5 Design Concepts to Increase Conversions

Updated: April 28, 2022

Check out these top design concepts that can help you to increase your website conversions.

Perhaps you have recently spent time updating your website design or have spent a considerable sum to have a completely new website designed. Either way, you will be hoping for one result and that is that your new look website will attract more visitors. No matter how stunning your website is, and how well it answers the questions that those visitors are looking for, it won’t matter if those visitors don’t convert to becoming actual customers.

Be Objective

As the person who has invested time and money, into the new design it is likely that your perception of this design may be a little blinkered. It is all too easy to focus on the design element of the website rather than focusing on who will be converting. Sometimes it is necessary to stake a step back and admit that there may be some flaws in your website design so that you can look at ways in which your website conversions can be improved.

The most important thing to consider in terms of your website should always be the people that visit it. Of course, working out what this is can be easier said than done, if you want to boost conversions then it is true that your design has the potential to make all the difference, so what design concepts should you be looking at if you want to increase those conversions?

Why website design matters

Research carried out by Stanford University found that a staggering 46.1% of individuals felt that their most important deciding factor when it came to deciding if a company was credible was the design of their website, so it is really important to make sure yours looks professional.

If you site is unattractive or difficult to navigate, people simply won’t stay and that is particularly relevant if there are a number of other competitor’s they could look at instead. With this in mind, we list of five design concepts that can help you to increase your conversions.

1.Don’t over complicate things

As the saying goes, less is more. If visitors to your website are not able to find things quickly and easily then they will give up and go elsewhere. As we mentioned, if there are plenty of other companies to choose from then it is unlikely that they will be back.

Some websites are full of things like flashy graphics, pop-ups and widgets and visitors get bombarded and then forget why they were even looking in the first place. Whilst it is true that your extra menus, sidebars, and pop-ups can help to keep visitors on your page they can also get in the way of them doing what they came for.

Grids or single column layouts work well for the majority of websites. If your website is aesthetically pleasing people are more likely to remember the information they learned. Think about the devise that people might be visiting your site from, especially as mobile devices display things a little differently. If you add a sidebar to your side for the desktop version, then keep this in mind.

Sticky pop-ups are the best choice if you must use pop-ups as they will stay on the edge of the screen out of the way and are less annoying.

When it comes to fast and simple site navigation, organisation is the key. In fact, in a recent survey 94% of those asked confirmed that they wanted sites that were easy to navigate. You may prefer to put your menu at the top of your website, and this is fine, but think about where you visitors might want to go. Will they use a mouse to navigate to the main menu? Click on internal links? Or will you offer an alternative?

Putting your products into an organised category list will help to make things easier for people to find and ensure everything is populated correctly. Be sure to add the appropriate subcategories to make it even easier to find what users are looking for. The quicker your visitor can find what they want the more likely you are to get the conversion.

3.Use high quality graphics

When you are placed in a highly competitive market, you need to do absolutely everything that you can to ensure that your company, your products, and your website are the ones that stand out. There is no point in cutting corners on the costs because ultimately this could end up losing you the conversions and therefore reduce your overall sales.

There might be occasions when thumbnails will be okay, but this is not one of them; what you need are high-quality graphics and images. It is estimated that people spend roughly the equivalent of a full day online every week so it is really important that a website offers the complete experience to visitors, and this means that images should be clear, bright, bold, and professional.

The best way to ensure that the graphics you use on your website are of a very good quality is to engage the services of a professional photographer, preferably one who has experience of commercial photography. Ensure that the images you end up with are relevant to your website. If they are not, your visitors will notice. Make sure that any images you use are optimised and with ALT tags and descriptions which will help to improve the visibility of your website.

4.Employ the rule of thirds

You might have already heard of the rule of thirds. It is a commonly used term in photography and relates to a popular principle of photography. It is, however, also a main web design principle that is worth following. The rule of thirds requires you to divide, visually, your website page into thirds. This should be done both horizontally and vertically.

This will give you nine squares that are equal. If you follow the rule, then the middle four intersections are important places of interest. If you place objects on these particular points that you are creating a design or image that is the most impactful that it can be.

When this is translated into the principles of web design, it means that you should consider placing the most important elements of your page on these intersections in order for your visitors to focus on them. This should help you to boost your conversions. These could be things like a “Start Here” button, a testimonial, or a call to action button. These will really draw attention.

The navigation bar of your website should not be placed near the intersections as this will draw your visitors focus away from the important call to action. You do not need to design your complete website around these principles. However, they are an incredibly valuable tool that can be used to consider where you might be best placing those elements that you consider to be the most important.

If you want to see how closely your website follows the principles then take a screen shot of it. This doesn’t need to be the entire page because few people look at websites in this way - just the header section should suffice. Divide the screenshot into nine equal squares, take a look at the placement of the content and then see if you want to make any changes. Whilst it may see odd that the visual appeal of your page should have such an impact on conversion tiny changes really can make all the difference.

5.Use negative space

When it comes to website design, whitespace is frequently referred to as negative space. Any space that is occupied by elements of your website is called positive space, Negative space is just the space in between these bits.

Whilst this space is referred to as negative, when it comes to web design it is actually a positive thing, it helps to make a website usable and readable.

Negative space is used to refer to a number of things on your page, it might be the space between larger elements that appear on the page – for example, the space under a header and before your content, or the space between the content and the sidebar. It can also be utilised to refer to any smaller spaces on your page, for example the gap between paragraphs, spaces between any lines of space and even the tiny spaces between the letters in your content.

When you pay close attention to all of these negative spaces you will be able to keep everything scannable – which is really important - legible, and easy to look at. These are all things that will help to increase conversions.

Remember that the smaller the font that you use the more negative space you will create between your letters. It can also be a good idea to consider how you format your paragraphs, smaller paragraphs will offer you more negative space, and this will make content more readable. There is of course a fine line to tread here, create too many smaller paragraphs and your content may become disjointed and harder to read.

While there’s no magic want to wave to instantly increase your conversions overnight, these design tips could help to ensure that you have a website that users enjoy looking at and, even if they don’t purchase first time around, will come back for another look.