Mere having a website for your business isn’t enough to compete in today’s fast-paced online environment. Over 1.98 billion websites (Source) exist on the web and this makes it extremely difficult to survive in such a competitive environment. Customization has emerged as a lifesaver concept for businesses through which they can grab the attention of new visitors and retain their existing customers. In this article we are going to talk about some nifty tips to develop a fully customized website for your business.
Custom web development has become the buzzword but you need to get into its depth to get desired results. Of course, you can get a basic definition for this term but each of its aspects contains thorough research into customers to implement it in a fruitful way. This post will help you to adopt a comprehensive approach to understanding your customers better and then bring necessary changes to the features and functionalities of your business website to gain optimum results.
Here are the tips to develop fully customized website for your business.
Understanding Your Customers
First tips First of all, you need to come out of that conventional approach to make assumptions and old ideas about your target audience. Tastes and preferences are changing at an unprecedented rate with the growing digital world. Getting quality information about your customers requires assiduous efforts. Divide them into categories and subcategories and then conduct surveys on social media. Launch some campaigns and interviews and try to be as specific as you can. Make sure that you follow empathy interviewing that targets emotional and subconscious aspects and encourages them to come out with requirements as specifically as they can.
It is always advised to gauge the competition and gain valuable insights into your competitors as well. This will help you to understand their strengths and weaknesses along with how they approach their customers (your target audience). Try to gather as much third-party data as you can and scan it thoroughly. You can easily get this data from DSPs, audience management platforms, and public data exchanges.
A Brief About Custom Web Development
Custom web development has a greater focus on business objectives and the target audience to meet their specific requirements. The web development company deliberately incorporates features and functionalities which not only highlight your brand, products, and business objectives but eliminate the complexities to allow users to get what they are exploring.
Besides this, custom web development also digs deep into providing an exceptional user experience to a website. The entire process encompasses well-researched front-end and back-end tools and frameworks. As it is tailored to your business needs, it helps you to serve the business purpose with customer-focused development aspects. The best part is that you get the desired uniqueness in your business website that sets it apart from your competitors. Hence, from a long-term perspective, custom web development has become an integral part of having a distinct online presence.
Defining the Target Audience
To get valuable insights into this, you must develop a consumer persona and list down their demographic and psychological attributes to gain a better understanding. This will certainly result in higher conversions as your approach and products, both will be focused. Use relevant content offering genuine information about your products and choose topics that can grab the attention of your specific audience.
It Takes Time to Peep Into The Audience
You can use some trusted review sites like Yelp and Amazon. This is a great way to learn about your audience by evaluating competitors’ products and service reviews. Read as many reviews as possible and visit the websites of your close competitors. This will offer valuable insights into their pain points, challenges, and whatever they admire in a brand.
Video marketing, blogs, and social media campaigns are the most trending ways to come close to your customers. To bring more effect into it, you can use social media influencers to market your brand. Though it may sound like a costly investment but don’t panic, it will certainly bring good results if you approach it professionally. According to DigitalMarketingInstitute, over 70% of teens trust social media influencers more than traditional celebrities, and over 86% of women prefer social media to decide their brand.
Focus on Targeted Advertising
It is better to focus on targeted advertising to save marketing costs and get desired results from it. For instance, Facebook gives you multiple options and targeting tools to create and run ads that are focused on a particular audience. Even Google ads offer the same feature making sure that the ads are displayed to the right kind of audience.
However, the efficacy of your targeted advertising will depend much on the kind of customer data that you have gathered. Hence, be as particular as possible regarding the demographics, interests, behavioral trends, and how the audience prefers to be engaged with a brand. This will eliminate guess works and reduce spending on those who are unlikely to be engaged with your brand.
Choosing the Right Partner
Whether you are going to develop a business website or you want to make some customized changes to it, hiring a trusted web development company is a must. An expert agency will use its experience in delivering a website that is perfectly linked with your workflow and business goals. A company that lacks a business-minded approach can never deliver you what you expect out of customization. Hence, you must explore some trusted options to get the right development agency for custom website development. Once you find some reliable names, here are some aspects that you must include in the questions that you ask them:
# What work experience do they have?
# What system do they have to help you meet your website goals?
# What support will they offer in terms of security, backup, and scalability?
# How flexible is the workflow to amend new ideas and concepts?
# Ask for their clients’ references
# What provisions do they have to meet your specific requirements (including on-time delivery, budget, and revisions)?
# Do they offer post-launch technical support?
Some Other Crucial Elements of a Custom Website
Besides getting valuable insights into your target audience, approach, and development agency, you must consider some other necessary elements that will add to your website’s customization.
Page Load Speed
The page load speed of a website is a make-or-break factor that must never be ignored. According to the Web Tribunal, your page views can reduce by 11% with each second delay in loading time. Make sure that your website doesn’t take more than 5 seconds to load and consider using Google’s page speed insight tool for this.
Highlighting Key Information
To grab instant attention from the visitor, you must ensure highlighted or bulleted sections for key information rather than lengthy product descriptions. This creates a direct impact on user minds and compels them to take desired actions. Your CTA buttons must also be designed astutely keeping in mind their purchasing patterns.
User-centric Navigation
The transition from one section of the website to another must be designed carefully allowing users to navigate easily. Choose descriptive web design to facilitate hassle-free user navigation allowing visitors to spend longer time on your website.
Customized Features & Products
This is one of the most rejoiced aspects of custom web development. It allows you to add any feature virtually as and when required. Launch the MVP version of your website and then track user behavior. This will help you know what interests them most and you can add features and functionalities accordingly.
Endnote
So, these were some useful tips to develop a customized website for business. The more thoughtful you will remain to your customers; the higher will be the conversion rates. This is what the thumb rule of customization depicts. So, before you launch your website or even if you have launched it, implementing the above-mentioned ideas will certainly help you enhance your brand value, productivity, and ROIs.
