What is a Next Generation Website?
Currently, 6 out of 10 Americans1 are using self-service tools to meet their needs as customers, including company websites, mobile apps, and live chat sessions. This number will only continue to grow - now at a rate of 23% year-over-year – and projections show that 95% of all purchases will be online by 2040.
Yet, 46% of American small businesses are completely lacking an online presence. What’s more, the businesses who do have a website are still using the traditional, dead-end, place-holder style of website design that leads to little or no conversions and plenty of customer angst. In fact, less than 3% of website visitors1 are converting to customers today. These numbers illustrate a huge disconnect between how customers want to shop and how businesses are delivering.
Why is this happening? Look around you. Everywhere you look people of all ages are staring at their phone - scrolling through social media, running Google searches, watching videos, talking to text, asking their phone for directions, or using their phone to buy something. Connected technology is the focal point of consumer experience and 46% of businesses are completely missing out on the action because they don’t even have a website. Then there are those who are trying (they have a website), but just aren’t using the tools they need to deliver.
A next generation website moves beyond the traditional placeholder website and provides the tools your customers are looking for today and beyond, all in one inclusive experience. It’s not just a website – it’s also a mobile app, a live messaging center, an appointment maker, and it knows your customers well so you can provide the immersive and immediate experience your customers crave.
To help you get started on creating or upgrading to a next generation website, we’ve created this guide to the top 5 things you should be including in your website design today:
1. Get Mobile Friendly with Google AMP
Internet browsing and eCommerce is going mobile. If your website isn’t AMP optimized and mobile friendly, you’re missing out on huge conversion opportunities.
Studies show that 93% of Millennials compare deals online1 with their mobile devices and that 40% of holiday purchases are made using smartphones. In fact, 65% of customers shopping in a physical location are still using their phones to compare prices. Also, those who have a negative experience with your mobile site will be 62% less likely to buy from you again.
Google AMP is an open source framework used to create websites, stories, emails, and ads that are optimized for user experience. Not only will this help with desktop performance of your website, but it will vastly improve mobile performance as well.
Here are some resources to help you learn more about Google AMP:
2. Use Conversational Marketing Through Chatbots
Surveys have shown that the #1 reason people shop online1 is the convenience of shopping on their own schedule. But what happens if a customer has a question that could influence their purchasing decisions, and no one is available to help them? Phone calls and messaging apps work great for times when your team is available to answer questions, but a 1am shopper might be left out of luck.
Enter conversational marketing through chatbots.
Chatbots mimic live agents, with conversational language, pre-programmed responses, and conditional logic to help your website’s visitors with their concerns and guide them through their purchasing decisions.
Bonus: Chatbots don’t require real-time staffers to work, so your customers can be put to ease at any time of day - or night. About 50% of shoppers surveyed said they would make purchases through chatbots1.
3. Ramp Up Conversions with Automatic Scheduling
By now, we’re all used to seeing the typical call-to-action included in most website copy – click to download your free eBook, enter your contact information, get added to a list of subscribers and potential leads, start an email campaign... But how fruitful is this strategy, really? What if you could take those simple call-to-action sequences and transform them into instant conversion opportunities?
For a generation thriving on instant gratification, the best way to get a valuable consumer response is to use automatic scheduling. Apps like Calendly provide opportunities to make easy and instant connections with visitors who are looking for solutions now.
Try turning several of your typical call-to-actions into automatic scheduling opportunities by offering free consultations, customized pricing, free demonstrations, webinars, or customized purchasing options. See if your conversion rates go up.
Google My Business Checklist
10 things you can do to make your Google My Business
page attract new customers.
4. Create Unique Experiences with Personalization
Rather than presenting the boring, same-for-everyone experience of the traditional website, try using website personalization to present your visitors with unique experiences customized specifically for their needs and desires. This gives your customers the sense that you care about and understand their needs and can lead to better returns.
Businesses using personalization see an average increase of 19% in sales. Yet many businesses continue to underutilize this strategy. Fortunately, there are many ways to automate personalization through processes like localization, dynamic content, segmentation, need targeting, product recommendations, and more.
5. Avoid Going Stagnant with Interactive Content
Interactive content is a strategic, modern way to catch the attention of your target audience and get them to engage with your content, products, and services. It encourages your audience to take action and participate, rather than just passively reading, watching, or listening to whatever fluff you’ve recently posted online.
Interactive content can be shared in the form of quizzes, assessments, calculators, infographics, mini-games, and more. It’s a great way to keep your customers from getting bored or filling your website with tons of stagnant information that doesn’t produce any results. It can also be the key to re-engaging old leads and gaining new ones!
In fact, interactive content gains two times more engagement than static content and 51% of B2B buyers say interactive content helps them tackle business challenges2.
Click here for a list of ideas to get you started.Stand Out from the Crowd with a Next Generation Website
Upgrading to a next generation website will help you stand out from your competition and stay relevant as technology advances and consumer desires evolve. Not only will you be able to harness a host of new opportunities, but you’ll gain authority in your industry, get better ranking in search results, gain the trust of your visitors, and see an increase in conversions.
Still, we understand building a next generation website or upgrading your old one can seem like a daunting task - especially with everything else you have to handle to keep your business up and running these days. If creating a more effective website seems like a heavy load with little time to invest, Inline Marketing can help!
Contact us today to get more information or get started on your upgrade.
Sources: 1“68 Useful eCommerce Statistics You Must Know in 2020,” by Lisa Gennaro for WPForms.com, updated Jun 16, 2020; 2“21 Interactive Content Stats That Marketers Need to Know in 2020,” by Pamela Bump for HubSpot; “Google AMP Helps You Make Stunning Web Experiences. Here's How,” by Kayla Carmicheal for HubSpot, Jun 4, 2020; “The Definitive Guide to Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP),” by Neil Patel; “The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Marketing (+Examples),” by Lisa Gennaro for WPForms.com, updated Jun 18, 2020; “5 Incredible Examples of Personalized Marketing,” by Pardot/Salesforce, Mar 11, 2015.