building a functional website

Building A Functional Website

Polish British Link Ecommerce WorkshopMarkus Goess- Saurau

1.It works from a technical perspective

2.It achieves your objectives

What Does Functional Mean?

• Website Technical Requirements

• Business Strategy

• The Importance of Conversion

• Designing Principles to Conversion

Agenda

Technical requirements for a website to perform:

• Clean code

• Speed

• Responsive design

• Ability to be dynamic

• Automation & Efficiency

Website Technical Requirements

Your Business Strategy

If you don’t Plan, You Plan To Fail!Benjamin Franklin

33% of businesses in the UK

fail within the first 3 years

Source: Inside Startups

Face The Facts!

BBC news report found that poor planning

was key to 80% of business startup failure

rate

Face The Facts!

Successful businesses have a clear strategy and

clear answers to the following:

• Who is your target customer?

• What is your marketing Mix?

• Where do you fit into the industry?

Business Strategy

Customer Profiling

Internet marketing

Traditional marketing

Make sure you get the right mix of the following:

Marketing Mix

Where do you fit into the industry?

• Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

• SWOT

• Key Messages

Business Positioning

The Importance Of Conversion

To increase your online sales,

You can either increase your traffic or

Improve your conversion.

... getting your site visitors to do what you want them to do.

98% of site visitors leave a website without doing what the website owner wants them to do

What is ‘Website Conversion’?

• Increasing your conversion will have a big impact on your bottom line. Small improvements bring big returns.

• If you can convert one more person out of each 98 visitors, your conversion increases to 3%, which means you increase the sales on your site by 50%!

Why Is Conversion Rate So Important?

How Does Conversion Rate Affect Revenue & Profit?

Item Website 1 Website 2

Traffic 10,000 10,000

Conversion rate 2% 2.5%

Transactions 200 250

AOV £35 £35

Revenue £7,000 £8,750 (25% Increase)

Costs- Product (£15 per

item)- Marketing - Total

£3,000£3,000£6,000

£3,750£3,000£6,750

Campaign Return £1,000 £2,000 (100% Increase!)

Designing To ConvertCustomers don’t care about you,

they care about themselves and solutions to their problems.

Design your website accordingly.

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

• You have less than 5 seconds to engage a visitor before they leave

• People don’t read long paragraphs of text so use• Clear ‘headings’• Images where appropriate

Make Your Business Easy To Understand

Example: Thinkers Live

Example: The Letteroom

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

• Visitor eyes flow from the top left down and then to the right.• Content should be prioritised according to this.

Simple eye tracking page planner:

Use Your Priority Areas

• Priority 1should be used for:• Company branding• Promote USP

• Priority 2: Should be used for • Important messages• Funnels • Current offers

• Priority 3:• Company text• Secondary calls to action

Example

Logo

Key Message

Email Signup

Example

Logo

Key Funnels

Key Message

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?• Is the navigation clear?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

Key aspects to consider:• Use a ‘standard’ layout• Website and navigation structure• How a site is labelled• Order of items

Website Navigation

Website Navigation

About Us | Collection | Services | News | Contact

HiFi Installation | Home Cinema | Home Automation | Collection | Services | Contact

Website Navigation

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?• Is the navigation clear?• Are they using segments & funnels?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

• Just having a navigation relies on your site visitors to find the information they need

• Using funnels allows a webpage to:• Guide visitors to information they are looking for • Target multiple segment needs

Website Funnels & Hyperlinks

Every page should have what the visitor is looking for or

a clear link to get them there

Example: The Perfect Cellar

Wine Search

Recommendations

Example: ticket to ride

Type of Holiday

Profile

Destination

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?• Is the navigation clear?• Are they using segments & funnels?• Is the content providing what a visitor wants?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

The difference between a good and bad website is the same as the difference between a store with good and bad sales person.

A good website or sales person understands:

• When to provide you with certain information

• What information you need

• How to provide the information in the best format

• Different customers need to be treated in different ways

Onsite & In-store Similarities

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?• Is the navigation clear?• Are segments & funnels being used?• Is the content providing what a visitor wants?• Are there Calls to action?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

A Call To Action Is Like Your Website Closing A Sale

•If you want a customer to take an action, then you must explicitly tell them to take that action. Otherwise you are leaving it to chance.

• Numerous sales are lost every day because a sales person simply does not ask the customer for the sale.

Calls To Action

• Calls to action are hyperlinks that move your customers through your sales process.

• These links are critical for you – they are the ones you want your customers to click on.

Calls To Action

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?• Is the navigation clear?• Are they using segments & funnels?• Is the content providing what a visitor wants?• Do they have Calls to action? • Does the checkout follow best practice?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

Factors to look at on the checkout process include:

• Is the checkout isolated?• Are the checkout steps clearly displayed?• Is the ‘total’ cost shown on the basket or are ‘extra’ costs added later?• Are the delivery options clearly displayed?• Is there a persistent summary of the checkout information?• Are forms clear?• Are there clear calls to action?• Are the trust symbols visible?• Is there a ‘guest checkout’?• Does information get ‘lost’ when you navigate forwards and backwards?

The Checkout Process

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?• Is the navigation clear?• Are they using segments & funnels?• Is the content providing what a visitor wants?• Do they have Calls to action? • Does the checkout follow best practice?• Does the website support the marketing activity?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

In order for your website to support your marketing

your marketing strategy needs to be planned

before the website is designed

Planning For Your Marketing

• Is it easy to understand what the business does?• Is the correct information in the ‘Priority Areas’?• Is the navigation clear?• Are they using segments & funnels?• Is the content providing what a visitor wants?• Do they have Calls to action? • Does the checkout follow best practice?• Does the website support the marketing activity?• Is performance being measured?

The Ve Site Audit Checklist

• If you don’t measure you can’t improve

• The landscape and the way business is done is constantly changing

• It is no longer the big outperforming the small, It’s about the fast outperforming the slow

The formula for success isFail Fast to Improve Fast

Measure, Test…… Improve

Does All Of This Really Work?

The Big Question

Scotts Visas

58% decrease in bounce rate

New site goes live

The Perfect Cellar

New site goes live

800% increase in organic traffic

Thank you.

Markus Goess- SaurauDigital Director

Markus.goess@veinteractive.com