The proliferation of social media, smart phones and other assorted gadgets underscores the importance of implementing content and design that converts visitors in a consistent manner.
Marketers have a finite, ever-shrinking window of time in which to grab a visitor's attention and get them to engage your brand; failure to do so translates into lost opportunities and discouraged visitors, neither of which are good things.
There are various techniques marketing teams can employ to create conversion-friendly content. It's the theme of this post on Hubspot and we'd like to provide a brief summary on these seven basics for design that converts visitors:
1. Provide a Clear User Path
Visitors want a seamless and intuitive experience, and what may seem obvious to you may not be the case with your typical buyer persona. Make sure your design and content explicitly states what they'll get, how they'll get it, and minimize the steps by which they can get it.
2. Keep Design Consistent
Visitors can get confused or discouraged if a site's design is not uniform. Consistency is key, whether in terms of visuals, color schemes, and navigation, especially across devices (e.g. desktop vs. mobile.)
3. Show More, Tell Less
Think of your own online shopping and browsing experiences. When you visit a landing page with 1,000 words of copy, no paragraph spacing, and no images your eyes inevitably glaze over. Dial back unnecessary text and emphasize images and videos that tell a story.
4. Optimize for Different Devices
Remember that time when you loaded a Web page on your mobile device and it looked terrible? You couldn't figure out how to navigate the page and you certainly had no idea how to order products or contact the company. It's a common problem and one that can sabotage the best-laid mobile marketing strategies. Fortunately the concept of "responsive design" addresses this problem. It's the new and important Web design trend in which content is optimized across all devices and screen sizes. Get your design team on board.
5. Enable Virality
If your content hasn't gone viral it may because it may be difficult for your visitors to make your content go viral. Include sharing buttons for social networks to make it easy for visitors to share and comment on your content.
6. Make Calls-to-Action POP
There is a right way and a wrong way to employ CTAs. The right was is ensuring the CTA stands out visually on then page, explicitly tells visitors what they'll be getting, and creates a sense of urgency.
7. Offer the Right Prize
As all marketers know, your odds of boosting visitor-to-lead conversions increase when you sweeten the deal by offering something of value in return. Your sales team knows which offers are particularly enticing, so make sure you select a prize that will maximize the chances of visitor-to-lead conversions.(Or to paraphrase Marlon Brando in "The Godfather," make them an "offer they can't refuse.")
Creating content and design that converts is more of an art than a science; what tactics have proved most successful to your firm? What's particularly difficult about rolling out content and design that converts visitors?
