Techblog
How to build a better business website
In today's digitally-driven marketplace, it's becoming increasingly important for small businesses to have a stellar online presence. Read on to find out how to improve your business website.
Focus on users, not features
Instead of focusing on features, business owners should think about ways to increase their target audience's engagement. Try to understand and visualise how a visitor would interact with your website and consider what things would be important to help them make a purchasing decision, such as:
- An obvious focal point on your homepage and clear calls to action.
- Personalisation and special offers for new and repeat customers.
- Detailed product descriptions and images with zoom functionality.
- A live-chat feature for answering questions.
- A variety of shipping and payment options.
Additionally, to increase sales at checkout time, minimise the number of steps in your checkout process and keep users informed as to which step they are on, and how many are left. Also, never force users to register with your site to make a purchase, as studies show that offering a guest-checkout option can increase conversion rates significantly.
Embrace responsive design
Historically, web developers have relied on a line of code that identifies a user's device in order to redirect mobile users to an alternate site with a different URL. Nowadays, businesses can make use of a single responsive-design website instead of having to maintain different sites for desktop and mobile users.
As the name suggests, responsive design uses one set of HTML code that can responsively react to the environment of its users, dynamically configuring content to fit any size screen including next-generation tablets. You can even pick and choose what navigation menus will stay 'on' for mobile users. For example, you could turn off your primary navigation menu and only show a mobile optimized version, or include extra functionality such as clickable phone numbers.
Use your analytics
Be sure to make use of tools such as Google Analytics in order to gain insights into customers' viewing habits, as well as to monitor your exit rate in order to identify problems with usability. As stated on their website, "Google Analytics shows you the full customer picture across ads and videos, websites and social tools, tablets and smartphones. That makes it easier to serve your current customers and win new ones."
While there are many steps you can take to improve your website, the underlying goal should be to create a user-friendly and intuitive e-commerce site that caters to the needs and preferences of your customers. And last but not least, always test your design to make sure it performs as expected across a variety of browsers and conditions.