Five Ways to Leverage Good Web Design
to Create and Maintain Customer Loyalty

Good Web Design is more than just having an attractive website

Good web design implies more than just having an attractive website. For that matter, a good pay-per-click campaign may get visitors to your website the first time. But will those visitors have a reason to become loyal to your website and return over and over again?

High-quality, professional web design means having a site that is not only attractive, but also creates and maintains loyal visitors and customers. Inexperienced web designers frequently overlook this important aspect of good web design in a desperate effort to simply get website traffic.

Here are five ways to leverage good web design to create and maintain a high level of customer loyalty to your website and your business.

Good web design should make it easy for customers to complain.

That’s right! A skilled, marketing-oriented web designer should make it easy for visitors to your website (prospects and current customers) to tell you what they don’t like about your site or your business. Why? Because up to 96% of dissatisfied customers will never complain. They will simply not buy from you again.

Fortunately, you can salvage a large percentage of these unhappy, but valuable customers if you make it super-easy for them to voice their complaints. Your website can be the perfect place to give them this opportunity. If you conscientiously follow-up on each complaint in a professional, timely manner you will bring many of those unhappy customers back into the fold. Plus, you’ll save your business the high cost of creating new customers to replace them.

Granted, no business owner likes to hear bad news – especially from customers. Unfortunately, web designers who aren’t keenly focused on “marketing” their client’s business ever mention the importance of capturing customer complaints. But you’ll find that even the unhappiest of customers will genuinely appreciate a super-easy way to voice their complaint – even more so if you respond to the complaint in a positive way. It is a proven fact that as many as 95% of dissatisfied customers will actually become more loyal to your business if you make a sincere effort to make them happy again.

Good web design should include a way to gather feedback on the website at as many “touch points” as possible.

Did you know that one customer in four becomes dissatisfied with some aspect of a typical website experience or online transaction? But what’s worse is that a single dissatisfied customer tells 10 to 20 others about their experience online.

If the website designer builds in multiple opportunities on your website to collect customer feedback you will likely see the number of return visits soar. Moreover, teturn visits are a reliable measure of online customer loyalty that eventually translates into more online conversions (sales).

Good web design should make it easier to know who your customers are.

This is another area where a lack of marketing focus among many website design companies can cost website owners loads of new business. A good online marketer knows that there are basically three types of customers: 1) “Satisfied” customers (those who purchase and receive value for a good or service); 2) “Captive” customers (those who purchase a produce or service not available elsewhere); and 3) “Loyal” customers (those who will purchase a product or service over and over with little regard for competing offers).

A professional, marketing-focused web design should always include multiple opportunities to collect information about customers. This helps the website owner know more about his or her customers and prospects which will ultimately reduce the overall cost of marketing to them over time.

Good web design should recognize the value of good information.

Visitors to your website always have a reason for being there – whether they remain there for 5 seconds or half an hour. Usually what online visitors are looking for is information. The web designer must always keep this in mind if the goal is to promote customer loyalty. A good website should be designed to deliver high-quality information about a product or service easily and with as few mouse clicks and scrolling as possible.

Finally, genuinely good information on a website loses its value if the web designer fails to properly organize it in a way that is easily consumable by the visitor. It is true that online visitors do not “websites”, they “scan” them for points that are the most relevant to their needs. If a relevant point is found only then will the visitor actually “read” the website content as if reading a book.

Good web design should translate your company’s overall theme to your website.

All too often web designers fail to set the proper theme for a business online.  This is even more common with smaller businesses that attempt to build their own website without the assistance of a good online marketer. A theme can be set with a well thought out “credo” that is succinct, clear, and descriptive of the company’s mission.

A theme can also be set with a compelling tag line or slogan. Can you guess the company that uses the tag line “Absolutely, positively, overnight.” Probably 95% of adults on the street would recognize this slogan from Federal Express (FedEx).

Whatever a company’s theme, the web designer should make sure that it is carried across to its online marketing strategy (which includes the website, email marketing, social media, etc.). This is important to avoid any chance that the company’s message will cause confusion among its target market. Commissioning a website that has no relevance to a company’s overall marketing theme becomes a hindrance rather than a help to reaching the company’s business goals.

For more information about how good web design affects search marketing performance please click here.