13 Ways To Use UX Design To Improve Website Conversions

Picture this: you’ve poured time and resources into perfecting your website’s SEO strategy, but visitors aren’t converting as you hoped. It’s a common frustration. The truth is, even with top-notch SEO, poor user experience can bottleneck your conversion rates. This article will show you how to use UX design to improve your website conversions, helping you optimize the SEO conversion funnel by focusing on more than just attracting visitors — we will keep them engaged, too. You’ll learn practical strategies to guide users smoothly down the path to conversion.

This is where BlogCTAs’s programmatic CRO tool comes in. It pairs perfectly with these UX strategies to boost website conversions and help you achieve your objectives.

What is UX Conversion Optimization?

webflow- UX Design to Improve Website Conversions

UX Conversion Optimization (UX CRO) is about making your website a smooth and intuitive user experience. When visitors land on your site, you want them to perform specific actions—like purchasing or signing up for a newsletter.

UX CRO aims to streamline the user:

Journey
Removing friction
Confusion

This involves analyzing user data, conducting usability tests, and implementing improvements in design and functionality that guide users toward those key actions.

The Importance of First Impressions

Design plays a crucial role in UX CRO. A staggering 94% of first impressions of a brand’s website are tied to its design, and 75% of website credibility depends on it. This shows how vital a visually appealing and functional design is in shaping users' perceptions and decisions to engage with the site. A good design builds trust and makes users want to stick around.
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Enhancing User Interaction

At its core, UX CRO is about understanding and improving the user journey. This means identifying pain points like confusing navigation, slow load times, or unclear calls to action and addressing them through data-driven decisions. UX CRO ensures visitors find what they need quickly and easily by optimizing website structure, content presentation, and visual appeal.

As a result, users are more likely to stay on the site longer, engage more deeply, and ultimately convert by taking desired actions, whether that means making a purchase or filling out a lead form.

Continuous Improvement

The secret behind successful websites that excel at conversion is rooted in UX CRO. Businesses can significantly boost their conversion rates and build stronger relationships with their audience by continuously:

Analyzing user behavior
Testing different design elements
Refining the user experience

13 Ways To Use UX Design To Improve Website Conversions

man on a desktop - UX Design to Improve Website Conversions

1. Provide Multiple Forms of Credible Social Proof

Human psychology is the basis of both CRO and UX, so where better to start than by demonstrating intense customer satisfaction? Varied, relatable social proof will make customers more likely to trust your product or service.

Humans are prone to herd mentality, and the stats prove it. The average person reads at least ten online reviews before making a purchase, and 57% of customers will only buy or use a business service if it has at least a 4-star rating. Social proof is essential to a high conversion rate. It’s trustworthy, informative, and low (or zero!) cost.

Your various forms of social proof might include:

Customer testimonials
Trust badges
Reviews and ratings
Social media presence
Case studies

Ethical Strategies to Encourage and Display Customer Reviews

Showcase your best reviews to ensure your audience doesn’t miss them. Of course, you’ll need to earn these stellar reviews first. If you’re starting, there are many ways to encourage reviews and testimonials. The quicker and easier it is for a customer to leave a review, the more likely they are to do so. Get in touch directly with happy clients.

You can also offer incentives, such as a free trial of a new feature or discounts, in exchange for honest reviews. Just be careful not to exchange money or goods for a positive review or barter with negative reviewers to increase their rating. This goes against Google’s guidelines.

2. Run User Experience Tests

When building a website or preparing for a website redesign, try starting with card sorting, information architecture exercises, and your site mapping before any UX prototyping occurs.

You may be asking, “What is card sorting?” It’s essentially a UX research method used to evaluate the information on a website. Users are requested to organize information into logical groups, using cards representing a concept or item.

Affordable Audience Research Methods for Optimizing Website Information Architecture

The results should show how people understand information, helping website designers to optimize information architecture (IA). Card sorting is popular as a cost-effective, accurate, and simple way to gain insights into your users’ thoughts and where they expect to find specific content.

Focus group testing is ideal, but it’s not always an option for SMB companies due to time or budget constraints. Other forms of audience research include:

Interviews
Surveys/questionnaires
Usability testing
A/B testing

3. Use a Dedicated Landing Page for Ads

Although 77% of top ad landing pages are home pages, the ‘save time’ rationale behind them may cost leads and lower conversion rates.

Here’s why:

The homepage is a gateway to your site that’s full of distractions like menus, callout blocks, social media links, and pop-ups
All content on a dedicated landing page is united in its goal: moving visitors toward a single, specific (and usually profitable) task
The problem with using a homepage as a landing page is that website visitors from all traffic sources will be directed to the same place. This means that the nuances of each target customer group (i.e., pain points or aspirations) are lost in the grouping. It also places the work of choosing a path to conversion on the visitor, leaving too much room for them to get lost or simply bounce.

Designing Targeted Landing Pages for Maximum Conversion Success

Different landing pages for each customer segment and conversion goal are much more effective.

The ideal landing page is simple. It should have minimal outward links, a subtle navigation bar, strong sales copywriting, and colors that don’t distract from the CTA.

4. Create Enticing CTAs

Call-to-action buttons are one of your website’s most important features regarding CRO. Their appearance, copy, and placement are all UX decisions that impact conversions. Optimizing your CTAs is a quick and surefire way of increasing that conversion rate.

Did you know that 54% of marketing experts believe cluttered websites are the biggest obstacle to a good UX? Be judicial with popups and videos, and ensure that CTAs are clear, enticing, and feel like a natural step.

Leveraging Color Psychology to Boost Website Conversions

Returning to the importance of human psychology — color is key. Done well, the color used in web design can significantly increase conversions. Color psychology is growing in popularity, and there’s a lot of information about how you can use it to your advantage on your company website.

For example, you might use an urgent-feeling red ‘Buy’ button during a sale. There are many theories about which colors work best for which industries or target customers, but the solutions are case-by-case and depend on your branding and audience.

Strategic CTA Placement: Maximizing Visibility and Engagement

For example, MailChimp uses yellow to make its CTA buttons stand out. The ‘Sign Up’ button is also bang in the middle – you’ll unlikely miss it. Ideally, you want to have at least one CTA ‘above the fold when placing your CTA button.’ This applies to blogs and landing pages alike.

‘Above the fold’ means the content at the top of a web page, visible without needing to scroll down. This is a CRO priority, as customers tend to spend 74% of their viewing time in the first two ‘screenfuls,’ paying 57% of their time ‘above the fold.’

5. Ensure Your Website is Accessible

Website accessibility is vital for improving CRO and respecting the varied needs of users who visit your website. You can take many steps to ensure your website is as accessible as possible, from using proper alt text for images to allowing keyboard navigation.

Enhancing Website Accessibility for Inclusive User Experiences and Better Conversions

Ensure site readability is at its best, and choose a content management system that supports accessibility. You may need to work with a developer or agency to update your website for accessibility standards.

An inclusive website will improve conversions by creating more positive user experiences, making visitors more likely to spend their time and money with your business than with one that has a frustrating website.

6. Stay on Top of Analytics, Tracking, and Testing

It might seem obvious, but using the data you collect is a simple, high-return CRO tactic. Use digital analytics and user qualitative feedback to improve your CRO. For example, if your site’s page or CTA button is not driving conversions, it should examine the data and determine why.

Using Google Analytics and Heatmaps for Actionable UX Insights

Google Analytics is a goldmine for insights, used by over 29 million websites. It’s free and uncovers key trends and patterns. Even a basic understanding of how it works can give you invaluable insights into how potential customers interact with your website.

For this kind of UX research, you should also install a heatmap. These tools visually represent how users engage with every element on a page. Most heatmap tools can even anonymously record sessions, so you can watch videos and learn where users get stuck and abandon conversions.

Conducting Effective UX Research and Usability Testing for CRO Success

Make sure you’re conducting sufficient UX research. This also helps unite users into audiences rooted in pain points or needs, making it easier to understand your customers and direct relevant information toward each customer type.

Remember to test usability, CRO’s most important UX design principle. Test your website before it’s launched: with as few as five users, you can prevent up to 85% of website issues.

7. Conversion Copywriting

In marketing, copywriting aims to persuade a person to take a specific action—in this case, a step towards buying a product or service. Microcopy writing, on the other hand, is creating snippets of copy that tell users what to do on your site, such as:

Menu labels
CTA buttons
Form labels
Messages as a user completes steps (or runs into trouble).

All of these types of copy are essential to conversions.

Your writing must be clear and concise, focused on a straightforward conversion goal. Many conversion copywriters find that it helps to start at the end by asking, “What do I want this to achieve?”

Crafting Customer-Centric Messaging for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Customer-centric messaging is how to earn trust and generate the interest and excitement needed to finish a transaction.

Work out which stage of the buying process the customer is at so you get your messaging right:

Awareness: help potential buyers diagnose their problems
Consideration: showcase the benefits of your product or service
Decision: Prove that you’re the right company, use social proof to gain trust

Use clear headlines and subheadings, include helpful FAQs, and focus on readability. Learn how to optimize your blog posts for conversion and incorporate persuasive writing into every feature of your website.

8. Perform Competitor Analysis

Carrying out competitor analysis is a vital component of UX CRO. It involves assessing your main competitors’ websites to pinpoint areas for optimizing your site to attract and engage potential customers.

This process of analysis can be broken down into several key steps. You need to identify who your main competitors are. This could be companies who offer similar products or services or who target the same audience as you. Once you have a list of competitors, you can analyze their websites.

Conducting Competitor Analysis to Refine UX and SEO Strategies

Look at:

The design of their site
The user experience they offer
The content they provide
The way they engage with their audience
What are they doing well?
What could they improve on?

These insights can provide you with valuable ideas for improving your website.

Another critical aspect of competitor analysis is understanding their SEO strategy. What keywords are they targeting? How well are they ranking for these keywords? This information can help refine your SEO strategy and improve your visibility in search engine results.

Leveraging Paid and Free Tools for Comprehensive Competitor Analysis in UX and CRO

Depending on the competitiveness of your industry, you should use paid tools for this analysis. Even without these tools, you can still conduct a thorough competitor analysis by identifying your top competitors through search results and evaluating their websites.

These tools can help you conduct competitor analysis for UX conversion rate optimization, like:

Backlink Checker from Small SEO Tools
SEMrush
SpyFu
UserTesting
Outgrow

These tools provide insights into your competitors’ backlink profiles, keyword rankings, user experience, and more, enabling you to make data-driven decisions about your UX CRO strategy.

9. Pick Up Your Page Speed

Your website’s loading speed is a massive factor in its conversion rate. In fact, according to a study by Akamai, if your site loads slower than your competitors, you can lose up to 70% of potential customers.

Use Google PageSpeed Insights to check how fast (or slow) your website loads and optimize accordingly. For specific tips on how to do that, you can check out our article on reducing your website’s carbon footprint with SEO.

10. Use the Help of a Chatbot

Chatbots are great because they can answer many users’ questions in real-time. 55% of businesses that use chatbots go on to generate more high-quality leads.

Chatbots bring:

Better ROI: Using a chatbot, you can automatically prequalify leads and save your sales team time and effort.
More leads: Because chatbots are timely and easy to interact with.
Important context: When your sales team gets a prequalified lead from your chatbot, they will already have valuable information for them. This increases the chances of closing the deal.

Boosting Conversions with Personalized Chatbots and Conversational Marketing

Customers are much more likely to spend more than they had planned when their experience is personalized.

Here are some more benefits:

Bots can help you identify people’s interests, likes, and dislikes and give them more engagement, which leads to a higher conversion rate.
Chatbot surveys can help you engage customers by asking them to share their experiences with different products and preferences.
Marketers use the right content at the right time to move leads further down the funnel. Chatbots can segment your audience by using their answers about preferences and interests.
What are the crucial questions for a great chatbot experience? You can learn more about how to build a conversational marketing strategy.

11. Build Attractive Pricing Pages

Pricing pages with attention to detail and your target persona can drastically improve your conversion rate. They are effective because they make visitors feel you know and understand their needs.

We have a whole article on building pricing pages for SaaS, but here are our top 2 best practices:

Align pricing options with personas
Make use of the anchoring effect

The anchoring effect describes people’s bias to rely on the first information presented to them, in this case, the “Recommender” tag. For more physiological hacks for your pricing pages, look at these.

12. Use Human Faces in Visuals: Designing for Conversions

We found that visuals with human faces increase conversion rates. This works because people are wired to respond to facial expressions and emotions.

Here are some pro tips when using human faces for CRO:

Have human faces looking toward the CTA
Include photos evoking positive emotion
Make sure to depict your buyer persona
Avoid stock imagery
A/B test illustrations vs people because each case can be different

13. Be Minimalistic With Fonts

Too many font sizes create a feeling of confusion and asymmetry. Narrow them down to a few to please the user’s eye. The same applies to too many different alignments. You can quickly check with Chrome Dev Tools (CTRL + Shift + I on the keyboard when using a Chrome browser) and the CSS Overview feature.

5 Key Benefits of UX Conversion Rate Optimization

employees on a laptop - UX Design to Improve Website Conversions

1. Eliminate Friction to Boost Conversions

Picture this: users land on your site, but they're greeted with a maze of confusing navigation and sluggish load times. Friction points like these can grind conversions to a halt. By optimizing the user experience, you streamline the journey, making it effortless for visitors to complete actions like purchasing, signing up, or requesting a demo. The less resistance they encounter, the more likely they'll convert.

2. Build Trust and Credibility with Seamless Design

Would you trust a site that looks like it was built in the '90s? A polished, intuitive design does more than just make your site look good. It builds trust and credibility. When everything works seamlessly, users feel more confident in completing transactions, knowing they're dealing with a professional brand. Trust is the backbone of conversions.

3. Enhance User Satisfaction for Repeat Business

Satisfied users don't just convert; they come back. UX optimization focuses on creating a smooth, enjoyable experience that meets user expectations. When users can easily find what they're looking for and have a positive experience, they're much more likely to take action and become repeat customers. Happy users are the gift that keeps on giving.

4. Boost Engagement and Retention

A great user experience keeps visitors engaged and coming back for more. The better the experience, the longer users stay and the more likely they will convert. Engaging users with a well-designed interface and valuable content increases their time on your site, offering more opportunities for conversion. Plus, a great UX boosts retention rates, turning one-time visitors into loyal customers.

5. Improve Key Metrics to Drive Success

The proper UX can improve all the metrics:

Bounce rate
Session duration
Page views

By optimizing the user journey, you can directly influence these metrics, creating a positive ripple effect that boosts your overall conversion rate. It's not just about looking good—it's about driving accurate results.

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How To Measure UX Conversion Optimization Success

man looking happy - UX Design to Improve Website Conversions

Measuring the success of User Experience (UX) Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) efforts is crucial to understanding how well your website or application meets user expectations and achieves business goals. Success can be gauged using key performance indicators (KPIs), user behavior analysis, and direct feedback.

Key Metrics and Methods for Evaluating UX Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Here's a breakdown of the most effective metrics and methods for evaluating UX CRO changes.

Conversion Rate (CR)

Conversion rate remains one of the most critical KPIs in UX CRO. It measures the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as:

Purchasing
Signing up for a newsletter
Filling out a form

A significant increase in conversion rate after implementing UX changes indicates that optimizations successfully guide users toward your goals.

User Engagement Metrics

Engagement metrics like page views, session duration, and interactions per visit provide insight into how users interact with your website. Increasing session duration or the number of pages viewed can indicate improved navigation and content relevancy, contributing to a better user experience.

User Feedback

Collecting user feedback through surveys, interviews, or usability testing sessions offers qualitative insights that quantitative metrics might miss. Feedback can reveal pain points, clarify user expectations, and suggest areas where the UX can improve further.

A/B Testing

A/B testing allows you to compare two versions of a webpage to identify which one performs better in conversions or engagement. By testing different layouts, call-to-action (CTA) placements, or content formats, you can make data-driven decisions to refine your UX strategy.

Heatmaps and Click Tracking

Heatmaps and click tracking tools show where users click, scroll, or spend time on your site. These visual tools help identify areas of high user interest and uncover sections of the site that need to be addressed or clarified.

Goal Completion Rate

This metric tracks how often users complete specific tasks, such as booking a service or downloading a resource. A higher goal completion rate following UX changes indicates that your optimizations make it easier for users to accomplish their objectives.

Revenue Per Visitor (RPV)

RPV measures the average revenue generated per visitor. Tracking this metric helps assess the financial impact of UX changes. An increase in RPV suggests that the improvements encourage more valuable interactions, such as higher-value purchases or increased add-ons.

Customer Retention and Loyalty

Metrics like customer lifetime value (CLV) and churn rate offer insights into how UX changes affect long-term user relationships. A decreased churn rate or increased repeat visits signal that your website delivers a more satisfying experience.

Load Time and Performance Metrics

Performance metrics like page load speed are directly linked to user experience. Faster load times can reduce bounce rates and improve engagement, while slow pages often lead to user frustration. Monitoring performance improvements is essential for overall UX success.

Accessibility Improvements

Assessing improvements in website accessibility ensures that your platform is inclusive and usable for all visitors. Metrics like the number of accessibility errors or compliance with standards such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) can highlight progress in making your site more user-friendly.

Comprehensive Monitoring for Holistic Insights

Monitoring these metrics together offers a holistic view of how UX changes influence user behavior and overall performance. For example, a rise in conversion rates after UX updates indicates a direct positive impact on user interactions. Conversely, metrics like high bounce rates or low session durations signal potential areas for further improvement.

Combining quantitative data with qualitative feedback and continuous testing can refine your UX CRO efforts and ensure your website aligns with user needs and business objectives.

8 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Using UX Design To Improve Website Conversions

man looking upset - UX Design to Improve Website Conversions

1. Overwhelmed by Choices? Simplify for Success

The paradox of choice is no joke. When users are faced with too many options—especially on landing pages or during checkout—they often freeze. This indecision can lead to abandoning the site altogether. Instead, streamline the experience.

Limit the choices and focus on the actions you truly want users to take. A single, clear call-to-action (CTA) can make all the difference.

2. Lost in Navigation? Clear the Path

If your navigation is a maze, users will bail before finding what they need. Complex menus and poorly structured information are conversion killers. Conduct usability testing to spot navigation issues. Simplify your menu, use clear labels, and make sure vital information is front and center. Breadcrumb trails and robust search functionality can also help guide users.

3. Speed Matters: Don’t Leave Users Waiting

People like a fast website. A sluggish load time can frustrate users and cause them to run to a competitor. Even a one-second delay can slash conversions. Optimize your site’s performance by compressing images, minimizing HTTP requests, and leveraging browser caching. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can pinpoint where you need to improve.

4. Cut the Clutter: Focus Your Message

A cluttered design can confuse users and muddy your message. When too many elements compete for attention, users get lost. Embrace a clean, minimalist design that highlights the important stuff. Use whitespace strategically to draw focus to key areas and make your CTAs pop.

5. Vague CTAs Are a No-Go

Your CTAs are the conversion gateway. They need to be clear and compelling. Users might not know what to do next if they’re vague, hidden, or too subtle. Make them big and action-oriented. Use contrasting colors to make them stand out and ensure the text tells users what to do.

6. Mobile Optimization: A Must, Not a Maybe

With more users accessing sites on mobile devices, a poor mobile experience can wreck your conversions. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, users may:

Struggle with navigation
Load times
Scaling issues

Go mobile-first. Ensure your site is fully responsive, with tappable buttons, readable text, and fast load times. Regularly test on different devices and screen sizes.

7. Listen Up: User Feedback Is Gold

Ignoring user feedback can lead to persistent UX issues that hurt conversions. Users often provide valuable insights into what’s working and what’s not. Don’t miss this chance to improve. Seek and respond to feedback through surveys, on-site polls, and customer support channels. Use this feedback to inform your UX optimization and iterate.

8. Simplify Forms: Don’t Scare Users Away

Long or complex forms can be a conversion killer, especially during checkout. Users don’t want to fill out unnecessary fields. Simplify forms by asking for only the essential information. Break longer forms into multiple steps if needed, and use auto-fill and validation to make them smoother. Consider offering guest checkout to reduce friction.

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Supercharge Your Blog’s UX for Better Conversions

Why settle for a generic UX when you can optimize your blog’s user interface to convert? Blog CTAs allow you to enhance the user journey with tailored prompts that speak directly to your audience.

Integrating seamless CTAs into your blog boosts engagement and creates a more enjoyable and intuitive experience. UX design works for you, not the other way around.

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