Keeping Up With The Kustomers

Is your website keeping up with your customers?

You might have an awesome website, yes. But is it delivering to the people you need to reach? A beautiful site will do nothing for you unless it is keeping up with the changes of technology, social media, and the growing expectations of modern sophisticated browsers.

It’s safe to say that nearly everyone who visits your site these days will be highly tech literate and web savvy. There are very few people who don’t know how to google these days. Not only that, but they have been exposed to all different sites and they know how a good site feels. Apple is the #1 smartphone in the marketplace, so I can guarantee you that those people have all seen Apple’s website. They know they like the feeling of visiting Apple.com but they can’t put their finger on why. That is why UX and UI designers are so important! You can’t just show a person what they want, you have to curate how they feel about it and sell it to them without actually throwing a sales pitch in their face. It might sound crazy but your website can do that.

No..it should be doing that.

What is expected from a high quality site that is keeping up with the customer curve?

Glad you asked! 

1. Performance 
   It cannot be stressed enough: If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you are out! (You can actually test this with Google Analytics if you are curious). People have short attention spans and they will be quick to bounce away from your site if the landing page doesn’t load fast enough for them. 

2. Content
   Like real estates “Location, Location, Location” the motto of the web development world is “Content, Content, Content!” And it’s not just text based content. You need videos, links, high quality photos, and more! Content is key and it needs to keep up to date. We recommend hiring a copywriter if at all possible when it comes to your text-based content. You need to have concise wording and very clear calls to action. Yes, calls.

3. User Experience
   Do you know the patterns of your customer? Knowing their journey through your site will help you to meet their expectations and then blow them away! The ability to look at your site through the eyes of the customer is invaluable. This will allow you to streamline everything to fit them. 

4. Design
   Of course, design is huge. You need to wrap all this awesome stuff up into a really lovely package. It can’t be ok or so-so otherwise they will head to greener pastures. Remember, they know what truly beautiful websites look like, but they don’t know WHAT it is that makes them beautiful. (Designers are seriously awesome)

5. Interactivity
   Does your site currently offer any type of interactivity? Are there videos, chat boxes, surveys, downloads? This gets tricky because you don’t want to overstimulate and spam. There is a balance to providing this and remaining true to the design of the website. (Again…aren’t designers awesome?) 

TLDR? 

What are we telling you: Don’t just update your website every 5 years. Take a critical look. Always be looking at the competition to make sure you’re not falling behind, you’re staying well ahead. Make sure you are staying on top of the ball when it comes to your customer; they grow and change as much as your market and the weather! 

Stay hip. Reach out!

We want to help you.

And if you’re not sure if this applies to you, ask us about our website audits. We would love to pop the hood on your current site and see where there is room for improvement. Let us keep you dangerously relevant.

Email us: hello@829design.com or call (916) 581-1777