Recently updated on February 6th, 2024 at 06:31 pm
First impressions are everything when it comes to your website. You’ve got a matter of seconds to convince your visitor to stay on your site. Numerous studies state that within the first 10 seconds of landing on a website a visitor will decide to stay or leave.
So what can you do to make that critical first impression a positive one and encourage visitors to stick around? You can start by using your web design and content to deliver answers to the basic questions people will immediately ask when they land on your site.
Your website needs to cover all the basics, and in a way that makes it as easy as possible for people to find the information they are looking for.
Here are the eight customer questions that your website needs to answer.
1. What Are You Selling?
The first question that enters the mind of visitors is what product or service are you selling? The instant that someone lands on your page, this should be absolutely clear. Make sure you place this important information above the fold so that there is no need for any guesswork or scrolling down the page.
Failing to state the product or service you provide and forcing visitors to navigate through your site is setting yourself up for a high bounce rate and a poor performing website.
2. Why Should I Care?
After you’ve established what it is you’re offering your visitors, they’ll have a more important question you need to answer.
How does your product or service offer a solution to the pain points they experience and improve their lives?
This is why it’s crucial to know and communicate your value proposition. Why should your prospect choose to do business with you?
If you don’t know already, brainstorm ideas to identify compelling reasons why people should buy from you. Then make these reasons crystal clear on your website.
3. How Much Will it Cost?
So you’ve intrigued your visitors with your product and the benefits it can provide, what next? Logically the next thing people are going to want to know, how much will it cost?
While it’s not always a great idea to stick your price front and centre of your homepage, you should make it easy for users to navigate to your pricing information with an option from a drop-down menu or clicking on one of your CTAs.
Making your user seek out your prices by navigating through your website is sure to frustrate them and possibly cause them to bounce before they check out your offer in more detail. Make your pricing page available with a single click.
4. What Differentiates You From Your Competition?
Chances are there are other businesses out there that are offering a similar product or service to you. You’re competing with these businesses for the attention of your prospects and customers.
To stand out from the competition, you need to show what makes you different and uniquely positioned to solve your customer’s problems. You can achieve this through making your brand identity clear in your website design:
- About Page – let customers know your company values, history, and the story behind your brand.
- Team Members – show users who they will be working with if they choose to do business with your company.
- Web Eesign – create a unique design to your website that makes you easily identifiable from your competition.
5. Can I Navigate Your Website With Ease?
The average attention span of a shopper online is tiny. If your website navigation is over complicated or laborious, your visitors won’t stick around for long.
Your navigation needs to be intuitive and straightforward, allowing users to quickly orientate themselves within seconds of landing on your page.
The goal for your web design is to provide a seamless experience for your users. Make it as easy as possible for people to explore your site without having to seek out the information they are looking for.
6. Who Else Do You Work With?
Social proof is an excellent psychological technique to encourage visitors to place trust in your website and your business. Customers want to see some validation before they are willing to spend their hard-earned cash on a product or service. How to establish social proof:
- Incorporate the logos of some of your well-known clients.
- Testimonials showing your happy customers.
- Display customer reviews of your products.
- Endorsements from social media influencers.
7. Can I Trust You?
As Magicdust emphasises, “if people don’t trust you, they won’t buy from you”. Most people have a healthy scepticism of what they encounter online. You need to establish a level of trust from the moment a visitor lands on your page. If people detect a hint of doubt about your credibility they will leave.
A couple of interesting statistics are that almost 40% of visitors will leave a website if the web design is unattractive, and just over 40% of visitors won’t engage with a company website if they can’t see a phone number or contact information.
Trust is crucial.
How can you quickly gain the trust of website visitors?
- Include a physical company address.
- List your phone number.
- Include relevant industry qualifications and security badges.
- Provide a solid returns policy.
- Make sure your website is professional with a visually appealing web design.
8. How Can I Contact You?
A study by KoMarketing reveals that 51% of people feel detailed contact information is the most essential element that is often missing from company websites. Make sure your contact information is placed in a prominent area that requires minimal effort to find.
Everyone has experienced problems after buying a product, even if there is nothing wrong with the product itself. People want to feel reassured that they can quickly get in touch with you if they need more information or have a problem with their purchase.
If a customer sends you an email or fills in a contact form, be clear about when they can expect a response from you. If they have no idea whether it will be in a couple of hours or a couple of days, they’ll likely take their business elsewhere.
Make your contact information easy to find and keep customers well informed on when they can expect a response. The faster your answer, the better.
Conclusion
It’s vital to keep in mind the limited amount of time you have available to convince people to stick around and take a look at your products/services. Understanding and providing an answer to the questions that will be in the mind of your visitors is key to creating a positive first impression and encouraging them to stick around.
Being able to quickly communicate your value proposition and other vital information should inform your web design, content, and the overall functioning of your site. The benefits?
By pre-empting the questions your prospects need answering, you’ll see a higher user engagement, a reduced bounce rate, and a boost to your conversions.
