I want to tell you a story, some may see it as a horror story, some may see it as a comedy. It is a story of me heading to the shops to buy a pair of sneakers.
I have been on the lookout for new sneakers, no surprise there, so I decided to climb into my car and drive to the store. There were no directions or signs on how to get there, but I decided to keep trying and eventually stumbled upon the store, luckily I found parking and headed to the front door. I tried to open it but it was jammed… I jiggled it, banged it… I was determined and decided to stick it out, eventually it opened.
I entered the store and there was a pile of sneakers in the middle of the shop. No shelving, no signage, no sorting of mens vs womens, or sizes or brands… it was an ABSOLUTE MESS. Gritting my teeth, I started working through this haystack on a search for my “needle”. Luck was with me I found something I wanted, probably took me about 30min! Now I was in a rush, my phone had rung three times as I was running late for a lunch date. I headed to the cashier (kinda wondered why the shop assistant didn’t help me earlier) *shrug, my sneakers are scanned, I hand over my credit card and guess what THEY DIDN’T ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS. I was defeated and left… in my old sneakers. A few days later I noticed the shop had closed down.
You’re probably thinking that you may have given up at stage 1 already. BUT this is what we expect of our online users. Let’s parallel this baby:
- Driving to the store with no directions – this is when a user cannot find your website or social media pages – Make sure you are visible wherever your users are
- The door was jammed – this would be a slow loading website – Your website needs to load fast else people won’t be able to enter
- Pile of sneakers – is your website easy to navigate? Can I find what I came in for easily or do I need to find a needle in the haystack? – Clear menu bars, search bars, and filters can be your best friend in creating a good user experience
- No shop assistant – having a live message box on your website can help your user find what they are looking for
- Didn’t accept my credit card – is it easy for the user to “convert” on your website? Do you give them multiple options: Phone, Email, Form Submission, do you accept different forms of payments? Is your form too long & complicated? Make it easy for your prospect to get the conversation started
User Experience is one of the biggest influencers on whether the traffic you are sending to your website converts. We spend so much money finding the traffic but we make it difficult for them once they get there.
My recommendation is to either chat to a UX designer or alternatively chat to a friend. Ask them to go purchase xxx or contact you about xxx. Let them start from Google and see if they are able to complete the task & where they encountered Roadblocks 🙂
