What to include in your web design
Everytime your website is visited, the website, business and reputation is under scrutinisation to be credible, professional and achieve your target conversion. First impressions are extremely important whereby research has highlighted that visitors form an opinion in 50 milliseconds on whether they are going read your website or hit back. Once they have chosen to stay on your website, you need to identify the features that your website needs to include, to enhance the chances of conversions. We have pieced together our main factors, we suggest to be included in your web design.
Contact Information
Online integrity is an obstacle for many new businesses to overcome, to show their legitimacy and also a small insight into who they are. The inclusion of business contact information focuses on the perception that people want to work with people, enhancing trust and building relationships. Presenting this information in plain sight provides comfort to consumers that if someone requires assistance, they have the opportunity to speak directly to the business. As previously highlighted, this also adds credibility to make it clear you’re a legitimate business and potentially grab local business from your address or phone number prefix.
Navigation Bar
Navigation has to be easy, this applies to everything, no-one wants to feel like visiting a website is a chore or a maze of pages. They want to have a good experience and have the ability to engage with your services. We recommend trialling various navigations bars across multiple screen sizes and devices (Don’t worry, you can do this from one computer before you start asking friends with different devices to check for you) but also to perceive navigation for a first time visitor. Take the opportunity to challenge someone to find a specific section of your website and measure time but also the number of clicks, both metrics will provide an insight into user interface and experience.
Live Chat
Supporting website visitors can significantly enhance their perception of your business if you can quickly resolve or answer their question. The best method to offer this support is through integrating a live chat feature with personalised messages but another easy to find call to action. Live chat software are developed to become autonomous support tools with the ability to be available within specific working hours and receive email notifications to your ‘agents’ whenever a message is submitted. Phew, that removes the need to have the quiet kid on work experience sit at an empty screen all day until someone pops up with a question. Trial out free live chat services like Hablo Chat that allow multiple ‘agents’ to jump on a chat whenever they’ve been notified and offer the support your customers expect.
Call to action
What’s the purpose of your website? What do you want visitors to do? Think about what you want to happen on your website and how can you make this happen. These actions commonly include a contact form submission, purchase a product or call a department for further details. Completing these actions needs to be simple, flawless and eye-catching to ensure the visitor converts your action.
Subscription Features
Every business will want to have a protocol in place to encourage people to re-engage and become a returning visitors/customer. Most business’ are aware that conversions are rarely achieved in the first visit and therefore require smart methods to have them want to be kept in contact and convinced to complete a conversion.
Many websites achieve this by offering free information/services to gain access to their customer details so follow-up marketing can be completed or provide opt-in opportunities during checkout. Always plan to find a method to recapture previous sales, they are your perfect target market.
Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
Sounds like something you expect to see in IKEA that prevents children from poking plug sockets but in reality, it’s an encryption system to protect data privacy. We strongly recommend these for any website whereby personal data is exchanged between the customer and your website. Not only will this support their privacy but also reassure the customer that when completing an online purchase using their payment information, that their sensitive data is encrypted and protected.
Client testimonials
Research has shown that 79% of consumers trust online reviews and testimonials as personal recommendations. WOW.
If for some reason you require more justification, then not only does this research highlight the importance to enhanced credibility and conversions but also to develop a protocol to gain recent testimonials. Remember to have a structure to receive client feedback and testimonials as new visitors to your website as more likely to trust a review left last month than one completed 2 years ago.
High quality and original images
Use real photos of your team and office to portray a true representation of your business so your customers know exactly who they are working with and who they can entrust their business too.
Awards, Certifications and Associations
Promoting any industry recognition will enhance credibility and highlight the achievements of your business. These achievements speak volumes about the quality of your work and therefore supports your image as an expert in the industry.
Review your website and think how does it represent your business but never forget the first 50 milliseconds and their following experience to ensure your website does everything you expect.
DYSC IT Solutions - Experts in website and software development