No matter how fantastic you think your site looks with all the cool sliders and Parallax scrolling or how great your content is or how engaging your social media strategy is, it will all be equal to zero if your visitors hate your site. In other words, if your website is a stranger of good usability, it will never convert. So, fix it!
How? By creating a website experience for your users. Only when you focus on the things your target audience cares about will you be able to create a website experience that users love. And when they love your site, they’ll buy from you.
Keep it simple
Sure, it’s easy to fall into the trap of ‘slick’ design. The web is full of “Top 100’s”. All those bells and whistles, that fancy navigation that no one will know how to get around – it’s cool, but it is usable? Instead of creating a slick site that may result in more problems and a high bounce rate, why not focus on a simple design? Think about why users will visit your site – is it because they want to spend two hours playing with your fancy navigation or is it actually because they’re looking to: buy a tablet, fix their iPhone, research their visa options for the UK?
As a site owner, you need to determine what your customers’ problems are and provide them with solutions and the exact information they need to solve them. Any extra content or graphics that may distract them from their goal will result in little to no conversions.
Find out who your audience is
Before you even start building your site, do your homework and find out who your audience is: what they’re searching for, what problems they have, what personae you can create that they can identify with. The only way to create a website experience users enjoy is by finding out what their wants, needs, desires and problems are.
Give them treats
People love free stuff and they’ll love you and keep coming back to your site if you give them a little something. These delicious treats can be anything from useful blog posts, webinars, video trainings, ebooks, infographics and more. Anything that’s fresh and they can use for their own success, they’ll consume, share and remember where it came from.
No one can read minds, so start testing!
You’re not Einstein, neither a mind reader nor a psychic which means it’s unlikely that you’ll get to create a winning website on first launch. You’ll need to constantly analyse user behaviour, test and tweak your website to ensure you’re providing your users with what they need. You can test anything from the size and colours of call-to-action buttons to placement of call-to-action to the actual copy.
You might love your site and think it’s the best out there but that doesn’t mean your visitors will share your opinion. Only by testing will you be able to determine what your users like and what they don’t. And only by getting your hands “dirty” and finding out what makes them tick will you be able to create a website experience that users love.
