A survey has been completed in Canada tracking brainwaves – the results show that web users form their first impression of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds, which is 1/20th of a second! This means, in this quick flash, a user will decide if they would like to stay on your website or leave to go to another. Here are a few rules to keep in mind to ensure you capture your audience right away.
Hello good looking
Our parents, teachers and peers have always told us, never to judge a book by it’s cover – however, the sad truth is that people do judge books by it’s cover – and for websites, which don’t have a voice or emotional responses, this issue is one of the key elements you need to address. Let’s look at a real life example:
You are raised in a good family, your daughter has just turned 20 and she brings home her boyfriend to meet you, here he is:
Would you let him date your daughter?
I would say most of you would say “no”. The hard reality is people DO judge books by their covers so you MUST come off with a good first impression. Now applying this to the web in a quick example:
I am The Salesman
This is the homepage of rickspianos.com – they sell grand pianos worth over $25,000.
Not only does the website look nothing but grand – they don’t even have a phone number at the top of the page for users to call to enquire and buy. If you have salesman in your company, you’d request them to dress professionally – your website is also your salesman, it too needs to look smart and suitable for the company. So really look at your website and think – is it really communicating the right message? is it dressed up in the right attire – because a website redesign may be the first thing you should do improve your conversion rates.
Other things you should look into:
1. Neat appearance
Your website’s objective should be cleanly presented to your market and your layout structure should be neat and structured. A overly cluttered and disorganized website, will give the impression to your leads that your business is also cluttered and disorganized.
Animation? Please keep them to a minimum – animations will distract your users from the main objectives.
