Your website is the online face of your B2C business. While you might not be able to afford tens of thousands to design a site with all the bells and whistles, you can certainly add some features your visitors want. Some additions help drive sales and bring people back in the future.
There are more than 1.7 billion websites. Not all are business-related, but those numbers mean you’re competing against a vast amount of content. Grabbing user attention means you have to be at the top of your game.
Although the types of offerings that work best might vary by industry, there are some features that work well no matter what kind of company you run. Here are our top five choices for features every B2C business website should offer. We’ve also added a few examples of companies that have nailed their design.
1. Add Your Company Name and Logo
Adding your company name and logo to your website might seem like a no-brainer, but some business websites forget to place these vital elements in a noticeable way. At other times, they make the logo so small that it’s impossible to decipher. If your business website does anything, it should brand your name.
The Appraisal Group of West Michigan has the right idea with the way they highlight their name logo at the top of their home page. People expect a logo to be near the top of the page and to meet specific criteria, such as having a transparent background and a link to the home page.
Many of the other appraisal sites for the same area have poor design and don’t meet user expectations. There is no doubt about the type of work they do when you land on this website.
2. Offer Clear Calls to Action
Your calls to action (CTAs) are what move your customers from their initial stop on your page into the sales funnel. Consider the purpose of each page and how best to move the user forward. Then, create strong calls to action which accomplish your main goal for that point in the journey. If someone is further along in the journey, your page will have a different CTA than a browser who landed on your page two seconds ago.
3. Tap Into Augmented Reality
Technology is advancing rapidly. More and more companies today utilize virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to draw consumers in and offer experiences.
Since some items are impossible to try before you buy, AR allows users to see how that specific product works for them before investing a lot of money. You want your customers happy with the finished job or product, and customers don’t want to waste money on something they later hate. Utilizing AR is a win-win for you both.
A-All Style Garage Door utilizes the Clopay Door Imagination System. You plug in an image of your home and then try different garage door styles until you find the one that looks best on your home. If you sell larger items or something requiring installation, this type of feature allows customers to visualize the investment they’re about to make and gives them peace of mind from knowing they’ll like the results.
4. Ramp Up Your Search Quality
Forrester’s 2020 Digital Customer Experience Playbook points out that consumers are looking for ease and effectiveness in the way brands interact with them. Some earlier studies suggest searches performed on a website result in a higher conversion rate than general search engine seekers. What if you could use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve search capabilities even more? What would this look like?
Search results are notoriously difficult to predict. The user plugs in “blue dress for a wedding” and gets results for shoes and handbags. However, machines are now able to better understand natural language patterns and return results that are closer to what the person wants.
Another idea is adding a chatbot to your site or even live agents. If the person searches for that blue dress, the system can trigger a chat scenario, offering help locating the exact item the shopper wants.
5. Include Relevant Images
In a recent survey of internet users between 18 and 34 years old, researchers found that about 62% of people hadn’t used visual search for retail shopping but were interested in doing so. Not only should e-commerce companies include visuals of the products they offer for visual searches via the shopping tab in browsers, but also implement highly relevant images throughout the design.
Gone are the days where stock photos work for every scenario. Now, people want authentic pictures that show off your product, your headquarters or even your employees. Look for ways to incorporate real visuals no one else has throughout your website.
Check out Websocks’ use of images to highlight their socks. First, they use shots of models wearing their socks in everyday situations for the hero photos above the fold. Scroll down just a bit and you see socks to represent each category. The visuals are of their socks and highlight the design. Finally, on each product is a large picture of the footwear and a clear image of each color or design available.
Choosing the Right Features
There are dozens of different features you should ensure your B2C website offers to site visitors. These are just a few of the more critical elements that draw consumers in. The best way of creating a site to engage users is consistently adding new items, taking away what isn’t working and then tracking the results. With time and attention, your website should create more conversions than ever before.
