Designing Persuasive Websites

A few essential books on topics related to designing high conversion websites.

Don’t Make me Think by Steve Krug is one of the simplest books on Web usability. It shows how a visitor lands on a page and how he looks for information. The whole premise of the book is that a website should be self evident and should not get a visitor thinking. A few snippets I found in the book:

• “We don't read pages, we scan them”  
• “We don't figure out, how things work, we muddle through”
• “Get rid of half the words on each page, and then get rid of half of what's left”

Call to Action by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg teaches you the art of moving visitors from one page to the next, and finally to taking action.  7 core factors which effect conversion rate have been discussed: Usability, Graphic design, Copy & Content, Effective Online Marketing, Psychology, Web Analytics and Experimentation/Testing. Definitely one of the best books you can read on how to boost conversion rates.

Conversionlabs is an ebook by Scott Miller on how to run Taguchi tests which advanced affiliates would find useful.I have'nt read the book  myself (I now consciously avoid information overload !)yet but many affiliate marketers heavily into pay per click campaigns have recommended it.

Check out this website. Is it persuasive ?: Avi Frister