The great thing about this prevalence of online incompetence is that it gives us a chance to learn from others mistakes and avoid the pitfalls. A great website should be a welcome tool for information hungry consumers.
Get the design of your website right and you control your public image. Would you like to be seen as a luxury brand? As young and hip? Or perhaps you want to be considered a budget service?
The choice is yours. Here are 5 tips to make your website successful.
1) Plan for easy navigation Consumers are impatient. The average amount of time spent on any website is less than 60 seconds. If they haven’t found what they need on your site in that minute then they will probably go elsewhere. Ask friends to visit your website and find a particular service. If they don’t manage to locate it easily then neither will your customers.
2) Be approachable and give a quick response. How often have you scoured a company website for a phone number or address? It is astounding how often companies neglect to provide contact details online. You may be protecting yourself from directing marketing, but you are also refusing access to customers who want to talk with you directly.
Make sure that you’re responding to all customer queries within a 24-hour period of them visiting your site. Leave it longer at your peril. Customers will begin to doubt the credibility of your business and the strength of your customer service. Consumers want to feel that the site is a fast-link to your busy office and that you have a team of people waiting to deal with their questions.
3) Strive for simplicity. Follow the resurgence for simple, HTML websites. Refrain from using flash to create ‘impressive’ pages. A flash animation can be very entertaining, but on a slow connection they will take forever to load.
4) Communicate with your customers. Take the time to write a detailed description of your customers. Who are they? Make sure that every aspect of your website is designed to communicate effectively with your own customers. Try to imagine what you would need to see before you bought your own product. For example: customers buying clothes online want to see lots of detailed images cover all angles and close-ups of the fabrics being used.
5) Be Specific. How many times have you visited a website and left frustrated because you have no clue what it is that a company does? It is absolutely vital to be very clear and specific about what your company specializes in. Make you home page as simple a proposition as you can. If your primary focus is on cheap holidays then spell that out. Any additional services can wait. Don’t overload customers with extra options for car rentals, insurance quotes and sight-seeing tours.