Every business, no matter the size, should have a website. However, for your website to really be beneficial for your business, it needs to effectively reach your target audience and entice them to invest in your products or services.

If your website experiences a lot of traffic but you’re not converting those visitors into customers or clients, then your website isn’t doing its job correctly, and you may want to make some changes to its design. 

Thankfully, there are a few different easy ways that you can optimise your website, which should, in turn, boost your online sales. No matter how attached you are to your current website, it is undeniably worthwhile considering the tips below and making some changes to your design, especially if they’re going to help you improve your conversion rate. 

1. Make sure your website is easy to use

Having a website that is straightforward to navigate is vital – if your visitors are unable to find what they’re looking for quickly, you can almost guarantee that they will go elsewhere. Look at your site from a customer’s point of view and ensure that there aren’t any unnecessary and frustrating things getting in the way of enabling people to get to where they need to be on your website to convert. A fluid layout is more important than many initially realise. 

2. Add reviews and testimonials to your site

Lots of consumers are sceptical about using a new company they have never heard of before and understandably so. To help to put people’s minds at ease, why not add a reviews or testimonials page to your website? Depending on the products or services that you offer, you may want a portfolio or case studies page, too.

Remember, you should be providing potential customers with everything that they need to convince themselves that you’re the best business for them.

3. Keep your homepage simple

If you have a high ‘bounce rate’ then it is likely that your homepage is putting people off. Your website’s bounce rate is a measure of the percentage of visitors that leave your site and ‘bounce’ straight back to a search engine without performing any actions. 

One of the biggest culprits is an overcrowded homepage will put people off straight away, so you’ll want to make sure that your homepage is visually appealing, gives visitors easy access to what they’re looking for and doesn’t overwhelm them. 

4. Make sure your website works on all types of devices

These days the majority of the people looking at your website will be doing so on their smartphone or on a tablet device. For this reason, you don’t want to design your web pages to only look good on desktop computers. If you have never heard of responsive web design, it’s essentially an approach to web design that makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes. Always check your website on a range of devices to ensure that no matter how someone gets on your page, it’s going to look great.

5. Upgrade your calls to action

All websites should have buttons or other action items that invite visitors to interact with them – two common examples are the ‘buy now’ and ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ buttons. These are ‘Calls to Action’ (CTAs), and you’ll want to make sure you have a few of them on your page as well as making sure they are properly placed.

Take a look at your current CTAs and consider whether you could add more, move them elsewhere or even change their colour or font size to make them stand out further.  

6. Display trust symbols clearly

Having an SSL security certificate is a requirement for search engines to trust your business website, but you’ll also want to add things to your site to make visitors trust you too. These ‘trust symbols’ are widely recognised badges/signs that add to your credibility and can be incredibly beneficial for your website. 

One typical example would be to have PayPal’s certification logo on the checkout of your website.

7. Use videos as well as images

Many business websites feature images, but not many use videos – even though they are known for increasing interaction and conversions. If you can, consider adding some high-quality videos to your site and strategically placing them on specific pages. 

One potential drawback of this approach can be that the videos you upload might slow down your website. If your load times are suffering, this can have a negative impact on your user experience and can cause even the most patient people to look elsewhere. 

Implementing these business web design tips

All of the tips above can have a positive impact on your conversion rate –  even if you’re not a business web design expert, they should give you some ideas for easy changes that will help you to boost your online sales. Remember, once you’ve designed your business website, the last thing you want to do is forget about it. 

It’s good to review your website regularly to ensure that it is working as efficiently and effectively as possible. Why? Keeping it up to date and under regular revision will help to ensure that it is continually helping your business to succeed. Odds are, you’re not going to get it 100% first try, and you’ll want to make some changes later. You’ll want to make sure to monitor these changes and see what works best for you and your business. 

If you have a UENI website, remember that you can log in at any time and make personal adjustments to your site using our easy-to-use editor, so you can start implementing some of the above changes straight away. 

If your current business website is with another web developer and you’d like to create a new website with us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’d love to discuss your website needs with you in more detail and see if we can help you out.