How will customers interact with your website?
If you ask us to build you a new website, the designers at our Somerset HQ will continually apply what we learn about your customers. By doing this, we ensure that your site isn’t created the way we want it to be. And it isn’t designed just to please you. All of our websites are built to work perfectly for your customers. That’s the bit we really have to get right.
Visitors to your website will go through a questioning process, and they are impatient. You need to make them feel confident that they have made the right choice, and that buying from you will be a positive experience. And you need to do it quickly and clearly.
- “Am I in the right place?”
You have between 5 and 10 seconds for a visitor to your site to say “Great, I’m in the right place.” We’ve all bounced straight off of a website because of a poor first impression.
- “Do they have what I’m looking for?”
Can you supply the specific goods, services, advice or information that they want? And can they find it quickly and easily? Website interaction is immediate and visitors don’t like to struggle to find what they’re looking for . They’ll simply look elsewhere.
- “Should I spend money with this company?”
Do they feel happy about doing business with you? This is rarely a decision based on solely on your prices. Information about you and your business, where you are based, your range of services and how easy your website is to use can all affect overall confidence in your business and what you offer.
- “How do I take action?”
Once a prospective customer has found what they are looking for, and decided that they trust you, how easy is it for them to place an order or get in touch? Many businesses fall at this last hurdle. A simple buying process, or the ability to contact you easily with any queries prevents any barriers to the sale.
- “Would I use this website again?”
Was dealing with you a good experience? What can you do to ensure they will come back to you? Capture their contact information (with their permission, of course). Use sign-ups, rewards and ongoing marketing to turn a one-off purchase in to a loyal and regular customer.
Analytics
So once you think you’ve answered these questions positively, you really need to know whether you have got it right. And the only way to do that is to analyse how people behave when they visit your website. Knowing how many people have been visiting your site, and what they do when they get there is fundamental to measuring whether it is achieving your business objectives.
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
John Wanamaker 1838-1922
Unfortunately for Mr Wanamaker, this was very true in the 19th Century. But not for you. Google Analytics (together with Google AdWords if you go down that route) provides extensive information about a variety of metrics. All of our sites are set up with analytic functionality so you can see exactly how your site is being found, and how users are interacting with it once they get there. This information is vital to continually improve the performance of your website.
And while we hate the term “customer journey” (more jargon!), it is important to understand the type of customer, how they work their way through your site, what they’re buying and the real cost of the sale.
To find out more about analytics, and how to get to grips with the way people behave on your website, give us a call. We’ll nail down how your customers work, what they want, and how to convince them to buy from you.