It takes an incredible amount of effort to start a business, or hack the growth of an existing business. There is so much to think about. "How am I going to get the word out? What should my product look like or do? How should my website communicate my startup?" All of those are critical questions amongst thousands more. One of the major challenges I see new businesses face, is how to design for their customers. We all know it is startup 101 to build, measure, and learn. Designing for your customers from the start is the sure fire way to get off on the right foot. Let’s explore.
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Design for your client, not for yourself
Time after time, I have clients approach me with a grand idea for their website. Tons of functionality, social media platform functionality, interactive gimmicks, etc… The first question I ask at this point is “what is absolutely essential and what is more of a nice to have feature”. Then, we take all the nice to have components and throw them in the trash.
It is crucial to make a minimum viable product (MVP) rather than a clunky overdone website. Your clients want to visit to your site and see the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when why). The last thing you need is HOW. How can they get it? How can they contact you? Everything else is just a feature that you wanted, not your customer. Overtime you will learn from the measure step what additional features or information that you need to add.
Tell your story
The most powerful thing you can do is to tell your story. Why do you do what you do? What does your product or service do? People love to consume information and creating a story that is captivating and that pulls your customers in will help decrease bounce rates and will promote click through.
Consider your favorite craft beer. The brewer tells a story and gives the beer some identity. It truly stimulates more senses than just taste. How can you do the same thing with your product or service?
Don’t forget the metrics
Always consider your sites metrics. Things that affect page rank, bounce rate, click through rate, and usability. Be careful creating a site that has too much weight. Here are some things to consider.
- If your user base uses mobile make sure your site is mobile friendly (responsive and lightweight).
- If you want to rank well organically, make sure your site is following all the best SEO practices. Woorank is a great tool to find issue regarding SEO and Google Page Speed Insights is a great tool for uncovering development issues.
- Make sure you have a way for visitors to convert easily (phone, email, contact form, live chat).
- Make sure you are creating very specific landing pages. Sending visitors to your landing page as a catch all is a bad idea. Don’t make your visitors search; take them where they need to go.
- Shop the competition, see what your competitors are doing right, and wrong. Then make a game plan and execute.
You don’t need to do everything at once, but always remember “something small that is done correctly will always outweigh a something that is trying to do it all; but can’t execute”
If you are interested in learning more about website planning and optimization (both on site and marketing optimization), visit our site http://folsomcreative.com or give us a call 888-944-4646
