10 Tips on How to Incorporate Psychology in Improving your Homepage Conversion Rate
Before we dwell into the nitty gritty details of improving your homepage conversion rate, let’s begin by talking about psychology.
Psychology is the science of the human mind, but how is science related to marketing?
They both have the human brain in common.
Marketing is used to influence consumers to support particular purposes whether it be for profit or non-profit. However, there is a tipping point to when the marketing tactics used become too commercialistic. This leads to our brains not reacting as well to that message trying to seek our attention.
Are you a smart or boring marketer?
Of course, these terms are not meant to be derogatory in any way but let’s put together a scenario.
There is a group of marketers in a room, and you have to separate them into two categories: smart marketers and boring marketers. How can you tell the difference?
Boring marketers lack the understanding of the need to keep changing and adapting their marketing strategies to their target audience. Instead of taking a step back and evaluating their strategies, they tend to push the message harder to the few people that are actually listening to them.
Smart marketers are constantly changing and adapting because they understand the concept of psychology and how different people react to different techniques.
We have no doubt that you are a smart marketer but even if you aren’t, don’t fret!
There is always room for improvement which is what we are here to help you achieve: the transition to becoming a smarter marketer.
So how can you use psychology to drive more conversions?
Here are 10 psychological tips that will improve your homepage conversion rate.
- Visual salience
Visual salience is defined as the distinct subjective perceptual quality that makes some items stand out from their neighbours and immediately grabs our attention.
So which dot grabbed your attention?
The red dot right?
The red dot is salient because it immediately attracts our attention despite there being several other dots.
How does this relate to designing a homepage?
Ensure that the most important elements of your homepage stand out from everything else.
- Cognitive fluency
Cognitive fluency is the ease with which information is processed, so in other words, how easy it is to think about something.
Try not to overwhelm consumers with excess information but rather use a style that is minimalistic and clean with plenty of white space.
By keeping your homepage minimalistic yet conveying the right message, you’re creating cognitive ease and visitors an focus better on your call to action.
- Provide some motivation
Sometimes people need a little push to get them to take action. They are more likely to take action when minimal parameters are set which brings visitors over that hump and increases conversions.
For example, in your homepage, you might mention that customers will receive free shipping on their first order, or a 20% off discount if they sign up to your mailing list.
Providing these simple incentives creates motivation for visitors to take action.
- Instant gratification
When consumers want something, they want it now.
They absolutely hate waiting.
So how can you excite the brain of your mildly impatient visitors?
Use words like “instantly” and “immediately”.
These terms are very persuasive and should positively impact your conversion rate.
- Loss aversion
People hate to lose.
You can use this psychological principle on your homepage by explaining what people will miss out if they don’t take action.
- Facial recognition
Did you know that if you include a picture of a person smiling in your homepage, you are on your way to improving your conversion rate by 102.5%? True story. Here’s the study if you don’t believe us!
Why is facial recognition so powerful?
It creates a humanistic visual element which attracts attention because as humans, we tend to develop an emotional connection with other humans.
- Mimicry
Humans tend to like and trust those who are most similar to us.
By “speaking the same language” and using the same jargon that your target audience is accustomed to, you can gain the trust of your visitors who will be more willing to take action.
- Point out the success of others
Have you ever wanted to try out a product but was unsure if you should buy it?
Have you ever wondering if a product actually works?
These are some of the thoughts your visitors are thinking. To indirectly answer their questions, show how much your product is helping others.
This creates motivation to get people to take action after seeing the success of others because everyone wants to be successful, right?
- Conformity
Many people have the tendency to follow the crowd.
With that thought in mind, one way to incorporate conformity is to identify the product you want customers to buy most as being “the most popular”.
For example, like this:
- Use colours to trigger emotion
Different colours trigger different emotions.
Understanding what types of emotions your audience will feel because of a colour is significant in deciding the colour scheme of your homepage.
Using the right colours will help motivate your visitors to take action, hence increasing your conversion rate.
Here is a colour emotion guide to help you choose a colour scheme.
These are just some of many psychological tips to improve your homepage conversion rate.
A little trial and error is involved in determining which would work best for you because every marketing campaign is different and you have to change and adapt your strategies to suit.
Let us know about your transition to becoming a smarter marketer!
Do you have any other psychological tips to share?