Less can be More when Conversions are Wanted

You may have heard the phrase 'less can be more' before and it is true on the web too.

One of the best examples of this is having too much 'going on' on the home page of a site. This I'm afraid can just confuse people so much that they either forget why they came (distraction being the issue here) or cause them to get so fed up trying to make out what you do or what they do next, that they simply go away.

This 'simplicity' is said to be one of the reasons that Google is so popular, as unlike Yahoo it does not clutter up the screen with anything other than the important bit, the space where you type in what you are looking for. Bear this in mind when you are designing your home page. Ask yourself, 'why has someone come to my site and how do I best serve them?', crack this and you will see an increase in conversions.

The second issue on conversions is also about clutter, but this time it's about the number of products you display on each of your product pages. Tests have shown that decreasing the number of items from 9 to 6 can increase the conversion rate by as much as 6%. Why, well it is reckoned that people can (a) see the product more clearly (it has more room on the screen and thus is bigger) and (b) they are not as confused about which one to pick. Either way, sites that have employed these tactics have seen an increase in sales.

More tomorrow