November 14 2017
Company websites used to be only virtual business cards. Not anymore. With the online developing faster than everything else around, websites moved to have a sales role or shifted to a hybrid function covering both the presentation and commercial purposes. Browsing the web one can see several neat website designs and functionalities and what might catch the eye is mostly the design and the nice flashy elements. But how much a website represents a company comes down to two other questions. First define what your goal is. What do you expect from your website? Second and most important think the other way around, what do your clients expect from you: does your website represent your clients?
Based on industry specificity one needs to go into some other areas of analysis. For example, in consumer goods be ready to update very often the visible website but also the tools provided to customers. On the other hand if dealing service area, one needs to rely on combining persuasion methods with tools customized to consumer profile. Traditional behavioral influential patterns constantly change and they tend to be replaced by AI technology very rapidly. And following this ideas you will find yourself in the backstage of the website where you will be told by your website developer that you need a content management system which knows how to take actions by itself at certain moments in terms of content, context, geographical and behavioral circumstances.
If you are still amongst those needing convincing that behavioral economics is a reality that must be considered in any business circumstance take a look at Richard H. Thaler’s books. The 2017 Nobel Prize Economic Sciences winner has dedicated his work to how economic decisions are influenced by several psychological aspects like cognitive limitations, self-control problems and social preferences. And while a large number of companies say they offer a superior online experience, people think otherwise, with 80% of a consumer study stating that the average brand doesn’t understand them as individuals. So before heading off to how you want your website to be, take a minute and think how your clients want it to be.
Going further on the customer experience path have in mind that more than half of the time spent online we are using mobile devices instead of a desktop and this percentage is growing. So moving towards the technical aspects of the website consider how the interface is customized to the clients’ expectations on all platforms. Although responsive websites are not rocket science, you can still find a lot of pages out there which are not friendly at all when accessed from a mobile device. You need to make a projection of the consumer experience for each interface and correlate that to the content communication. This means a friendly and easy to use interface but adjusted to the mobile consumption needs. And once you go live don’t forget your website is an ongoing job. One of the best aspect of online is that you can track your results in real time and adapt just as fast. So keeping an eye on the metrics with the help of the analysis platforms and constantly updating the technology behind the website will help keep the users coming back.
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