Know Why Web Experience is a Must for Your Business to Flourish
Businesses now need to discard old trends and adopt modern methodologies to flourish. Web experience has become a must to engage customers.
The wheel has rotated to a full circle. Websites have once again returned to centre stage.
To substantiate the point, let us refer to the third quarter 2020 ecommerce sales data for the US. The data shows that sales were up by 36.7 per cent year-on-year. But the irony is that there has not yet been a reciprocal shift in web experience among today's consumers.
Messaging Kickstarts Human-Centered Web Experience
A human-centred web experience starts with the right messages. And, you can understand how messages are important in the context by referring to the current messaging methodology in US airports during 2020.
Most of the airports in the US limited their communication to a Covid banner on their websites. And the banner led to non-actionable regulatory information. With such communications, the travel industry cannot flourish for sure. To encourage travel in 2021, the travel industry must change all digital tools' brand voice.
It is, however, not an easy task to strike a perfect balance between the regulatory guidelines and necessary information in communicating with passengers in a human-centred voice.
Going back to the context of US airports, there is a need for passenger-centred communication. And their websites should provide relevant and actionable information tailored to the passenger's journey. The need has arisen for organizations to reassess their current website language and rewrite their website content in relevant and actionable formats.
Next Decade of Web Experience
In a recent report, Accenture outlined the 2021 trends which will define the next decade of experiences. The report detailed the general mismatch that happened in 2020 and its negative impact on consumer behaviour. Based on its study, Accenture forecasts that shopping will decompose into many micro-moments that will spread throughout the day and across devices.
It has made the responsive design for retailer websites a must. But there is also a thing to note. Investment in responsive design accompanies investment in new apps. If the prediction proves its worth, you must look at enhancing web experience and prioritizing responsive web design to improve the overall brand experience.
The report also advises retailers to replicate the human touch with digital devices. And investment in a detailed copy also has its merits, as it can help people make a good decision. A copy has striking relevance when it comes to having an informative and pleasant conversation. You can regard a copy as the digital version of the interaction.
In 2021, you need to go back to basics and get your website redesigned so that it acts like a human that speaks to your consumers.
Keep the Load Time in Mind
The website load time continues to be an important factor when it comes to user experience. Therefore, do not fall behind in having a look at your website speed.
Many businesses are yet to attain a good website speed, and it is also among the reasons their businesses are failing to pick up speed. As most visitors abandon their slow websites, the businesses fail to showcase their products among those visitors.
If you look at what Google Analytics has to say about the need for a fast-loading website, you will see that 53 per cent of visitors prefer to abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. You can often see that a mobile web page takes an average of 12 seconds to load in 3G.
It shows that you need to make more efforts to optimize your website speed for your visitors to have a good user experience. Mobile is the channel where visitors expect a fast experience, but many businesses fail it.
Broadly speaking, you lose around half of your consumers with a slow-loading website as they do not prefer to even begin their online journey due to slow website speed. In this way, you will lose the return on investment of all your investments online. So, do not fail to improve your website speed in 2021. You will be able to measure the impact of that investment.
Fix Checkout Issues
Go through the checkout process on your website, and resolve any issues you spot. Many websites suffer from the old problem of not having seamlessness of checkout. But you can get rid of the problem as there are numerous ways to design a smooth, digital checkout experience.
Say your website cannot save consumers' credit card information in their profiles to reuse it in their subsequent purchases, you are stuck in the 90s, and it is something that you should work upon. It is not the end of it. The entire picture is much bigger with artificial intelligence (AI) entry in the user experience arena.
For example, if you are an apparel retailer, you can use AI at the checkout experience's touchpoint to suggest matching items with the ordered outfit, like shoes that can go well with the dress already in the shopping cart. Some brands have already implemented AI in their online checkout process. And many shoppers follow the site's suggestions to make purchases.
Therefore, it is now time for you to modernize your checkout process to not miss out on the upsell opportunity.
Realize User Experience Conventions
A good tactic to improve your website's user experience is to understand user experience conventions. You might find it a bit challenging to figure out what is meant by conventions, but that is not at all a hindrance.
Conventions are visitor habits, which can include his expectations like preferring to see your logo on the top left of the screen or looking for the header's search feature. Many websites have main navigation menus that confuse visitors, who fail to realize where they should go.
Bear in mind that your website is not supposed to have all historical information, but act as a channel to communicate and engage with visitors. It needs to inform visitors about your products and services on the offer in an easy and accessible way.
You should present the information in such a way that it is easy to understand for visitors. It will help if you summarize, elevate the message, and synthesize the results.
The Last Words
Regardless of your industry, do not undermine the importance of web experience. It is the future of user experience. And its importance is growing day by day. Besides, do not fail to gather customer feedback, which will help you understand how your products are doing, and what more features you need to incorporate into your business offerings.