Why A Professional Website Is Important To Increase Customer Confidence

Many businesses passively rely on review sites, social media pages, or other “web presence” to get the word out about their business, but this choice tends to limit all growth potential.

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Why A Professional Website Is Important To Increase Customer Confidence

Many businesses passively rely on review sites, social media pages, or other “web presence” to get the word out about their business, but this choice tends to limit all growth potential. The key to creating high customer confidence, the kind that promotes loyalty and organic referrals, is a professional website.

WHAT YOUR PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE SHOWS

PHYSICAL LOCATION

Your customers want to see that there is a place associated with your business; sometimes they want this for practical reasons, such as being able to visit a brick-and-mortar store or come to a meeting with your team. Often, however, it also simply conveys legitimacy and locality to have a location that is easily discernable; even if you are just listing the address of a small office or a P.O. Box, you are more than just a ghostly presence floating through the internet.

PHONE NUMBERS AND CONTACT FORMS

Your potential customers want to know they can get in touch with you, to make inquiries and get support in their goals. Your contact information shouldn’t be something they dig through the whole internet to find; you want them to find it instantly, and a professional website that inspires confidence, with your contact forms and phone numbers front-and-center, is a great way to do that.

VALUABLE CONTENT-RICH ARTICLES

One of the great facets of the search-engine-driven internet is that your site will come up more often and on more searches if you also are writing valuable, helpful content related to your customer’s needs. Brainstorm the kinds of how-to guides, valuable lists, and in-depth research that would be helpful to someone in the market for your product or service. Your website can host a blog full of these interesting, helpful articles. Just by having a button somewhere on the website that links back to your product or service, every piece of information you produce will draw in people with genuine need for your product or service.

NEWS AND UPDATES

People trust a company more when they are up-to-date and cutting-edge, and one way to showcase this to your potential customers is through your websites news and updates features. In addition to creating a newsletter or email campaign, your website can host much of your news about new products, services, and features, as well as exciting new store openings, changes in leadership, or delivery abilities. Your customers are buying into the “story” of your company, so sharing small and frequent successes makes them more and more confident in your growing appeal.

ECOMMERCE AND ONLINE SALES

If your product or service is viable to sell online (more and more items are now!), you can set up a professional website with online sales options. If you are trying to drive traffic to a brick-and-mortar store or an in-person service, you can still use your website as a convenient payment platform, given the many kinds of professional Point-of-Sale software that can be integrated into a website these days.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT SERVICES

In addition to generalized contact information, your website can be a demonstration of your care for customers and your available customer support. Chatbots, customer service FAQ, and encouraging messaging about contacting customer support can all convey, through your website, that you are present and available for customers and make sure they are satisfied with their purchases.

5 THINGS THAT TURN PEOPLE AWAY FROM YOUR WEBSITE

As you begin or revamp your professional website, make sure to avoid these pitfalls; you want to increase customer confidence and loyalty, and doing these things can undermine those efforts. A professional website design team will help you avoid any of the following that isn’t going to help your business succeed.


INTRUSIVE MUSIC AND PHOTOS

While photographs are integral to most websites these days, there is such thing as too much of a good thing. Overly garish photos, excessive cartoons or GIFs, or other “loud” imagery is rarely the right fit for a professional website. The same is true for auto-play music on your site; if your business isn’t intimately connected to music, you probably don’t need any music at all on your site, since people often access websites in areas where music might surprise or disturb them if they aren’t expecting it.

MULTI-LAYERED HOME PAGES REQUIRING CLICKS

Creating multiple entry pages for your website that require someone to click “enter” or “proceed” may seem exciting or intriguing, but ultimately it simply wastes your customer’s time. They are likely to spend only a finite amount of time (a matter of seconds) trying to find the logical navigation through your website before they abandon it for a cleaner-looking alternative. Make it as easy as possible for clients to understand and move through your site, even if it means they move through it quickly.

UNUSUAL NAVIGATION

On that same front, don’t make menus difficult to find, don’t create strange features that make unusual content show up when someone would expect something else, and generally try not to confuse your customer. There are exceptions, such as businesses whose brand involves “industry disruption,” but generally, the place to be creative is in your products and content, not your hard-to-parse design.

REQUIRED EMAIL FILL-IN FORM

It may seem great at first to get a new lead’s email as soon as they access the website, but the truth is that you may lose more customers than gain them when you try this strategy. The on-the-fence lead will leave your site permanently when they realize they cannot access your content without giving an email address; instead, create optional dialog boxes that can be closed if people aren’t quite ready to give an email address

CONFUSING AMOUNTS OF DETAIL AND MESSAGE

In general, try to make your website do only a few things: don’t try to market a variety of different products, services, demos, and consultations all at once. Attempt to drive traffic to one, maybe two, items at a time, and make it very easy to accomplish those one or two items. If your message is too diffuse, potential leads will get overwhelmed and find a website trying to sell the one thing they currently want to buy.

5 THINGS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR WEBSITE THAT BRING IN CUSTOMERS


INDUSTRY EVENTS

If you are active at industry gatherings, showcase your involvement! Add photos, videos, and new information you’ve learned, and advertise that you’ll be at upcoming trade shows or other industry events so that potential customers will know to visit you; you can even offer free gifts or demos to those who mention having seen your website.

SOCIAL FEED

If your business lends itself to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram outreach, link up your social media feeds through your professional website. This site can serve as an all-purpose hub where those who are drawn in by your social feeds can get the quick and clear details about how to participate more fully in your brand.

GREAT CONTENT AND CASE STUDIES FROM CUSTOMERS

Your current customers are amazing sources for content for your professional website, and these real-life responses can be what seals the deal for someone considering your product. Get loyal customers to tell you what they love and what makes your product or service stand out, and create eye-catching graphics and photos to accompany these quotes.

VIDEO TESTIMONIALS AND PRODUCT EXPLANATIONS

If you really want to step up your game on the customer content side, see if you can get customers to create video testimonials about your products and services. Even if video testimonials cannot be your first videos, consider creating in-depth explainer videos where a friendly tone is used to explain exactly what makes your products and services high quality and easy to use.

HIGH QUALITY, FROM PAGE SPEED TO DESIGN TO ERROR-FREE CONTENT

We use the words “high quality” a lot when it comes to professional websites, so here are some of the things that high quality means:

  • Quick Loading Speed: Work with your professional design team to make sure that large images are reduced in size to the point where they load effortlessly on most machines. The most beautiful photo in the world isn’t worth a lagging website.
  • Intuitive, Clean Design: You want the average internet user to immediately understand what to do when they access your website. A “beta test” can help you determine if any of the unique features of your site confuse viewers; this allows you to change those features ahead of time and make sure they work well for future viewers when the site goes live.
  • Error-Free Text: It may seem obvious, but finding typos and errors in one’s website is a great way to lose credibility with your audience. Take time with a proofreader to make sure all copy on the site is error-free.

Ready to make the best, most helpful professional website you can? Contact Activator Studios to learn more.

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