Articles

How To Leverage Social Proof Successfully

,

Customer reviews are incredibly valuable to your company. Around 95% of customers say they read reviews before they make a purchase. Another 72% say that they won’t even consider buying your items until they’ve read the reviews associated with your business or product. 

No matter how good your marketing and promotion strategies might be, your audience will always turn to other customers for a credible insight into what buying from your brand is really like. That’s why it’s so important to leverage as much social proof as you can.

Unfortunately, gathering reviews and displaying them correctly on your website can be challenging.

In this article, we’re going to look at what you can do to make your reviews stand out when you’re ready to display them online. 

The Different Kinds of Review

Before we get into looking at all the different ways you can effectively display your reviews on your website, let’s get the basics out of the way. 

There’s more than one type of review. Some are simply comments left on the bottom of your product pages by customers that were impressed by whatever you sold. Other reviews are available in the form of videos or badges. When you want your website to look as credible as possible, the best thing you can do is decide which types of reviews will have the most impact. 

Ideally, you’ll want a combination of different review types to add depth to your site. Putting various kinds of reviews on your website increases your credibility while also boosting your SEO. 

Here are your main options:

The Testimonial

Testimonials are one of the most common types of review. Essentially, these are the messages shared by your customers that highlight the things they liked and didn’t like about your product. Testimonials often include a picture of the person leaving the message, and their name, to give them a greater sense of authenticity. You might also include a link to a website or case study with a testimonial to give it more depth. 

Most testimonials go at the bottom of pages. You can showcase these reviews on your home page to start generating credibility as soon as someone interacts with your brand. Alternatively, you could allow users to place their reviews on product pages. Here’s an example of what a testimonial might look like from ducttapemarketing.com:

Review Badges and Widgets

If your customers tend to leave reviews about your company on other sites, like Angie’s List or Yelp, then you can add a widget or badge to your website that makes it easier for other customers to find them. Sometimes, you’ll just include a small button on the bottom of a website pay that says, “find us on Yelp.” Other times, you can add your star rating too.

Some review sites will also give you the option to showcase the actual reviews in a widget that frequently updates with new messages. 

If you’re only showing reviews from one third-party site on your website, it’s best to focus on Google reviews, as it’s one of the most recognizable options. 

Provided that you’re using them correctly, badges and review widgets shouldn’t slow your website down too much, and many can be customized to suit the style of your site too. However, it’s essential to ensure that you don’t add too many widgets to your site if you want to avoid performance issues. 

Case Studies

Case studies go beyond the basics of the standard review and provide potential leads with a tremendous amount of information about how you’ve previously interacted with other companies. With a case study, you’ll often create a structured document that demonstrates a customer’s problem and your strategies to overcome those issues. 

Case studies often exist on their own pages, so you can go in-depth with sharing valuable information. For example, you’ll include an overview that introduces the customer you worked with and details on the outcomes you achieved together. 

Although it’s much harder to interview customers for complete case studies and get all the statistics and numbers that make these reviews appealing, it’s often worth the effort. Particularly if you’re running a B2B company, case studies demonstrate the effort you go through to support your customers. They also act as proof of your success and set valuable expectations for customers. Here’s an example of a case study page by Fabrikbrands.com:

The Rating

If you’re just posting basic five-star ratings on your website or asking your customers to give you a number between one and ten for how positively they’d rate your service, then you can use a few handy automation tools to create one of these visuals. 

All you need to do is add a little basic CSS to your website or use a star rating widget that automatically calculates your average score based on all of the reviews that you collect from customers. 

Just make sure that your star ratings are positive not just on your website but on other review sites too. For instance, if you give yourself five stars by adjusting the CSS and then get three stars from Yell, customers will begin questioning your authenticity. 

Notably, while star ratings grab customer attention, they are a little basic if you’re trying to convert people and convince them to buy an expensive product. Most customers will often need more information than a basic star rating can provide. 

How to Display Reviews on Your Website

Now that you know what kind of reviews customers can leave about your product or brand, you can start exploring ways to display them on your website. 

You could decide to let your reviews show up on other third-party sites and leave it at that. For instance, if you’re a hotel manager, you may know that your customers are already leaving reviews on Booking.com and TripAdvisor. However, leaving your audience to seek your reviews out for themselves means that they spend less time where you want them – on your website. 

There’s also a risk that failing to add reviews to your site will make you look less credible. If you don’t own your rating or score, customers might wonder what you have to hide. 

Fortunately, we’ve got some great options to help you get started.

1. Create a Testimonials Page

The first and perhaps most accessible option for showcasing your reviews and testimonials is to design a page where your customers can easily find all the information they need about your brand. Having a dedicated testimonials page can be a great way to demonstrate transparency as a brand and show your customers that you’re not hiding anything. 

You could even add a form at the bottom of your testimonials page that allows other customers to leave their reviews and information. Just make sure that you have a CAPTCHA or another security measure in place to prevent people from spamming your site. 

It makes sense to showcase some of your most positive reviews at the top of your page, so your customers see those first. However, it could also be a good idea to showcase some negative reviews alongside them. That’s because customers generally expect to see at least some negativity associated with your brand. If all your reviews are positive, they might assume that you’re hiding something.

When displaying your negative reviews, make sure you also show that you’ve responded to them and are working hard to address any issues. You can even publish the “thank you” you get from an unhappy customer after rectifying the problem. 

2. Show Reviews in Your Website Header

The great thing about using reviews and testimonials on your website is that if you have a little coding knowledge and the correct information, you can display them wherever you choose. Most companies leave the reviews at the bottom of the website, but this could mean you’re missing out on an excellent opportunity to connect with your audience as soon as they visit you. 

Having a positive review highlighted at the top of your page could immediately boost your credibility and give your audience a reason to keep reading. Remember that a picture of the person sharing the review and their name can make them look a lot more credible when you’re trying to build trust. 

3. Add Some Reviews to Your About Us Page

It’s best not to hide your reviews somewhere your customers will have to search for them, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t scatter a few testimonials around other pages. A great way to give more credibility to your brand and your website is to create a sidebar on your “About Us” page or just showcase a handful of reviews underneath the description of your business. 

Suppose you don’t want to show customer testimonials on your About Us page. In that case, you could always show different kinds of reviews, like badges that show your certification with certain industry bodies or awards and recognition you’ve received.

Showing that you’re connected with major industry groups and that you’ve been recognized in your sector is a kind of review in itself. It indicates that other people have already assessed your business and see you in a positive light. 

Every review doesn’t necessarily have to come from your customers. Any business or person who can give more credibility to your business deserves some representation too!

4. Embed a Carousel on Your Site

As your business begins to grow, the number of regular reviews and testimonials you get from happy customers should start to skyrocket too. You might even get to a point where you’re not sure how to fit all the reviews you want to showcase onto the same page of your website. If you already have a dedicated “reviews” page where people can go to get more insights into your growing collection of social proof, try a carousel. 

Carousels are a great and dynamic way to showcase customer reviews while getting your audience more involved with your website. Give them a button they can click so that they can browse through a broader range of reviews after they’ve seen the ones that show up straight away on your carousel. It’s also worth including a link nearby the carousel widget that the user can click to visit your review page or your company’s page on a dedicated review website. 

If you want to go beyond putting carousels on your home page, remember that you can add them to your product pages and menus too. Online reviews impact around 67.7% of purchasing decisions, so it makes sense to put them somewhere your customers will see them when they’re figuring out whether or not they should hit the buy button. 

5. Add Reviews to Your Social Media Ads

Reviews can be an excellent way to add an extra spark to your advertisements elsewhere in the digital landscape. Telling your audience on Facebook that you have the best steaks in the country is great – but it’s not going to make a significant impact on most of them. That’s because every business claims to be the best. Most of your clients expect you to speak well of yourself. 

However, if you can combine an attractive image on social media with a quoted review from one of your happy customers, your ads will make more of an impact. You can include the quote from your customer in the text above your Facebook ad or create an image to display it instead.

Remember to add any hashtags and extra information that might make your ad more appealing and share it as often as you can with the right audience. Targeting your audience carefully towards people who are in the “consideration” stage of the buyer journey may help you to get more conversions. 

While customers usually scroll past dozens of social media ads every day, a genuine statement from a real person still shakes up the status quo and grabs attention. Include a button below the ad so your customer can learn more about the product the customer is talking about. 

6. Link to Reviews in Email Signatures

Finally, social media ads aren’t the only way to bring attention to your reviews outside of your website. If you want to get more external customers to go and check out your products or rediscover what your business is all about, you can add review links to your email signature too. These links can go directly to the case study or review pages on your website, reminding customers what it is that makes your service or product special. Alternatively, you can get dedicated signatures for your email that link to specific review sites too. 

Showing your clients how many ratings you have on Yelp or how many stars your products have earned with Google Reviews gives every message you send a lot more credibility. Most email marketing software solutions make it relatively easy to add information like this to the footer of your email.

Remember, your signature shouldn’t take up too much space in your email, so don’t add any specific reviews from customers. A star rating and a link back to a page where consumers can get more information will spruce up your content without weighing down your emails. 

Show Off Your Social Proof

Successfully collecting positive reviews that show your prospects how much customers love your company can be challenging enough. However, that’s just the first piece of the puzzle. Once you’ve got all those great reviews, you also need to show them off in the most effective way. From dedicated pages on your website to scrolling carousels and Facebook ads, there are a million ways to prove your credibility to your customers with testimonials.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

The post How To Leverage Social Proof Successfully first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

7 Simple Ways to Boost Your Website’s CX

,

Many markets are saturated with competition; it’s no surprise that customers are expecting top-of-the-line experiences. Businesses must keep up with these ever-changing demands to remain competitive and drive forward.

One way to ensure customers have positive experiences is to take a look at your website. Your website is like your digital headquarters, where customers can browse through products or services, have frequently asked questions answered, and be able to reach you if they need direct support.

Making a site user-friendly and customer-centric will assist businesses while they work to build a loyal customer base. Customer happiness is more important now than ever and has the potential to make or break your business. We all know that happier customers spend more, and delighted customers will always come back for more.

Let’s explore some ways you can level up the customer experience on your website to foster customer loyalty and retention, as well as garner brand advocates for your business.

How Important Is CX?

As a site manager, your goal should be to meet customers’ needs. Creating a website is no simple task but can transform CX (customer experience).

Suppose a customer visits your site only to see a buffering symbol or a lag on their desktop or mobile device. This wouldn’t make for a positive experience, would it?

When customers have to spend extra time navigating your website to find what they’re looking for, it can directly lead to site abandonment, where customers leave the site before browsing. It’s vital to consistently monitor your website metrics to see if abandonment rates impact your overall traffic.

Customers who have enjoyable experiences browsing through your site are more likely to appreciate your brand and strongly consider purchasing whatever offerings you have.

Additionally, positive customer reviews can help your business gain new customers — word-of-mouth marketing is still relevant in 2021’s digital marketing landscape. Earning those 5-star reviews can help other potential customers see that they too could have a positive experience with your brand.

As you can see, CX is just as important as the products or services you offer, so keep that in mind as you set out on the journey to improve your website to advocate for your customer base.

Below, we’ll cover some of the most important elements and features of a strong business site so you can implement them.

Valuable Features to Include on Your Website

The features of your website are the foundation of your business. One of the best parts of building a killer website is that you can get as creative as you’d like with all of the features at your disposal.

Whether you use WordPress or another platform to host your website, you can always explore other paid services or offerings online to bring your site to the next level.

For example, the WooCommerce WordPress extension allows e-commerce sites to improve the overall appearance of their site, add customizations and, generally speaking, create a high-quality e-commerce store.

Below are some examples of elements you should consider incorporating into your web design. Offering these features will surely keep your site visible, relevant, and attractive to all types of customers.

1. Add Personalization

Every type of customer can benefit from a personalized experience, and it helps you turn them into loyal customers.

Personalization is becoming more prevalent in web design, whether it’s including past products they’ve viewed on your landing page or making it simple for them to log in to their account.

Maybe you allow your customers to create a wishlist, just as Amazon does. You could also make personalized deals or recommendations for your customers based on their past purchases or search history. When customers see this level of personalization, it may influence their purchasing decisions and make it simpler for them to order products.

2. Include Compelling and Unique Content

Every professional in the digital marketing space knows that content is king. The companies that include the most compelling content garner the most attention and increase the number of customers who make up their customer base. Here are some examples of what your content should look like:

  • Comprehensive
  • Useful
  • Accurate
  • Visually appealing
  • Helpful
  • A direct answer to a search engine query

By following these descriptions, your content will improve. Whether it’s a blog post or a photo or video, quality content is a driving factor in your user engagement. It helps to support your SEO strategy and will undoubtedly keep customers coming back.

3. Prioritize Speed and Usability

Because technology is an integral part of most people’s lives, customers expect to visit a fast, reliable website. No longer will customers wait patiently for a site to load. The dreaded buffering symbol is a clear indicator that your business is not taking customer experience into account.

It’s critical to create a website that loads quickly and is easy to use. Avoid organizing any tabs in a confusing way. Ensure that your website is visually attractive without overwhelming color schemes or photos that take up too much space.

Go for a more modern, contemporary look that’s easy on the eyes. Customers will appreciate this and will likely spend more time browsing your various website pages.

4. Focus on Navigation

Users should be able to access any page on your website with ease. They shouldn’t have to search for the right drop-down menu or type into the search bar unless they’re searching for a specific product or service.

The majority of users on a site, 70% to be exact, spend most of their time navigating freely without using the search bar. This should tell you how vital good navigation is to your business website. Placing menus on the top of your site is common practice — if you would rather place your drop-down menu somewhere else, make sure you’re putting it in a section where it’s easy to find.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. See what types of designs you can incorporate into your site to elevate UX and make browsing simple.

5. Make Sharing Simple

One of the best ways to grow your customer advocates is by leveraging your existing customers. Your customers should be able to easily send your product or service descriptions to their friends and family.

Rather than copying a link, include a share feature. If something on your site is worth sharing with other potential customers, make it easy for them to send it.

Social sharing plays a significant role in digital marketing — it helps to garner organic traffic to your website. You can reach a larger number of people than originally intended, which is the most important benefit to reap by making it easy to share links from your site.

6. Incorporate Chatbots

Offering customer support by using chatbots is something major companies are incorporating into their website designs.

Suppose your customer is trying to complete a purchase but runs into a problem with a coupon they’d like to use. Rather than wait on hold on the phone or for an email in their inbox a few days later, an automated chatbot can step in and assist them.

Chatbots are on the rise, and it’ll be critical for your business to include them on your site. Proactive web actions can increase your site’s conversion rates and improve the overall customer experience.

7. Allow Customer Feedback

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that allowing your customers to share their experience with your brand can help you better understand them and the solutions they’re looking for from you.

Did you know that brands with superior customer service can generate 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors? When you’re in touch with your audience, you’re better able to include features they want and need to have a positive experience. By taking advantage of customer feedback, you can make necessary changes to your site to better serve your customers.

Advocate for Your Customer Base

All of the examples listed above can help elevate your site and improve the overall experience for existing and potential customers. Isn’t that the goal of any business, regardless of industry?

To serve your customers effectively means they’ll feel valued and come back for more. Whether that’s ordering more products or requesting more services, you’ll see the benefits of including the elements we’ve covered in this post.

As a recap, here are some steps you can take to advocate for your loyal customers:

  1. Add personalization
  2. Include unique content
  3. Make your site fast and usable
  4. Provide easy navigation
  5. Allow for easy sharing
  6. Leverage chatbots
  7. Be open to feedback

Overall, customer experience will become more important in the future as customer expectations change. Standing out from your competitors is no longer an option but a necessity. So many markets are struggling to do just that — so if you’re able to offer unique features on your site, it could potentially draw more customers in and drive them to purchase.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source

The post 7 Simple Ways to Boost Your Website’s CX first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

6 Tips for Collecting Customer Feedback (The Right Way)

,

Feedback is one of the most valuable resources for any business. Informative messages from your customers can tell you a lot about your company. They’re a way to check that your service strategies are paying off and a chance to learn which parts of your product need an upgrade.

Reviews and testimonials can also help you better understand your audience and the kind of solutions they’re looking for with your brand. 

Solid feedback is also how you improve your chances of gaining more customers in the long term. Brands with superior customer service generate about 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors. 

Of course, before you can begin tackling challenges like pulling trends from feedback or using your reviews to upgrade your business, you have one essential task to consider: How are you going to collect the valuable information your customers have to share?

There are a lot of options to choose from. You can reach out to clients individually with email messages or set up a feedback form on your website. You could even consider working with a review site to give your audience more options. 

Today, we will look at the steps you can take to collect customer feedback the right way.

Unlocking the Benefits of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is the information and input shared by your community. It provides a behind-the-scenes view of people’s interactions with your team and shows you where you need to focus on beginning driving new opportunities. 

Customer feedback becomes a guiding compass for your organization when used correctly. It shows you what you’re getting right and wrong from your customer’s perspective. Positive feedback can even become part of your marketing campaigns. User-generated content in the form of reviews and testimonials makes for excellent tools to encourage new people to purchase your products. 

Case studies and in-depth reviews from your clients can also help generate trust among potential customers, so you’re more likely to earn crucial sales. 

Only around 3% of customers say that they find marketers and salespeople “trustworthy.” This means that no matter how good your marketing messages might be, you’re only going to be able to accomplish so much with the claims you make about your brand. Ultimately, your clients will turn to other customers like them to determine who they should buy from.

On average, buyers read around seven reviews before they’ll even consider trusting a business. 

The good news is that around two-thirds of customers will share their personal information with a brand. Clients are happy to provide feedback in the right circumstances. It’s your job to ensure that the process is as easy as possible for your customers.

So, how do you get customer reviews?

1. Design an Effective Feedback Survey

The most obvious way to encourage feedback from your customers is to ask for it. Unfortunately, designing a good customer survey isn’t always as simple as it seems. 

On the one hand, you’re keen to gather as much information as possible from your customer, which could mean that you want to ask many questions. On the other hand, asking too many questions could easily scare your audience away. 

To improve your audience’s chances of actually sharing information, keep the feedback requests as simple as possible.

One or two questions at a time should be enough to give you some helpful information about customer preferences and expectations. When choosing what to include in your survey, remember:

  • Only ask essential questions: If the answer to a question isn’t going to help you achieve your goals, don’t ask it. You don’t need to know someone’s age if you want to know if they had a good experience with your service reps. Keep it relevant. 
  • Make the questions thoughtful: Yes or no questions are great for collecting quick information. However, if you want more valuable feedback, leave your queries open-ended, and give customers room to explain themselves. 
  • Use rating scales: If your customer doesn’t have time to respond to a question in your survey with a complete answer, a rating scale can give you some helpful insights with minimal effort from the client. 

Ensure none of the questions on your survey are leading or loaded. Customers don’t want to feel like you’re answering questions for them. It might also be worth showing your audience how much you value their data with a quick response. Hilton Hotels always responds to any adverse reactions to surveys within days of receiving the information. 

Customers can even see how their reviews contribute to the overall rating of the business. 

2. Master Your Emails and Customer Contact Forms

Email is one of the easiest and most effective ways to gather customer feedback. Because this is a standard support channel for most businesses, there are plenty of opportunities to generate feedback. 

The first step in using emails for feedback is to send a message thanking your customer for their recent interaction with you. If someone purchased a product from your company, immediately follow up to let them know you appreciate their custom. A couple of days after, when your customer has had a chance to use your product or service, that’s when you follow up with your feedback request. 

Ideally, your email request should be as short and straightforward as possible, with a clear call to action that tells your customer what to do next. This example from Papier keeps things as detailed as possible.

If you want to boost your chances of engagement, you can add elements to your email that might encourage a positive response, for instance:

  • Remind them of what they bought: Remind your customer of the item they purchased with a picture and a bit of information. Highlight the key features and benefits of that product, so they have some inspiration on what to write about in their review. 
  • Offer them a reward: If you want to boost your chances of your customers doing something for you, you need to offer something in return. This could be a discount on their next order, a chance of winning something, or even just free shipping on their next purchase. 
  • Personalize the message: Make your customer feel special by personalizing the message. Use their name and reference their previous interactions with your company. If they’ve been with your business for a while, mention that in the email.  

Remember, many of your customers are likely to check their emails on the go. That means that giving feedback should be as simple as possible, regardless of the tech your customer is using. For instance, in this Zomato example, users can choose to drop an email to the company or send feedback straight from the app. 

3. Create App Usability Tests

If you want some in-depth insights into your company, and your business processes, then a usability test could be the best way to generate valuable feedback. If you have your app, ask your customer to submit some information right there and then, after they’ve finished using the service. The great thing about this kind of input is it’s fresh.

Unlike other customer reviews that might come a day or two after your customer has used a product, usability tests allow you to get feedback at the moment. There’s a much better chance that you’re going to get some relevant and detailed responses here. 

For instance, in this Skype lab feedback request, customers can tick boxes for any video or audio issues they had and leave a starred review. 

If there’s extra information to share, the customer can tap on the comment box to elaborate. However, they don’t need to do this part unless they want to. 

With usability tests, it’s a good idea to focus on a few key things that you want to learn about. For instance, Skype’s example above demonstrates that the company wants to check at least five user experience issues for both video and audio. 

Giving your customers options that they can choose from reduces the amount of work they need to put into leaving a review. It also means that you can get actionable information on which parts of your app or site need the most improvement. 

You can get the same kind of instant feedback on your website, too, mainly if you’re using a live chat app for customer service. 

Live chat is quickly becoming an essential part of the customer experience environment because it’s fast, easy to use, and efficient. It’s also highly affordable for most companies, thanks to evolving technology. Set up your Live Chat app to immediately request a review from your customer when the interaction is over.

For instance, SiteGround asks customers to rate their service provider with a picture of the employee they spoke to. The image lets the customer see that they were talking to a real person, which improves the relationship with the company. The statement about feedback improving the customer service and support that SiteGround can offer shows the customer how valuable their reviews are. 

4. Conduct Customer Interviews

Conducting a customer interview is a lot like sending out a survey. The main difference is that you ask the client to engage in a much more in-depth conversation. Usually, these interviews will be the initial research required for a published case study on a B2B website. 

Reaching out to valuable and loyal customers can give you a fantastic source of in-depth information to learn from. You’ll need to make sure that you have a good relationship with the customer in question before you attempt this, however. Most one-time clients won’t want to get involved with a time-consuming interview. 

Look at your CRM technology and find out who your most impressive VIP customers are. Reach out to them with a request for feedback, and make sure you offer something in return. For instance, tell them that you’d like to interview for a case study that you can display on your website. If they’re happy for you to do this, you can reward them with a discount on their next purchase or some gifts. 

You could also follow up with a customer who recently contacted your team for an interview, like Ticket Arena does here. With this message, they promise the customer that their insights will make the customer experience better for future clients:

When requesting long-form qualitative feedback, remember to think through your questions carefully. In-depth stories from customers bring nuance and color to your quantitative data. They could even guide your business to making some crucial future decisions. 

When talking to your customers:

  • Start with an open-ended dialogue: Remember that open-ended questions are crucial to get as much detail as possible from your customers. These queries give your customers more flexibility to cover the details of their experiences.
  • Get more specific as you go: Start with simple questions, then build on them as your conversation evolves. Use the things you learn from your customers to dive into topics that are relevant to them. For instance, if a customer mentions your live chat app, go into a deeper discussion about the channels they prefer to use. 
  • Practice active listening: Make sure that you’re open and receptive to the information you’re given. Actively listen to customers, even if you’re not in the same room, by acknowledging what they say and providing valuable responses. 

5. Use Social Media

Sometimes, people are reluctant to give feedback for your business on your website because they’re not in the frame of mind. When customers come to your site, there’s a good chance they’re looking for information from you or want to check out a new product. 

They’re probably not in the right mood to start sharing their opinions. 

However, if you capture your customers on social media, there’s a good chance they’ll be feeling a lot more talkative. After all, social media platforms are where most customers discuss their issues with companies, talk about purchases with friends, and make their voices heard. 

Simply paying attention to when people talk about your company on social media can give you a lot of helpful feedback. Social listening tools allow you to collect post information every time someone mentions your business name or product. 

Alternatively, you can actively use the tools on social media to gather data from customers. For instance, Instagram has its own “poll” feature on Stories that allows companies to collect opinions. 

If you’re collecting feedback on social media, remember that you shouldn’t be asking any questions that are too complicated. Although people are more willing to share their opinions on social, they’re still looking for a relatively laid-back and casual experience.

Polls, where people can vote for their preferences with a single click, are more likely to garner engagement than a post asking people to tell you about the best purchasing experience they ever had with your brand. 

If you do want to encourage more in-depth feedback, the best option is to promise a reward in return for your follower’s effort. 

Make the experience fun by transforming it into a competition. 

For instance, ask your customers to share their favorite story involving your brand for a chance to win an impressive prize. You can ask each customer to tag their response with a branded hashtag so that relevant answers are easier to find. You could even add users to tag their friends in their posts too, to increase brand reach while you collect feedback:

With gifts and rewards to incentivize them, people will be much more likely to interact with your brand and put effort into the reviews they leave. You could even gather some user-generated content to put into your subsequent ad campaigns. 

6. Create a Dedicated Website Page

Finally, if you want to make it as simple as possible for people to leave feedback on your website and for you to collect all of that information into one space, then create a review page on your website. This can double up as social proof for people who need additional evidence to buy from your brand. 

A review page could be as simple as a page on your website listing the latest comments that your customers have left. You can include a form at the bottom of the page where people can add their thoughts. Just make sure that you carefully review these posts before they’re submitted to your website if you want to prevent spam from getting through. 

You could also create a case study or portfolio page that showcases the work you’ve done with other companies like Fabrik Brands does here:

At the bottom of each case study, give your customers a unique email address they can reach out to if they want to be featured as your following case study. Or include a contact form where people can get in touch to discuss their own experiences. 

Having a dedicated review, case study, or testimonial page on your website could be enough to inspire more feedback from your customers. It’s also a fantastic way to demonstrate how credible your company is to potential buyers. 

Still, Struggling? Take the Customer Out of the Equation

If, even with all the suggestions above, you still can’t seem to convince your audience to give you some decent feedback, then take them out of the equation. You can learn things about your audience without asking them for information. Google Analytics and other tools will give you valuable insights into which of your blog pages get the most engagement and how many people click on individual buttons throughout your site. 

These fundamental insights might not be as good as valuable, contextual feedback from your audience, but they’re an excellent way to start figuring out how to invest in your future growth. 

Remember, feedback of any kind – even if it’s just statistics and numbers – gives your business the ability to grow and make informed decisions.

Gather as much feedback as you can, and make sure you use it!

 

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

The post 6 Tips for Collecting Customer Feedback (The Right Way) first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

7 Landing Pages Comparisons To Improve Your Conversions in 2022

,

Landing pages are crucial for conversions. User-friendly landing pages rank higher in the search engines and generate the maximum leads.

Interestingly, user behavior changes every year, and new website design trends should be kept in mind to continue acquiring sales from your existing landing pages.

If your high-performing landing pages in 2019 have suddenly started underperforming in 2021, then it is a clear indication that your landing pages need a strategic revamp to record higher conversions.

Landing page revisions are necessary for reduced bounce rate, more visitor time on the page, and better user actions.

This article will discuss some of the top web design trends of 2021 that brands have adopted to revamp their landing page designs. You can learn from the trends and apply your own custom design intelligence to redesign your landing pages for 2022 and convert the maximum number of visitors.

Let’s begin…

Why Landing Page Design Is Crucial For Conversions

Landing pages are the first stop on your consumers’ online buying journey and the first chance to put an impression.

People on the internet are becoming less patient. It takes only about 50 milliseconds for a visitor to form an opinion about a brand and decide whether they want to stay or leave the website.

Convincing modern customers to buy products or fill up query forms on a landing page is not easy with traditional website elements.

In 2021, it is now harder to impress visitors landing on your website than in 2019. Keeping in mind the audience of 2021 and beyond, an ideal landing page should be user-friendly, engaging, innovative and should encourage users to take action.

Here are some of the top reasons why landing page design is so crucial for conversions:

  • You get barely 7 seconds to create a strong impression. It is a time span in which visitors roughly scan the page and make their decisions.
  • Publishing 40+ effective landing pages at regular intervals can generate 12X more leads.
  • The average conversion rate from the landing page across all industries is only 2.35%.
  • Using the right types of targeting and testing can boost landing page conversion rates by up to 300%.

Considering the above stats, it can be easily said that a landing page has to be impressive and quick enough to impact the visitors positively.

7 High Converting Landing Pages & Lessons You Can Learn From Each

Below are some of the best high-converting landing pages, which were just updated recently in 2021. For each page, we list a lesson you can learn to inspire your next design revision in 2021 and ahead:

Example #1 – Replace Boring Customer Info Forms With An Interactive Quiz

Landing Page: Nextiva’s Unified Communications Readiness Quiz Landing Page

Industry: Voice Over IP software

Conversion Measured By: Leads fill out a form if they are interested

Redesign focus: Improve the quantity and quality of leads

Solution: Substitute online form with an interactive quiz

In 2019 and even 2020, many businesses were practicing the trend of including a customer form on their landing pages as a call to action to initiate a quick customer action.

The customer information form was useful for businesses because it helped them generate quick leads. However, at the same time, there was no real reason pushing the customer to fill in the lead forms especially if it consisted of more than 2-3 fields.

Nextiva used its creativity to replace boring lead forms with interactive quizzes. In its 2021 page design, the company added a quiz for visitors to participate in.

The aim is to have interactive pages to keep visitors engaged and persuade them to stay on the page.

Here are the comparisons of both the designs:

2019

2021

Key Takeaways:

  • The 2021 landing page now has a free Unified Communications Readiness Quiz that allows business owners to fill the form interactively. Adding a quiz with the number of pages mentioned at the top tells the user how many steps are left to complete the quiz, making their waiting time easier.
  • The background image is replaced with communication icons to simplify the message of the kind of services they offer.
  • The page looks neater and appears to be easier to scan at a glance.

Example #2 – Emphasize Strong Visuals and Copy that Stresses on Product Details

Landing Page: Western Rise Homepage Variation

Industry: Ecommerce

Conversion Measured By: Apparel purchase

Major redesign focus: Improve the number of leads

Solution: Improve the copy and visuals

Western Rise, a clothing eCommerce company, realized the importance of having impressive images and detailed product information on its landing page.

The 2021 page replaced ordinary product images with strong visuals of the models wearing Western Rise clothing. Also, the product image includes extensive product details, which were missing on the older page.

Here is a clear comparison of the 2019 vs. 2021 landing pages of Western Rise:

2019

2021

Key Takeaways:

  • The new landing page has a powerful headline – Performance Clothing for Travel, Work, and Play. In just a couple of words, the brand tells everything about itself. ‘Performance Clothing’ is their unique selling proposition (USP) that tells the customers that their product is durable. Besides, the caption ‘Travel, Work, and Play’ tells what the product is about. Modern customers like products that fulfill a particular need, and Western Rise made it easier for the users to realize the importance of their products which fulfilled their specific needs.
  • The bold visuals in the new page capture contemporary shots of the models that put a strong impression on the audience. Every image is clicked mindfully to explain the style and quality of the Western Rise clothing line.
  • The products displayed on the new page include every minor detail and feature that often other clothing brands ignore, such as the specialty of the product, occasions to wear, and weight other than colors, fabric, fitting, etc.

Example #3 – Use Strong Social Proof To Increase Conversions

Page: Aura Save 50% Landing Page

Industry: Identity Theft Software

Conversion Measured By: Online registration or an inbound call

Major redesign focus: Improve the number of signups

Solution: Add strong social proof

It is a known fact that social proof on sales pages is essential for increased conversions. But in 2021, the importance of social proof has gone too far.

Aura is an identity theft protection service that aims to build trust with its prospective customers when they first browse their landing page. Take a look at how Aura displays customer reviews above the fold to catch user’s attention.

Unlike others, Aura combined the rating stars and the review to prove customer satisfaction and emphasize their expertise in the field.

BONUS:

Another example of using strong social proof is the Exploding Topics newsletter landing page.

Exploding Topics is a newsletter with a pro subscription for content marketers and anyone interested in trending topics about any topic. It’s an excellent example that uses a lot of social proof on landing pages that give something away for free, like a weekly newsletter or an eBook.

If you could notice, the latest landing page below has multiple forms of social proof on a single page. First, they feature a list of brands that trust Exploding Topics. Secondly, they quote Wired Magazine founder Kevin Kelly’s feedback, followed by the logos and tweets praising the newsletter.

Key Takeaways:

  • Exploding Topics uses several different types of social proof that appeal to different demographics.
  • Their “trusted by” logos of world-renowned companies stand out to potential B2B subscribers.
  • Kevin Kelly’s quote is catching the attention of tech-savvy readers.
  • Despite packing the page with social proof, the opt-in form is still well above the fold. It is the best landing page practice that applies to nearly all pages.
  • The landing page uses actually embedded tweets (not screenshots), which help demonstrate that the tweets are legit.

While Exploding Topics have smartly used social proof on its page, the ideas of leveraging social proof are not limited to this only.

Example #4 – Focus On Visually Appealing Above the Fold Content

Landing Page: Perfect Keto Homepage Variation

Industry: Supplements

Conversion Measured By: Online purchase

Major redesign focus: Improve the number of purchases

Solution: Improve Above The Fold Content

Above the fold content greatly impacts customer’s decision-making. Perfect Keto lacked that appeal on its 2019 landing page design.

Hence, the 2021 design was revamped with better visuals and more professional looks.

The 2021 page received major changes in above-the-fold content, such as the top menu bar with the brand name not losing the user’s attention anymore and an additional menu bar giving a quick overview of what the brand offers.

The older page did have many social proofs, but those were limited to customers only. The 2021 design also highlighted the publications where the brand appeared, which proved exceptional in building customer trust.

Take a look at the two landing pages of Perfect Keto in 2019 and 2021:

2019

2021

Key Takeaways:

  • The 2021 landing page heading is more compelling because it clearly conveys what their product is all about. The older page was missing the actual purpose of the product.
  • An additional section on the new page to educate customers about the Keto diet and how to start it helps visitors understand the product even better.
  • The inclusion of a product image above the fold attracts user attention and makes the product trustworthy. People now know what they will be buying right at first sight of the page.
  • The new page proudly displays the products featured in the publications, such as Women’s Health, Healthline, Reader’s Digest, and Popsugar, which again helped customers trust the brand.
  • The page also features a video of the Perfect Keto founder that is brilliantly working in gaining visitor’s attention and faith.

Example #5 – Make The Call to Action More Compelling

Landing Page: Zendesk HelpDesk Softwage Landing Page

Industry: SaaS

Conversion Measured By: Online registration

Major redesign focus: Improve the number of registrations through the website

Solution: Make The CTA More Compelling

Zendesk did a clever job by replacing the sign-up form with a single button. On the older page, it was unclear to the user if the company has a trial option for free unless they move to linked pages. Such confusions often resulted in traffic bounces.

Adding the start free trial button on the 2021 page makes it easier for the users to understand that the product comes with a free trial. At the time, it helps the user take quick action.

Similarly, the ‘Get started’ button at the top was replaced with ‘Free trial’ with the same intention.

Moreover, chat support was added to guide users at any stage of the buyer journey. Live chats are vital to help visitors better understand the product and move a step ahead in the customer journey.

Take a look at below two images:

2019

2021

Key Takeaways

  • The CTA buttons have more actionable text and look more prominent.
  • The color choice for the button is in contrast with the background but matches the page theme.
  • The older page missed sales support, which is included in the new page for a better customer experience.
  • The tabs in the menu bar were reduced to four to make the page simple to use for users.

Example #6 – Use Contrast To Highlight Specific Copy On The Page

Landing Page: GetResponse Website Building Landing Page

Industry: Online Software

Conversion Measured By: Online signup

Major redesign focus: Improve the number of signups

Solution: Use contrast around important copy on the page

GetResponse focuses on attracting visitors’ attention towards the offerings from their business. Starting from above the fold section, the landing page highlights the texts that are important and need the visitors’ attention.

The infographic on the landing page is the next thing that promises to grab user attention while beautifully describing how this website builder works and is useful to the user.

Key Takeaways:

  • The text highlighted on the landing page draws the user’s attention towards what the business has to offer or unique selling points.
  • The infographics briefly explain the working of the tool in an easy-to-understand manner.
  • The Yellow color is used prominently on the landing page to attract user attention and persuades users to try the tool by listing its advantages.

Summary

Landing pages provide the first opportunity to create an impression in the minds of the consumers. A well-structured and mindfully designed page sets the right tone for your brand message and encourages users to choose your business.

However, the strategy for landing pages needs innovations from time to time for better results. The examples and tips shared above prove how landing pages in 2019 have seen significant improvement in 2021.

In the coming year, use these ideas to create landing pages that influence customer decisions and encourage them to take quick actions.

Source

The post 7 Landing Pages Comparisons To Improve Your Conversions in 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

17 Things You Can Do To Improve Your SEO Ranking In 2021

, ,

There’s no shortcut to success when it comes to Google search results. That is unless you count pay-per-click advertising.

While pay-to-play will shoot your site to the top of the SERP immediately, it’s not a sustainable strategy for maintaining your position there. So, you’re going to have to get serious about SEO.

This guide will show you what to do to improve your SEO ranking and start seeing results this year:

  1. Use Google Analytics to track metrics
  2. Get an SSL certificate
  3. Improve mobile page speed
  4. Design a mobile-first UI
  5. Make your site accessible
  6. Optimize your images
  7. Create great content
  8. Structure your content for scannability and readability
  9. Create click-worthy title tags and meta descriptions
  10. Choose one focus keyword per page
  11. Improve your internal link strategy
  12. Use only trustworthy external links
  13. Get your site listed as a featured snippet
  14. Get high-quality backlinks
  15. Create a Google My Business page
  16. Refresh Your Content
  17. Regularly monitor Google Search Console

How to Increase Your Website’s SEO Ranking

If you can improve your SEO ranking — and get your pages closer to, if not on the highly coveted top SERP — you will:

  • Boost your site’s overall visibility as its authority in search grows;
  • Bring high-quality traffic to your pages;
  • Drive-up your conversion rate.

That said, search engine optimization is most effective when it’s an ongoing strategy as opposed to something you set up and forget about. So, some of the suggestions below will only need to be implemented once, while others you’ll have to return to every six months or so to make sure your site is on track.

Let’s get started.

1. Use Google Analytics to Track Metrics

If you haven’t yet begun tracking your website’s activity with Google Analytics, it’s the very first thing you need to do.

While Google Analytics alone can’t tell you how well or poorly your website ranks, there’s valuable data in there about what happens to the traffic that arrives from Google. Or any search engine your visitors use.

You can find this information under Acquisition > Source/Medium:

What you want to see here is that (1) you’re getting lots of visitors from organic search results (as opposed to paid) and (2) that they’re highly engaged. So, that means:

  • Longer times on site;
  • Multiple pages visited;
  • Lower bounce rates.

And if you configure Google Analytics to track different conversions on your site, you can see how well those organic visits convert.

Obviously, there’s a lot more you can track here. But you must understand if your SEO efforts are working in the first place, and that’s where you’ll get your confirmation.

2. Get an SSL Certificate

HTTPS has long been one of Google’s SEO ranking factors. Yet, of the two billion-plus websites that are online today, BuiltWith data shows that only 155 million have an SSL certificate installed:

Security and privacy are major concerns for consumers. So if you want to increase their confidence in your website, installing an SSL certificate is an easy thing to do. And it’ll put you in Google’s good graces, too.

If you don’t have one already, get one for free from Zero SSL.

3. Improve Mobile Page Speeds

Mobile loading speeds became a Google ranking signal in July 2018.

It was something we saw coming ever since smartphones overtook the desktop as the primary device people used to access the Internet. Once it became a ranking factor, though, mobile page speed was something we could no longer treat as a “nice to have.” It became a must.

And with Google’s most recent Core Web Vitals algorithm update, there’s no ignoring how big of a role your site’s mobile loading speeds (i.e., performance) play in ranking it.

To ensure that your site meets Google’s expectations for speed, bookmark the Core Web Vitals tool. It’ll tell you how your site performs across all four of the major ranking categories.

You’ll find your speed-related issues at the bottom of the page, along with resources to help you resolve them.

Most of those tips will have to do with optimizing your code. However, there are other things you can do to make your site load quickly:

  • Use well-coded themes and plugins;
  • Remove unused themes, plugins, media, pages, comments, backups, and so on from your database and server;
  • Install a caching plugin that’ll minify, compress, and otherwise make your site lightweight and fast.

It’s also not a bad idea to review your web hosting plan. You might not have the right amount of server power or resources to keep up with your existing activity.

4. Design a Mobile-First UI

On a related note, a mobile-first design can also improve your site’s loading speeds. Rebekah Carter wrote a really helpful guide on how to do this last year.

In addition to speeding things up — since you won’t be trying to jam a bunch of desktop-first design and content into a smartphone screen — it’s going to help your site rank better.

Just be careful when you do this. A mobile-first design doesn’t mean creating a scaled-back version of the larger site for smartphone users.

In fact, Google explicitly tells us not to do that and why:

“If it’s your intention that the mobile page should have less content than the desktop page, you can expect some traffic loss when your site is enabled mobile-first indexing, since Google can’t get as much information from your page as before.”

And if your response is that the content on desktop-only doesn’t matter, then it really shouldn’t be there. Don’t waste your visitors’ time with useless or repetitive content, as it’ll only give them more reason to abandon your site.

5. Make Your Site Accessible

Accessibility has come to the forefront of the SEO discussion thanks to Core Web Vitals.

Now, running your site through the tool will tell you if there are any inaccessibility issues that Google will ping you for. But that doesn’t make your site completely accessible.

Considering the rise in website accessibility-related lawsuits, you’ll want to take this seriously.

Because a bad experience due to inaccessibility won’t just cost you visitors and a lower search ranking, it’ll cost you a lot of money, too.

Here are some things you can do to ensure that your site and all its content is accessible.

6. Optimize Your Images

Technically, image optimization falls under the page speed tip. However, that’s not the only way you should be optimizing your images, which is why I wanted to address this separately.

According to HTTP Archive, the average weight of a mobile web page these days is 1917.5 KB. Images take up a sizable chunk of that weight:

Because of this, bloated image sizes are often to blame for slow pages.

You can do several things to optimize your images for speed, like using lightweight formats, resizing them, and compressing them. You’ll find 6 other image optimization tips here.

While those tips will help you speed up your site and, consequently, improve your SEO ranking, there’s something else you need to do:

Add alt text to your most important images.

One reason to do this is to improve accessibility. Another is so your web page can rank in both the regular Google search results and image results as this search for “WordPress by the numbers” does:

If you can write alt text that perfectly describes your graphic and matches the image searchers’ intent, you can create another ranking opportunity for your page.

7. Create Great Content

There are many technical ranking factors you have to pay attention to if you want to create a good experience for your visitors and rank well as a result. However, none of that will matter if your content sucks.

So, how do you make great content? It really depends.

Think about the difference between a page describing your web design services and a product page for a blender.

Your web design services page would need to:

  • Explain why hiring a web designer is a must;
  • What your design services entail;
  • What they can expect in terms of results;
  • Include some proof in the form of testimonials or portfolio samples;
  • Have information on next steps or how to get in touch.

That would be a comprehensive and useful page. If business owners searched for “hire a web designer near me” or “should I hire a web designer?”, that page would sufficiently answer their query.

A product page, however, would need to:

  • Provide a brief summary of the blender;
  • Show photos of the blender, different angles of it, as well as different variations of the product;
  • Display the price;
  • Allow customers to Add to Cart or Save for later;
  • Include technical specs of the blender;
  • Recommend related products;
  • Display sortable customer testimonials and ratings.

The last thing a shopper would want is to be directed to a product page that reads like one of your services pages.

So, great content not only needs to be well-written and error-free, but it needs to match the searcher’s intent and expectations. If you can do that, your visitors will stay as long as they need to read through everything, which will help strengthen the page’s ranking.

8. Structure Your Content for Scannability and Readability

Including necessary details and in the right format is an important part of making a page’s content valuable to the visitor. The structure is going to help, too.

For starters, you want to make sure every page is human-readable. So, that involves:

  • Shorter sentences and paragraphs;
  • Linkable table of contents for longer pages;
  • Header tags every few hundred words;
  • Descriptive and supportive imagery throughout;
  • Text callouts like blockquotes and bolded phrases.

By making a page less intimidating to read and easier to scan for a quick summary of what it is, you’ll find that more visitors are willing to read it and follow your calls to action.

You can use a tool like Hemingway to improve your page’s readability. Quickly pop the text of each page into the editor and follow the recommended suggestions:

You’re also going to have to think about how well Google’s indexing bots can read your page. They’re smart enough to pick up on cues but not smart enough to sit down and read your article on the benefits of Vitamin D or how to install a new showerhead.

So, you’ll need to use HTML meta tags as well as hierarchical header tags to tell the bots what the page is about.

If you’re building a WordPress site, you can use the Yoast SEO plugin to analyze how scannable and readable each page of your site is (among other things):

9. Create Click-Worthy Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

To get eyeballs on your really great content, the brief preview users see of it in search results needs to be able to lure them in. Get more clicks to your site from search, and Google will take notice.

But they can’t just be superficial clicks. If Google notices that your page is getting a ton of traffic that almost immediately drops off once they see the content on the page, your page will not fare well in search results.

So, your goal is to stay away from clickbait-y title tags and meta descriptions and make them click-worthy.

The first thing to focus on is the length. Google only gives you a certain amount of space to make your pitch.

There are many tools you can use for this, but I prefer Mangools’s SERP Simulator:

It allows you to play around with your URL, title tag, and meta description and to watch in real-time as it fits the allotted space. You can also compare it to the pages that currently rank for the keyword you’re going after, which can be a really useful reference point. After all, if those sites have made it to the first SERP, then they’re doing something right.

Another thing to think about when writing click-worthy titles is how engaging they are.

The tool I recommend for this is CoSchedule’s Headline Studio:

I don’t find this useful so much for basic web pages. You don’t need to get creative with something like your About or Contact pages. But for content marketing? If you want to beat out competing articles for attention in Google, this tool will be very useful.

10. Choose One Focus Keyword Per Page

It’s not as though you can add a keyword tag to your page, and Google will automatically rank your site for it. That’s not what keyword optimization is.

Instead, what you do is select one unique keyword per page and write the content around it. So, it’s really more about creating a clear focus for yourself and then comprehensively unpacking the subject matter on the page.

Keep in mind, though, that if you want to improve your chances of ranking for the keyword, it needs to be relevant to your brand, useful for your audience, and your site needs to actually be able to compete for it.

You can use the Google Keyword Planner to find keywords that fit those criteria:

Ultimately, you should choose a keyword that:

  • Has a decent amount of monthly searches — over 1,000 is what I aim for;
  • Have “Low” to “Medium” amount of competition, but the lower, the better;
  • Matches the user intent. So take that keyword, put it into Google and see what you find. Then, look at the sites on that first page of search results. Do they match what your own page will address? If so, then you’ve found a keyword that aligns with your users’ search intent.

Now, if you’re writing great content that addresses your visitors’ questions and concerns, then optimizing for your focus keywords will happen naturally. The same goes for related keywords you might want to target. As you write the content for each page, the keywords will organically appear.

But remember how I said Google’s indexing bots need certain HTML and header tags to “read” the content on the page? This means you’ll need to include the focus keyword in some of those areas, so there is no question about what the page is about.

Here’s where your focus keyword should show up:

  • Title tag (H1);
  • Meta description;
  • Slug (hyperlink);
  • Within the intro;
  • The first H2 header tag;
  • Alt text for the most important image on the page;
  • Within the conclusion.

It should also appear throughout the page, along with variations of the keyword that people might search for.

You can use the Yoast SEO plugin to analyze this as well.

11. Improve Your Internal Link Strategy

Okay, so here’s where we start to get into SEO strategies that Google might not directly care about, but that can still drastically improve how well your site ranks.

Internal links, in particular, are valuable because they create an interconnected structure for your site. Here’s a basic example of why that’s important:

Let’s say these are the pages on your website. Each of them can be accessed from the home page and main navigation. This structure tells us that each page is related to the overall message and mission of the company, but they are not related to one another. And that doesn’t make sense, right?

When you’re educating visitors on your Web Design services, it’s naturally going to come up that you also happen to specialize in WordPress and eCommerce design. So, those internal links should appear on your Web Design page. And vice versa.

In addition, your Portfolio and Contact Us pages are likely going to be the most common CTAs on the site. Your prospective clients shouldn’t be forced to backtrack to the homepage or scroll up to the navigation to take action. By including these internal links or buttons within the content of the services pages, you’re giving them a quick and direct line to the next steps.

The more intuitive you make the user journey, the easier it will be for them to convert.

This is one reason why websites with a strong internal linking structure perform well in search results. Another reason is that internal links help Google’s bots find all of the content on your site and better understand how they relate to one another.

12. Use Only Trustworthy External Links

Link juice is one of the reasons why business owners are obsessed with getting backlinks. We’ll get to that shortly.

But it’s also something that comes into play when choosing external links to include on your site.

Link juice is the idea that one site can pass its authority to another through a dofollow link. So, by linking out to authoritative and trustworthy sources, your site may raise its own clout with the search engines because of that connection.

However, it works both ways. If you create external links to websites with misinformation that pose a security threat to visitors or are otherwise untrustworthy, that bad reputation can do your website harm.

So, make sure that every external link you use is necessary and reliable. If not, get rid of it.

13. Get Your Site Listed As a Featured Snippet

I said earlier in this post that pay-per-click advertising is the only way to shortcut the SEO process and get on the first page of Google. That’s not entirely true.

We’ve already seen how optimizing your images for Google Images search can shoot your site to the top of results. Another way to get ahead is by optimizing your page using structured data to land a spot as a featured snippet.

Like this page from Bankrate that answers the question “how do you get a loan”:

Remember that structured data alone won’t instantly move your web page into the featured snippet space. The content needs to be the best it can be, and the structured data needs to be well written.

Schema.org was created to help you pick the right category and write the structured data for it:

Use this to write up the relevant microdata for the pages to make the most sense to do so. For instance, an About page probably wouldn’t benefit from having structured data attached to it. However, a lengthy blog post that explains a step-by-step process would.

There are WordPress plugins (Yoast is one of them) that will help you insert this code into your pages if you prefer.

14. Get High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks pointing to your website are a huge indicator to Google that your site is share-worthy and authoritative.

However, like everything else in SEO, you can’t cheat your way into a bunch of backlinks. They need to come from authoritative sources, and they need to be relevant. That’s why paying or bartering for backlinks isn’t usually effective. If your web page’s backlink doesn’t organically fit within the content on their site, visitors aren’t going to click on it.

There are lots of ways to go about building up a repository of backlinks that do generate authority for you and improve your SEO ranking in the process:

Get active on social media and become an authority there: The rule is generally that 80% of your posts need to be non-promotional. By sharing content from all kinds of sources that are relevant to your audience, you’re going to get more meaningful engagement. And this’ll eventually put the spotlight on your own content and get people to share it on social media, too.

This is something that Google will look at when ranking your site: What sort of social signals are coming from your brand?

Get featured as an expert: You don’t need to become an influencer for people to view you as an expert in your field. It’s all about your reputation.

By leveraging your reputation to get speaking gigs, you’ll grow your authority even more. Just make sure they’re relevant to what you do. So, look for podcasts, webinars, and conferences in your field that are looking for experts.

Become a guest blogger: If public speaking isn’t your forte, that’s okay. Turn your attention instead to lining up guest blogging gigs.

By writing high-quality content for authoritative websites (whether you get paid or not), you’ll bring more attention to your own brand. And Google will pass that authority onto your site.

15. Create a Google My Business Page

Any business can create a Google My Business page. There are a number of SEO-related benefits to doing this.

The first is that local businesses can literally put themselves on the map with Google My Business. Here’s what a Google search for “restaurants near me” looks like:

Even if your site doesn’t appear on the first SERP, the map that sits at the top of search results can give you a front seat anyway.

Another reason to create a My Business page is that you get to control your knowledge graph sidebar, like Ford’s Garage does here:

By including high-quality graphics, pertinent details about the business, and collecting positive customer reviews, this knowledge graph could do your brand’s reputation a lot of good in the eyes of Google and your prospects.

16. Refresh Your Content

This is useful for all of the content on your site, even your most high-performing pages.

If your site is starting to gain traction, take a close look at your Google Analytics data. You may find a few pages that no one seems to be paying attention to or, worse, that they always seem to bounce from.

In Google Analytics, go to Behavior > Site Content to figure out which pages are underperforming.

Then, ask yourself:

  1. Is this page even a necessary part of the user journey? If not, you can probably scrap it and have one less distraction on your site.
  2. If this page is necessary, what do you need to do to make it more valuable and relevant to your audience?

With the most popular pages on your site, it’s not unreasonable to expect that at least part of what you originally wrote will go stale or become irrelevant within a year or two. So, it’s a good idea to refresh these as well.

To do that, it’s simple. Do a search in Google for your focus keyword. Read through the top five results and see what sort of information your post is missing. Then update it accordingly.

Anything outdated or irrelevant should also be stripped out.

17. Regularly Monitor Google Search Console

Last but not least, you should keep your eyes on Google Search Console.

There’s a lot of valuable information in here that will tell you why your site might not be ranking as well as it could. You’ll find issues related to:

  • Indexing
  • Mobile usability
  • Security
  • Core Web Vitals

You’ll also find data on how well your site is ranking in general. You’ll find this under the Performance tab:

Use this to identify:

  • Which keywords you’re ranking for and are driving traffic to your site;
  • Which keywords you’re getting the most impressions from but not getting clicks from;
  • Which keywords you’re getting the most clicks from but not a lot of impressions;
  • Which keywords you rank low for and could stand to improve upon.

You can learn a lot about how strong your SEO strategy is. Just use the Clicks, Impressions, and Position tabs to sort your data so you can better understand what’s going on.

Then, prioritize fixing the pages that can and should be bringing your site highly qualified traffic but aren’t.

Wrap-Up

If you’re wondering how long it’ll take before you see an improvement in your SEO ranking, it depends. If your domain’s current authority is low, it can realistically take about six months to see major changes. That said, if you implement all of the suggestions above, you can certainly expedite that.

Just remember that there are no real shortcuts in SEO. You need to have an authoritative and trustworthy website and brand before anything else. So, take the time to build your credibility online so that these SEO tactics can really work.

Source

The post 17 Things You Can Do To Improve Your SEO Ranking In 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

15 Psychology Principles Every Designer Should Know

,

So, really, you’re in the business of designing websites for your clients’ audiences.

But how do you ensure you get it right? You could take what your client tells you at face value, but that’s only going to scrape the surface of who their audience is.

What you need to do is figure out how consumers think and why they respond to websites the way they do. A lot of this is already explained to us by psychology principles.

Once you memorize them, you’ll be able to design user journeys that get visitors to respond exactly as you and your client want them to.

15 Psychology Principles to Use in Web Design

We as humans think certain ways, and your design should cater to those underlying thought processes and natural responses.

Below are 15 psychology principles that’ll help you design better, more intuitive digital experiences for your end-users:

1. Aesthetics-Usability Effect

The Aesthetics-Usability Effect suggests that people equate more attractive interfaces with more usable ones. In other words, a good, modern, responsive design should always be your starting point.

2. Color Psychology

Color psychology tells us about color’s influence over how something is perceived. With color so strongly tied to emotion, you can do a lot to affect how visitors perceive a website and the brand behind it.

3. Psychology of Shapes

Just as a color has the ability to affect someone’s perception of a brand or the content they’re looking at, so too do individual shapes used within an interface. Each shape — circles, squares, triangles, hexagons, and polygons — has a unique psychological association.

4. Gestalt Principles

Gestalt Principles are a way for humans to make sense of chaotic data presented to them. So, rather than see a bunch of text, images, and space, the human brain recognizes patterns to simplify complexity.

About half a dozen principles are associated with this theory, and they’re related to factors like symmetry, similarity, and proximity.

5. Mere-Exposure Effect / Jakob’s Law

The Mere-Exposure Effect, or Familiarity Principle, suggests that people are more likely to prefer things that seem familiar.

Jakob’s Law applies this psychology specifically to the internet user experience. It suggests that users expect your website to work the same way as the other sites they spend their time on.

6. Von Restorff Effect

The Von Restorff Effect, or Isolation Effect, describes what happens when someone is exposed to identical stimuli, and then a unique element is introduced to the fold. It’s the outlier that will most effectively grab their attention.

7. Selective Disregard

Selective disregard is a type of “blindness” users develop to anything seemingly irrelevant to their main goal. This often occurs when a design or marketing trend grows stale — like websites that use the exact same cookie consent banner.

8. Hick’s Law

Hick’s Law states that the number of choices a person has to make will increase the amount of time it takes to make a decision.

This is a fundamental principle to pay attention to on ecommerce sites as you want to speed up the decision-making process, not slow it down.

9. Loss Aversion

Loss Aversion states that decision-making is more commonly driven by avoiding losses than acquiring gains.

If your website or the content within it gives visitors any reason not to trust it or feel confident in taking action, you’re more likely to see high abandonment rates than conversions.

10. Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice is a response to the problem posited by Hick’s Law. It suggests that the reduction of choices makes consumers feel less anxious, which, in turn, increases confidence and satisfaction with purchases.

If your site suffers from high cart abandonment or product returns, the paradox of choice would be a useful principle to leverage.

11. Miller’s Law

Miller’s Law, also referred to as Cognitive Load Theory, has to do with memory capacity. On average, people can only have about seven items stored in their working memory at any given time.

This psychology principle encourages the reduction of options and the general reduction of content to improve focus and decision-making capabilities.

12. Feedback

Feedback is one of the principles of learning and plays a big part in interaction design.

Feedback is what designers use to tell people when they’ve made progress towards a goal or achieved it. You can also use it to teach visitors how a website will respond to their actions, which encourages faster and more confident engagements with your website.

13. Extrinsic Motivation

There are two types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is an internal one, whereas extrinsic is external.

It’s Extrinsic Motivation that plays a role in getting users to complete more tasks online. As a designer, you have to make sure these kinds of “rewards” are obvious.

14. Social Proof

Not so much a psychological principle as it is a psychological phenomenon, Social Proof or Influence, suggests that people will copy the actions of the masses. It also refers to the assumption that the truth lies with the majority.

This is why customer reviews, client testimonials, and user-generated content have become so useful on websites.

15. Peak-End Rule

The Peak-End Rule states that people will judge an experience based on their very first and last impressions of it. This is somewhat related to the Serial Position Effect, whereby people will remember the first and last items in a group.

So, this is something to remember when you build out the top and bottom of each page as well as the start and expected end to the user journey.

Wrap-Up

Want to build better websites? Then, you need to design from the end users’ perspective.

The best place to start is with psychology principles, as they’ll tell you how most consumers think and what motivates them to respond. If you understand this inherent cause-and-effect relationship, you can design websites that elicit the right kind of response from your visitors.

Source

The post 15 Psychology Principles Every Designer Should Know first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par