Can you imagine how today’s TV viewers would react if, at midnight, all the cable television stations did a countdown and then went to static until 5AM the following day?
How about turning on your TV and finding everything in black-and-white?
Can you imagine having to stay at your desk for a phone call, because the cord won’t reach more than 12 or 18 inches?
Those were all very normal things in the not-so-distant past, but they would be completely unacceptable by today’s standards.
Now imagine this: a website that is basically a digital brochure about your business and some pictures of products that may (or may not) be available in your store.
Yes, you guessed it. That’s completely unacceptable by today’s standards too.
Websites have come very far, very fast. People who use the internet (i.e., almost everyone) have learned to expect websites to do more than just show pictures and share information that could have been shared in a newsletter or (gasp!) printed flyer. Today, people expect your website to be interactive, engaging, entertaining, and worth their time.
How To Improve Your Website
How can you do that? Well, here are some suggestions.
- Be Available! Don’t limit your contact details to one “Contact” or “About” page. Put your contact details on every single page in the footer, and make it easy for people to call, email, and message you.
- Be Social. Integrate your various social media channels into your website and encourage your visitors to join in the conversation.
- Be Accessible. Provide a complete, searchable catalog of your products, including pricing and variations.
- Be Flexible. Make your products searchable and filterable by a variety of parameters, including price, color, metal, gemstone, style, and any other filters you can think of that relate to your brand, products, and designs.
- Be Open. Ask for feedback and reviews, allow people to comment and vote on your products, and solicit ideas and suggestions from your website visitors.
- Be Informative. You’re the expert in your business space. Share your specialized knowledge with visitors through blogs, static pages, white papers, and FAQs. Even better, offer a live Q&A feature that encourages visitors to ask their questions and get an answer . . . fast!
- Be Innovative. Always be on the lookout for new ways to inspire your visitors. Keep your inspirations relevant to your brand and products, and you’ll maintain the focus where it needs to be – on selling more of what you have to offer.
- Be Fun. Gamify your site to add relevant entertainment. Think gemstone quizzes, style polls, design-it-yourself tools, contests, collection-building, and wishlists.
Not All At Once
You don’t have to introduce all this fun at one time! Create a plan for how you will introduce new features to your website on a scheduled basis. Some ideas will work, and some won’t. Test, refine, replace, and keep experimenting. This is how to build an engaging website – a website that will grab your visitors’ attention and keep them coming back again and again.
If you have no idea where to start, VDB can help. Find out how you can you increase the interactivity on your site here.