How well does your website convert users?

Maybe you already have a website or maybe you are planning out a new one. In either case, you need to spend some time and thought on defining conversions.

What is a conversion you ask? A conversion happens when a user on your site takes an action that you intended. If you have an eCommerce site, and a visitor makes a purchase on your site, that’s a conversion.

Light vs Heavy

Now that we know what a conversion is, let’s talk about Heavy Conversions and Light Conversions.

A Heavy Conversion is an action that takes a lot from the user, such as a purchase, filling out a contact form, or becoming a member of your site. Typically, a Heavy Conversion requires the user to give something up, such as money. Read the rest of this entry »

Simple, beautiful websites.

It may sound strange, but one of our goals at Inovat this year will be to focus on building simple, beautiful websites. Why? Not because simple is always better, in fact, sometimes simple doesn’t cut it. Not because we cannot do complex, see PlanetEarthPlay.com. Because simple, we think, is typically better for our clients.

Why is simple better for our clients? Because our clients hire us to build them a website that does something. That something could be a user purchasing a t-shirt or joining a mailing list. It could also be a user simply finding out more information about our client.

A simple navigational structure is easy to navigate. A simple cms is easy to update. Most importantly, a simple website doesn’t get in the user’s way.

“The client is always right” said the client.

Imagine a man goes to the hospital with a stomach ache, and informs the doctors, “I have appendicitis, skip the CT scan, and prep for Laparoscopic Surgery.”

Silly right? In the same respect (although not as life-threatening), when a client (let’s say an electric company owner) demands certain aspects of his website be built his way based on personal opinion or emotion, he is telling the developer that his own knowledge, training, and experience as an electrician is more extensive in the web industry and supersedes that of the web developer.

The patient needs the doctor in order to live, and the doctors need to understand the patient and his problems in order to know what techniques to apply.

So the next time you find yourself thinking “the client is always right”, consider the patient and where he would be if he had said something like that.

Let’s be clear, I am not saying your opinion doesn’t matter, it does. Without your insight into your own business your developer has nothing to go off of. But you did hire that experienced web firm to help you mix your vision with some industry experience and ingenuity, and create you the best website for your users. You did want a website that was best for your users, not you, right?