Content changes like this can drastically improve conversions (the amount of people who hit your website that does what you want them to do), making what you design more effective.

For more reading about content, check out these resources:

How to check your design for usability problems.

The best way to find problems with the user experience and usability of your design is to run quick usability tests. This can be tough psychologically, because you’ll need to show what you’ve designed to others and get feedback, and sometimes that feedback might hurt.

Divorce your feelings from your design. It might be hard not to take negative feedback personally, but fixing the issues you might find with the usability of your site is more important. The more you reach out to others for feedback, the easier it’ll be.

My step-by-step process for finding usability errors in my designs:

1. Take a break and look at the design with fresh eyes.

Since you made your design, it’s going to be hard to see any usability issues — after all, you know where everything is and how to use everything because you’re the one who built it.

Taking a break from the design, a couple hours or, even better, overnight, means you can look at the design with fresh eyes and catch some problems you might have missed earlier.

2. Run your design by friends and family.

The least intimidating folks to ask for help will be your friends and family, but keep in mind they’ll also be resistant to giving you any sort of negative feedback. Make sure to remind them that you want more feedback than just, “Looks awesome, good job!”

3. Run your design by strangers and watch them use your site.

The most honest feedback will come from folks you don’t know, but this is also the hardest feedback to get. For small stuff like your personal website, you can probably skip this step, but if you’re working on a website for a project you want customers to use, this step can find crucial issues.

Here’s a great article on running quick and dirty usability tests.

In conclusion, make sure your design works as well as it looks.

The best looking design means nothing if your users can’t achieve what they or you want them to do.