How to Use Visual Cues to Boost Bookings

If your website isn’t converting, your visual design might be to blame. Strong visual cues on your property’s website establish credibility, complement your calls to action, and generate anticipation for an in-person stay. They shape a potential guest’s first impression, with the human brain able to process complete images in under 13 milliseconds.

Here’s how to make the best use of visual cues to tell your property’s story and boost bookings.

Property images establish and maintain credibility throughout the browsing experience. They provide proof that you truly are next to the beach and have tastefully decorated rooms, for instance.

Ensure that your images appear professional and hire a photographer if necessary. When guests see professional images, they assume that they will be treated professionally during their stay. Use genuine photos of your property and the surrounding area as opposed to AI-generated stock photos that risk creating unfulfilled expectations.

Select images that reinforce your unique selling proposition. For example, if you offer glamping on the northern California coast, pictures of the redwoods are in order to boost excitement for nearby hikes. Featuring a hero image on your homepage is an excellent way to introduce your distinctive brand. Usually overlaid with a call to action, it’s the first photo guests see when they land on your site. Be aware of the file size for this image to prevent slow load times or a pixelated display.

Include people in your images to increase engagement; websites with human faces achieve 38 percent higher conversion rates. Faces can even be used as visual cues to guide the viewer’s eye to important information and calls to action as the viewer naturally follows their focus.

White space doesn’t necessarily mean space that is white—it refers to empty or unmarked space, regardless of its color. Think of white space as the container in which you organize your other elements; it’s used to improve readability, focus attention, and create a balanced, aesthetically pleasing composition. To ensure a particular element stands out, surround it with white space—but not so much that the viewer wonders if something is missing from your design.

Different colors come with different psychological and marketing associations. Bold colors bring energy and excitement, while softer pastels indicate elegance and calm. Instead of using every color on the color wheel, be intentional and select a palette of two to four main colors that reflect your brand and unique selling proposition.

For instance, that California glamping resort may decide on blue and green to reflect calm (blue) and the natural world (green). Bold reds, bright oranges, and the like would be jarring because they’d contradict the viewer’s expectations of the property as well as the written text.

Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background and use a contrasting accent color to highlight calls to action like your book now button.

Explicit cues are lines, arrows, or triangles directing viewers to the areas of most importance—they literally point where to look. Usually found on landing pages, they’re effective when used sparingly, for instance, when guiding the viewer to your contact form. Another common yet subtle application of these arrows is for return-to-top buttons, which users click to quickly navigate back to the top of a page after they have scrolled down. (Be careful to not accidentally imply that the viewer has reached the end of the page when they haven’t!)

Encapsulation refers to grouping information within a visual container, separating it from other elements on the page to emphasize importance and help users process content quickly and intuitively. Using a “book now” button, rather than a plain text link is a basic example of this. The button encapsulates the call to action and draws the viewer’s eye. Buttons, boxes, outlines, and areas of contrasting color are all methods for achieving encapsulation.

In a full-page header aka hero section, the hero image and its overlaid text occupy the entire screen, rather than appearing as a banner. This focuses the viewer’s complete attention on it.

Full-screen hero images work well for hotel websites because they immediately immerse visitors in the look and feel of the property. They capture attention, convey professionalism, and help potential guests visualize their stay within seconds.

Choose your hero image carefully and select one without too many elements for the viewer to track—or else it negates the advantage of creating a single focal point.

A current visual trend, dynamic cursors change form or behavior depending on the website element they traverse. For example, a dynamic cursor might morph into a “+” symbol when hovering over an image gallery to indicate there’s more to see.

Dynamic cursors show the viewer a path through your website, emphasizing your most important information and calls to action. They enhance engagement and provide visual feedback, helping users understand what actions are possible. However, it’s important not to overload your cursor with special effects, which can be distracting. If everything is emphasized, then nothing is emphasized.

Last but not least, the arrangement of page elements into a visual hierarchy is as important as the elements themselves. Key information should be placed towards the top and center of your page, ideally with larger font or graphics to make it even more prominent.

You can organize information into either a z or f shape to take advantage of viewers’ natural inclinations as they scan, going left to right and top to bottom. A z pattern has a visual marker at each corner of the page beginning with the top left. Many designers also choose to divide their pages into distinct thirds with intersecting points where elements of interest are placed.

Elements that relate to each other in some way should be arranged nearby. Let content dictate placement.