User Expectations your Website must meet
When setting up a physical store, there are certain expectations from your customers, that you must meet to generate purchases. From attractive window displays to the interior layout, you need to spruce up your physical store to give your customers a positive experience and increase traffic to your store. Similarly, there are expectations you must meet with your website to encourage web users to visit your site and complete the desired action.
You need to ensure your website leaves a positive impression by fixing any issues that may affect the user experience negatively. Here are crucial factors you need to consider for your website to stand out;
1. Updated design. The design of your website is the first thing that catches web users’ eyes when they visit your site. It affects how online users interact with your brand and is also responsible for whether a visitor leaves or stays on your site longer. Poorly designed websites turn away visitors leading to loss of traffic and conversions. They also rank poorly on search engines, and this, in turn, affects their visibility and popularity among online users.
2. Responsive website. A website that is mobile-friendly ranks highly in features that your visitors expect from your website. Most users search using their mobile devices for websites online. Therefore, making sure that your website is functional across multiple devices improves the user experience of your customers and traffic to your site.
3. Clear navigation structure. A website with lots of complicated and busy features or badly-structured content affects its usability. Potential users want to find what they are looking for and in the least time possible. Ideally, in an e-commerce site, it should take three clicks or less to move from the product page to the checkout process. There should be a seamless path between the web pages, depending on the conversion path that you expect your visitors to follow. A confusing website will increase the bounce rate as users will exit the page, and this will lead to low conversions.
4. Fast load times. Did you know that almost 53% of web users will leave your website if it takes more than three seconds to load? The performance of a website not only affects the customer experience on your site, but it also results in poor search engine ranking. Features such as lots of unnecessary plugins and uncompressed images or embedded videos lead to pages loading slowly. However, a slow website with such issues can also point to a bandwidth problem on your website. In this case, upgrading your website’s hosting package will improve its speed and performance.
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5. Brand consistency. Your website should be an accurate representation of your business. The logo, colours, and business look should be consistent with your brand identity. Therefore, your website should be a portrayal of any changes made to your business. Inconsistences can confuse potential users and negatively affect your online business. Updating any changes will ensure that your website is consistent with the brand and improve its credibility among web users.
6. Great content. The content you post on your website should be engaging enough to keep visitors on your site. Keeping your visitors longer increases the chances of them completing the desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product, depending on your website’s goals. While different sites have different needs when it comes to the type of content to post, the rule of the thumb is to ensure it’s entertaining or informative. You need to put yourself in your customers’ shoes, understand what they need from your site, and deliver the content they need efficiently.
If your website doesn’t meet the expectations of a user, it can cost your online business sales and lessen its brand credibility. Online businesses are cutthroat, so to compete favourably, you need to have a seamless user experience on your website.
