When you hire a web designer to design a website for your company, they have a lot to think about. They must create a design that looks good, stands out, and is functional. They have to make sure that the colors look great together. They have to make sure that the design they’ve created for you properly represents your company. They have to make sure that the text is easy to read, and that they have incorporated your logo properly into the design of your site. And they have to make sure that they are doing everything in their power to help your site convert.
Whether you realize it or not, but the design of your web page can really help, or harm your conversion rates. If you are hiring an inexperienced web designer, they may not take things that will affect conversion rates into consideration. They only think about what looks good (which is very important), but taking no thought as to what will also function well, and increase your conversion rates (which is also very, very important).
Here are 5 mistakes that many designers make when it comes to designing for conversion rates:
1. Headlines
One mistake that many designers make that affect conversion rates have to do with the page headlines. The headlines that a designer chooses to use on your website can really make or break your conversion rates. If you know what headlines or calls to action have worked for your company in the past, it may be a good idea to share those headlines with your designer, or to A/B test different headlines on your site to see which ones help it to convert the best.
2. Using a Very Common Theme
Many web designers use themes when they are designing your website. This may not necessarily be a bad thing: these themes can sometimes provide good frameworks that can be customized. But many designers don’t know how to create their own designs, or how to properly customize the themes they may be using. If a potential customer comes to your site and easily recognizes a theme that they’ve seen dozens of times before, this could hurt your credibility in their minds. If they aren’t able to view you as a completely professional company, this could hurt your ability to turn them into a customer.
3. Too Many Calls to Action
No one ever wants be oversold. That includes the visitors to your website. Your designer should incorporate visible, effective calls to action into your site that will help boost your conversion rates. But if they overdo it, the effectiveness of those calls to action will be completely diminished.
4. Putting Design on the Backburner
You wouldn’t think that web designers would ever run into the problem of putting the design of your page on the backburner. But believe it or not, some designers end up doing this when attempting to design high-converting pages. There are so many things they are trying to remember to do (see the other items on this list!), that they put aside the simple rules of design and aesthetics. If your page doesn’t look good, it won’t be appealing to visitors, and it probably won’t be able to bring you high conversions.
5. Cutting it Short
Laziness sometimes creeps in with subpar web designers. They start out strong: creating a great design, thinking of proper design techniques, and keeping conversions in mind. But then they just get lazy. Or, when trying to remember all of the things they need to do, they end up getting burnt out. Instead of following through with what they started, giving you a page that will function well and boost conversions, they decide to call it quits.
Sometimes with conversions, it’s all in the detail and follow through. And sometimes those last details: adding the forms, making sure everything works properly, choosing the proper calls to action, adding them in the right places, doing the last double checks, etc could really mean all the difference between a page that converts at a very high rate, and one that can’t bring you any conversions at all.
About the Author: Solomon Thimothy is a writer for ONEims, a web design company that can help you create an image that will truly represent your company.
Great post!
Hiring a kick ass Web Designer really needs to have a good budget. The great thing about outsourcing is you can choose what country to hire from. I highly recommend the Philippines because they have a lower rate for web designers and Filipinos, aside from being skilled; they are also very hard working.
Keeping in mind the knowledge you’ve learned above, it will be much easier to find your designer.