Tips for Creating a Customer-Friendly WebSite

Tips for Creating a Customer-Friendly Web Site

 Start with a clear understanding of the purpose of your site.

 Is the aim of your site to sell, entertain, or inform? The design of your site should be consistent with its purpose. The requirements for a site selling software online will be very different from say the web site of a local community newspaper.

 Plan the site with the customer in mind.

Imagine how your customers (existing and prospects) will use your site. Consider their reasons for visiting and their needs. Something that looks logical to you may not appear so to a first-time visitor.

Design for cross-browser compatibility.Make sure your site can be viewed in other browsers; that way you will not unintentionally reduce the number of visitors to your site.

 Choose simplicity over complexity.Make it simple for visitors to get to the content - that is what most of them are coming to your site for anyway.

Make the navigation intuitive and easy to use. Make your site's navigation logical and clear. Ensure the most important and most often-accessed information is easy to find. Link names should be concise and self-explanatory.

Your site should be as visually appealing as possible.Visual appeal is subjective but the design of your site will undoubtedly influence customers' perceptions of your business as a whole. 

Apply a consistent design or 'look and feel' to your site.

Integrate your web site design with your offline branding.

Keep page size manageable to ensure speedy downloads.Optimize graphic size and avoid putting an image on a page unless it adds something for the visitor.

Ensure your site's content reflects its purpose.If yours is a sales site for example, ensure that your content concentrates on selling. Stay focused and avoid the temptation to upload content that is not relevant to your web site's purpose.

Enable quick and easy location of information.Think what information customers are likely to want and do not hide it away.

Make sure content is relevant, accurate and up-to-date.

Provide accurate and relevant content and keep it up-to-date. Failure to do this will make your company look inefficient and reflects badly on your customer service levels. Search engines also appreciate content that is updated regularly.

Encourage interaction.Get visitors to interact with your site and spend more time on it. Make a visit an interesting experience for them by including useful online tools, etc. Just make sure they are relevant to your site.

Personalize your site. 

Invite dialogue.Give your customers the opportunity to contact you via email, online forms, a call-back/call-me facility, web chat, etc. 

Acknowledge customer contact.

Make it a 'seamless' experience.Aim to give customers the same level of service online as you give them offline. 

Give your customers support.Reassure visitors to your site by providing elements such as help pages, FAQ's, a site map, terms of use and a privacy policy. They will appreciate it.

Inspire confidence.

Ensure that your site works properly and its content is up-to-date. Check error messages make sense and forms and data entry fields are logical. 

Get to know your customers.