A website can be your strongest lead generator and your most natural form of marketing. A website with a great conversion funnel that takes users effortlessly through the buyer journey will drive more conversions and provide more user-satisfaction than a site that is simply thrown together without keeping the user and their needs top of mind.
While there are seemingly endless elements to consider when you're developing your website, there are three core essentials that should be part of every site:
•Prominent contact information
•Concise messaging
•Strong calls-to-action
Whether you're in the service industry, or an ecommerce retailer, I'd like to demonstrate how including these elements can transform your website and help improve your business objectives by offering an incredible user-experience. Below are some key takeaways about how these core elements can help you optimize your website for success, and some real-life examples of website redesigns that follow those guidelines.
1. Make It Easy To Contact You
One of the most important rules to remember is that it should be simple for the user to find your contact information. As a customer, you don't want to spend much time looking for a phone number--especially when you're trying to get in touch with the company and ask a quick question. This is becoming increasingly important seeing as how many users are on-the-go and accessing websites from their mobile devices. When a user isn't at their desk and they land on your website they want to get answers fast, and often the easiest way to do that is to make a call.
If your business is one where users frequent your in-store locations, like in the example above, the same general guidelines for your phone number apply to finding your locations.
Key Takeaway: The most effective way to make sure it's simple for your customers to get in touch with you is to have your contact information located prominently on your homepage.
2. Use Succinct Messaging
As soon as a user lands on your homepage you want to be able to address their needs and show them value with succinct yet compelling messaging. If you have too much text or a lot of paragraphs right on your homepage, it can be overwhelming for the user to read through it all. To move the user further down the funnel you must convey your core messaging and answer their questions without giving them too much to digest. If you aren't able to quickly get your message across to your audience, they'll be hitting the back button on their browser in no time.
For example, before John Jay's website redesign, they had a lot of great copy but there was too much small text making for a difficult reading experience. The college's new site features core messaging is easy to digest, and ensures that their strengths and most important points stand out.
Key Takeaway: Use compelling and concise messaging to highlight your brand's value on your homepage.
3. Include Strong Calls-To-Action
Calls-to-action are what entices the user to take a desired action on your site, moving them further down the funnel, and giving you the opportunity to engage with them. That being said, your calls-to-action must be compelling. Simply stating "learn more" doesn't do much in terms of encouraging the user to click.
Digital comic book and app game, BioWars, shifted the focus of their homepage to include incredibly enticing calls-to-action. Encouraging users to play, read, or engage with the page allows the brand to capture customer interest, facilitate an interaction with their audience, and keep them moving through the conversion funnel.
Key Takeaway: Use strong and enticing calls-to-action to foster user engagement and keep your audience involved with your brand.
Design That Drives Conversions
The most important thing to know about any website design is that your central focus should be to answer the visitor's need as efficiently as possible. By working with your digital agency or team of digital experts to build concise messaging and strong calls-to-action, as well as ensuring that it's easy for your customers to get in touch with you, you'll find it much easier to facilitate conversions and continue marketing to engaged users.