As internet marketers, we should know how important it is for our website to contain a good user interface and structure in order to convert those who visit our site.
We want them to buy our products.
The secret ingredient, so to speak, is a good site design that is able to maximize sales, click-through rates, consumer engagement and brand loyalty.
A good user interface is easy to use, and provides you with those high conversion rates that you, as a marketer, want to see.
So here are 10 tips for a successful user interface.
1. Focus on solutions
Your website should have a clear purpose – to provide a solution for your customer.
Don’t focus on your product features.
Make it easy to find product information, and to find out your contact information so people can connect with you.
Provide answers, not possibilities.
2. Avoid information overload
Each page in your sales funnel should give the visitor just enough information to convert and guide them to the next page in your funnel without overloading them with too many choices or too much information.
To know if you’re giving too much info, check your landing page.
If you’re using several paragraphs of text, and have no good reason for doing so, you’re doing it wrong and need to tweak your page content.
3. Help your users find what they need
Help the people who visit your website to find what they need in as few clicks as possible, but without skimping on information that they also need.
People won’t appreciate having to navigate lots of pages before finally finding the information they were looking for.
Make your site easy to navigate, and keep it simple.
4. Don’t be too technical
Use language that your customers will understand.
Many people assume that they have to provide technical copy to appear as an expert.
But all this does is alienate your customers. Especially if they’re noobs.
Just as with my Internet Income Intensive seminar, when it comes to presenting information on how to make money online, I speak to my students as if I was explaining things to my parents.
Basically, if you don’t speak your customers’ language, they won’t know what you’re saying.
5. Use social proof, not self-promotion
People don’t want to hear you praising your product or company, they want to hear (or read) what others say about you.
Social proof can be a very good persuasive tactic when it comes to getting conversions.
Testimonials, endorsements, or data about your product can go a long way in reinforcing a call to action.
6. When to repeat yourself and when not to
Unless you have long pages (which require people to scroll down) or too many pages, try not to repeat your call to action.
You don’t want to see the same offer repeated five times in the same short page.
Long pages where people have to scroll down to read your stuff is fine, but then you should have one call to action at the top and another at the bottom, so people won’t forget.
Most people pause and think when they reach the bottom, which makes it a good place to slot in a call to action to seal the deal.
7. Recommend, don’t let them choose
Research has shown that the more choices there are, the lower the chances that someone will actually make and act upon a decision.
If you have multiple offers, try recommending one you really want to promote rather than giving people options.
Some people might need a little nudge, so it’s best to show them the product you want to emphasize or highlight.
8. Think fast
Your interface, and the software behind it, should be responsive and fast.
People won’t like laggy, slow stuff that takes forever to load.
Also, your interface should provide some form of feedback to the user.
How do they know they’ve clicked on that button? Code it to look like it was “pressed” when clicked on.
Or consider Gmail. When logging into your Gmail inbox, it shows a loading bar. It doesn’t gradually load the page, it shows the loading bar, then loads the entire page when it’s ready.
9. Use contrast
Make your offer and call to action be noticeable with different tones, colors, depth or font size.
Make sure that the things you want to stand out from the rest of the page do stand out.
10. Don’t overdo it with links
Keep an eye on the number of links you have on your page.
Don’t put a link just above the call to action, or you run the risk that people click that link instead of doing what you want them to do.
Don’t distract them from the links or buttons you want them to click on by providing too many.
