by Semify
Today, all businesses need an online presence. Even if you run a brick-and-mortar business, it’s important to have a website where potential customers can learn more about your operations. That said, creating a website isn’t enough. You have to ensure it’s customer-oriented. That means a website centered on the needs, wants, and behaviors of customers. Take a look at some tips to help you create a customer-oriented website.
Base Your Decisions on Customer Data
Let customer data, behavior, and feedback influence whatever changes or decisions you make on your website. You can gather this information from several places, such as website analytics, social media engagements, and customer feedback. Remember to collect this data legally, ethically, and safely. Most people are concerned about how companies use their data. As research has found, about 70% of adults prefer certain aspects of their digital life to remain private. Therefore, when collecting personal data, inform users how you plan to use it and who you plan to share it with, and allow them to consent.
Make Your Page Easy to Navigate
Ensure customers can easily find what they’re looking for on your website. One way to do this is by dividing your website into different pages. This includes pages like home, products and services, blogs, and contact information. Also, have a search bar on all your website pages so that customers can find what they want with ease.
Ensure Your Website Is Responsive
Most people will leave a website if it loads slowly. The longer a webpage takes to load, the more it affects the purchase decision of the shopper. Ensure your website runs smoothly by optimizing images and videos for quicker downloads. It also helps to pick a website host that can easily handle your business’s bandwidth demands.
Solve Customer Problems Without Trying to Sell
While you may be tempted to hard-sell your products or services, prioritize solving customers’ problems through your content. Hard selling isn’t very effective nowadays because people are exposed to this language on social media channels. If you want to hard sell, it’s better to do it on your social media pages, especially if you’re in industries like fashion, lifestyle, entertainment, and beauty. About 96% of beauty brands have social media accounts. These are platforms you can hard sell. For your website, make it more about educating your site visitors. This can help convert them into customers.
Provide Accurate Information
Inaccurate information is a huge turnoff. This could be the wrong phone number, grammatical errors, or outdated product information. All these are enough to irritate customers. These things may look simple or inconsequential, but they affect customer purchase decisions. Plus, with the competition out there, you have to try your best to provide customers with a good experience. Proofread content on every page and regularly update any information when need be.
Ensure Your Site Mobile Responsive
A customer-centric website needs to be mobile-responsive. Most Americans check out products through their phones rather than their computers and laptops. If your website isn’t responsive on mobiles, potential customers will abandon it and check out your competitor’s site. Open your site through your phone and see if it’s easy to navigate or read through. If it’s not, consult with a website designer on how to make it mobile-friendly.
Simplify the Checkout Process
No one wants to go through a lengthy checkout process. If that’s the case on your website, users will likely get frustrated and abandon the cart. To ensure you make money from sales, ensure you have a simple checkout process. It will motivate users to make purchases. According to Ready Cloud, about 18% of retail sales were completed online, a figure expected to reach 22% in 2024. This presents you with opportunities to grab some of these customers. You can do that by simplifying the checkout process.
Keep these seven tips in mind when aiming to create a customer-centric website. At the end of the day, ensure you’re providing site visitors with a smooth experience when they navigate your site.
