How a Great Website Puts Your Business Above the Competition

Every business has a pace, but as an entrepreneur, you do not want to stay behind. In fact, you probably prefer a head start or a wide lead. Working with a Chicago web development agency can help you develop web pages to achieve this goal.

A well-designed, planned, user-oriented website can:

• Maximize the benefits of a hybrid shopping experience,
• Reduce the abandonment rate,
• Increase sales,
• Improve the performance of other online marketing strategies, and
• Enhance employee engagement and morale.

Let us break down these advantages in the article below! Let’s go!

To learn how Digital Authority Partners can create a standout website for you, watch this video!

1. Maximize the Benefits of a Hybrid Shopping Experience

How do people buy products or services these days? With the popularity of mobile devices and the Internet, purchasing products or services now appears different and sometimes unusual for many. For example:

• The most recent generations, including millennials, shop online. However, many prefer to buy online and pick up in-store (BOPIS).
• The constant exposure to social media channels and their buy-and-sell features have led to “always-on” commerce.
• Baby boomers, who will continue to outspend the biggest consumer demographics, opt to get their needs from the store. However, buying-behavior reports suggest they take time to read reviews if they purchase over the Internet. They also go to big e-commerce sites such as Amazon.

You should prioritize providing a seamless hybrid or omnichannel customer experience to ease the competition. Your website then becomes a critical tool in the process.

A site properly designed for multiple touchpoints often has these features:

• Responsiveness that allows pages to adjust to fit any device
• Simplicity that facilitates easy navigation
• Consistent branding and procedures across all channels
• Cross-device synchronization, which lets users start an interaction on one device and continue it on another without losing any progress or data
• Personalization in content, recommendations, and experiences

2. Reduce the Abandonment Rate

Not everyone who ends up on your website completes their buying journey. For this reason, allotting a percentage to cart abandonment when calculating your touchpoint success is prudent.

However, an excessively high abandonment rate harms your business in many ways. It means you are draining precious marketing resources without realizing revenue. If you are still a startup, it puts you in an even more precarious state because your budget is usually tight. 

How else can you compete aggressively?

A reputable Chicago web development company helps significantly reduce your cart abandonment with these two solutions:

• Remove the barriers that impede customer experience and conversion.
• Avoid making it easy for your prospects to disengage and leave.

With these two factors in mind, they design sites that:

• Simplify the checkout process by reducing the number of steps and form fields required
• Offer a guest checkout option that allows users to purchase without having to create an account
• Use prominent and visually appealing calls-to-action (CTAs) that communicate the next steps for completing the purchase
• Integrate features that automatically reflect the total pricing costs, including shipping and other additional fees
• Highlight any fields that require attention and providing helpful error messages
• Allow users to save their cart items and return to them later
• Optimize the website’s performance and loading speed to reduce wait time

3. Increase Sales

A great website lets you ease your competition when it comes to revenues or sales, especially in two ways:

• Streamlining the process of finding and buying the products or services
• Improving your business reputation and credibility

Let us tackle each of these points here.

Studies show that it usually takes a customer three times of brand contact or exposure before deciding to buy something. On average, paying for your products or services takes three to four hours from the time they see them.

This long sales cycle leaves plenty of room for them to change their minds or be distracted and buy from your competitors instead.

A Chicago web development agency can develop sites that shorten this cycle, making it easy and quick for customers to find what they need and complete the purchase. A satisfying brand experience boosts their trustworthiness and credibility. Convincing them to return and buy again now requires less effort. 

What strategies can your team implement to speed up the buyer's journey and increase conversions? Here are a few:

• Design the homepage to clearly outline the unique value proposition and benefits of the product or service.
• Present concise, digestible information, focusing on the key selling points.
• Provide avenues for customers to leave and read comments and product reviews.
• Create an optimized internal search page that offers exact and best results matches and filters.
• Include lead capture forms on relevant pages to collect contact information for follow-ups and more effective prospect management.

4. Improve the Performance of Other Online Marketing Strategies

You can look at every online marketing technique or element as a part of a larger ecosystem. Optimizing one area can have a ripple effect on others. Similarly, it drags the others’ performance if one part does not work out.

Take note of these ideas:

• A site with good schema markup gives it the best chance to appear on the local map pack, which is a set of three local listings that appear on top of the search results.
• Errors in site structure can limit or prevent indexability and crawlability, significantly hurting your organic optimization efforts.
• Your landing page is vital to pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, particularly ad quality scores. A good grade rewards you with a low PPC cost and better ad placement.
• An optimized site means it can handle large volumes of traffic, which might be necessary for effective campaigns. These include influencer campaigns, PR efforts, and Google Ads.
• A fast-loading site with a good user experience is key to staying ahead of the competition. It improves search rankings, increases time on the page, and boosts conversions.

5. Enhance Employee Engagement and Morale

Lastly, a new website helps you outrank and even outlast your competitors by strengthening employee engagement and morale.

At first glance, it sounds too far-fetched. In reality, a well-designed site helps your team stay motivated, avoid the high cost of attrition, and enhance productivity in the following ways:

• It lets them focus on other essential aspects of their job. For example, customers are less likely to clog chat support with questions when they quickly find product information on the website themselves. This, in turn, gives your workers more time to answer concerns or process refunds.
• A good site generates revenue. It encourages customers to buy from you and helps you reach more prospects. This increases your bottom line, giving you more cash flow to reward employees with bonuses or raises.
• It promotes a positive brand image. As mentioned, a good site elevates user experience and increases people’s trust in your company. In the process, it makes your employees feel valued and proud to belong to a reputable brand.

Summing Up

The benefits of having a good website design always outweigh the cost of creating one. A great website helps you compete and surpass your rivals by improving the performance of your other online marketing strategies and the team.

It also lets you offer a satisfying shopping experience that helps generate more revenue. More income means a higher marketing budget and better chances of meeting your organizational goals.

If you are ready to outshine your competitors, hire professionals with the right expertise. Digital Authority Partners (DAP), a Chicago web development agency, specializes in designing user-oriented, brand-centric websites. Contact us today to learn how we do it.