Are You Being Seen? 10 Must-Haves to Boost Your Visibility and Conversions

Written By: Louis Holzman

What makes you seen? Why is your business getting looked at over your competitor? How do you make people feel when they come in contact with you or part of your business and brand. This is all part of user experience. From the navigation of a new user on your website, to them making a purchase and giving them a big thank you, user experience is what guides people through the buying process, and eventually brings them back if they had a positive one.

Look at examples from Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for an Internet Age:

Your sales can rise by up to 225 percent when you improve user experience and provide adequate product information at the right moment.
Most software projects (63 percent) at large corporations run over the budget primarily because they overspend on user engineering.

Obviously, a large increase in sales is something any company would love to experience. Compiled below are 10 takeaways for user experience I believe to be crucial when looking for a product or service, or as a business trying to attract your customers and audience.

Go Mobile: In 2014, the number of global users accessing the Internet from mobile devices crossed desktop users. (reference graph) This seemingly thoughtless transfer to handheld devices became the primary source of internet traffic; this has dramatically changed business and society as a whole. In today’s day and age people’s attention is so hard to grab, you cannot afford to have an unresponsive website or web presence. Once your visitor and potential customer sees an outdated site, that they have trouble seeing or understanding your company’s goal, they bounce away from your site to find someone who has kept up with the times. If you are in business, and have yet to make your site mobile responsive you aren’t just losing out on potential business, you’re actually dating your business and giving less credibility, only boosting the visibility of your direct competitor. To have best user experience when developing your online presence, start by building and designing with a “mobile first” mindset.

Content is King: The purpose of content is to educate users. Not to sell your promotions and push your product or services in your audience’s unwanting faces. The trick is, understanding what types of content to use and when they are appropriate over which platform to implement. For example, when giving a brochure people expect to see lots of bulleted copy, your logo, and maybe a graph or picture. On the other hand, when developing a website, your audience is expecting way less copy, and more visuals such as original pictures, a video explaining your products or services, or even a podcast! There is a lot of noise on the day to day mediums for communication. You need to figure out which mediums work best for your business, and how you effectively deliver content to people enabling education and learning, not spammed and annoyed.

Colors Count: The colors that your website and business materials have, from the font, to the images, to the sidings and boarders all matter. They need to correlate and represent your brand and identity, if not you may be compromising your own business! Colors have an emotional effect on people. For example: Red could mean, passion, aggression, or important. Blue could mean trustworthy, serene, or inviting. Yellow could mean happy, friendly, or warning. These are all thought out when deciding what colors you want to portray to your audience and how you want your brand to be internalized by your viewers.

Definite Calls to Action: The primary purpose to driving traffic back to your site, or your social platforms is to push your audience toward taking an action to connect with you. Examples of Calls to Action or, C2A, are “sign up NOW”, “Click Here for Newsletter”, “shop now”, “subscribe to our blog”, “BUY HERE get 1 FREE”… and so on. You want to implement these calls of action strategically into your website, so your viewers easily see and access these buttons. You can determine what parts of your website are used and clicked most by adding heat maps to your site analytics. This enables you to get your product, service, or offer right in the face of your buyer or consumer. This is your money maker.

Choose Audio/Visual Wisely: There is a time and place for everything. Knowing when, and how to use audio or video in your online presence could make or break your user’s experience. For example, a marketing agency with a time-lapse video of their office production space as their background in the home page of their website is great! It shows their potential clients how professional their space and process is. A radio station will most likely have music streaming through their site, and a restaurant may have beautiful dishes of food displayed to showcase their delicious meals. Each business is using a different audio/visual effect, but they do it for the same reason: to show users who they are and what they do while optimizing their online search engines with fresh content.

Surveys/Reviews/Case Studies/Testimonials: This topic I feel goes almost without saying. Referrals from past clients, or people in your business community are anything but second best. This means somebody is passing your name to their trusted friend. They believe in you, and your company so much they are willing to put their reputation on the line to go to bat for you company and ensure business is flowing in your door. The more reviews and testimonials you have from clients, the more credibility you and your brand receives. Case studies are important because it shows expertise in the subject matter. If you are able to show a potential client you’ve done a similar job and performed with excellence, you will have a much easier time closing that deal.

Proof of Authenticity: There are so many weirdos, fake accounts, and uncredible sources floating around the World Wide Web. Make sure your viewers know they are interacting with who they think they are, you. On social platforms, verify your page. On your website, make sure your load time for all browsers is quick and efficient. Long load times lead to higher bounce rates. Ensure you host on a secure server and that your site security is at least to the minimal standards. People will try and hack you, dig for personal information, and go after your viewers data. Being secure is nothing to joke about, especially if you take payment online. A tip is to add credit card logos and security seals, especially for ecommerce. It lets shoppers know the site is a secure, trusted place to do business. Especially consider spending a few extra bucks for the almighty “SSL certificate.” Think of it as an investment to protect yourself, build trust, and establish peace-of-mind for customers. If not, you may be dealing with a lawsuit quicker than you think.

Wash, Rinse, and Repeat: Adjusting to user experience is a process of constant configuration. Using tools like Google Analytics can really help whoever is overseeing the web presence traffic and engagements. In order to keep your views up, your click rates high, and buyers buying, you must continually be doing market research and keeping up with the trends, what links are working where, who is clicking what, and why. User design is iterative. You don’t build a bridge without first studying traffic patterns. But over the years, the amount of traffic can change. Maybe a new restaurant or attraction was built after the bridge. You need to modify the design to accommodate new external influences. User experience design is all about the study, revision and implementation of changes as the landscape evolves. By doing this, you are able to see what is most effectively touching your market and getting you the most conversions. As you test new things, you have to monitor the usage, and then adjust accordingly to give you the best results.

Making it social: Keeping up with trends will keep your business hip and new. Since people’s attention is hard to grab, know what’s trending and popular in the world to use that media to grab attention. Make sure to include any social media links on your website, and make sure these accounts are active. This mean ENGAGING posts, not spammy. Each platform has a slightly different element that you can utilize to connect, but consistency on the platforms you do choose is very important to building a following and retaining their interest.

Human to Human Interaction: Nothing beats this. If another person is giving you their valuable time, make sure you do not waste it. The old fashioned customer service of going above and beyond to make the clients experience better is not out of style. Make sure they feel warm and comfortable in your office, or with your process as the project moves forward. If you are on edge, or give them any reason to question their judgement they may pull out of the job. Even worse, they may leave a negative review, talk bad about you and the company, and at the worst, completely not trust the company or your judgement. Keeping a positive public relation within your business is a key to success, especially in a small ecosystem of commerce which may very well be your community.

Many expect a one-and-done one-size-fits-all delivery, and if the design isn’t right the first time, it must be a failure. Right? Wrong. Consider this: The iPhone took dozens of prototypes to refine the product. Did they fail? User Experience is one of the most crucial steps as you journey down the development road. Make sure you implement these tips, and are constantly refining for your audience. Design, test, iterate. Wash, rinse, repeat.

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