Today’s fast-paced digital environment presents a multitude of marketing approaches, from the most traditional ones to the most specific or buzz-worthy at the moment. But what do all these strategies have in common? They all trace back and generate conversions on your main digital communication tool — the website.
Every business needs a website, and it needs it to be built on exceptional customer experience showcasing in the site’s usability, customer journey, and responsive web design.
But until we dive into the specifics of web design, we want to underline the necessity of aligning this platform with your overall branding and marketing strategies.
First Things First: Brand Pillars & Strategy
Before you start building your website, you must have the brand’s digital marketing strategy put in place, in order to have all your online activities consistent and aligned. This aspect is very important when it comes to the online customer experience, as it ensures a coherent brand feeling.
Any marketing medium must be in line with the marketing mission you’ve set for the brand in order to be effective.
As a common marketing rule, any web design or project update should start with your UVP, brand positioning, customer journey clarity, messaging, and marketing plan. Once you’ve nailed down these factors, you’ll be able to properly express your needs to your selected website development agency.
What Can You Achieve with a Business Website?
A website is the main platform where your prospects can find information about your products or services, get to know your company culture, and ultimately convert from prospects to customers, by making a purchase or other action from your conversion funnel.
Considering that 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, you might want to give more attention to your web pages and even search engine rank.
Customer loyalty is the last step you can achieve with a business website, but until then, there are a few more important ones that solidify your online approach:
- Create an online presence and inform your audience: this step is the simplest, yet the most necessary. Who you are, what you do, and how can you meet your target audience’s pain points are all vital for your website visitors.
- Build trust: visitors explore professional brands, and the stepping stone to your professional online image is your website. Beware of slow loading pages or heavy content organization, if you want to present your brand’s best image and enable a better understanding.
- Sell: While online is presenting more and more e-commerce options for products & services, with the rise of social commerce, they ultimately trace back to your website. When you visualize your website as the ultimate selling tool, you’ll better understand all its benefits.
Web Design for Customer Experience
Now that we’ve seen the necessity of a website in relation to your overall marketing strategy, what are the necessary elements of a website for a better customer experience?
Engaging Homepage
The first rule for homepages is that whoever lands on them must understand what your brand does and how it can help them, in a matter of seconds. In fact, there is a well-known 8 seconds rule to follow, if you want to engage your visitors.
In order to achieve an engaging homepage, these are the rules to follow:
- Uncluttered layout: with all the options available at the moment, it may be easy to fall prey to flashy website themes that don’t achieve their primary goals. But it is important to use an uncluttered layout that leaves room for website visitors to clearly understand what you’re about and easily engage with the site’s navigation.
- Content organization: the website’s content organization should be created around the user’s flow. Create user personas, and define what their primary questions would be. Once you have the answers, arrange them in an intuitive content organization.
- Design: well-thought design is a powerful online tool for capturing people’s attention. The homepage is the website’s main page where you concentrate all the vital information, and its design should be as significant.
Add More Brand Personality
The main reason why you have to have your digital marketing strategy in place before proceeding with the website is that it helps you define a detailed target audience for whom to build it.
By having this detailed image of your main visitor or main buyer, you can go ahead and add more brand personality and create an emotional connection with them.
From personalized copywriting through which you can tell a story, to a specific design that resonates better with a target market, or strong CTAs that act as great hooks, there are multiple methods in which you can create an emotional connection. And the more personalized the experience, the more inclined they are to revisit your website pages.
Optimize for Mobile Devices
50% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. The way your website acts on mobile is crucial to the level of professionalism you want to present to your audience. Mobile users are even pickier than their counterparts, as they’re more digitally engaged and expect a flawless experience from load time to the user experience.
The bottom line here is that your website experience should not vary depending on the screen size, moreover it should guarantee the same consistent experience for all users.
Build the Best Customer Experience with Us
Your online customer experience starts with a great website. If you’re interested in a web design company to level up your online presence, look no further! We’re a 360º marketing company that knows the digital landscape in and out. Contact us if you want to start the best website for your company!
