Visit it here: www.luxuryblindsdirect.co.uk
The popular online photo blinds creation website has been
running for a few years, but in the past year we have been working closely with
the Luxury Blinds Direct team in order to redesign the website from the ground
up.
And all of the team here at Vital Hike are very proud of the
new website, which went live just eight days ago on Tuesday 14th
October!
Take a look at the new homepage below.
The project was a major redesign of their existing website,
which you can see below in grey.
Straight away you can see we stripped it back and swapped the steely grey for a cleaner and brighter white. But more about the design
later…
Why Did the Website Need a Redesign?
We had created a Google AdWords campaign for the old website,
and managed to drive significant traffic towards it. Over time however, Google
Analytics made it clear that the conversion rate wasn’t picking up.
Even though thousands of people were visiting the website,
we weren't seeing a good conversion
of those visitors into sales.
We could determine from this that the SEO tags and AdWords
campaign were doing fine because people were getting to the website, but
something about the website wasn’t encouraging people to buy.
At this point we were looking at Performance Funnels...
 |
| The old LBD website explained How it Works in 3 paragraphs which aren't very engaging |
 |
| The new LBD website explains How to Order in 5 easy-to-read steps |
What did Performance Funnels Show?
Performance funnels basically map out how customers are
moving through your website process (e.g. from selecting a blind design, to
purchasing it), and help you identify where customers are leaving unexpectedly.
Think of a website as a long drinking straw; the top of the straw is
where the water goes in, which represents your customers, and the bottom of the
straw is where you want your water to
come out, which represents customers having completed an order.
This particular website straw had too many holes along its
length so most of the water was leaving the straw before completing the full
journey.
There were too many holes in the conversion funnel, causing
us to lose too many visitors on the path to the checkout.
 |
| The old LBD website didn't have a wide range of designs available |
 |
| The new LBD website is much more inviting with vibrant colours and a greater variety of images available |
Why were customers
leaving prematurely?
This is a question online shops are asking themselves all the time. You have to constantly reassess how customers are behaving on your site and figure out how you might improve things for them.
Customers generally leave prematurely because the website
isn't providing a great user experience.
If the process of creating and
ordering blinds is laborious, people will lose interest and give up. Fact.
However, consumers aren't reliable buyers generally, as the Baymard Institute puts the average shopping cart abandonment rate at 68.06%, which is
HUGE.
So almost 70% of shoppers ditch their online cart before completing a purchase!
Amazon have attempted to reduce this stat on their own
website with their innovative Buy Now
With 1 Click, which streamlines the buying process into one easy click.
With this smart move, they have shortened their website straw, so fewer people will
leave unexpectedly.
With the old Luxury Blinds Direct website, performance
funnels made it clear that customers were finding the process to difficult to
navigate, so a rethink of the website was required.
 |
| The old LBD website asked you to fill out a page-long form to order blinds and could be off-putting to look at. |
 |
| The new LBD website has a much shorter form, along with a preview of the image you chose. |
How did we change things?
1. Incorporated a More Engaging Colour Scheme
The new design is immediately obvious.
The colour scheme was lightened and brightened, with hot
pink accents to draw the eye. The dark grey and green theme didn’t feel like it
was best suited to our target customer, so a friendlier colour palette was
chosen.
Images were also replaced with more engaging versions to better display
the possibilities with photo blinds!
 |
| The old colour scheme had a bit of a serious tone |
 |
| The new colour scheme has the strongest colours on the calls-to-action and injects a little fun into the website |
2. Designed a More Straightforward Layout
The older design was very stylized, and demanded that customers adapt to this new style of website at the same time as figuring out how to order photo blinds.
To make things simpler, we brought the website layout back to basics with a cleaner design and more visible and logical page structure. It is now much easier for customers to find necessary information and navigate around.
3. Included Improved Shopping Alternatives (Design Library)
 |
| Design Library |
On this website, customers always had the alternative of choosing pre-made blinds from the Design Library, but we improved the range of images on offer by linking the website up to BigStock Photo.
The images available were very limited previously, but the website now includes a variety of photographs and designs to appeal to a broader range of tastes.
Alongside the Luxury Blinds Direct team, we chose a selection of images that would work well on blinds, from romantic cityscapes and majestic mountains to fairy tale scenes for children or food-themed images for kitchen blinds. Customers can also request that images be added to the Design Library if they're looking for something specific.
This shopping alternative serves two main purposes.
- Firstly, it provides images for customers to browse through to get an idea of what works on blinds and for a bit of inspiration. This means they have a reason to stay on the website longer and think about getting blinds.
- Secondly, it provides alternatives for the customer. If a customer has uploaded a photo and suddenly decides it probably won't look good on blinds, they have the option of choosing a pre-made design instead of just leaving.
4. Increased Usability and Adjusted User Interface
The buying process itself was restructured and made a lot more
transparent, with helpful tips along the way on what happens at each stage to ensure the website ranks high for usability. Your aim should always be to make things as easy for the customer as possible, to avoid confusion and encourage them to purchase!
One of the main issues we faced with usability is that online blinds creation is
not a typical online shopping experience.
Therefore customers will come to the
website expecting a completely different shopping process which is not ideal as
you don’t want to cause confusion! However, we made it as similar as possible
to the usual process to create a sense of familiarity for customers.
5. Focused on Conversion
The website was getting a lot of visitors but it wasn't successfully convincing those visitors to buy photo blinds. This is where the marketing comes in.
We designed a clear path for customers to take in order to create their blinds. Every step of the way was reduced to it's simplest form, and we got rid of any distractions to this process.
6. Built it Responsively
The new website is responsive, which means it will detect the device you're viewing it on (mobile, tablet, laptop etc), and adjust it's design accordingly! Much more modern.
Overall, it was like upgrading from a standard website to a
marketing website.
With more of a focus on selling the product and providing a
smooth experience for customers, the website has been transformed.
This is the part where I should really amaze you with ground-breaking statistics, but let’s be real, it’s
only been live 8 days!
So this is the time when we start gathering the statistics! From the moment the website launched we have been monitoring and adjusting it accordingly based on information from Google Analytics and other analysis software. We are by no means finished yet!
In the meantime, if you’re looking for photo blinds for your
home, check out Luxury Blinds Direct, and let us know how you found the website
experience below!
Visit it here: www.luxuryblindsdirect.co.uk
Marketing Websites,
With Vital Hike
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