The Truth About Beautiful Web Sites and Sales

designer chair

Photo thanks to: sheilaellen

Have you ever been to a designer showcase? If you haven’t, here’s what happens.

An organization takes an empty house and recruits interior decorators to fix up each room. They raise money, often for a charity, by charging admission.  As a result, the designers get publicity, and the public gets design ideas and entertainment.  All great.

The trouble is that those rooms are often unusable. The sinks are at one end of the kitchen and the stove is at the other. The forks won’t pick up food. You can’t sit in the chairs, and the bathrooms are all-white (ha)!

Great design isn’t enough

The same sort of design mistakes can happen with web sites. You know, the kind that gets featured in a Smashing Magazine web texture showcase. They’ve got clever widgets, jaw-dropping graphics, beautiful colors, even designs that change every day!

They’re amazing. Some of them are unusable.

Beautiful is great. So is award-winning. Neither one necessarily makes money.

Great design, or even OK design, won’t sell all by itself.  Good design makes your site easier to read, easier to use, and facilitates the actual buying process.  A site that’s hard to read, and hard to use, can’t sell anything.

Design has to be functional, not just pretty

What the design should do is:

  • Reflect your company’s personality and industry; a crayon-colored design would look out of place on a law firm’s web site
  • Be easy to use; the design should guide visitors to finding whatever information they are looking for, whether it’s marketing tips, contact information, or how-tos.
  • Establish your credibility (that crayon-colored site wouldn’t reflect well on a law firm)
  • Build trust that you are an expert in your field, and can provide solutions to visitors’ problems.
  • The colors, typefaces, testimonials, and the copy should all reflect your understanding of your audience, what you do, and why you are worth the money you charge to do it.

Amazon’s site isn’t beautiful. It’s very functional though. Apple’s site is beautiful, but the design is unobtrusive.

Yes, have design that serves the function of the web site – but don’t let the design overwhelm everything else. Design doesn’t sell by itself.

Design your site for other people

Don’t make decisions based solely on what you like (unless you’re darn sure you match your “tribe”). I’m not saying you should hate your web site, just that you’ll do better if you keep your visitors’ preferences in mind. Don’t make your site purple because you love purple.

Paint mental pictures

Write content that talks to your readers and about your readers.  When you do want people to buy, they should be able to see, taste, and smell how great they’ll feel if they buy from you.
Here’s a simple example from online grocer FreshDirect (I don’t know who writes their copy, but he or she is good!):

hint of cloves and tart pineapple. Juicy as a honeydew. This all-purpose pear holds up well when cooked, but it’s just as good right off the tree.

That’s for a pear. Are you hungry?

The Goldilocks Guide to Making Your Website User Friendly

website navigation tipsRemember the story of Goldilocks and the three bears? The first chair was too big; the second was too small; the third was just right. She also had to try three bowls of porridge before finding one that suited her.

Goldlilocks was very patient (if also a housebreaker).  Your visitors won’t take the time to try three different buttons or search through five pages for your contact information.

I’ve talked a lot about the perils of putting up barriers to your customers (Flash, logins to comment on blogs, complicated contact forms, etc.),

Sites can be too easy, or too hard, but how do you get it just right and get a website that’s easy to use?

The site that was too easy to use

A client wanted me to update his Lexis/Nexis directory listing (not my usual thing, but he’s “technologically challenged”).

He said all I had to do was hit an update button and make the changes. This seemed way too easy (what, no login? no password?). Sure enough, he was right.

NOT SO FAST; it was also too hard

There was only a tiny box to enter three pages of text, and no way to tell what it would look like “live.” Then, I got a message saying the changes would go live at their next update (no indication of when that would be).

I called and was told it would take 7-10 days to go live. They review each entry individually, retype it, and then upload it!!

When I asked them to send me the changes, they wanted to fax them.  Then they emailed the client (who doesn’t use email). The changes were sent in plain text, so I couldn’t see the formatting and was unable to tell how it would look when it was uploaded to the site.

After that, I received a second email saying my listing was too long (they had a 300 word limit, and the listing had 682 words). No sign of this on the site anywhere.

I spent three hours talking to the client, making changes, checking them, several phone calls back and forth, reading emails, and getting strange messages, only to end up with the same inaccurate and misspelled listing I had when I started.

How to make your site just right

First, make sure you Include basic security measures.  If you allow users to update listings, set up a login and password system. Use security questions, but please don’t use the same 5 questions everyone else uses, or questions that can be answered by anyone, in a few minutes, by checking someone’s Facebook page.  Even better, use two-factor authentication.

Make data entry easy

If you want people to add data, include a preview window so that users can see what they’re doing. And, if they might need to click away, say to check a URL or get some other information from their computers, don’t clear the window and remove all the text.

Explain the rules

If you have a word limit or other requirements, outline them in the edit section. If there’s a delay or a waiting period, spell it out.

Don’t expect your customers to know your policies without being told.  I recently wanted to reserve a  library book and kept getting an error message saying there was a problem with my record and to see a librarian.  Turned out the “problem” was a new limit on the number of reserves, which I’d reached.  Why not just say that?

clear navigation

People expect navigation bars to be on the top of the page, or on the side.  Don’t make your visitors hunt for them.

Don’t load it up with every single topic on your site.  Put a few primary categories, and keep the drop downs to a minimum.

Give the categories descriptive labels; a name like “products” doesn’t really help much, try “iOS apps” or “email marketing services” instead.  If you have help buttons, or a page with common questions, make them easy to find, and put links on every page.

Easy to contact

Your contact information should be easy to find.  It should be easy to call, email, or physically send you something.  Add a pop-up chat button (in a bright color) so your visitors can get help right away.

Have you ever been frustrated by a website that was too hard to use?  Share in the comments.

 

Photo: James Emery

Five Free Web Marketing Resources

1. Web Color Combinations
Need to pick colors for your site? Or give direction to your Web designer? This site lets you pick colors that match (not clash). Color swatches include the Web color numbers so you can easily recreate the combinations you like.

2. HTML code checker
HTML code errors can leave your whole site looking like it’s had a bad accident. All bold, all purple, or just plain wrong. This tool checks your code, makes sure it meets Web standards, and points out any mistakes.

3. HTML help
Stuck on how to create smart quotes, special characters, or an indent? This site has tutorials, cheat sheets, and more.

4. Google Analytics
This free tool gives you easy-to-understand reports showing how many people visit your site, which pages they look at, and how much time they spend. You can also create your own reports showing results for specific keywords, visitor locations, and cash earned from e-commerce.

5. Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide
Get the scoop on SEO straight from the source. Find out how to make your site more search-engine friendly, how to name your pages, and what not to do.

Thanks to Greg for pointing out the last one.