Don’t Leave These Important Design Elements Missing From Your Web Pages
How many websites do you visit without ever going back, or without ever interacting in any way?
It may be that you just ended up in the wrong place – you might have been looking for the local Fiat car dealer, but ended up on someone’s blog about foot care…
Or it could be that the site owner missed an opportunity to engage with you.
Perhaps it is not realistic for every website to get you to engage, but it should be your goal to get the maximum number of visitors to your site to do so.
So, what does your web pages need so that people are interested?
Clear Content
What is your site about? Say you are selling hand-knit scarves? Great! But if you are, make sure that visitors to your site know that as soon as they first visit.
Pictures of your scarves are good, but if I don’t know that you are selling them, I might think you are simply collecting pictures of scarves for some weird reason.
State clearly what your website is about.
Don’t leave me guessing, because I might leave without ever knowing.
If the purpose of your site is clear, who knows, I might not have been looking for a scarf, but now that I have stumbled upon our website, I might suddenly think that a scarf might be good idea as a birthday present for my mother.
Get Feedback.
When you create a webpage, make sure you get at least two or three people to look at it, read it, and give you feedback – preferably people who have no idea what your website is about.
I have created countless webpages that I thought were clear, but when I asked a friend or family member to read it, they pointed out all kinds of problems I did not see.
This can be somewhat discouraging – I know it can be for me – but if you let the discouragement pass, and come back to it, armed with the feedback you have gotten you will improve and produce a better website.
Contact Information
So now that I know you knit scarves, and you sell them via your website – how do I contact you? Maybe I have some questions (my mother might be allergic to cotton, and only prefer lama wool scarves – do you sell them?).
I might want to contact you because I don’t know you and therefore don’t trust you yet.
Have an easy way to contact you on every page of your website.
Have a link at some prominent place on every page that says ‘Contact’ that leads to a page with an email form, an address, or even a phone number.
Tip: Remember, don’t put your email address directly on your website as plain text. Spam robots troll the web looking for them. As a test I put an email address on a webpage and within two hours I started to receive spam to that email address.
Customer Reviews
Your happy customers are your best sales referrals. People want to know that other people have, and like your product or service.
Remember, if there are two restaurants across from each other and one is empty and one is full, which one are you going to be most interested in? I would go for the one with the people in it.
It is the same with customer reviews on your website. Posting reviews from customers adds credibility to your website.
Of course, these have to be real reviews and can’t simply be made up. But I don’t have to tell you that…
How do you get reviews?
If you don’t have any reviews the best way to get them is to ask for them. You know who your biggest fans are. Ask them. Generally, happy customers are more than willing to say something nice if you ask them politely.
Perhaps I saw a review that said “I gave this scarf to my mother for her birthday and she loved it. I sure am glad I bought it…”. Now I am almost sold.
Newsletter Sign Up
If you have a website, you should be collecting email address.
Anyone who is willing to give you their email address is saying ‘I am interested in your product or service’, or whatever your website is about.
Lets say I am interested in a scarf for my mother, but her birthday is still six months away. Once I leave your website there is a good chance I will forget about it.
However, if you send an email with your new, fall collection of lama wool scarves, it will remind me that my mother’s birthday is coming up.
Go Social
Just as reviews give your website credibility, a referral from a friend is even more powerful.
If you are sending out a newsletter, encourage your subscriber to forward it to a friend.
If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, encourage visitors to your web page to Like your page. Whatever you can do to get others to spread the word about your website will benefit it.
Finally
You can do all the search engine optimization in the world, spend a fortune on advertising your website, but it is wasted if those visitors gag and leave.
As a final thought, be sure to keep your website up to date. The search engines love new content, and so do your visitors.
Your Turn
What is the most important thing every website needs. I would love to hear what you think.
