Web Design Tips To Tease Clicks
Websites should be conversations, not lectures, but they also need to seduce as they share. So don't put everything on your homepage. Instead, hide temptations, secrets, intrigue, and beauty behind your links. Beauty wasn't as crucial in November 1999 when we launched FoundObjects.com. Today, the world is awash in websites, so daring, intrigue, and secrets are essential to engage customers. Initially, visitors have few expectations and little loyalty. As a web designer, your job is to inspire, persuade, and convert. Here's how your website should tease clicks.
- Strange Beauty - Today's world is also awash in stock photos. If you use stock find different angles, filters, or images.
- Headlines - Great link headlines imply more.
- Clear Calls to Action - Strangely, a great way to tease is by clearly telling visitors what you want them to do is
- Images Tease Too - Select images with just enough dissonance to be intriguing.
- The Widget Tease - Widgets like counters, sidebars and footers can tease clicks.
- Movement & - Movement such as image carosels or scripted delays or animation can tease clicks.
Strange Beauty - Don't Use Stock Photos
You may have noticed some of our images, such as the image of Jacques Slade below, look strange. Artisto is the application creating this "strange beauty." Finding ways to arrest attention requires difference. Not just different. Your website needs a consistent approach to strange beauty. Consistent blunts off-putting newness. There is a reason every McDonald's is a variation on a common theme. Consistency builds trust, encourages acceptance, and can make even "strange beauty" acceptable.
Great Headlines
Ever wonder why there are so many lists online? Top Ten, Top Five, and Biggest this or that are headlines that imply more. These hints capture curiosity, arrest attention and create an implied promise. Give me your clicks, says the web design wizard, and I'll repay attention with secrets. Who doesn't want to know a secret? However, there are two potential downsides to using such typical clickbait.
Your web copy needs to deliver the goods consistently. Our note about strange beauty, that consistency blunts off-putting newness, also applies to your site's copy. Read our Hemingway not Faulkner post for more tips on how to write arresting copy online consistently.
Clarity Calls To Action (CTAs) - The Strange Tease
It's a confusing, fast, and furious world. That's why websites with clear calls to action win visitors' hearts and minds. When you value your visitors enough to share what you want them to do, they return your efforts with clicks. Clarity may seem the opposite of strange beauty, but it isn't. The world is awash in confusing websites that challenge visitors to know what they should do. Don't be confusing. Use buttons or link text with clear calls to action. "Ready to discuss your website?" That's a tease of our "Contact Martin" button.
Images Tease Too
Why did we select Blondie as our hero for a post about teasing clicks? Blondie's image is incongruous with boring web design tips. Blondie implies loud, fast, and beautiful. Blondie's dissonance, her beauty and personality juxtaposed with boring web design tips, teases the click. Blondie proves the point - images tease too.
The Widget Tease
Widgets such as the counter on our homepage counter or sidebars and footers on a WordPress site are widgets.
"A web widget is a component that can be added to a website or application as a stand-alone feature. Website widgets are relatively easy to set up, with copy-and-pasteable code blocks you can embed into your website without changing (or even fully understanding) the entire code framework of your website host."- groovehq
We love widgets. We aren't programmers, but widgets help our websites include code well beyond our expertise. Embedding widgets may also help your pages load faster. What are your favorite widgets?
The Movement Paradox Tease
Movement such as sliders, image carousels, or scripted animation (the Experience and Expertise section on our homepage is a scripted animation) can tease clicks or drive visitors away. Watch your site's analytics to know if your site's movement is winning hearts and minds or making visitors run screaming into the night.
Question
What are your favorite CTAs?
