You should always be thinking about ways to improve your website attractiveness. And by attractiveness, I don’t mean pretty. I mean, the ability to attract the interest of the customer.
Sure, go crazy for meta-tags and keywords, and do all the right search engine submission, advertising and marketing. If that all works as it should, you should be attracting customers, right? But how long are they staying? Are they having a good browse around, or do they just poke their head in the door then move along? If people don’t like what they see, or if it’s that same bland tourist-trap crap, then they’ll just keep moving on. It comes down to getting them interested.
It doesn’t take a lot of Flash magic or Activex components, just effective thinking. Here are a number of simple ideas you can try for your website.
Welcome Back
Your site’s home page is the front door for your online business, and should look and sound like it was expecting the customer. After all, people do not stumble over a computer and then aimlessly browse around (well OK, maybe sometimes we do ;-). Most people have a purpose when they search on the web. They want to find the products you sell. Helping them find and get to your site is the first challenge. After all that hard work, the customer should safely make it to your site. But they’re tired and may have traveled a long way. Don’t give them a song and dance about your product – just get it in front of them. Or if you can’t do that, show a picture of a product on you home page that links them directly to your catalogue. Put as few clicks as possible between the customer and your product. Most people want to find the goods first – they’ll enjoy the show later.
Mindshare
Once the customer is at your site, keep your name or logo in front of them. You want them to always know they are at your site. Many customers shop and compare with several browser windows open, so once they locate the desired product you want to be sure they also see your name, to associate the two. There are many ways to do this; having a solid block header with the rest in a scrolling frame, using a logo as a background. Or something we do which we called “bookend-ing”. Set a logo at the top and the very bottom of the page, like bookends. It gives a feeling of grouping the whole page, as well as helping the customer know that is the page end. If you have a long scrolling page (which we advise against, but its sometimes appropriate), repeat your logo once every window height or so.
Get Back
Put a “back” button or link on every page. I know, I know. The browser has a back arrow button. Even the new fangled mouse has a back button. But you need to help people navigate around as simply as possibly. Make it reasonably large and clear from surrounding text. It will help customers. It is easy. Do it.
Can I help you with that?
On every page, give the customer the ability to send feedback or comments. People will do it even if they don’t buy anything – if you sound like you really want to hear from them. Sometimes they tell you that they liked your site. Sometimes they complain about something that helps you fix a problem (I had one lady tell us she didn’t like the flashing as it distracted her from reading. I thought she had made some mistake – we don’t use Flash and I don’t think we have any “flashing” text on the site. But it prompted me to check – and there it was. We had experimented with using the “blink” format attribute on a heading that had been pasted to our home page. I didn ‘t see it as I was using IE6, but she did see using Navigator. A quick fix for me that eliminated an annoyance for many others). Either way, make sure a reply is returned to them. Tell them, “thank you for helping us to improve our business”. Make sure the content sounds like it is coming from a human being, not some anonymous office. And make sure your URL is in the reply email. People like to be thanked. They like to feel they are getting personal attention. They will return for that experience.
Generate emotional response
Customers are emotional people. They will not hang around if your site leaves them flat. People want to feel happy, involved, and fun. But you are limited to words and pictures, perhaps some sound. How do you reach people emotionally?
I was working with a major apparel retailer who were revamping their website for online orders. Their new home page would show a random large picture of some 30-ish guy or gal in some funky pose. I mentioned to the design director that this must be an overhead to the download of the opening page. He said, “Yes, but people don’t buy clothes just to own clothes and put them in their wardrobe. They buy clothes to enjoy the comfort of wearing them and to enjoy the things they allow them to do. These images we’re using say several things. They say, we’re young and healthy, we’re really having a great time, we really look good in these clothes’. The customer, at some level, will think that’s how I want to look/feel/be’. They will look further, which is what we want.”
What can you do? Think about your product. Can you show a picture of someone enjoying using the product, or enjoying the end results of the product? Say you sold books online. Is the book the end product for the customer? No! For the customer, what they want is the experience of reading the book. So get some pictures of someone sitting in a really comfortable chair, a coffee slightly steaming on the side table, engrossed in their book. Just reading this now gives you a picture in your head, and a certain feeling about it. Ask yourself – would you feel the same just thinking about a book? Spend some time thinking about how to get your customers to feel something about your products.
Tell your friendsFor people to buy from you, they need to have some degree of trust about your site. You can talk about Verisign or Thawte all you like, but trust is varied. What many people like is for your site to be referred by someone else, especially someone they know and trust. This could be called “trust transference”. Two people trust each other, so one’s opinion to the other grants your site implied trust. But how can you generate this yourself? One example is newsletters. The good ones are regarded as somewhat of an authority on the subject matter. Perhaps you could be the sponsor for one issue. Now your name appears on a trusted communication sent to many of your target customers. For many customers, this is enough implied trust for them to shop at your site.
Another way to get implied trust is for one of your customers to tell their friends. You can make this easy by creating an email link they can use. Even better if you can automate the subject line, saying “Wow, I found this great website” with the URL. Put this link right next to the feedback link – if a customer does one, they’ll likely do the other too.
Remember us for next time
Studies have shown many people will browse and shop, adding things to their shopping cart, and then right before going to checkout, they leave. The general belief is that people want to see their items all listed together and get an idea of the total cost, and the shopping cart is an easy way to pick items and have it automatically calculated for them. So, given that this is relatively common, shouldn’t you think about ways, specifically at the shopping cart page, to make them come back later? One simple idea is to place a link on the cart page that adds your site to their favourites. You could also add some text to the page acknowledging that they might not be ready to buy just yet, but that you hope to see them come back. People will feel happier about coming back if they don’t feel they had pretend to buy something, then skulk out.
Keep thinking about how to improve the way your website business engages with your customers. I hope there were a few ideas here that you can use. Good luck!
David Ellis is the Creative Director and CIO for Ozeyarn, which sells online knitting yarns. Natural fibers at inexpensive prices. You can find them at http://www.ozeyarn.com and contact David at davidel@ozeyarn.com.