As businesses adapt to the demands of online commerce, the need for a successful website becomes ever more apparent. Nowadays, even local shops are willing to invest in a stronger online presence, as they realize that these investments quickly turn into lucrative returns.
In fact, research shows that a $1 investment in online user experience can yield up to $100 in returns. To help you get started, here’s a quick list of five things you should know to help your website thrive.
1. Create engaging content
By using well-thought-out content, companies can enlarge their presence online and open up additional avenues for user engagement. Customers no longer only wish to make purchases; they also want to know more about who they’re buying from and what they are buying. By providing users with meaningful content through email campaigns, blogs, and other channels, a Sweet Georgia Yarns, a hand-dyed yarn company managed to increase gross revenue by 24%.
2. Improve user experience
This one is quite simple: just as nobody likes getting lost in a mall, nobody wants to feel lost on a website either. In fact, information compiled by DesignAdvisor shows that 95% of users believe that a site’s user engagement capacity is the principal factor for an overall positive experience. By avoiding the use of “annoying” elements such as autoplay in videos and background music, companies can improve their user experience and thus increase their positive association with a customer.
3. Bullet points!
It may sound crazy, but studies show that the use of bullet-point lists has been associated with improved user engagement. While 55% of users look at lists without bullets, a whopping 70% will look at lists with bullets. Avoiding large blocks of text as well as fonts and colors which make it difficult to read allow for better engagement. This simple trick has helped many companies to convert views into purchases. Gosection8, a rental platform, removed cumbersome videos and replaced them with a bulleted list of their offer and saw their conversions skyrocket by almost 90%.
4. Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
By getting the right advice and guidance, companies can improve their SEO practices and, in turn, increase their chances of getting noticed by customers. Improved SEO practices allow search engine algorithms to find your site more easily and, if implemented correctly, can improve your standing in search engine results. By achieving better search engine rankings, websites experience significant increases in organic visits.
5. Be easy to contact
This is as true online as it is offline. The fact is, companies that cannot be easily contacted for solving problems or even answering basic questions are less likely to get a customer’s business. The cost is real: 44% of website visitors leave a site if the website provides no contact information. By simply improving their store locator, the Canadian coffee shop chain JJ Bean increased transactions by 100%.
6. Security
You wouldn’t want all your effort towards your website to be in vain because of security issues. A MarketWatch survey found that security is the leading barrier to conversion amongst users. One-third of respondents stated that they don’t shop online out of fear of a personal data breach. There are various security threats out there such as malware, ransomware, phishing scams, and many others. The easiest way to help keep your website secure is to make sure you keep your plugins, software, SSL Certificate, programs, and applications up to date. A hacker attack occurs every 39 seconds, so you should work with your developers to eliminate issues and minimize any vulnerabilities like SQL Injections, Cross-Site Scripting, Buffer Overflow and Session Hijacking. Switching to HTTPS and adding an SSL certificate is also a good Idea to help protect your website. Taking as many steps as you can to keep up with security will help to ensure the success of your website.
7. Speed
Web page loading time is becoming a more important factor when it comes to user experience and to search engine rankings. Recent studies found that 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 2 seconds to load, additionally according to 2018 research by Google, 53% of mobile users leave a site that takes longer than three seconds to load. There are many things that can cause your site to be slow, you just need to understand why and what you can do to fix them. Tools such as Google’s page speed insights, GT Metrix, Pingdom, Webpage Test and Gift of Speed can help you locate issues and resolve them. All in all, decreasing your page load time can drastically increase conversion rate. Additionally, content delivery networks and image optimization tools can go along way in keeping a speedy website.
Final Thoughts
These five elements are key factors for businesses to consider if they wish to convert good web design into customer purchases. The impact of having an up-to-date, highly-functional website on achieving significant conversion rate upticks and ultimately revenue increases cannot be overstated. So don’t let your business get left behind — invest in your web design. Your customers (and your bank account) will thank you for it.
Sources: https://www.websitehostingrating.com/cybersecurity-statistics-facts/ https://neilpatel.com/blog/improving-security-and-trust-on-your-website/ https://neilpatel.com/blog/speed-is-a-killer/ https://neilpatel.com/blog/loading-time/ https://codedx.com/predicted-web-application-vulnerabilities-and-cybersecurity-trends-for-2019/ https://www.thecreativemomentum.com/blog/website-design-security-musts-for-2019