Designing Company Websites That Attract Online Customers
Two weeks ago, Monday, December 2nd brought us “Cyber Monday;” as it was the Monday immediately following Black Friday. Online retailers continued the blowout discounts seen in stores days prior on Black Friday in an effort to drive website traffic and tap into the increased sales seen at physical store locations.
This year, online retailers saw record sales on Cyber Monday, with a 19% increase over last year. The CEO of Custora Pulse (an e-commerce research company) said, “Cyber Monday is well on its way to being the biggest online shopping day in history.” Additionally, 29.4% of online traffic comes from mobile devices, making a company’s online presence more important than ever.
Whether you specialize in e-commerce or not, your company website is becoming more and more important in today’s online-driven market.
Research has shown that customers are becoming hyper vigilant in their online habits, frequently researching companies before purchasing from them. These practices do not stop at just online shopping. Potential clients and potential employees alike are opting to research companies to assess whether or not their personalities match up. If someone looked at your company’s website, what kind of image and personality would your site convey?
When creating websites for our clients, we rely on three factors to communicate what they want their site to say about them. These are the look, tone and feel of the site, qualities that help consumers decide whether or not your brand matches their values and suits their emotional needs. We can use parallels from the retail environment to evaluate the online experience.
Think of your website as you would your brick and mortar store:
- What sort of image are you projecting to your visitors? Is your site clean, well organized, and attractive to viewers? Or are you putting forth an unorganized, distracting and poorly formatted image?
- How will you attract customers? While typical brick and mortar stores utilize window fronts to attract browsers, websites rely on search-optimized content to attract site visitors.
- What about access? Where stores have to consider parking and entry access, websites must consider user-accessibility, whether it be from computer, phone, or tablet device.
Just as e-commerce has changed the way customers are choosing to do their shopping, company websites are changing the way people interact with your brand. A properly designed and optimized site can be the difference between being seen as a company that’s on top of current trends, or the equivalent of a company stuck in the past.
If your website was a store, would it be a place where your Grandma would shop? Give your website a much needed makeover and take your online business into the 21st century.