If your website contains plenty of useful information but isn’t converting enough visitors into customers, you probably need conversion-centred design (CCD).
For marketers without graphic design backgrounds, design can be a mysterious area. You may have an eye for what looks good, but it’s harder to assess what will actually convert. Web design, graphic design and user experience design (UX) can strongly improve a website’s credibility and conversions, with the majority of a site’s first impressions being design-related.
Conversion-centred design incorporates these different areas of design, using both technical know-how and psychological techniques to drive user actions. CCD was created to optimise the customer journey, remove obstacles to purchasing and guide your visitors to take the action you desire without hard sales techniques.
If you’re wondering where to get started with conversion-centric design, having a well-designed website is just the beginning.
What Is Conversion-Centric Design?
Good conversion-centred design draws you in the same way that a beautifully decorated, eye-catching shopfront window display grabs your attention in the street. Developed by Oli Gardner in 2013, CCD is based around creating webpages, landing pages, emails, etc., that both look fantastic and are focused on guiding web users to take a specific action: making a purchase, signing up for a mailing list, downloading an e-book, etc. While traditional design tends to prioritise positive user experience and quality graphic design, CCD specifically encourages action.
How and When To Use Conversion-Centred Design
You should use conversion-centric design anywhere you want to drive user action (including landing pages, product pages and sign-up forms), when you need to increase your conversions or when your UX needs some work.
CCD has some central principles, including:
- Clear purpose: Every design element (buttons, forms, etc.) should contribute to encouraging specific users’ actions.
- User-centric approach: It’s a people-first design that leads users to convert. This means understanding users’ unique needs, behaviours and challenges.
- Data-driven strategy: CCD requires knowledge of users’ needs in order to implement the right design principles. This requires an analytical approach informed by user data.
Oli Gardner defined seven principles of conversion-centred design:
1. Create focus
Every element you include on your page should be in pursuit of your particular goal. Prioritise driving the user towards the action you want them to take rather than confusing them with too many other options or a call to action. You should aim for a 1:1 attention ratio, your comparison rate for how many things a user can do on your page vs. what they should do.
2. Build structure
Create content that flows in a logical and pleasant way while constantly showing visitors the next action to take. This requires creating an information hierarchy in which you list the different components you need to support the goal of your page in their most logical order.
3. Stay consistent
Every interaction you have with your customers helps to solidify your brand identity in their minds. While a landing page typically functions as a stand-alone page, it should be consistent with the rest of your website and include the same colours, fonts and style.
4. Show benefits
The videos, photos and illustrations you use can offer visitors a clearer picture of what your product is about and allow them to more vividly imagine the benefits for themselves. But you need to show them what you have to offer instead of just telling them. Pictures should be absolutely clear about what you’re selling and why it’s beneficial.
5. Draw attention
Your landing page should catch the eye of visitors before directing them to the most important part of the page: the call to action. While your colour scheme should be simple (3-4 colours) to avoid overwhelming your visitors, you should reserve the boldest colour for your call to action. White space or “negative space” around your page’s design elements gives your viewers areas to focus on without getting overwhelmed.
6. Design for trust
The website is full of brands vying for customers’ attention, and a lot of them don’t deliver on what they promise. You can demonstrate your credibility and trustworthiness with elements like reviews, testimonials, social shares and awards.
7. Reduce friction
In design, friction is anything that unnecessarily complicates a user’s experience and makes it harder for them to complete a task. Unnecessary steps, unclear language, cluttered interfaces and slow loading speeds are all common examples of friction. There are numerous measures you can introduce to reduce friction, from simplifying forms to making sure your landing page is mobile-optimised.
Tips for Creating Effective Calls to Action
In conversion-centric design, your call-to-action is the most important part of your landing page. It’s the focal point you want to draw your visitors’ attention to, and you want it to stand out. Here are some tips for creating a compelling CTA:
Be specific
Your CTA should be absolutely clear about the next action you want your visitor to take, with actionable phrases like ‘download’, ‘subscribe’, ‘buy’, ‘get started’ or ‘find out more’.
Use compelling language
Your CTA should highlight the value or benefits your visitors will receive by clicking, e.g. ‘sign up now for a discount’, ‘download our free e-book’, ‘get a free trial’, etc.
Make it easy to notice
Your CTA is the one thing you don’t want visitors to your webpage to miss. You can use larger buttons, brighter colours, bolder text or contrast to make it the centre of attention while still keeping it consistent with the overall user experience.
Place strategically
Where you place a CTA on your webpage also makes a difference. Placing a CTA above the fold ensures it’s visible to users without them having to scroll. Strategically placing it throughout the landing page means a user encounters it multiple times while reading. A sticky or floating CTA can remain in view even as the user navigates around the page, exploring the content.
Boost Your Conversions with Anchor Digital
A full-service creative marketing agency in Brisbane, Anchor Digital provides conversion-centred design for purpose-driven brands. Our approach combines factors like in-depth research, UX-friendly responsive design and a focus on brand identity to convince visitors to make their first purchase and turn one-time customers into repeat customers.
As a graphic design agency, we optimise for form and function, paying attention to both the usability and aesthetics of your website. We make sure all design elements represent your authentic brand identity so that when visitors see your website for the first time, their first impressions are accurate.
We’re a full-service website agency focusing on both web design and development. Having a website is only the first step: we’ll make sure yours is responsive, optimised and professional with state-of-the-art UX design, carefully chosen digital tools and deep technical knowledge. We’ll ensure your site is simple and enjoyable to navigate by working diligently on the behind-the-scenes coding and scripting.
Whether you know exactly what you want or you’re not sure where to start, connect with the Anchor team online, email: info@anchordigital.com.au or call: 1300 971 392.
