Conversion Architecture - Friendly Sites

Conversion Architecture involves understanding your prospective customers and their needs and desires. When you can determine exactly what those needs and desires are, you will find yourself in the unique position of being able create highly focused marketing campaigns that cater to each individual prospect.

Conversion architecture is creating sales funnels and leading visitors to take some sort of action. The action could be a visitor purchasing a product, downloading a document, picking up the phone and calling, signing up for a newsletter.

Usability: The Cornerstone of Conversion

• Usability and utility, not the visual design, determine the success or failure of a web-site
• Users appreciate quality and credibility
• Users don’t read, they scan : Bullet Points!!
• Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification
• Users don’t make optimal choices & want control

Usability: Rules to Remember

• Don’t make users think
• Don’t squander users’ patience
• Manage & focus users’ attention
• Strive for feature exposure
• Make use of effective writing
• Strive for simplicity
• Don’t be afraid of the white space
• Communicate effectively with a “visible language”
• Conventions are our friends
• Strive for Balance
• Strive for Clarity
• Test & Test your TEST !!

Conversion: Content

• Write copy before Design
• Consistent Message
• Bullet Points : Users don’t Read , they SCAN
• Tie in the text to the images
• Always give out the Price – Instant Gratification , if they see the price they will stick around to read
• Limit the choices & offer suggestions
• Balance your Bullets using the AIDA principle
  • Attention – Strong Tag line – Ease the Pain
  • Interest – How does the product help them (relate)
  • Desire – Push the benefits - benefits, not features, sell products
  • Act – Force the call to Action , Create Urgency

Conversion Layout

• Try to Keep everything that is important above the fold: Eliminate the Scroll
• The Layout is the structure of your sales pitch
• Resolution of 1024 X 768 or Higher is being used by 96% of people 
• Reading Gravity : The Gutenberg Diagram –
  • Reading gravity describes a habit of reading in the western world: left to right, top to bottom. The Gutenberg diagram splits up a page into four quadrants: the “Primary Optical Area” in top left, the “Strong Follow Area” in top right, the “Weak Follow Area” in the bottom left and a “Terminal Area” in bottom right
  • Keep this in mind during layout construction you want the users to track this pattern and follow AIDA
    • ATTENTION > INTEREST > DESIRE > ACTION
• Draw a wire frame to depict the layout. In your wire frame create space for the following 
  • Logo - Branding
  • Banner Image – Corporate Branding/Product
  • Main Image – Part of sales pitch
  • Content Blocks – sales pitch
  • Calls to Action – direction to act
  • Action Blocks – technology to help action
• USE Grid Based Design for solid visual and structural balance of web-sites

 Samples:

Conversion Imagery & Colors

• Use design to Reinforce the copy !!! Copy First !
• Subliminal Suggestion – Users tend to think about what they see : Use images that set the tone , prepare them for your sales pitch.
• Images can control their state of mind
• Prevent Choice Paralysis – If you have 4 Plans visually highlight the best one
  Show The Product : show a picture of the product in action with a user from your target demographic (with the right emotion)
  • Aesthetic-Usability effect: People make judgments based on what products look like. Appearance is an indicator, rightly or wrongly, of a product’s usability
• Guide attention : Use Imagery to Line up with reading gravity : Prominent Main image on top left and compelling call to action on bottom right
• Always Provide Next Actions : Visually
• Stay away from Stock Photos
• Pick a moderate number of Vibrant colors (Pick a maximum of 4 from any palette) : farthest off in the contrast ratio should be used for text
• Balance : balance creates a simple visual harmony -Draw an imaginary grid and make sure the weight is equally distributed

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