Today, the digital world is all about businesses becoming extensive to cater to users through websites. COVID-19 has made it necessary for businesses to have an online existence in 2024. Consequently, the rising demand for online delivery is enabling eCommerce business globally and in the United States. This is important to know the top features for websites to make your online retail business successful.
As of 17th August 2021, there are currently over 1.88 billion websites online. This number itself comes to show how massive the entire web domain business has become. Meaning the pressure of having an amazing, to-the-point, and user-friendly website is more prevalent than ever before.
Nowadays, having a cyber presence is not the only thing anymore. Some aspects must be there to essentially help you stand out and boost your business. Because the features make a website prominent and chick.
Best must-have features that make or break Websites
There are several top features for websites that play role in making your online presence stand apart.
- Being Reachable
- Simple Signups
- Showcasing Products/Services
- Third-party Integrations
- Chatbots and Customer Services
- Client Testimonials and Project Case Studies
- Easily Searchable Information
- SEO/SMM Promotion
- Blogging and Content Marketing
- The Human Element
Let’s talk about these features to make it easy for you to not miss out on them on your website.
Being Reachable
A lot of times, companies create quality websites but forget to add their contact information. This makes it completely impossible for clients to reach out to them. Business success is measured by how many users are interacting with you to get sales through to the system.
Without that, your website is good for nothing. Let’s face this reality. You may have a way of selling your products online or you might be showcasing services to potential customers.
However, you do want to start a conversation with potential customers. Because this makes it easier for them to reach out to you and discuss their options. Realize that establishing relationships with users is necessary during 2024.
The same is the case for feedback forms or ways of raising a concern or general comment/query about the products. Make sure you have these options of user interactions on your website too. The way users can communicate with your website ensures your business is easily accessible, transparent, and very open to interaction.
Simple Signups
One of the most common website features includes signups. User registrations are so common that businesses often overlook them because of their triviality. However, users want a very easy sign-up process that doesn’t take too long.
Signing up on long mundane forms certainly wears people out, so they may decide to just quit your website. Also, a lot of users prefer registering with single sign-on through their existing Google, Apple, or Facebook IDs. This saves them from the hassle of filling out a separate signup form for your website.
It is a great way to get potential users to hook up to your website through their existing IDs. Also, this helps you enable social media touchpoints. Therefore, you can assess the number of users who are connected to your business through social media platforms.
Try to keep the signup and login process easy and tolerable. The registration and sign-in procedure should not take up too much time for users. If this is not the case, then the process can put them off.
You may also want to have guest users access pretty much all pages of your websites. Unless they are about to purchase items through your website. Then, it becomes important to enroll them for the checkout process to move to the next stage.
Showcasing Products/Services
The best way to talk about your product or service is to just simply show it. This is the best way to announce to your audience what exactly you do and what you are capable of. At times, it is also a necessity where it needs to be a proper built-in website functionality.
For instance, you are a shoe brand, so you need to build a product catalog on your website. It will help users see your products to potentially buy through the website too. However, if you are on the service rendering side of the business, it might be a little tricky.
What you can do is put up some pictures of your services being done. So that users can see how they are enacted. Or you can make a video of what exactly you do and how does it get done.
There are many creative ways of getting your business across. Some companies even get animated videos to help users connect the dot about what they do. Visual product tours and service explainers are playing a role in getting the word out.
Third-party Integrations
In case, you are already under the website development stage. Then, you probably are aware by now that you must integrate with a lot of 3rd party APIs, SDKs, and solutions. These incorporations are important to give users a holistic experience.
These may be social media platforms, and payment gateways for giving users a complete end-to-end website experience. A website without this concept is certainly not doing much for you. For example, imagine a scenario where users input payment information but are routed to a third-party site for further verification.
Just try to assess the kind of impression you are giving to the users. Is this checkout process credible? Presently, most users are wary about being routed to another website as soon as they have provided their payment information.
What if they get distracted and move on to something else? A good website experience is to properly integrate all the relevant software/APIs with your website. This makes sure users enjoy doing business with you.
Tip: Website Project Challenges and Solutions
Chatbots and Customer Services
Talking of 2024, website developers understand how important customer service is for a business. There was a time when this aspect was completely manual. This made it a person’s job to be available to address any relevant user queries.
But imagine the amount of load that would imply in times of higher sales. Or consider the human workforce always required on the website for customer support. Therefore, one of the savviest options is to go for chatbots.
The chatbots greatly help in answering basic to complex queries raised by the users on the website. It’s a smart way of handling customer support services. Besides, it keeps all users satisfied with appropriate responses.
In case of any escalation or serious concerns, a chatbot can route the query to relevant customer support personnel. It’s round-the-clock services to users who may be visiting or shopping from the website. So, you don’t have to worry about hiring manpower, and planning shifts for your staff.
Client Testimonials and Project Case Studies
Web presence is not just enough when you need to add value to your website. That’s what testimonials and case studies help with. They allow you to build a relationship of trust with potential customers.
- How to make your website look credible?
- Can you make prospective customers understand you better?
- How to have customers build a repo of trust?
By including the narrative of previous clients on your website, you are telling others of your work ethics and procedures. It’s a great way for building a connection. However, if you are just starting, then you probably do not have client testimonials.
But the way out is to publish project case studies. Here, you talk about existing business pain points and how you are delivering a viable solution. These case reports must demonstrate how you are making it better for users.
Gradually build your online credibility with consistency in your ways of writing content. Format and present content in a way that makes the audience understand you better. It’s about being professional and at the same time, building a relationship with the target audience.
Read-up: Ways for making websites more engaging
Easily Searchable Information
Information that users can easily look up from the website make the experience truly worthwhile. Be it on a product catalog, or any other webpage where users are looking for some information about a product. Generally, users want to route their way by instantly finding something valuable.
This is a great UI/UX design practice to provide a search facility for users to easily locate everything. It can be keyword specific, as well you can have AND/OR features to make the search interesting for users. The more accurate results are, the happier users will be.
Some websites have a search capability as a very basic feature. Because they have a lot of products, services, or content that needs scaling through. However, if all websites deliver search features, then that will greatly uplift the general usability for users.
In today’s time, people have very little attention span. Subsequently, they prefer browsing through without having to spend too much time and effort on a website. If they instantly get to what they need, you have a better chance of retaining them. Hence, there will be less bounce off to another website by users for their search.
SEO/SMM Promotion
This concept is usually so much talked about that the hype for it often exceeds the actual efforts on it. You do realize the power of organic rankings in Google and other search engines. Moreover, you are aware of the involvement of social media platforms for gaining you the appropriate traction for your business.
Digital transformation is about embracing the power of SEO. Also, it is understanding how SEO can enable you in getting the right attention and connection with the target audience. However, it begins with adding the right tags, blogging, generating leads, and being wise about the overall strategy.
Be smart about your titles, and meta descriptions. Also, use a well concise URL structure that is easy to follow. There are a lot of SEO/SMM savvy resources to help devise great workable digital marketing strategies for you.
There is this norm of posting content once a day. Nonetheless, some companies now understand that it’s not just about generating posts. But you must produce content that can be valuable too.
Just in case, you make meaningful content that can be advertised and shared through social media. Then you have a good chance of engaging users. However, you need to start with a smaller and cost-effective strategy first. Just see what indeed works for you.
Info: Trends in web development for business growth
Blogging and Content Marketing
Why do you need a blog when you can be spending time elsewhere? Well, it is quite simple. Internet is about textual content and visual content (images and videos) that combine to help build people’s opinions.
Blogging is usually undertaken by individual bloggers. But companies also maintain a specialized blog to talk about their company, trends in the industry, and their opinions. This makes the conversation – a way for users to know what you represent as a company.
Likewise, blogging makes them realize what you see as the future for your products/services as well as the relevant industry. When moving towards website undertaking, it’s important to consider a blog as an important feature for your website. Because it directly aligns with your SEO-related activities where you can link up your blog with other relevant websites.
You can share the posts of your company blog on various social media sites. Thus, your company blog helps you build a connection with users. It is personalized, yet it’s a professional way of showcasing your company.
Blog writing is smart and so basic through 2024. Accordingly, any company that is not exercising its efforts in this regard is losing out on crucial business. You can always hire specialized guest-writers to get the creative juices flowing to help you elevate the writing standards.
The Human Element
Great websites don’t just happen but are planned and executed the same way. At end of it all, we are human beings reaching out to each other online. That means you need to have that human element with the presence of your team and your executives.
Whether you do images, textual content, or videos. Take care the potential users can put faces to the names behind the offered services and products. So, this way your content can better resonate with the users.
This may seem tricky to businesses who have complete foreign backgrounds. But why should you hide behind the veil when you are all about true professionalism. Thus, give out your best to users/businesses daily.
Again, your SEO strategy matters a lot in this regard. You want to be portrayed as an open, transparent, and approachable company. Therefore, adding your persona to the website should also be reflective of the same aspects.
Conclusion
Website development is an ever-evolving concept where businesses adopt strategies that help gain a wider target audience and higher ROI. This means applying those tactics that tend more beneficial for their websites. Adopting simple features such as search, user registrations, SEO, and 3rd party integrations is vital for success.
You are giving your website a fair chance of being likable with a very user-friendly experience for your audience. Truly understand the potential of your website through 2024 and future years. This helps you elevate your online business and make it successful in the market.
Realize the advantages of outsourcing the website project to skillful remote web developers. Together with them. you can have a very simple, attractive-looking, and fully functional website. Hence, your online business can tick all the boxes of usability, expanse, and revenue generation.
Let’s get started on this discussion with Techliance – offering you extremely cost-effective website development services. Contact us today for onboarding your next website undertaking. Whether you need developers on a dedicated basis or project/cost-based assignment, you are at the right place.
