important as user experience testing. UI testing helps to uncover the potential difficulties that users might face in the website’s design. The testing might show that even a simple typeface or font color can have a serious impact on the users. This might affect the end user’s opinion of the website.
3. Conduct User Surveys
Another way to improve the user experience for the end users is to carry out user surveys. The surveys offer a deeper insight into what users think or feel about a website. Only an effective web design makes a great user experience. The surveys can tell which design elements need to be changed for an engaging experience for the end users.
4. Clear Navigation
As discussed before, clear navigation with proper labels can ensure a seamless user experience throughout the website. Designers should split a website between two hierarchies, primary and secondary.
5. Improve the Site’s Scannability
As a part of the user experience design, improving the site’s scannability is very important. Only when an end user gets the required information within one or two minutes of visiting the page will they get more engaged with the site. It will likely improve the user experience and boost conversion and sales.
6. Enhance Site Speed
If a website’s load time is slow, users or visitors of the site will get easily frustrated. They will likely leave the site and will have a bad impression of the brand. To avoid such a scenario, fast loading time is important.
Moreover, sites with quick loading times will have more user engagement. So, care must be taken to ensure that the site does not take more than 2 seconds to load. Optimizing the site speed will improve the user experience.
These are some qualities that are responsible for creating a good user experience. Make it a point to make these elements a part of the user experience design process and make the web design stand out. Only then can they help businesses improve sales.
Take the Help of Professional Expertise for Creating an Amazing User Experience
If your business is not getting enough leads or conversions, it is time to reconsider certain elements of your business, including web design and user experience design. With professionals like eWay Corp by your side, you can remain assured of witnessing some drastic improvements to your site’s user experience and to the site.
Our designers have many years of experience in providing a good user experience design. They know very well which design elements need to be revamped or should be added to a site to increase conversion.
Final Thoughts
User experience depends largely on website design. If the website design is not very engaging, it is not going to push the customer/audience to take the next step – contact the business or buy a product/service. This step is known as conversion. In this very step, a potential lead becomes a customer. So, offering a great user experience is mandatory for site owners.
Remember, when leads turn into customers, sales will follow. Similarly, when a visitor does not convert, it will affect sales negatively and benefit your competitors.
So, no matter what type of industry you are associated with, make it a point to have good user experience design for your website. This will give any business a strong online presence. Eventually, it will generate online leads and sales.
The moment you skimp on the design side, you miss the chance of creating a compelling website. Avoid such kind of mistakes. To ensure you get a good number of leads and conversions, take a step to create a visually appealing website that offers a great user experience today with eWay Corp.
