How you can make the most of your website

Your website is often the first place new customers will learn about your business. That is why prioritising your customer experience is necessary to help you land more sales, bookings or enquiries.

While there are many ways you can optimise your website, here are four areas you should consider first.

Make sure your website is mobile-friendly

It’s important to optimise how your website appears and reads, depending on the device your customers are using - be that a desktop computer, tablet or mobile.

Mobile became the number one platform over desktop for researching and purchasing goods and services online in January 2020, and is set to grow more over the next few years.

If your website isn’t optimised for mobile use, the user experience will be clunky and you could be putting off potential customers.

Below is an example of how the Bluecare website looks in both desktop and mobile-view. One of the main differences is that the top menu is condensed into a dropdown menu in the top left corner, but the other elements on the page have been reordered to fit the screen size.

Example of the Bluecare website homepage in desktop view and mobile-view

Quick steps to check your website’s mobile-friendliness

Besides visiting your website on different devices to see how it will look, there are other tools out there that can help.

Google’s Mobile-friendly test is one of the quickest ways to check how mobile-friendly your website is. You just enter in the URL (or web address) of your site and it will let you know if your website is mobile-friendly. If you have a different layout for different sections of your website, it’s worthwhile to check the different layouts.

Here’s the results of Bluecare’s Mobile-friendly test. As you can see the page has been determined as mobile-friendly and includes a preview of what the page will look like in mobile view.

Bluecare’s mobile-friendly test results

If you’re unhappy with your results or the way your website is appearing in mobile-view, here’s what you need to do:

1. Make your website responsive

This means your website will respond to the device it’s being displayed on and optimise accordingly, changing the layout of your site when switching from mobile to desktop to tablet. If you have a web developer on your team ask them for help implementing a responsive website, but if not, don’t worry, here’s a step-by-step guide you can follow to make your existing website responsive.

2. Put the important stuff first

There will typically be information most visitors are after, such as an overview of services or products you provide, pricing and contact information. Make sure this information is easily visible and accessible on your site; you want your visitors to be able to find what they’re after without having to search for it.

3. Make your design simple

Websites with lots of different design elements like multiple images and big chunks of text can look cluttered in mobile-view. By keeping your website design simple and straightforward, visitors will have an easier time finding exactly what they need.

4. Make your text big

Reading on a smaller screen can be harder if the font size you use is small. Making sure your text is readable on mobile devices might sound simple, but it’s something you can’t afford to get wrong.

Web developers generally recommend starting with size 16px for your text to work best on mobile-view. This might look smaller or larger depending on the font you’re using on your website, so make sure you’re double-checking how everything looks in mobile-view.

Send automated emails

Email automation allows you to send targeted and well-timed messages at various stages of the customer’s purchase journey.

Automated emails can help your business stay front of mind which is very important if your business has lots of competition.

Automated emails can be used in lots of different ways but here are a few examples for some industries we work closely with:

Real estate businesses

• Send a follow up email after a property viewing asking if they had any questions or if you can help them with their application
• If they were unsuccessful in applying for a rental property or sale, include new listings for similar properties in the same area

Personal trainers and fitness businesses

• After a trial session or visit send an email outlining your pricing or benefits of signing up with your service
• Let inactive customers know about any programs or promotions you’ll be running in the future

Nonprofits

• Thank you emails after a donation has been made, include details about where there donation will be going and how it will be helping
• Updates on the campaign they have contributed to, let them know there is still more work to done to encourage further donations

Read more

How to effectively promote your business using these social media tips

Install a Chatbot

A Chatbot might sound a bit high-tech for your website but it can actually be incredibly easy to implement.

Customer enquiries are always welcome, but you aren’t always going to be available to answer the phone or respond to an email. And unfortunately, if you can’t answer a question quick enough, prospective customers are likely to go find the answer elsewhere (your competitor).

Not only can a Chatbot function 24/7 but you can program them to respond to keywords, such as ‘price’, ‘opening hours’ or any other commonly asked questions you might get through your normal communication channels.

For a rundown on some of the best Chatbots available to use on your website, see this breakdown by Zapier.

Offer easy and secure ways to pay

The ability to make payments anywhere and anytime has become more important than ever before in 2020. Customers are now expecting greater flexibility and security when they’re making payments, so let prospective customers know how easy it is to do business with you.

Let your customers know they’ll be able to pay for your goods and services in multiple ways to suit their schedule and budget. With a Direct Debit agreement you’ll be able to reach a suitable payment schedule to suit both of your needs.

Nothing can be more off-putting for customers than entering in payment details when they feel like there may be a security risk with the company they’re doing business with.

If you’re offering your customers a way to pay your business online, like the hosted payment page through Ezidebit’s Online Payments, you can reassure them that their payment information is being processed by a company with a Level 1 PCI-DSS standard (the highest level of security available) by displaying our logo on your website.

The more flexibility and security you offer customers when it comes to paying your business, the easier it is to convince them to do business with you.

Have a payments related question? Talk to one of our payments experts today to find out how we can help your business grow.