When building or redesigning your company website, one thing to always keep in mind is the user experience of your visitors, i.e., your prospective customers.
The one thing all customers want, regardless of the specific product or service, is a positive experience – pleasant, convenient, and most of all, no hassles. If your website doesn’t give them the information they need to make a buying decision, or worse, if it’s too hard to actually make a purchase, they will “bounce” elsewhere, most likely, your competitors.
But what does that mean, really?
What practical steps can you take to enhance the user experience of your visitors?
The Experience Honeycomb
Years ago, Peter Morville, the “Founding Father” of information architecture, developed the “experience honeycomb”, the term describing the facets of a positive online experience. If your website can meet these standards, you will be miles ahead of your competitors whose focus is elsewhere.
For the best possible user experience, your company website must be:
Useful
Everyone visiting your website does so because they need or want something or because they have a problem.
Does your website:
- Help users by satisfying those needs and wants?
- Give users worthwhile information?
- Proactively answer their questions?
- Clearly show them how your products and services can solve their problems?
One of the chief goals of your website should be to help customers achieve their goals.
Usable
Your website’s design should be easy to navigate and user-friendly. Even first-time visitors should be able to find their way around your site without much thought or effort.
Examples of usability include:
- Easy-to-find sections (About, Products/Services, Contact, etc.) – 94% of Internet users say that easy navigation is a website’s most useful feature.
- Search functionality – 30% of visitors will use a website’s search box, while almost 70% of users will “bounce” if they have an unsatisfying search experience. People who use a site’s search box are twice as likely to convert from prospects to customers.
- FAQs – You save visitors time and effort when you anticipate and answer their most common questions. It also shows that you actually listen to your customers.
Desirable
Is your website visually appealing?
In advertising – yes, your website is advertising – appearances are HUGELY important. People are drawn to what they find attractive, so every visual aspect matters. 93% of consumers say that appearance is the most important factor when buying a product. 46% of people say that a website’s design is the #1 criterion determining a company’s credibility.
- Logo – This is your chance to make an impression and to be instantly recognizable.
- Colors – Color boosts brand recognition by 80%.
- Fonts – Your choice of font can affect reader comprehension, retention, impression, and emotion.
- Images – 2 out of every 3 people are visual learners and the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text.
Findable
How does your website rank on search engine results pages (SERPs)?
If people cannot find your website, they will never become customers, no matter how wonderful your goods and services may be.
Rankings matter. Google accounts for more than 92% of the world’s organic search traffic, so consider the following:
- Roughly 1 in 3 people click on the first search result.
- 91% of all click-throughs are to websites on the first results page.
- The second page gets just 5% of clicks.
- Only 0.4% of clicks happen on the fourth page.
In other words, if you want online customers, both your website and its content need to be designed and created with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind.
Accessible
This has a couple of meanings:
Can ANYONE use your website, including people with disabilities? What are the accommodations for those who are visually, hearing, or physically challenged?
Is your website optimized for viewing and functionality on both desktop computers and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets?
The bottom line is that you want to make sure that your website is accessible to as many people as possible.
Credible
What steps have you taken to keep your customers’ personal information safe? How do you instill confidence and trust that your company and website are legitimate?
With so many online scams and shady companies hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet, it is vital that visitors – potential customers – have confidence in your business.
Your website can help build this trust in several ways:
- A professional-looking design – As stated above, nearly half of consumers base their impressions of credibility on a website’s appearance. Avoid misspellings and grammatical mistakes.
- Encryption and other security measures
- Include a physical address and phone number
- Links to active social media accounts
- Testimonials
- Regularly-published blogs that establish your authority and expertise
- A Contact Form
- Timely response to questions or requests for more information
Valuable
Why should customers choose YOUR company? What sets you apart from your competition?
In the end, you want customers to feel like they have gained something of real value by visiting your website – the solution to their problem, a service that meets their needs, a product that satisfies their desires, or at the very least, relevant information that they can use.
In other words, they need to get something that is worth more than the time they spend on your website.
How can you accomplish this? Ideas include:
- Create a great user experience. Make it more convenient and rewarding for customers to buy from your website than either brick-and-mortar stores or your competitors.
- Give them more information than anyone else. When customers know they are making the right choice, they are more comfortable with making a buying decision. Help them by posting high-quality blogs and articles relevant to their needs.
- Offer subscriptions. Keep customers up-to-date about new products and services, promotions, and information.
A website designed with customers in mind creates value in their minds.
The ClikIT Advantage
If this sounds like a lot to ask of a website, it’s because it is.
Your website is the lifeblood of your company because it establishes your online presence and promotes your brand to potentially millions of customers. The quality of their experience directly translates to your sales.
But there is good news – you don’t have to do it alone.
At ClikIT, we are your #1 resource for all of your website needs, from design and redesign to content creation and blogs, to security, to SEO and social media, and much much more.
Our motto is, “We Can Do IT!”…because we CAN help you maximize your online presence and results. We do what we are best at so you can do what you are best at.
Let us take a look at your website so we can tell you what we can do for you
For immediate help and long-term results, Contact the professionals at ClikIT TODAY.
