Win sales through good website design

You'll fall behind your competitors if you don't design your website in a way that maximises sales conversions. But that doesn't mean you have to completely sacrifice good design, argues Tina Judic, MD of web marketing agency Spring Digital

WikiPedia says, "In Internet marketing, conversion rate refers to the number or percentage of visitors who convert casual content views or website visits into desired actions based on subtle or direct requests from marketers, advertisers, and content creators."

So a 'conversion' happens when you turn a website visitor into a lead and ultimately, perhaps, a sale. Without conversions, a website will not work for your business, cannot deliver any return on your investment and will kill any interest your expensive advertising generates.

In a downturn a site that is built to convert can be as important as the difference between a business surviving or shutting up shop for good. Conversion should be the ultimate measure of website success - but many designers are graphic experts who prioritise the look and feel of a site over the requirement to turn visitors into customers.

Designing for conversions

To convert a visitor into a customer, a site must have clear visitor paths - the visitor must be channelled obviously and relentlessly to your goal, whether that is a contact form, a download page or a shopping cart.

Aesthetically pleasing design elements like small text, nicely coloured underline-free hyperlinks or white text on a black background can get in the way of this essential process.

Sites that convert a large number of visitors into leads typically feature obvious and brightly coloured calls to action. The problem is that putting a larger than life and lime green 'Contact us now' button in a key place on every page of a site is an aesthetically-driven designer's nightmare.

What does this mean for the design process? Aesthetic design is a very subjective process, but designing for conversion is scientific, driven by statistics and improved by testing, testing and testing.

Does pleasing design still count?

Ten years ago website usability gurus told us that, to be easy to use, websites had to be ugly - often dominated by clunky navigation systems, more than obvious hyperlinks and banned from using images that might not be visible to some visitors.

It would be easy to draw comparisons with the modern day and very real need for sites to be built primarily for conversion. But it is possible to create a seamless and effective blend of stunning aesthetic design and the ultimate in conversion tactics.

Ease of use combined with sleek simple design is cool these days (think iPod), which makes creating an aesthetically-pleasing design that gives users a clear path to conversion fashionable and relatively easy (see the Skype homepage for a great example of simple conversion-friendly design).

Find a 'new generation' designer

The new generation of web designer ought to practise 'aesthetic conversion' to create visually stunning websites that effortlessly mix your conversion goals with strong design. They should design with a clear user path in mind, create appealing visuals that actually help you to meet your conversion goals and will religiously test every aspect of the design, from headlines to buttons.

People who are masters at aesthetic conversion are still quite rare, but their numbers are growing and they are becoming easier to find. When it's a matter of keeping your business healthy, you should not settle for less.