How Your Graphic Designer Can Hurt Your Conversion Rate, with Tim Ash

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In this sometime crazy video interview -- subtitled "Shoot our graphic designer in the head to improve conversions" -- landing page conversion expert Tim Ash explains how graphic designers often get in the way of the conversion on a landing page project. He offers three suggestions to help designers learn how to submit their creativity so that they can work with the conversion process to maximize sales. Nearly everyone on a landing page design team brings their own limited perspective, says Ash. Graphic designers bring a visual bias. Of course, everyone wants a "pretty" landing page. In Ash's experience, graphic designers want to be creative; they get bored with "production work." Pretty much all graphic designers go "overboard" on creativity on landing pages, he says, but it's a matter of degree. Find other outlets for your creativity, he says, but don't "inflict" that creativity on the landing page. Any design element that doesn't directly contribute to the conversion should be resisted. Ash calls for "a simple Zen-like stillness out of which the call-to-action emerges." Landing page design requires creativity that supports conversion. To train graphic designers in conversion techniques, Ash suggests: Ann Hollands, WhichTestWon.com, which shows the results of A/B split tests. Tim Ash, Landing Page Optimization, Ash's book, and Attention Wizard, a site that uses softwore to indicate which design elements attract the eye on a landing page. Tim Ash is the founder and CEO of SiteTuners.com, a conversion optimization firm that works to improve conversion rates via consulting as well as full-service landing page tests. This interview was recorded at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, December 8, 2009.