Every website should not only look attractive – it should have a user-friendly interface and navigation allowing visitors to know the business better and to find their way through the content quickly and easily. Always remember the informal but widespread “three clicks rule”: it suggests that not more than three clicks should separate a user from any information he needs. Otherwise he’ll lose his patience and leave the site.
- About page
About page is one of the most important elements of your online image. If you’ve ever seen website heatmaps, you might have noticed that About inlay is usually one of the hottest ones. It is often second-best after Homepage. It informs your prospects what your business is about and what value it brings. It also helps to build closer relationship with your visitors. That’s why don’t miss the chance to provide your quality photo and even a short biography (yours or the company’s) describing how you started this business, what inspired you, etc.
Pay maximum attention to this page and don’t save money, time and efforts on it. Most likely, your potential clients will visit it to know you better and to decrease their indecision before the first purchase from you.
- Customer reviews
If you want to convince prospects that you are their best choice, customer reviews will do you a priceless favor. Ask your existing clients to leave their reviews and provide them with all necessary instruments. And their success stories on how your product made their lives better and how grateful they are, will encourage new potential clients to make their choice in your favor. Note: collecting positive feedback don’t lose a single day. Any impressions, especially positive ones, fade quickly in people’s memory, so do not hesitate to ask a happy client to leave a review right away. You can even grant him a discount for his next purchase if he gives his feedback within 24 hours (or invent another motivation). It would be better to provide a function of self-maintained review publishing. It looks more trustworthy than feedback published by the website’s administrators.
- Contact information
It seems obvious, but many website owners still forget to include a separate “Contacts” page with enumeration of all possible ways of communication with the company (physical address, phone Nos, email, skype, social accounts, etc.). As a result, visitors have to make dozens of useless clicks in order to find a way of contacting the owners. It is especially important if you sell goods or services and want to attract new clients (and who doesn’t?). To look reliable, it is important to be transparent and not hide your contact information.
- Internal search
This simple feature is helpful not only for huge sites, but, in fact, for every single website. Time is money, so give your visitors an opportunity to enter phrases into an internal search field and get relevant results quickly. Otherwise they’ll become tired of wandering all over the site in search of necessary information and leave you for competitors who are more careful about user experience. Make sure the search operates not only upon clicking the loupe icon, but also upon pushing Enter button. Such trifles do matter when it comes to friendly navigation.
- Subscription block
If you update your content regularly and practice email marketing, you can’t do without a subscription feature. You need a simple one- or two-field form to give visitors an opportunity to enter their emails for receiving your newsletters. It is a common practice to reward an email-giver with something free and useful: a discount coupon, a helpful guide, manual, etc. The reward should bring real value to visitors and require no serious time or money expenses from you. The best thing about subscription is that it lets you accumulate emails and grow your list for newsletters, loyalty programs and email ads (don’t abuse the latter though).
All these elements are simple but they do play a significant part in your online business.
The full original article by Polina Beletskaya
