The proper functioning of your website is not only a showcase for your business, but also one of its most important tools. For this reason, it is extremely important that each of its elements works perfectly to support its basic function, i.e. conversion. Let us present the key elements that influence a visitor to your website to go through the process of becoming your customer.

Let's start with the basics, which in this case will be:

TARGET AUDIENCE

Understanding and visualising personas is key to adapting your business to market needs and leveraging the search engine environment. The most important aspects of this understanding include realising what solutions they are looking for, what language they use, and what information will encourage them to use your products or services.

One way to obtain such information is to use surveys or interviews to gather authentic information about customer preferences, what they expect and what best influences their experience. Direct contact with the user is the simplest and one of the most accurate sources of potential solutions.

While interviews and face-to-face meetings with our customers are qualitative research, in order to gain a broader understanding of our users' behaviour, it is worth using quantitative methods such as website user analysis. For this purpose, it is worth looking at the most popular tools such as Google Analytics, HotJar, UserTesting or your own CRM providing information on demographics, interests and user behaviour. This is important information in the context of modernising and adapting your website for better reception.

Success in adapting your website to the needs of your customers lies in understanding your target audience. It is primarily them that you want to reach and provide with the best possible experience when interacting with your business. The behaviour of potential customers is the key to implementing the right solutions.

WEBSITE LAYOUT

Once we have specified who we want to target, we need to prepare an appropriate environment for them to navigate. The layout of your website is the first step that influences interest in your business and determines whether a potential customer will stay there.

Familiar patterns (ui patterns) that facilitate navigation on a website, such as a top bar, drop-down menu, or contact details at the bottom of the page, are essential.

Users appreciate a clear layout where they can see at a glance what is where, so dividing it into specific sections is a good idea. According to research, the average user makes an emotional decision about a website within 0.05 seconds (sic) to 1 second, and the next 4 seconds are spent assessing whether they can navigate the site.

Interactive multimedia and visualisations are eye-catching elements, so it is worth using them to ‘decorate’ your website in order to attract potential customers and make a lasting impression on them. However, remember that one of the most important metrics of a website is its smooth operation (both for robots and ordinary users) and the absence of errors. If an element of the website or a tab takes too long to load, it can quickly lead to a loss of interest and the user leaving the website in order to find one that is more easily accessible.

And most importantly, the mobile version! Statistics show that up to 60% of website users access them from mobile devices. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that their experience is as comfortable as that of computer users.

ENGAGEMENT

At this stage, the user begins to dig deeper into the content of your website, so you need to engage them as much as possible.

Compelling headlines are the gateway to your website, so it is important that they clearly communicate the values they convey. Creating effective headlines requires not only creativity, but also strategy and consideration of emotional triggers. Adapt keywords that characterise the content of a given element and powerful words that enhance the emotions associated with its reception to your content.

The content of the element itself should also engage the recipient and hold their attention. The use of interactive content will also allow you to analyse how many of your recipients click on the headlines to access the actual content.

Engaging the power of Calls To Action is an important aspect. Proper use of them attracts attention, directs users to take action, and helps achieve the most important goal of a business website, namely conversion. To utilise their full potential, it is important that they contrast with other elements of the page, e.g. with clear colours and fonts. Next, they should be placed where the human eye naturally falls when analysing an image. There are many ways to find the ideal solution in the UX arsenal, but one of the best for medium and large companies is A/B testing, which we will discuss below.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

A user who feels a connection or care from a business is more likely to become your customer. It is therefore important to ensure that they trust your business and the services you offer as much as possible.

Building trust can be done in many different ways. What influences customer confidence the most is recognition from other users (i.e. “social proof”). Therefore, using elements such as other users' opinions or UGC, i.e. User-Generated Content (photos, videos or posts from other customers) will add authenticity. At a certain stage of the business's operation, it is also worth boasting about various types of certificates or badges, which also build trust in the brand.

To make users feel as safe as possible in your space, it is a good idea to present and describe all the products or services you offer in a clear and transparent manner. Avoiding complicated language, providing examples and presenting all the necessary information helps customers understand and builds trust.

OPTIMIZATION

Once we have gathered feedback on the state of our website (through a UX audit), it is time to move on to modernising and optimising the way we reach users to make it as effective as possible. Reaching customers faster and better is an important part of expanding your business.

The optimal way to customise a website and identify customer needs is to use A/B testing. The short time needed to conduct such tests, the opportunity to increase conversion rates, and the ability to test several solutions at once are the main advantages of using this method. In addition, the multitude of tools available, such as Google Optimize, Optimizely, and VWO, make this method even easier to use.

For long-term business development, combining SEO and CRO elements is also used. This method requires coordination and strategic planning, but results in increased conversion, i.e. business expansion.

While SEO focuses, among other things, on optimising a website for a better user experience and factors that determine the search algorithm, CRO refers to observing user behaviour and making changes to increase conversion rates. These two aspects are combined, for example, through UX optimisation, brand awareness building or conversion paths.

Simple diagrams that allow for a thorough analysis of the main problems or inconveniences of a website, based on data-driven optimisation, are also worth using. Individual tools will allow you to examine aspects such as:

• Scroll maps – if users reach the end of a web page, it may need to be shortened.

• Drop-off Points - steps at which the finalisation process is abandoned

• Heatmaps – showing which parts of the website are overlooked by users and which should be moved to areas that attract more attention.

A website is one of the most important business tools, and its effectiveness largely determines the strength of a brand. Meeting user expectations, a clear and intuitive layout, engaging content and systematic optimisation are elements that translate not only into increased conversion rates, but also into building a consistent and credible image. Every user interaction with the website is contact with the brand – that is why investing in the quality of the website is also an investment in the long-term development and recognition of the brand. Moonfleet offers support in the development and building of strategies.

Feel free to contact our experts here.