October 2020: New Facebook Content Standards

Take advantage of what your customers want in a website

As entrepreneurs and small business owners, we are proud of our self-made success, and we should be! It takes a lot of determination and guts to get to where we are.

But entrepreneurs and small business owners often think also objectively when it comes to your website.

Here are three ways they miss the mark:

1. They feel they just need to share what they do or provide or data about why they are qualified.

2. They focus on the specifications of the product or service, not how it can improve the lives of their customers.

3. They get lost in the humble, or not-so-humble, boasts about their achievements, state-of-the-art facilities, high-tech, or highly educated team. When that happens, the story of how they connect with customers or why they are passionate about what they do is lost.

This is not at all what your customers want in a website, nor is it how people make decisions to buy or revisit your business.

I have three great ways to make your eCommerce site focused on your customers, not you:

1. Use empathy-based marketing.

Empathy-based marketing has become a hot topic since COVID-19 hit. It was around before then, but it really gained momentum in the last six months.

Basically, empathy-based marketing means thinking like your customers and putting yourself in their shoes. (Sounds similar to compassion, which is related to sympathy.)

Here’s an example: You have a retail store that caters to a wide range of age groups, and you notice that older people don’t come as often. You think as one of your clients. Perhaps you are tired, frail, or extremely anxious about COVID-19 because you are immunocompromised.

So, as an empathetic small business owner, you update your site content and create store signage for this segment of your audience. Between 8 and 9 am, your store will open only for people over 65 years of age. Everything will be sanitized, there will be free coffee, and staff will be on hand to help people shop.

Now here’s a real world example: When hundreds of Delta Airlines passengers had to sit for hours on the runways due to extreme weather, the airline ordered hundreds of pizzas.

Passengers were in a much better mood and I’m sure they were much more likely to use Delta again or give positive feedback thanks to the extra cheesy empathy.

2. Don’t create an eCommerce site for yourself.

Often when small business owners are building their eCommerce site, they focus on the design aspects they prefer.

Being a big fan of the color green or having a collection of images already purchased from a stock photo site are not good reasons to make them part of your eCommerce site.

It’s all about doing your research before building a website for your target market. It is important to do a deep analysis of things like:

• Your target audience. Are middle-aged, high-income empty nesters? Or tech-savvy moms short on time? You need to speak their language; show them you care and get to know them.
• The values ​​of your target market. For example, if a questionnaire you send out to your customers shows that most of them are very concerned about sustainability and the environment, images of happy people drinking out of disposable coffee cups could be a deterrent.
• Your competitors. You don’t want to copy a competitor’s site design into your space, you always want to be unique!

This is why I frown upon buying a pre-made theme. It has been used by hundreds if not thousands of other people and as a result your unique brand will not stand out. But doing some proper research can give you an idea of ​​the look that might appeal to your audience.

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READ: How to Improve Your Ecommerce Website

One of the main reasons why now is the best time to maintain an eCommerce site is that consumers are online more than ever.

Once forced to shop online due to COVID-19, many consumers will continue to shop online, now accustomed to the experience and convenience.

Since your target audience will be spending a lot of time online, I share some common problems that come up often and how to improve your ecommerce store.

Read more on our website.

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3. Keep everything simple.

We can get so caught up in giving our customers lots of choice or telling stories about our brand that we don’t even realize we’ve created total chaos!

Before you start posting content or products, it’s crucial to map your navigation. Adding multiple dropdowns or tabs on the fly, without a well thought out plan, is a recipe for disaster.

When you build a website for your target market, every image, content, and CTA should have a purpose.

Bold, succinct headlines will grab attention, while long text will seem overwhelming. What customers want on a website is a clear path to a call to action that gently guides them, not randomly placed buttons.

And don’t be afraid of blank spaces! Clean areas of white space will work wonders on your site. White space makes your copy much more readable and creates a contrast to your other elements that visitors love.

By cleaning up the clutter and guiding people to your products or services through sensible navigation, you offer a much more enjoyable experience than hitting them with walls of text, multiple dropdown options, and confusing CTAs.

I hope this gives you a clearer idea of ​​what customers want in a website. By truly listening to your audience with an empathic ear, you can create a connection to your ecommerce site and products or services that will keep them coming back.

If it’s time to update your website so that it attracts the right people with the right message, hire a professional web development agency that understands how much psychology plays a role in great web design.

For the success of your business,

Suzanne