Your website is a more effective tool than ever in today's marketing landscape. Your website, like a 24-hour salesperson, can be your most valuable asset and the focus of your marketing efforts.
It's no secret that if you want to be a successful business, you must deliver an incredible experience for your consumers and clients - and that extends to just being providing exceptional customer service in person or over the phone. Because many of your clients will first see your organization online, you need to ensure that each component of your website also provides an excellent and fully optimized user experience (UX).
This blog article will demonstrate five ways to boost your website's user experience significantly. And don’t forget - if you’re ever unsure of how your website can do better, FlexDealer is here to help.
1. Make Your Navigation Simple and Concise
Often, an organization creates a website with an advanced interface and complex navigation. It may look cool and make sense to YOU, but you need to think about the experience of your customers. Will they intuitively know how to navigate your site?
Choosing a website navigation system with too many levels, facets and filters will frustrate your users. Worse, it makes you look as if you are not dependable, incapable of making a decision, or even incompetent.
Avoid wasting your visitors' time by creating a website with a simple and easy-to-use navigation system. With a few clicks, your consumers and clients should be able to find what they need quickly and easily - and don't forget about optimizing for a mobile experience in the process!
2. Create a Simple and Direct Call to Action
When visitors land on your website, you want them to take a specific action. Suppose you can get them to click a button or two, even better.
Think long and hard about what your website, and even each individual page, needs your visitors to do. That’s your CTA. Be clear about whether you want them to create an account, make a purchase, book an appointment, submit a request to be contacted, or otherwise. Your visitors should be able to understand what the action on each page is and be able to take that action easily.
In addition, without a strong CTA you'll lack clarity on which steps a visitor must follow to purchase or sign up. Think of your website not only from the visitor's perspective but also from the perspective of your organization. You will want to create an accessible website for your organization to maintain and update as you adapt to changes within your industry.
3. Make Live Chat Available
Live chat is an excellent tool for answering your customer's questions. According to LivePerson, 83% of survey participants said they would visit your website more frequently if you offer live chat. That’s huge!
You can use live chat to get your website visitors to do what you want them to do, whether they are signing up, making a purchase, or calling your sales team. Make sure your team is well-versed on good customer service, and has scripts and tools for effective live-chat communication with potential customers.
4. Upload High-Quality, Attractive Videos
Video is another critical component of online marketing. Now more than ever before, people rely on video to learn about a business or organization and gather information.
Video increases your reach and provides you with the opportunity to make an impression on the people who visit your website. You can literally show them exactly what you want them to see. No guessing, no barriers - just clear communication.
Because people lean more toward watching videos nowadays, your homepage should have a video introduction to your business and content. Remember to optimize your videos to appear in search results and on social media sites so you can reach as many people as possible. You can easily reuse your video content in blog posts and social media content as well.
5. Use Real Images, Not Stock Photos
The best way to avoid confusion and engage your site viewers is to replace stock photos with authentic images. While stock photos are easy to source, they are stereotypical and used so often that they trigger an adverse reaction. It can make your dealership look phony, and today’s shoppers are looking for real connections when they choose to spend money with one brand over another.
Unless you portray your business or provide the service with how a stock photo illustrates it, you should avoid using one. There are so many benefits for dealerships to stand out in the sea of “the same” by using real images of their showroom, staff, and service bays. The investment of having real photos will pay off in the long run, guaranteed.
Conclusion
A well-designed user experience results from a joint effort that optimizes your web experience and adds value for visitors and potential customers. By using the tips mentioned above as you design your website, you’ll have a more effective presence in the digital space and a leg up over your competition.
If building, optimizing, and constantly updating a website from scratch isn’t in your wheelhouse then you are in luck - because it’s certainly in ours!
FlexDealer offers the best web design services that can step up your site. We create online experiences that convert visitors into customers and brand champions using data-driven UI and UX frameworks. Not to mention we have over 100 years of combined experience among our team members working within the automotive industry, so we are primed and prepped to take your dealership website to the next level with our content, graphics, inventory management tech, paid ads, and so much more.
