Website design on the Sunshine Coast is changing and it’s important for businesses of all sizes to keep up. With more potential customers than ever before searching for products and services online, this is your most important marketing tool.
For a while there the biggest push was on making your website mobile-friendly, so it could be viewed and navigated on any device. By now, that should be a given, especially since Google started rolling out mobile-first indexing.
A natural progression from that is to make your website more interactive, again responding to pressure from both users and Google.
Web Design on the Sunshine Coast
If you’re currently looking at new web design on the Sunshine Coast, interactivity should be at the top of your list of requirements. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise; if you use social media you’d already be across this. Yet, having said that, many business websites still remain boringly static!
The fact is, new research by the University of Oklahoma shows that increasing the interactivity of your website makes your business more credible to users. The study was designed to see how people are persuaded online. The more opportunities there were for interaction, the more the study participants believed in the website.
Interactivity is a form of communication, which makes the online experience more personal. Communicating with your customers in any way is a good thing.
Interactive Experience
It’s estimated that more than 70% of a customer’s experience with a business now happens in a ‘self-service’ capacity online. So how can you make that experience more interactive, more personal and more interesting?
Some people describe interactive website design on the Sunshine Coast as talking with your customers, as opposed to talking at them. So, your website needs to start a conversation. This can be done by asking your customer to click, share, like, vote, comment and so on. This not only makes the customer’s journey more interesting, but it will also help you gather critical information about your market.
Did you know that around 90% of internet users now expect an interactive experience? If there’s nothing for them to actually do on your website, will they stick around?
To put all this in perspective, consider how you would treat that customer if they walked into your actual store. You’d greet them, ask how their day is going, maybe comment on the weather. You’d ask how you can help them that day. You may offer them several choices or options and explain the benefits of certain products or services.
Creating the Right Software
It’s just a case of applying all that in a digital form to your website. Good web design on the Sunshine Coast should incorporate the right software to make this possible.
Around 76% of consumers who enjoy an interaction website experience will visit the physical store within a day or so. In other words, interactive website design promotes more foot traffic.
Use this interactive element of your website to build not only trust but also brand awareness. This will, in turn, boost your Word-of-Mouth Marketing. The secret is to make those visiting your website feel rewarded, so that other people feel as if they’re missing out.
Interactive website design is shown to boost conversion rates. It can also improve your SEO and boost your ranking. Here’s how: the more interesting and interactive your website is, the more natural backlinks it will attract. This will not only send even more customers your way, but it will also be picked up by Google’s ranking algorithms.
Building Backlinks
Backlinks are seen as a sign of confidence in your website and the more you can attract naturally, the less you need to spend on paid promotion.
Remember, Google is all about the user experience, so anything you do to improve that earns you better recognition and better ranking. Search engines look at things like dwell time (how long someone stays on your website), bounce rate (the number of people who leave your website before doing anything) and traffic numbers.
The quickest way to make your website more interactive is to regularly update it with quality content; ensure there’s always something new for users to read. Encourage comment and feedback.
You also want to leverage the power of your social media. Ensure everything links together with easy access and shared content.
Customer Engagement
The secret is to use website design on the Sunshine Coast that improves customer engagement. Remember, you may only get one opportunity to do that. In other words, if you don’t catch them on the first visit, they may be gone for good.
Therefore, interactive website design begins with the basics: great design, fast loading times, attractive layout, the right colours, the right message. Snag them on the first visit, engage them, entertain them and inform them, and they are likely to become a regular customer.
All it takes is some time, a budget and the skills of an experienced web solutions company.
