In order to build a user-friendly and functional website, there are a number of aspects of your design that you need to consider. With so many aspects of design for the modern web designer to juggle, it’s no wonder that every now and then something will fall through the cracks.
When it’s your own website, it can be hard to see changes to the design in the same way that your users do. To you, changes are gradual things that you implement after thinking about them and working on them. But your users only ever encounter the results that you publish, making the changes seem sudden and forceful. In the fickle world of ecommerce, anything that hinders your users’ experience equals lost revenue for you.
It is therefore essential that you constantly consider whether your current design is serving the demographics of your niche. Here are some essential tips for designing websites with your audience in mind.
Define Your Audience
The clearer the picture you have of your audience demographics, the more finely you can target your design to your users. There are a number of ways that you can go about establishing the specific makeup of your audience, but you can always just ask them, of course. You can request information from your users when they register for your site. Of course, you will need to balance the information you require with your users’ privacy. You should make as much of this optional as possible.
Use Social Proof
There was a time when it was industry critics who decided what was hot and what was not. Now, anyone can have an opinion and broadcast it on a dozen platforms within minutes. As a result, many people now care a lot more about what ‘ordinary people’ think about products, rather than the reviewers (who presumably, when they aren’t reviewing products, are ‘ordinary people’). If you can get your products reviewed in the right places, it can serve as fantastic promotion.
Your website should contain a selection of quotes from your best positive reviews. Try and include a mix of professional reviews and individual user reviews. See if you can get your products listed on sites like https://upgradedreviews.com as this will give you plenty of pull quotes to use on your website and marketing.
Narrow Your Focus
If you are struggling to make much of an impact with your marketing efforts, part of the problem could be that you are trying to target too many different demographics at once. You might think that widening your audience would lead to you earning more money. However, in practice, when you widen your audience, you also dilute your influence.
You might be able to reach a larger number of people with a wider focus, but you will struggle to maintain your sales rates if you do.
Network with Other Marketers
If you can find other people working in your niche who have a similar style and ethos to you, you should reach out to them. You will often find that you are able to gain valuable insight from working closely with affiliates. Ask them what design techniques have worked for them and share your own. By exchanging advice, you can combine your most successful techniques and both benefit from it.
Ensuring that your design is catering to your niche ensures that your website remains as user-friendly as possible. Look for ways that you can work with the other players in your niche for your mutual benefit and make sure that you know the details of your niche demographic. Once you know your target demographic, it’s easy.