How to Optimize Website Design to Increase Conversions

Remember the saying that you’ve only got sixty seconds to make a great first impression?

Well it’s not true, you’ve only got 7. One less than a goldfishes memory.

When someone arrives on your homepage they’re instantly forming an opinion based off loading time and every minute detail about your site. From the layout, to the logo, to the color scheme.

All these factors determine whether they’ll bother staying on your site and whether they’ll be converted into customers.

Here are X tips to consider when designing your site, to ensure that when visitors come to your site, they do exactly what you want them too.

Let’s dive straight in!

1. Keep it simple!

In a study by google in 2012, researchers found that “visually complex” websites were consistently rated less appealing than their simpler counterparts. This makes sense when you think about.

The human mind processes and likes to make decision quickly, it doesn’t want a tonne of distractions muddying its view.

Keep your design simple, but striking, to leave a good impression.

Express yourself in your company’s logo, but use the design to look clean and professional, and lend more focus towards the content you’ll use to convert your visitors.

2. Make it human (show your face)

Though you may be a bit hesitant to show your face to the world, the data is pretty clear on the benefits of doing so.

As humans, we subconsciously watch for other humans, and seeing one helps us judge a sites trustworthiness.

To make sure visitors judge your site well, show a smile, but makes as genuine, people are experts at reading expression.

3. Use an F-Layout

Research has found that a user’s natural behaviour when browsing the web is to read the screen in an “F” pattern.

Take advantage of this behavior by placing the most important objects in the top left side of each page, and less important items elsewhere.

For example, place your call-to-action at the top of the page, towards the left side, because that is where users will look first.

4. Optimize for mobile

If your site isn’t mobile ready, then it needs to be! These days, over half of global traffic originates from mobile.

If you’re using a platform like WordPress, make sure you buy a mobile responsive theme. Or if you’re building from scratch, build from the concept of responsive design.

5. Optimize page loading time

It turns out that people are incredibly impatient, especially when surfing the web. Having a mere one second delay in page load times can reduce conversion by up to 7%.

Increase page load times by compressing images, using minifying and caching plugins, and by using a CDN.

is an excellent CDN

6. Show your products

Most people are shy to even mention their products, let alone display them. But how else are you going to get any sales?

It stands to reason that if your visitors can’t see your products, they’re not going to buy them.

Mention products suitable for each blog you write, show your products in sidebar widgets and highlight recommended products on your product pages.

It’s great to want to share your knowledge with the world, but you need money to live as well.

7. Provide filtering options

When you have a lot of products, advanced filtering becomes necessar, to prevent potential customers from being overwhelmed.

Provide filtering options for price, manufacturer, features, etc, to help people find exactly what they’re looking for.

Helping your visitors get the most relevant results, also helps them hand over their dollars.

8. Keep headlines short

People respond better to shorter headlines. Titles between 12 and 14 words have been shown to receive the largest amount of social shares.

9. Add a feature box

Feature boxes just work, and the beauty is in their simplicity.

Above-the-fold feature boxes act as landing pages when visitors first reach your site, allowing you to show high-converting designs to get desired actions.

And once a user has signed-up or purchased, they quickly disappear once they have scrolled down to view your content.

If you’re using WordPress, there are many easy-to-use plugins to help you do this, including the one I use, love and recommend, “”.

10. Use contrasting colors for your CTA

This one is pretty straightforward – Bright and bold colors stand out and draw attention.

When put against a muted or greyscale background, bold color can deliver a striking effect.

11. Use high quality images

If there’s one thing that can really drag down the quality of your website, it’s low quality images.

In contrast, high quality images can almost double your traffic. Research from Skyword has found that including compelling images in your content, will increase your views by an average of 94 percent!

So instead of using bland images, source high quality ones, meaningful to your content. Remember that people like brands that they can relate too, so get ones that feel personal.

I like to use Adobe Stock for its large, high quality library. Use this link to score a free “” trial.

12. Use of white space

In web design, whitespace is often referred to as negative space, but it’s anything but negative.

If your visitors reach your site and immediately land on gigantic walls of text, you won’t make a great first impression. Their 7-second attention spans won’t handle it, and they’ll probably leave.

Thankfully, using white space can work around this, by adding extra spacing between elements like sentences, paragraphs, and even the space between letters.

Doing this makes your content look more digestible, making your visitors more likely to stick around.