4 Web Design Hacks to Increase Web Conversions

You can make all the design edits in the world, but if they’re not the right design edits, it really doesn’t matter. What do we mean by right? If your web design isn’t converting, then something isn’t right.

If you’re looking to design a website, campaign or digital element that converts, design with the customer’s motivations and preferences in mind. Start by using these quick design hacks for more web design conversion.


1.The Law of Pithiness
This is one of Gestalt’s guiding principles. It states that we tend to organize our experiences in symmetrical, simple ways. We like things to be clean, neat, and orderly (despite how we keep our cars and desks). Clutter creates overwhelm, so you want to avoid that at all costs.

The most common web design hack that follows the Law of Pithiness is the use of white space. White space makes people’s eyes happy, use it whenever possible.


2. The Law of Past Experience
The Law of Past Experience (concept of mental models) states that our past experiences have a huge effect on how we interpret our present experiences.

So how do we apply that to web design?

Customers past experiences are extremely personal, and we can’t help but bring those experiences into our current experiences – stay with us – web designers can use this familiarity to decrease barriers to purchase.

For example, people are used to the “Add to Cart” button sitting at the top right-hand corner of the website. Keep it there.


3. Familiar Faces
People are more likely to buy if you have familiar faces on your website. It’s a sign of trust and community. This has proved true in political campaigns and pizzerias alike. Human faces attract attention and convey emotion, both of which are huge assets in marketing. Use human faces in your web design whenever it’s appropriate.


4. Cost/Benefit Analysis
How much are you willing to pay for an online course? It depends on two factors:

·      Is it easy to acquire it?
·      Will it be worth your time/money?

If all you have to do is enter your email, then you will do it in seconds. But if you have to fill out a survey and pay $15, then that yes turns to a no or, best case scenario, “I’ll do it later”. This is the rule of Cost/Benefit Analysis. A customer will “pay” for the product or service if the benefit appears to equal or even outweigh the cost.

Design the Calls to Action and other web design elements to accentuate the benefit and increase the attractiveness of the cost. This also requires good copy writing, so have one of those professionals in your back pocket.


Looking for help with your web design? We’ve only scratched the surface here. Call our super brilliant and incredibly good-looking design-hacking Sonoma County Web Designers at K2 for a free quote.

How To Make Your Site User Friendly

A website is only as good as its ability to convert -- otherwise, why be online in the first place? Websites with excellent conversion rates have one key characteristic in common: they are user-friendly. But what does “user-friendly” mean, exactly, and how do you make a site as user-friendly as possible? These are the questions that boggle the minds of thousands of business owners.

Fret no longer, busy business owner, we’re here to chat user-friendly websites. If you’re a business owner looking to improve the functionality of your website, then buckle up because we’re about to run through the basics of user-friendly web design at lightning speed.

What Does User Friendly Mean
A user-friendly website is intuitive, responsive and personalized. Web designers have hundreds of tricks up their sleeve to improve the user-friendliness of a website. While not all tactics may be necessary for your website, your web designer will be able to identify what methods make sense for your industry, your budget, and most importantly, the preferences and needs of your target audience. The whole purpose of user-friendly web design is to keep the user in mind every step of the way. If you’re ever in doubt about a web design element, sak, “will this be attractive and easy to navigate as a customer?”. That question alone will change the way you view your website.

The Key Principles of User-Friendly Web Design
Whether you’re building your own site on Wix or you plan to hire a web designer to build a custom Wordpress site, there are a few standard user-friendly web design methods to include in your website.

1) Keep Things Simple - Remember those websites from the 90s where the homepage looked like a full phone book's worth of information on it (also, remember phone books?). That’s the exact opposite of user-friendly web design. You want to give the user’s eyes plenty of breathing room so they don’t feel overwhelmed. When a customer is overwhelmed with visual stimulation then they definitely won’t want to hear anything more you have to say.

2) Be Fast And Furious - Your website should be FAST.  We don’t have to tell you how small our human attention span is, and nobody has patience for a slow-loading page. HIre a web developer to make sure your website’s backend is clean and up to date so you don’t lose customers because your homepage moves slower than rush hour on the I-5. 

3) Put Your Logo Front And Center -  OK, your logo doesn’t literally have to be in the center of the web page, but it should absolutely be easy to spot on every page of your website. Your logo, as well as other definable brand elements, should always be present so the viewers knows exactly what they are looking at. 

4) Be Brief, Clear And Genuine - No one wants to be confronted by a wall of text online, and your website is not the exception. Use your SEO strategy to write clear, engaging copy that gets to the point in a way your target audience will resonate with. Remember that your target audience is 100% human, so talk to them through your brand voice in that way. Think more “friendly email” than “academic paper”. The idea is to connect with your visitors as quickly as possible. That calls for brevity, clarity, and genuineness. 

5) Tell Them What To Do - You could tell the most beautiful, elaborate story about your product, but if there is no clear call to action on the web page, your visitors will not act. Craft engaging calls to action that jive with your brand messaging. 

6) Make Content Shareable - Your website content should be easily shareable for social media platforms. Display social media icons in the footer or sidebar of each page, make sure your images and media are pinnable, and highlight excerpts of your text with prompts like, “Tweet This.” Your website visitors are a primary vehicle for getting the word out about your brand, and a little prompting goes a long way. 

7) Include A Mobile Friendly Version - Most people browse the internet on their phone at least once a day. As a web surfer yourself, you’ve probably noticed the mobile version of a website is a bit different than the desktop version. This is because your web designer has coded certain elements to minimize or even disappear in response to the smaller screen. Make sure your website is responsive to mobile devices and tablets. This is something your web designer can easily do as they build your desktop site. 


Make Your Website User-Friendly
Are you ready to generate more leads and please your web visitors with stellar, responsive and user-friendly design? Contact our wildly capable group of designers at k2 Sonoma County Web Design for your free quote.

5 Signs Your Website Is Outdated

The digital space is evolving on a daily basis. What was once new and exciting is now old and outdated. When it comes to your business, you always want to come off as relevant and technologically savvy. The way your website operates can give a major impression on potential customers, and you want that impression to be a good one.

If you’ve had your website for a few years now and haven’t made any real updates, look for these signs that your website may be outdated.

1) Your Content Is All Over the Place - People have reached a point in their digital experience where they expect websites to look a certain way. They expect the “shop” button and logo to be on either side of the top left or right corner. They expect clear and engaging content to greet them to the site and explain what you offer them. Your website content should be broken up into small, distinct sections. If your web visitors are greeted by a wall of text with no guidance as to where they should begin, they will be out of there quicker than a sorority girl who stumbled into a biker bar.

2) The Dates On Your Site Are Over One Year Old - If you still have a flyer up from an event your company held over a year ago, your website is outdated. People come to your website to find relevant information and answers to their problems. If you have outdated information, including dates, events, bios, and specials, then visitors will have no reason to trust your credibility. You could be a family-run company that’s been open for 100 years, but if your potential customers haven’t heard of you and their first impression is outdated information, they’re not buying.

3) Your Website Looks Like a Rainbow - Color is a fantastic tool for attracting visitors to the content you want them to see. However, if you have 4 or 5 colors competing for the visitor’s eye, you will lose them. Aim to use no more than 2-3 colors on a webpage. This will make your website more attractive and much easier to look at for long periods of time (which is the goal!). Ideally you will want to have one main color that ties all the other colors together. Consider these your brand colors, you will likely have them in your logo and other brand materials.

4) You Have Broken Files, Images and Links - Is there anything more annoying than following a link to what you think will be valuable information only to find that it’s broken? Imagine what your website visitors think. Broken links, plugins and images give a terrible impression of your website, and most of the time that broken link represents your one chance to make an impression with new visitors. Hire a web developer to consistently maintain the backend of your website so you never have people bouncing off your site due to broken content.

5) There’s Clip Art and Animations On Your Site - While there is certainly room for gifs, memes, graphics, videos and movie clips, pixelated animations (like Tamagotchi, remember those?) will definitely show your website’s age. Honestly, there’s no need to use these anymore. People expect high res, life-like imagery on websites, so if you’re brand relies on animation and graphics to get the brand feel across, hire a web designer to create updated versions of your old animations.

Ready For Some Updates?
If you’re finding outdated content all over your site and don’t know how to fix it, call our Santa Rosa Wordpress Web Development team to take care of the bugs for you. We’re a full service Wordpress web development and SEO team that can whip your website back into tip top shape. Let’s do this.

What is Domain Authority And Do You Need It

What is Domain Authority, Anyway?

What is the Domain Authority of your website?

If your eyebrow shot up in questioning, then no worries. You’re right where you’re supposed to be. Domain Authority is an essential website metric that business owners can easily overlook. This week we’re going to break down Domain Authority and how to apply it to your website.

Domain Authority is one of the most important SEO metrics in determining the overall authority, or power, of your website. The basic Domain Authority (DA) metric can be measured using three key factors: Age, Popularity, and Size. Although, the creators of DA, Moz, calculate DA by considering dozens of other metrics, including number of total links and linking root domains.

DA works as a logarithmic scale from one to 100. The scale predicts how well your website will ranks on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). When a website has a higher score, it is more likely to be predicted to rank.

Technically, Domain Authority is calculated using a machine learning model to predict the best fit algorithm that correlates the DA calculation program’s link data with thousands of real search results. These real search results are used as the standard that the machine learning model bases its scale on.

How To Use Domain Authority

This DA score can be used to compare the site to other sites. It’s important to understand the DA score is a prediction of how well your site will rank, not how your site is ranking currently. So there shouldn’t be any pressure to have an insanely high DA score. Instead, a DA score should be used as a comparative metric--meaning you should compare your DA score to the scores of your direct competitors. Look at the DA scores of competitor sites, then use SEO strategies to ensure your DA score is always higher than your competitors.

Where To Find Domain Authority

The DA metric can be founding using SEO tools like Moz’s free tools at MozBar. You can also request that your SEO professionals add this metric to your monthly reports.

Domain Authority is NOT Page Authority

Domain authority predicts the ranking of your domains. Page authority ranks the strength of pages on your website. These are very different metrics.

How to Increase/Manipulate Domain Authority

The machine learning software makes it extremely difficult to influence your domain authority directly. The best way to influence your DA score for the better is to improve your overall SEO and link. DA scores will rank better in your favor if you specifically work on increasing the amount of links from other higher ranking and well-linked pages around the web.

Need assistance boosting your SEO? Call our Sonoma County SEO experts to see how we can help improve your overall SEO metrics, attract more customers, and produce more relevant content for your current customers.

How To Find A Great Local SEO Company

Look for a great local SEO company is a lot like looking for the other sock to your pair -- you know it’s around somewhere, you just don’t know how to begin looking for it. Fortunately, there are are some key things to look for in an SEO company that will help you determine whether they’re good, great, or just OK. Use these tips from our fellow Sonoma County SEO professionals to locate that other sock … or err that great local SEO company.

Know What You Need From The Very Beginning
As with anything in business, the more clarity you have on what you need, the easier it will be to locate the right vendor to make it happen for you. Even the most wizard-like SEO master out there can’t read your mind, so when you schedule a meeting with an SEO company candidate, come prepared with key questions to your biggest web problems. Ideally, you will glean two observations from this strategy:

• What solutions the SEO company has to offer
• How they communicate these solutions

If you find it difficult to get straight answers from the company, then you absolutely will not get straight answers once you’re under contract with them. With that said, the clearer your questions are, the clearer their answers should be. 

Ask For Stories, Reviews, and References
The best way to learn about an SEO company is to hear their stories. Get them talking about past clients, current trends in their industry, and biggest successes. Remember to do your own research as well. Check reviews and ask for references from other clients. The more perspective you can get, the clearer picture you will have of your work with them. 

Discuss Their Approach
If there’s anything you should know about SEO before meeting with the professionals, it’s the SEO is a long game. That means if any SEO company tries to convince you that you will have the coveted 1st search result spot on Google in a matter of weeks, run far away from them. SEO takes time, but the right foundational work can set you up for long-term success.

Ask About Their Local SEO Strategy
If you are a local business, then local SEO will be key to your success. Ask pointed questions about the SEO company’s local SEO strategy:

• Do they optimize title tags for local content?
• Will your site be submitted to local directories?
• Will you be listed on local “Best of” directories?

Don’t Stop At One
There are hundreds of SEO companies (or agencies who claim to have SEO services) out there. Vet your SEO vendor hunt like a bridezilla with a clipboard at a cake tasting. This is arguably one of the most crucial vendors for your digital marketing strategy, so look at all of your options and only choose your company when you feel 100% certain they will take care of you.


If you’re currently vetting great local SEO companies, call K2 SEO in Sonoma County for your free quote. Our Santa Rosa Search Engine Optimization experts will help you.

Web Design Terms Part 1: Terms Business Owners Should Know

If you want to communicate with your web designer, you’ve got to learn how to speak their language. Luckily, it won’t take you a full semester to speak in terms they understand. However, there are quite a few terms worth wrapping your arms around, which is why we are doing a 2-part post about web design terms business owners should know. Memorize these key web design terms and you will be on your way to more effective communication with your web designer.

HTML or HyperText Markup Language is the language of the world wide web. HTML is the messaging tool that allows your web designers to tell certain web elements what to do. HTML language has different tags that help tell the web browser what’s an image, what’s a video, and what’s a paragraph.

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets allows for web designers to create and maintain “visual rules” that determines the rendering of all the visual elements on a web page. This includes, shape, color, and position of the web elements.

JavaScript also allows for different interactions between web elements. The origins of JavaScript can be not-so-fondly remembered as those pop-up boxes requesting validation of phone numbers or codes. Now JavaScript can be used for more convenient practical means such as uploading content without having to refresh the entire page.

SaaS or Software as a Service refers to any service that provides a software platform--Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Adobe, Google Docs, etc. Saas is usually delivered through the cloud. 

A/B Testing is an experimentation method where two ideas intended for the same result are tested against each other to determine which option will achieve the better result. For example, you may A/B test two different home page images or calls to action to see which one performs better.

Responsive Design refers to a web page’s ability to adapt or “respond” when displayed on devices of various sizes. You will have most likely noticed this when you view your favorite website on a desktop versus your smartphone. The layout is likely different ad the visuals might be bigger or smaller.

Responsive design also refers to personalization and relevance, meaning a web page responds to the specific individual viewer and displays only what is relevant to them.

ARIA or Accessible Rich Internet Application speaks to the technology used to close the gap between a user’s needs and the web browser itself. ARIA technology includes UX design, as it focuses on user-friendly content, accessibility, and functionality.

Got all that? Good. If not, study up and we will see you next week for Part 2!

Ready to dive in with a team of creative, go-getting web designers, call K2 Sonoma County Web Design to see if we’re a good fit.

Web Design Issues You Need To Fix Immediately

Websites are likes maps to your brand. They help your customers and website visitors understand what they should know and where they should go to consume relevant information. But if your website is riddled with outdated information, poor graphics and (gasp!) stock photos, your visitors will sense that your brand is outdated and ingenuine. Whether you’re a new business ready to put some money into digital marketing, or you’ve had your business for years and your website looks that way, make sure all of these web design holes are patched up immediately.

Outdated Design - If you still have the same exact website you paid for back in 2005, your website is outdated. Honestly, if you have the same website graphics from two years ago, it’s outdated. Hire a professional web designer to consistently update your website with new information and up-to-date visuals that communicate to visitors that you’re still relevant.

Stock Images Everywhere - All those “happy families” and “perfectly stacked sandwiches” aren’t fooling people anymore--everyone can spot a stock image, and because of their overuse visitors are desensitized to them. In a sense, you would probably be better off not having any photos, although we don’t recommend it. Invest in professional photography for your brand, so you can be sure no one else on the planet has the same visual content as you. Those kind of details make a huge difference when customers are comparing your brand with competitors.

Unnecessary or Superfluous Design -  One of the key rules of design is, “Less is more.” Clean, uncluttered design is much more appealing to the eye--and when your customer’s eyes are happy, they’re more likely to buy your products. Cluttered design frustrates people and they will associate that frustration with your brand.

Unclear Site Path - Your homepage may be pretty, but if your visitors don’t understand where to go next, they will leave. Part of excellent website development involves designing a pathway for your visitors to follow on the site. Think of it as a road to different destinations that lead them to relevant information and other benefits they may not have known existed. A poor or absent pathway will be confusing and frustrating.   

Confusing or Unclear Links - Go ahead, be witty. Throw your wit and sense of humor all over the site, but don’t be funny in your links. This is the equivalent of making jokes on road signs. People don’t want to laugh when they’re lost. Keep things clear.

Outdated or Invisible Contact Info - Don’t make it difficult to find your physical location. Make sure all your information is visible on the website and available on different platforms outside of your website as well.

Have any of these issues with your website? Call our Sonoma County Web Designers to get your website back in shape.