When it comes to website design there are two key points to keep in mind.

Conversion and crawlability.

That’s it. Everything else is a secondary issue.
Your website must convert the brides who find it into your desired form of action (i.e. conversion).

In most cases, this is an inquiry or phone call for more information.

It is the “initial contact” in your sales strategy.

Your website must also be crawlable by search engines, “search engine friendly,” or you risk losing thousands and thousands of dollars in sales when brides looking for your category of services can’t find you at Google, Yahoo!, or Bing/MSN.

This is known as the “needle-in-the-haystack” problem.

Sure, there are dozens of variables in both of these areas to manage, but the bottom line when it comes to design is conversion and search engine crawlability.

Let’s start with conversion.

Fast Loading Pages

The number one reason a bride will leave your website is slow loading pages. If your pages load slow, or your home page takes too long to load because of excessive graphics, Flash loading, or simply poor website hosting, brides will just leave and look for a website that works.

Creating the Oh Yes Moment

The next most important thing related to conversion is what I call the “Oh Yes” moment. This is when a bride says to herself “Oh Yes, this is what I’ve been looking for.” What creates the “Oh Yes” moment? Professional presentation: a professionally designed website with the appropriate look and feel, graphics, and professionally written marketing copy that immediately engages the bride and keeps her reading.

Don’t Manipulate Visitor’s Experience

Anything you do to manipulate the bride’s browser, or her visiting experience at your website in general, needs to be removed from your website design plan. Resizing browser windows on a visitor is the kiss of death. I don’t see this too often, but when I do I guarantee it creates a problem with conversion.

“Brides Love Our Website”

I don’t care how many brides told you they “really loved your website…” What matters is your bounce rate. How many brides came to your website but did not click to the next page? What is your average number of page views per visitor session? Brides who found your website but then left, without making an inquiry, don’t call you to tell you they didn’t like your website. Brides telling you they liked your website isn’t a reason to think everything is OK.

Don’t Overuse Flash

There is only one reason to use Flash – to enhance a visitor’s experience at your website in such a way that it leads to conversion. Anything else and you’ll actually push them away! Yes – push them away. You won’t IMPRESS anyone with your Flash presentation and websites made entirely of Flash do not convert well. What’s important is that you get inquiries and then sales from your website – it’s not about trying to “impress” a bride (which you can’t really do with your website anyway!). There are alternatives to Flash that actually create a better user experience without all the potential risks and downside. If you are going to use Flash do it sparingly and appropriately.

Readability

This sounds rather elementary but if people can’t read the words on your pages they just leave. Hard to read text, small text, or text in difficult-to-read fonts immediately and adversely impacts conversion.  You might think it looks “cool” and fancy, but it actually is costing you thousands of dollars in lost sales when it adversely impacts your conversion.

More website design tips next week…

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Chris Jaeger
Marketing to Brides Online
(866) 652-7791 x701

 

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