For most small businesses, your website is your first impression. If your web design is cluttered or fails to deliver fast loading speed, simple navigation and ease of use among platforms, your conversion rate is almost certain to suffer.

In case you aren’t familiar, conversion marketing is the way in which we convert visitors to your site into paying customers or engaged participants.

Your web design does make a difference. If it’s poorly done, fails to incorporate recent responsive design standards (i.e., can be used on mobile platforms too) or doesn’t help the user find what they need, the chances they are going to buy from you are slim.

Consider this: Researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology conducted an eye-tracking study, and found that website users form an opinion of your site in just two-tenths of one second. They take about 2.6 seconds of scanning the web design before homing in on a particular section. The longer they stayed on the page, the better their impressions of the site were and the more likely they were to feel compelled to buy/ take other action.

So you need to keep eyeballs on your page. If your web design is no longer helping you do this, our dedicated Cleveland web design team at Go Media can help. We understand not just the aesthetics of the process, but the science behind it. For example, that Missouri University study revealed that some of the key items of interest on a page included:

• The logo. Users spent 6.48 seconds here.
• The main navigation menu. Users spent 6.44 seconds on this.
• Search box. Users focused on this for a full 6 seconds.
• Social networking links. Users spent 5.95 seconds viewing this element.
• Main image of the site. Viewers spent 5.94 seconds here.
• Written content. At least on that first page, users spent about 5.59 seconds.
• Bottom of website. Users spent 5.25 seconds here.

All this helps us to understand the critical features when building your site.

Some of the key web design mistakes we see on sites built by other firms:

• Unclear or Missing Call-to-Action Buttons. Your customers should know right away who you are, what you have to offer and where they need to go to follow the lead. Of course, your web design needs to be beautiful, but it must be functional as well. This is an element that can’t be overlooked.
• Poor Quality, Unprofessional, Irrelevant Stock Images. Most viewers can spot a stock image a mile away. They used to be the norm in most web design sectors, but increasingly, we’re seeing customers turning to professional photographers. The upside is not only do the photos exactly match your firm’s tone and content, but you won’t find anyone else with the same photos (as is a risk with stock art).
• Cluttered Web Design. The surest way to get viewers to bounce from your site: Obnoxious ad prompts, eye-stinging bright/ contrasting colors, Flash animation overload, auto-play videos. Very few sites can get away with these kind of features. Your readers don’t want to be disturbed. Our goal with web design is to keep it simple, clean, fresh and on-point.
• Confusing Site Navigation. If you’re trying to land sales, you need to get users where they want to go. That means your navigation needs to be readable, findable, organized and clickable.
• Unresponsive Web Design. “Responsive Web Design” is not just a new buzzword. It’s literally a game-changer in the online world. If you are not on the responsive web design bandwagon, you need to get on it, or risk falling greatly behind. if your website is not mobile-friendly, not only are you losing clicks with customers, but search engines like Google are likely to give you a downgrade too. Old web design standards are not going to cut it. If your site is more than a few years old, you should at least have our web design team evaluate whether an update is necessary.

Finally, you need great content. That’s not necessarily an element of web design, but it is essential. Your web design could be outstanding, but if your content is too short, irrelevant or fails to snag their interest, viewers are going to leave. Make sure it’s something you consider.