4 Web Design Principles that will Increase your Conversion Rate

Posted by Shawn Mike on March 18th, 2019

According to research from Stanford University, more than 46% of people say a website’s design is their main criteria for deciding whether a company is credible. So, it’s important to ensure that your website is not only pleasing but also works well in boosting conversions.

How do you do that, you ask?

To help you start with, here are a few design principles you can apply that will give you an immediate and sustainable increase in conversions:

Follow Hick’s Law

Hick’s Law is one of the most popular theories used by many people for a variety of purposes but is frequently referenced in terms of web design. This theory is named after a famous British Psychologist William Edmund Hick and states that the time a person takes to make a decision is directly proportionate to the number of choices he or she has.

In simpler words, increasing the number of choices will increase the time an individual will take to make a decision.

When we talk about web design, you can increase conversions by limiting the number of choices users have. The first thing you can work with is the navigation bar. You don’t want to flood it with too many links for the user to choose from as that will only make them lose interest and wander away.

However, the application of Hick’s Law doesn’t stop here. In addition to the navigation bar, you may want to think of the other important decisions a user will have to make when he or she visits your website. Here’s a list of few to help:

• Choosing whether to use the navigation bar or scroll down option,
• Skimming the titles to see which blog post to open,
• Choosing between whether to add an item to the bucket list, read product reviews or browse for more items.

A simple and easy way to use Hick’s Law, as recommended by Hire PHP Developers, is to install a full-screen welcome gate on your website that covers the entire screen displaying a single CTA. The user will only see one choice at first, and if they want to see more options they'll have to scroll down.

Full-screen welcome gates are a great way to minimize distractions on your website’s homepage while keeping the functionality intact.

Respect users’ patience

When it comes to web surfing, people are incredibly impatient.

You read that right. In fact, a study by Aberdeen Group, reveals that a mere one second delay in page load time can result in a whopping 7% decrease in conversions!

So, when we talk about page loading speed, every second count. It is very important to check your website’s page speed and troubleshoot any potential issues using these FREE tools:

• Pingdom
• GTmetrix
• Google PageSpeed Test Insights
• Key CDN

Apply the Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thirds is an essential photography technique that can also be applied to web design. With Rule of Thirds, you're supposed to break down an image (or webpage) into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 equal parts or sections.

The rule identifies four important parts of the image (as highlighted with red intersections), that is to create the most impact. When items are placed at these four points, it creates the most powerful design.

When it comes to web designing, you can use this guide to place the most important elements at these intersections to get the users to focus on them, and increase conversions.

Research has shown that when viewing images or design people’s eyes naturally focus on either of these intersecting points rather than at the center of the shot.

For instance, Chris Lema’s website displays the two most important elements (client review and “start here button”) on the two left intersections of the grid:

You don’t have to design your entire website strictly following the Rule of Thirds, rather just use it as a guide to place the most important elements.

A simple way to assess whether or not your site's homepage is designed to convert is to take a screenshot of your web page just above the fold or the header section and divide it up into nine equal parts. Then you can plan if you want to make any adjustments.

And don’t forget to apply the 8-Second Rule

Believe it or not, but it takes just eight seconds to grab your visitor's attention. This gives you a very tiny window of opportunity to engage your users once they land on your webpage.

How do you make those seconds count, you ask? Here are some tips to help you grab your users' attention and increase conversions:

• Use simple, concise and engaging headline with clear CTA,
• Use eye-catching and high-quality imagery that help conveys the core message of your brand helps catch focus on the main CTA,
• Make CTA buttons large, clear and based on catchy color schemes,
• Make use of interactive content I.e. videos and audios to boost engagement,
• Check and optimize your site to load quickly, and
• Keep support/help available across all pages of your site.

Now that you are familiar to the four most important designing principles, put them to good use by analyzing your site’s existing design or Hire PHP Programmer to help you do so.

Which of these principles are you breaking?

Do you have too many links on your navigation bar? Does your website take longer than 3 seconds to load? Or perhaps you haven’t placed the elements correctly?

Most of these problems can be quickly and easily fixed with just a few tweaks. You can also run a conversion rate audit to determine parts of your site that can be improved to boost conversions.