Save your ad money and tweak these five website design elements – and watch your sales skyrocket instantly!

Deciding to become an entrepreneur is a huge milestone, and it’s one that’s filled with excitement. However, it’s after this that the real work starts, beginning with building your own website!

Your website is what will decide your sales and your growth, so it’s not something that should be taken lightly. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs fail to see how it’s the little design details that make the difference between people simply visiting your website and actually converting to paying customers.

Not convinced that your website design affects your sales? Here are some facts:

• The Journal of Medicine and Life states that 80% of users spend only a few seconds on a website – meaning you have a very short time to capture their attention
• The same report states that 75% of people judge a website’s credibility based on the design
• It also found that websites with good aesthetics were considered more trustworthy than those without, even if they had the same content
• Sports giant ESPN increased its profits by 35% simply by making changes to its homepage design
• A study by Northern Arizona University found that 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a website after a bad experience
• 64% of those consumers switch to a competitor’s website, according to The 2022 State of Digital Customer Experience from Verint, while 13% of them go and tell 15 others about their bad experience

It’s pretty obvious now that website design can make or break your sales! Since most new entrepreneurs are in a hurry to make their first million, they often end up copying the design of an existing, well-performing e-commerce website as is. When they don’t get the sales they expect, they run behind ads, throwing more money at the problem, without getting their desired results!

Today, I’m going to show you how you can tweak just five website design elements to not just boost your sales, but double your income – right away!

These 5 Website Design Elements can double your Sales Instantly!

1. Top Bar

You know the top bar I’m talking about, right? It’s that slim horizontal bar right at the top of a website, also called the Hello Bar, the Announcement Bar or the Sticky Bar. Seems insignificant, but I’m going to tell you why it’s not!

Science tells us that humans tend to have a top-down viewing preference, which means that anything located at the top of a page will naturally get more attention as the eyes scan downward. This means that the top bar is most likely to be within the user’s line of vision.

This is why this is where you should put in crucial information. A report in the Journal of Medicine and Life states that “placing related information around an entry point on a web page can facilitate a more effective scan phase.” Unfortunately, many website owners don’t give the top bar the importance it deserves.

This part of your website is prime real estate for information like flash sales, discount coupons, lead magnets, upcoming events or other announcements. What you should NOT use this space for, is a generic slider like this one:

This top bar is completely unhelpful, and a waste of prime real estate on your page. Instead, use your top bar to feature your current offers like this:

Or, if you have many offers, simply add a link to the offer page, like we’ve done here:

Another reason to use your top bar is because it is less intrusive than a pop-up, and users are more likely to click on it. In fact, our best-performing offer happened because of the offer link on the top bar that led to this page:

2. Banner Images

A survey by the Nielsen Norman Group found that more than half of web user time is still spent ‘above the fold‘, which refers to the area on the web page visible without scrolling. This is why most web designers put their most catchy and attractive website design elements here, like banner images.

Images on web pages have become more significant now, particularly for Gen Y, who prefer images to text on web pages, according to the Journal of Medicine and Life. Since this age group spends close to 200 billion dollars a year, their preferences are significant!

The problem is that entrepreneurs get over-excited and want to showcase EVERYTHING in their banner image! This could result in very heavy banner images or videos (sometimes even over 1 MB), that make your website slow to load.

This is something you certainly don’t want – Neil Patel says that 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less and 40% will simply leave a website that takes over 3 seconds to load. This means that even a second’s delay can result in a reduction of 7% in sales conversions – which is huge when you consider a whole year’s worth of delays!

Save yourself some time (and money) by designing a simple banner that showcases your main essence or your USP, and keep it light. Take a look at how we’ve designed our website for Soundaryah, with a simple image that says everything you need to know about the brand in one go.

3. Contact Us

Many entrepreneurs think of contact information as an afterthought; after all, people will only want to contact you in certain specific cases, so why bother?

Well, contact information may be one of those website design elements that are more important than you think! Blue Corona states that 64% of website visitors want to see the company’s contact information and that 44% will leave if they can’t find any.

A contact form may seem sufficient, and it may be for a blog, but not for an e-commerce business. The reason for this is that including a physical address along with a phone number immediately makes you seem more legitimate and trustworthy.

Making your contact information easy to find shows that you are serious about customer satisfaction and feedback and that you are eager to build a relationship with your customers. However, make sure it’s easy to find and easy to use – not like this endless saga of a contact form!

Too many fields simply overwhelm the user, who’ll just give up. You don’t need two separate forms for feedback and queries – one should do it. If you are using a form, add it along with your contact information, and make it super simple to use. If not, a basic Contact Us page with all your information will suffice, as we’ve done here:

Note that we’ve mentioned timings of availability – if you are not available round the clock, you can mention the times too. In any case, please don’t tell customers that you are to be contacted only if it’s an emergency – it is obviously a customer emergency for them!

To know more about how to create good customer forms that are minimal and don’t overwhelm, check out our eCom Scientist’s Playbook for More Profitability, which has a bunch of worksheets and checklists that will guide you to create a profitable e-commerce website in a short time.

4. CTAs on Product Pages

Did you know that over 70% of small business websites do not use CTA (Call-to-Action) buttons? (Forbes)

It may sound surprising, but it’s true – many entrepreneurs don’t realize what they’re missing out on. If a user is interested in a product or service, they need to be able to do something to put that interest into action. This is where your CTA website design elements enter the picture.

Hubspot claims that by simply adding an anchor text CTA in 80 of their high-traffic blog posts, they were able to get a whopping 121% conversion. That’s the magic of CTA!

Your CTA can be any of these:

• Add to Cart
• Buy now
• Add to Wishlist
• Find out more
• Read Reviews

It’s a good idea to add more than one CTA, like we’ve done with our product page here. You’ll see an ‘Add to cart’ button that’s prominently placed and in a bright green color:

If you scroll down a little further, you’ll find more CTAs, where you can ask a question about the product, read the reviews or add one of your own.

Multiple CTAs on a single page keep the customer engaged and make him or her feel like they’re part of the website. More CTAs are a surefire way to boost conversions and sales.

5. Guest Checkout

Let’s say you discover a new website and click on the link. The page opens up and this is what you’re greeted with:

A bunch of pop-ups that need to be closed one by one before you can even see the main banner image on the home page!

Constant popups that ask for your email aren’t just annoying; they can turn away paying customers. The same applies to any e-commerce website that insists that you create an account before checking out. Not everyone wants to go into the trouble of creating an account – they just want to pay as a guest and move on!

The numbers also show how important having a guest checkout is – Neil Patel says that 23% of users abandon their carts if they can’t complete a purchase without creating an account or signing in. The extra friction is an issue, as are privacy concerns – the Web Usability Report found that 65% of website visitors don’t fill out forms that ask for personal information like phone numbers or addresses.

Let’s do a quick case study of three sporting e-commerce giants to see how this looks to the average user.

This one is the Skechers website which offers no option but to either sign up or log in when checking out – in short, you have to have an account.

The Adidas website allows a guest checkout; however, there is no option at this stage to sign in even if you wanted to, in case you wanted to access your points or coupons.

Then we have Puma, where you can check out as a guest, or sign in to your account. This option considers all kinds of users and ensures that everyone has the option to check out the way they like.

This should give you an idea of how to make your website more user-friendly and friction-free for your customers. Don’t deprive your customers of the option of buying simply because they don’t want to create an account, and give them the option to sign in even at the last minute.

There, now you have easy tweaks to modify five website design elements on your e-commerce website that’ll boost your sales right away! It’s surprising, but it works!

The eCom Scientist’s Playbook for More Profitability offers several such tips to improve your customer’s user experience on your website. You can learn how to optimize it by modifying website design elements, writing snappier copy and making small tweaks with big impact.

FAQs

1. Are website design elements really worth spending time on?

A: Several studies have shown that website design directly influences sales, by boosting trustworthiness, credibility and customer loyalty.

2. Which are the website design elements that can have the most impact on sales?

A: Your top bar, banner image, contact us page, guest checkout option and CTAs have the biggest impact on sales.

3. What information should you have in the top bar?

A: The top bar is a good place to talk about flash sales, discount coupons, upcoming events or new launches.

4. Is a contact form sufficient on the Contact Us page?

A: A contact form alone is not enough for an e-commerce website. Such a website requires your physical address, email and phone number. A contact form is optional.

5. Why do customers want a guest checkout? Why can’t they sign up?

A: Many customers don’t want to go through the additional effort of signing up, and many don’t want to give out any information than absolutely necessary.