Are you overwhelmed by the many website design trends available today? You are not alone, many other Singapore business owners feel the same way. A Brand Perfect survey of major retailers revealed that 29% of online shoppers point at poor web design as the primary reason for ending a shopping session. You probably remember instances whereby you were forced to rotate sliders that you found on different sites that you have visited in the past. Apparently, these sliders are terrible for conversions.
When building a website in Singapore, you put in a lot of effort. You will spend endless hours designing web pages that could be taken care of by web design professionals, researching the target market, and creating appropriate content meant to optimize website conversions. However, there is a possibility that you could be using web designs that seem cool yet in reality, they stop site visitors from going through the sales funnel.
Website Design Says A Lot About the Brand
The web design that you choose will kick-start the first impression that website visitors have about your business. A recent market survey found out that that 94% of issues that Internet users have about websites are design-related. Minimalist designs trim down the number of elements on your site. When clutter gets cleared from your web pages, conversion rates will undoubtedly improve.
Nevertheless, getting rid of too many elements from your website will do a lot of damage to it. By stripping down your site to the bare minimum, you are likely to leave out pertinent elements that ought to be included in the first place. The following are some of the website design trends that can ruin your conversion rate especially if designs are not used properly.
The Use of Poorly-Designed Hero Images
Often, websites that find it difficult to convert visitors into prospects and paying clients have poorly designed hero images. These are the large visuals that cover the homepages. Most hero images lack content. Without any persuasive copy in place, such visuals can deter site visitors from browsing beyond the homepage.
You should ensure that your hero image encourages prospects from going beyond the homepage once they land on your website. Even without any writing, your hero image should communicate to visitors what your site is all about as well as why they should visit other pages.
If yours is an e-commerce site, for instance, the landing page and its hero image must give shoppers a reason why they should stay on your site and buy the products you are offering rather than moving on to competing websites. There should always be a motivation for visitors to scroll through other web pages rather than the homepage alone. The best ecommerce website design in Singapore can help you achieve this goal with ease.
A properly designed hero image can significantly increase sales leads. It entices visitors to explore your site even further. An excellent example of a website in Singapore that features an enticing hero image is Rain Trees Kindergarten. From the headline, you will know that the site is for a kids’ learning facility. The cute visuals used, reinforce the headline further. The supporting texts also encourage you to take your kid to the institution.
The hero image is the initial reference point on your website. Therefore, you need to make it as informative as possible. A worthy hero image is that which blends perfectly with your content to communicate your values to visitors. It should persuade them to make the next step in the sales process. The Singapore web developer you hire should make sure that this image is capable of achieving this goal.
Big Images Slow Down Your Website
Your website could be taking too long to load simply because it contains large images. Often, website visitors abort browsing sessions on sites that take more than 5 seconds to load. To prevent images on your website from increasing load times, you should reduce image file size. With images that have a smaller size, your web pages will load quickly, thus optimizing the browsing experiences of those who visit your website.
Choose the Appropriate Number of Fields in Site Forms
To shorten site forms, some websites only require visitors to provide their email addresses. Nonetheless, this could prove detrimental for you especially after you roll out email marketing campaigns. Failure to incorporate the names of your subscribers in emails that you send out to them will scuttle any plans of addressing them personally.
Definitely, this is something that you don’t wish to do bearing in mind the fact that getting personal with subscribers can significantly improve click-through rates. You are likely to have a higher click-through rate if you incorporate personal details such as names in the promotional emails that you send to your subscribers.
Why Too Many Fields are Detrimental
With fewer fields, website visitors can complete more forms within a short time. Short forms featuring as little as five fields could be all you need to convert website visitors. Such forms tend to have a low cost-per-lead and high conversion rates.
There is a limit to the amount of information that website visitors should provide when filling out the firms. To determine where those limits are for your audience, regular testing is necessary. This will also help you map out both short-term and long-term customization needs. Likewise, your forms should be tested to establish how close they can help you get to subscribers.
Typography Does More than Making Your Site Look Pretty
Making your content easily readable will improve conversion. If you have a few elements on your web pages, you should take a minimalist approach to the typography that you will use. Often, web designers make the mistake of using classy typography, which ends up reducing typography.
You should bear in mind that the role of typography is not just to make your site look pretty. It is meant to make your content easily readable. Visitors can’t stick around if they find it difficult to read your content. In this regard, you should avoid using small font size and low contrast, which are among the most irritating readability problems on websites.
Using larger fonts and higher contrast will improve readability and bounce rate. Often, thin typefaces get misused. You shouldn’t use a slender type with either light colours or for small text since your content will appear faint and difficult to read. When you restrict the slim type to only headings, your site will have an elegant contrast. In doing so, you will be making those critical headlines to stand out.
Is the Hamburger Migration Suitable for Visitors?
In recent years, the hamburger menu has been shifting from mobile devices to PC. However, the main issue that abounds is whether or not this trend is good for visitors. Typically, menu options are located behind icons in such a way that visitors are required to make extra clicks so that they access a full menu. On desktop websites, there’s no need to force site visitors to make extra clicks to access whatever information they want.
You should allow people to scan when looking for content rather than forcing them to make unnecessary clicks. Simply put, if you want your site to be easy to use, don’t put visitors in a position where they have to think about what to click on so that they access content.
Whenever you review a new creative web design, it is imperative that you consider the impact that it will have on website visitors. Will it improve their browsing experience or make it hard for them to access content? In this regard, you should test new designs so that you determine if visitors’ actions are in harmony with your decisions.
This will be the first step towards protecting your site from any design decisions that could negatively affect conversion rates. You have to bear in mind the fact that every website owner targets a different audience. To find out what works for your visitors, it makes sense to only test designs that you are likely to use rather than those that have been recommended to you.
Most significantly, you should avoid succumbing to the temptation of jumping on the latest website design trends just because they are new and everyone else is using them. A quality web design will not only look good alone but can go a long way in motivating website visitors to take the next step towards becoming paying customers.
New web design trends always emerge every year. Rather than jump on the latest designs prematurely, it is advisable to use a wait-and-see approach towards these trends. This way, it will be easy to determine those trends that end up being mainstream. Since the primary purpose of choosing a particular design is to affect conversion positively, you should pick a design that helps you achieve this purpose.
The digital marketing industry in Singapore has experienced remarkable growth in recent years. To make your brand visible online, you need a website whose components can convert visitors. One of these components is the website design that you use. If you wish to boost conversions, you should only work with website design trends that encourage engagement with website visitors.
We, MediaOne, can help you jump the hurdle of select the right website design by doing the research for you. Our team will also go an extra mile to customize the design to suit your brand. Check out our website development and design services in Singapore.
