Forms: Designing Profitable Websites Part 5

Forms are the biggest areas of abandonment on the internet. Reason being they are boring, ask for too many personal details, and are only a step toward the end. However much of the internet is widely based around forms including everything from login to contact forms and online purchase to social networking comment forms. All in all the more satisfying forms you design and the easier they are for users to complete the better results you will see.

Forms are supposed to be practical and serviceable, not an artistic expression. The main purpose behind designing a form is solving a problem including how to get users to input their information in the easiest way possible. It is not to say that forms should not be pretty, they should. It is all a matter of putting everything together. A few suggestions to follow when putting together a form include:

Acknowledge common form goals.

The main goal for any form is to be filled out and submitted. Different forms will have different specific goals, for example a newsletter subscription form has the primary goal of obtaining marketing information, especially an email address. Be aware of the forms broad and specific goals.

Detail Pages: Designing Profitable Websites Part 4

Finally, visitors have made it to the detailed page after working through the category page, or even better they came from a search engine. Either way now is not the time to relax conversion efforts, if anything, now is the time to put them into full effect. Getting visitors to commit to the process is the hardest part, however if you provide them with enough valued information including content, imagery, support, and desired call to action you are in good shape. Maintain your visitor's interest and seal the conversion.

Detail pages can easily make or break a sale thus making it critically important to keep these pages organized and maintain user attention, ultimately leading them to the conversion process. While working with detail pages take into measure the following:

Outline detailed goals and guidelines.

The ultimate goal behind any detail page is to get visitors to make a purchase, accept an offer, or to move forward in the conversion process. In doing so you typically want to outline products or offer details, clear any confusion, promote sales and specials, and possibly supply alternative conversion procedure.

Category Pages: Designing Profitable Websites Part 3

Category pages are often disregarded because cleverly produced ones are passed through almost immediately directing visitors to the desired product. Category pages are an important step in the conversion process as they are in charge of providing a brief overview of a large amount of items and furthermore providing a way to decipher the difference between all of the items. Ultimately they lead visitors to the detail page where the conversion is finally completed.

Category pages act as a critical link to the conversion process and clutter and confusing design can break the chain. A few simple measures to think about when working on a category page include:

Outline detailed goals and guidelines.

The ultimate goal of the category is to progress visitors to the detail page. In doing so visitors are going to look for a few things, including: Displaying items in a pleasing manner, supplying enough details to differentiate items, contribute a way to scan items by various specifications, and furnish a way to move to the detailed page or next step.

Home Pages: Designing Profitable Websites Part 2

Home pages are typically seen as the bread and butter for most organizations, however most of these "bread and butter" pages have appalling visitor statistics. The average abandonment rate is around 40% - 60% and this rate trickles down affecting the rest of the site. A little work to a home page can go a long way increasing goals and conversions along the way.

We are all taught to never judge a book by its cover and unfortunately this does not play into web design. Within a matter of seconds visitors will decide if your site is what they are looking for and if not they will quickly move on. When designing a home page take the following recommendations into consideration to drive traffic past the home page and increase goals and conversions.

Capture a wide audience.

Home pages must be attractive to everyone. This includes customers, the media, shareholders, colleagues, employees, and etc. It is of value to address all of these audiences without turning the home page into a tangled mess. Not addressing or confusing any audience will push them to abandon the page. (For targeting specific audiences see part 1 of this series about landing pages.)

Landing Pages: Designing Profitable Websites Part 1

Landing pages are specially crafted web pages aimed at convincing visitors to take a specific action, and overall increase conversions. These actions can include making a purchase, filling out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, downloading an application, or so forth.

Perfecting a landing page takes time. A few instructions and suggestions to keep in mind when designing and perfecting a landing page include:

Give your landing page a unique layout and design, separate from the original website.

This is perhaps the most important step. Stripping away some of the features from a full site has proven to increase conversions by not allowing visitors to have any option but to perform the desired action.

The Master Plan to a Prosperous Website

When thinking of web design the term design can be relatively vague. The reason being that much of web design consist of strategy, including everything from content writing and text arrangement to design appearance and representation. When all of the different elements of web design come together correctly it creates a website that is visually appealing as well as accessible and practical to all users.

It is no small task putting all of these elements together, and in doing so you need to have a plan. Establishing a plan will allow you to focus on your objectives and work towards them accordingly.