Top 5 Quick UX and UI Changes You Can Make to Increase Conversions

Delivering exceptional experiences to your website visitors is the cornerstone of enhancing your conversion rates. From aesthetics and design to how they interact with your site, everything matters. There’s stiff competition within every market (niche or not); your visitor will leave and purchase on a different website if they aren’t fully dazzled by the experience you give them.

This is something you simply can't afford, and why you need to direct your resources and attention towards the website's user experience and user interface (UX and UI). Several case studies have been done which show the impact on conversion when addressing UX and UI. The website itself is your highest conversion channel. It plays the most crucial role in keeping visitors engaged, while also encouraging them to interact with your company.

Rely on Customer Feedback to Make Changes

To begin with, the top priorities to change should come from your customers and visitors. On your website, give visitors an easy option to leave their feedback so they can tell you what they think of your website. You can use third-party plug-ins or a proprietary form to collect such feedback from the visitors.

There are heat mapping tools for analyzing the website behavior and explaining WHAT users are doing on your side. Such tools can provide the capabilities to show you how people flow through your website and where they get confused and potentially bounce. 

Other solutions for customer feedback provide the ability to ask insightful questions at the right moments of the user journey. These tools get to the WHY users behave a certain way on your site.

Listening to your customers also enhances your reputation as a brand, as your target audience grows more loyal and connected with your business. Ultimately, feedback-driven companies provide the best products (and websites) to people.

With that in mind, here are five quick UI and UX fixes to improve your conversion rates.

1. Pay Attention to Your CTAs

The importance of mastering your calls to action (commonly known as CTAs)—e.g. “Buy now”; “Find out more”; or “Subscribe”—can't be overstated. From the color you choose, the size and location of the button or text, action copy—everything matters. That’s why you need to ensure your CTA isn’t just visible across all types of screens (especially smartphones), but that it is tempting and inviting. Find out which colors have been proven to be successful in terms of acquiring better conversion rates, and test them.

Also, the placement and size of the CTA should be adequate enough to ensure easy visibility without being too “in-the-face.” One study by VWO showed that reducing clutter around a CTA alone skyrocketed a company’s conversion rate by 232 percent. Don’t make your CTAs too fancy: They should load quickly, even with slow internet speed. Lastly, use CTA copy that’s fresh and says something that feels welcoming. Instead of “Call us at 0-000-000-000,” for instance, you can use “You are just 10 digits away!” Here’s an interesting example below:

2. Use Visual Cues Throughout Your Website

Another quick user experience upgrade for your website would be visual cues. Icons, buttons, legends, and even pictures go a long way to keep everyone engaged on your site. These give users clear direction about what they can expect, and how they can navigate. Many visitors, especially those who are not technologically savvy, have a hard time navigating because they find it challenging to familiarize themselves with a modern user interface. Their struggle and the friction they encounter can directly result in loss of your revenue. Make sure the icons are either self-explanatory or use mouse-over-tool text to (briefly) inform the visitor about their purpose. This ensures that visitors stay on your website and are more likely to move through the journey and convert.

3. Give Important Updates, Early in the Journey

Nothing is more disappointing for your visitors than when they’ve decided your product is the right choice, but then they get to checkout and find unexpected additional costs or are told what they are looking for is out of stock, etc. This is when 60 percent of existing customers would abandon their cart and leave your website, potentially forever.

To fix this, if you have additional expenses, don’t wait till they are at checkout to tell them. If a product is out of stock, inform the visitor with a pop-up message or grayed-out image. You can redirect them to alternative offers and focus on value instead of what’s missing. You can even offer more value, if you think it is a good idea to reduce the chances of losing a conversion (promotional code, coupons, added functionality to existing offers, and so forth).

Lastly, create a “Notify Me” button so that your visitors can be informed when your offer is available again. Pro tip: This creates a quality lead (they’ll give you some contact information to nurture them as a lead in the future.).

These minor UX fixes will provide your customer with a great shopping experience, while reducing negative impacts on your revenue.

4. Find Errors, and Display Messages in an Engaging Manner

Most websites lose visitors when they fail to intelligently handle difficult or unfortunate situations from a poor customer journey. Expedia reported losses of $12 million in a year due to a form error. It is impossible to avoid having them, and that’s why you need a plan that works for you to keep your visitors on board, even if something goes wrong. Test your forms and your journey, and instead of using obnoxious, obvious messages like “Error!” or “Oops,” be transparent about the error and tell the user if they can fix it.

If the situation isn’t resolvable, offer an apology and redirect the user to your help or customer support page. Provide the “support chat” or “report a bug” option so that you can keep in contact with the user. It has been researched that 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience, and 92 percent could completely abandon a company after two or three negative interactions. Don’t be that abandoned company!

5. Simplicity Reigns: Don't Cramp the Website with Images and Visuals

Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but it can take bandwidth to load. Also, how many words do you truly need to communicate? While visuals are great to keep users engaged and make them interact with your website, find the right balance between form and function instead of stuffing your website with imagery. Reduce the number of banners, photos, and other images to ensure the page loads quickly and provides enough white space for your design to breathe.

Also, websites that are too visually heavy will load slower and result in poor visitor experiences. Once the visitor believes that the website isn’t good enough, they are more likely to leave.

Final Word

With the world going full-on digital and more commerce taking place through smartphones and other devices, your website needs to be in top shape to ensure you don’t lose a potential customer to your competition. Minor factors like the color of your CTA, the positioning of a certain button, and how you provide customer care can increase your conversion. Some others include adding easy payment mechanisms, leaving checkout form fields to a minimum, and adding some social proof with your customer reviews. That’s why it has become increasingly important for businesses to pay attention to what their target audience is saying and cater to their expectations.

Klaus-M. Schremser is the head of growth at Usersnap, and a believer in the magic power of feedback: Feedback-driven companies provide the best products to people. He’s a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience, who successfully completed two exits (to Atlassian and to APA). Schremser’s focus is leveraging customer research as a growth engine while building the right growth, marketing, and sales teams for Usersnap.