KISS Your Visitors If You Want Them To Come Back

Obviously, I’m not talking about literally “kissing” your visitors – being in the online environment you can’t even do that physically. KISS is short for Keep It Simple, Stupid. Funny, right? This is a message and a persuasion principle which applies online. The main idea here is that the key to a successful web design doesn’t consist in making it sophisticated, it’s about making it look simple. It seems easy, doesn’t it? In fact, creating a design which can be described as simple is not at all easy.

Image Source: Urban Barn

When you see a simple and clean website, like the Apple website for example, you think “Oh, this site looks great, although it’s so simple!”. As it turns out, well thought simplicity is the key factor which leads a website to success.

Here are some tips on how you can K.I.S.S.:

Limit the loading time for a page

I don’t know about you, but if I enter a website and the loading time of the page takes longer than 10-15 seconds I usually close that page, because I have a lot of work to do and I don’t need to waste time with things like this.

Image Source: 6smarketing

The best websites out there have a loading time under 10 seconds. Note that nobody will wait longer than 30 seconds for your page to appear. So, if your targeted audience is wide, consider the fact that most people are still under 56 k, they may even have their monitor resolution to 800 x 600 and they don’t even know how to change that (or that they CAN change it).

Have a simple and intuitive navigation

The majority of your visitors (and potential clients) will take a look at two, maybe three pages before they leave. That means you are only two clicks away from drowning if you don’t make sure that your visitor finds the info he is looking for quickly.

Have an eye catching title/text

When they land on a page, visitors first look at the text, not at the graphics. Why is this important? Because the text can keep them occupied while the graphics load. Note that you should use graphics only if this will help the visitors to understand better what they are looking for of if it offers information that can’t be communicated otherwise through text. Moreover, if you do decide to use graphics, create a simple graphic element, with a short loading time.

Have an effective Search Option

The search option on any website should provide fast and exact results. Most visitors or potential buyers which land on your website don’t even know how to use properly this option and this usually leads to receiving bad search results or no results at all. And if you do need a Search Option on your website, just make it simple and offer simple instructions. If a search will return too many irrelevant results, the visitors may feel overwhelmed and leave.

Image Source: Smashing Magazine website

Respect online conventions

For most people, blue and underlined words means that there is a link there or we have a “Click here” button. It would be safer if you didn’t create confusions. You should avoid to underline or to use blue to color other texts. Place the navigation options on the upper side or on the lateral side of your website and use reasonable schemes for categories which include more than one element.

Image source: Smashing Magazine website

Try to avoid scrolling down the page

But if you really must use it, then use it only vertically, never horizontally and be sure to place the most important information above the scrolling line. Remember: the most important information must get to the visitor first!

Make everything as clear as possible

First and most important thing, make sure to help your visitors and potential clients SEE the information – white backgrounds load quickly and helps the copy stand out. Label everything and make it simple, don’t use any slangy words. Give accurate explications. Remember: if your visitors can’t find something, it means that something isn’t there.

Image Source: Apple Website

Be sure your visitors don’t get stuck somewhere on your website

Let’s say, for example, that you have an online shop. Just think of your visitors like they are in a middle of a storm and they don’t have any kind of direction. They’re asking “Where are the products for checkout?”, “Where can I pay?” and so on. Make sure you provide a simple and intuitive navigation, so that the visitors can easily orientate on either page of your website. Place all the navigation links on all of your pages if you don’t want to discourage your clients to leave. Any step to the menu bar is a risk that people will leave your website.

See how on the Designious website, when you add something to cart, you are warned that you added that product to the cart by a message and you can see that in “My Cart” area also appears that you have 1 item in the cart.

Don’t assume that all of your visitors are experts in the online environment

Technology is a wonderful thing, but a lot of users are a couple of years behind when it comes to this. That’s the reason why the graphics must be simple. Most important, don’t ask your visitors to download plug-in elements. A lot of visitors don’t know how to do that and if they do know, why would you want to drive them away from the buying process and make them do something else, just because a designer thought that this would be cool. Visitors don’t say “Wow”, they just leave. So if you can’t incorporate something into your website, just let it go and focus on more important aspects. Give your visitors and your clients simple and clear instructions, as well as previous tools to guide them through the buying process.

Image Source: The Visible Dentist

Gain respect from your visitors by providing attention to details

You should know that visitors always look for reasons not to trust you: they look for spelling mistakes, typing mistakes, not working functions, browser compatibility issues and so on. Check and double check every detail and don’t give them the chance to find anything!

As some final ideas, check out the common characteristics of websites in the top 100:

– high loading speed

– as little graphics as possible

– few or none multimedia elements

– no frames

– similar navigation systems

– high contrast in the text and a lot of white spaces

– links in the traditional underlined blue

– no background images

– very few visible JavaScript tricks

– no splash

– a solid database behind them.

Your turn now.

Do you have any other K.I.S.S. tips? Please share them with us.