Websites, in nearly any category you could think of, are numerous… But, all of those numbers are not at the forefront of the visitors’ minds. As the competition is global, you need to be smart about what features you include, and what information you provide, while keeping your website to a reasonable size. “Empathy” is the word you need to keep in mind, to remind you to think from the customer’s viewpoint. Attract your customers by showing them you have all the aces against the competition.
There is no single method of designing a website that is perfect; no one approach will make your site valuable and attractive to search engines and, more importantly, to the customers. You need to combine several design techniques and methods together in order to create a top quality site. Here are some key issues you need to keep in mind in this context:
1. Empathy
As discussed earlier, empathy means to perceive things from the opposition’s point of view. Here, the word “opposition” is used to refer to either the customers or visitors. After planning, organizing, and designing your site, put yourself on the customer’s chair before making anything final. Things will be more clear to you from this perspective, as you ask yourself what you are providing and what you may be missing.
2. Landing page
If you are designing a website for your business or company, then the landing page is the showcase; where you display your products to attract customers. There will be different pages in your website, but you have to connect the visitor to the one he is looking for the very first time. This means that your landing page is crucial to your site.
To improve the landing page you can utilize the following guidelines:
- Display the things that are most relevant to the ad(s) that brought the visitor to your site.
- Provide some original content to convince the customer that you have something new to show; an innovative or unusual product or idea. Grab their attention.
- Make the page user friendly. This means that your landing page is well organized, easy to navigate, and is presented in a way that “makes sense” to a new visitor.
- Make it easy for the client to contact you. Put your contact information in a place that is easily noticed.
- Show the important features of your product or service. Try not to overwhelm the customer with information. Get to the point.
- Provide a help center so the users can find answers to their questions or get troubleshooting tips if necessary.
- Add a section showcasing reviews with previous visitors’ opinions.
3. Relevancy
Provide only content that is relevant to the ads that link back to your site, and make sure to design your site in a way that caters to your target audience. Don’t confuse the visitor by showing them unrelated content. Doing so could lose you potential customers, because it creates a negative first impression, which results in a poor Quality Score and adversely effects the return on your investment.
4. Mobile site
Allow the visitors to browse your site from their mobile devices. A typical website contains a lot of interactive graphics content that mobile devices may not be able to handle. So, make the site simple enough that the visitors can access the important information from your site via their phone or other mobile device.
5. Monitoring and Updating
You have a website with good traffic, conversion rate, ROI etc. but without proper upkeep, it will not continue to perform the same way forever. Your content must be contemporary to adjust to the demands of the customers. Continue updating your site on a regular basis, even after it has been well-established. Include new pages, sections or content by regularly reviewing the parameters and taking any necessary action. You should develop a system or regular schedule to defectively monitor and control your site.
6. Loading Time
Speed up the site. Many customers will become impatient and may go somewhere else if your page takes a long time to load. Don’t waste your customer’s valuable time, or the opportunity to gain a new customer.
7. User friendliness
Your site should be easy to understand. Put the important information in an easily accessible place. Include contact information so the visitor can drop a line to ask questions. You can always include a link to a page for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Allow the visitor to rate your site and post reviews; this will help to grow your business, and provide word of mouth advertising. Most people like to know what kind of company they are dealing with, and the best way to show them is with positive user reviews on the site itself.