So you’ve decided to develop or redevelop your website? Fantastic, you’ve passed the first hurdle. The next one is crucial. Regardless of your project objectives, every website should serve the purpose of the customer.
Have you ever visited a website, simply to leave 20 seconds in because you couldn’t find what you were after, were lost or worst yet frustrated? We’ve all been there, and that is exactly the opposite of what your customers should experience.
Understanding how your customer interacts and navigates throughout your site should envelop your future website’s layout, functionality, flow and design.
Mapping out various customer journeys, based on hypothetical situations, is a great starting point to better understand your customers experience when visiting your site. For example, say you were developing a website for your cafe business, your target audience demographic aged from 20-40, majority of visitors (or meet up organisers) are females. So what would customer X do?
- if they have stumbled upon your site from an external reference, such as social media, friend recommendation, trip advisor, local directory or search engine chances are they are going to want to see your menu and visual references (Instagram feed) along with social links for further investigation to develop trust and interest based on peer reviews and perhaps even specials/seasonal menu items.
- If they are on their way and want to know your location an address is all they require, perhaps even opening hours.
- If they know they want to visit, or are a regular, then book a table/make a reservation would be their focal point.
Unless you specifically offer another service of importance (eg functions and events), then everything else will come second to your main customer points of interest. Ease of navigation will allow for this information to be found when sought, but allow the key required customer focal points to shine bright like a diamond, at all times.
Not sure what customer X would do? If you are in the position of redeveloping your website, or simply thinking about how your website works for your customers feel free to get in touch with us. Along with analytics we also have some fabulous tools that allow us to shadow a visitor to your site, where they go, how long they stay for, where they come up against any pain points (eg. how do I get back to where I was?). With data collected from multiple visitors we are able to establish patterns and prioritise area’s of content based on ease of access and usability. Sometimes comparing your business’s internal voice to that of your customers can really highlight key requirements for your website.
