5 Tips for Designing Your Website to Serve Every Customer Individually

Current research shows that 40 percent of consumers buy more from retailers who personalize their shopping experience across channels. Additionally, nearly three in four, or 74 percent, of online consumers get frustrated with websites when the content that’s displayed has nothing to do with their interests. It is clear that a personalized website is an advantage to every marketer or entrepreneur leading a successful business today.

Website personalization takes into account that users have different motivations, devices, locations and time constraints. With current technology, marketers can now gather specific information about what a website visitor is searching for and translate their visit into a higher conversion.

“Organizations spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and sometimes even millions of dollars, to create robust dynamic web experiences,” explained Itai Sadan, CEO and co-founder of mobile website creation platform DudaMobile. The company recently rolled out inSite that adds dynamic web content based on customer behavior to create personalized viewing experiences.

“Expensive tools and this type of personalization traditionally requires substantial web development and design, which is why we’re excited about bringing affordability to this exploding industry,” Sadan said.

Website personalization on a mass scale is indeed possible with the increasing number of low-cost options available to business owners today. Here are five ways business owners can begin to increase conversion through basic website personalization:

1. Visitor frequency should determine different user experiences. A visitor to a website for the first time will almost always be looking for different information than someone visiting the site repeatedly.

David Reischer, marketing officer at LegalAdvice.com, suggests tracking each user differently to give different user experiences. “We utilize a cookie to track a returning visitor so that we can direct them to the most appropriate and relevant page. This makes site navigation easier for repeat users.”

To increase conversion of first-time visitors include a phone number or business address, a contact form to capture leads, or a video tutorial to explain a product or service to a first time visitor.

“For frequent visitors, add a spot to sign up for a mailing list or add information about new products or services,” suggests Sadan.

2. Geo-location helps bring together online and offline marketing. The ability to know where someone is at the time they visit a website is game-changing for marketers.

“Online we can follow our customer’s individual buying journey, optimizing it every step of the way,” explains Bart Heilbron, CEO and co-founder of BlueConic, the real-time system of online customer engagement. “However, we were never able to use these insights in our offline interaction. With geo-location, we are now able to.”

If someone is only blocks away from a business and searching on a mobile phone, chances are they can be easily converted as a customer if they see an address and even a coupon that says, “Come in today and get 20% off.” For restaurants, an OpenTable button to reserve a table, or a Google Map app that provides step-by-step directions to the store location are critical for conversion.

3. Adjust content based on certain times. Changing the content on a website based on the time of day, week or even season can increase conversions as well. Consider replacing a phone number available to website visitors during business hours with a contact form when the business is closed. This will avoid missing out on potential customers who want to get in contact outside of business hours.

“The ability to offer different products over the course of a day based on targeted trends, habits or culture will increase conversions,” said CEO of internet marketing company WebiMax, Ken Wisnefski. “For example, a restaurant offers a different menu throughout the day as they switch from lunch to dinner.”

4. Recognize holidays and other special events. This is a great way to personalize a website and better connect with a customer’s sentiment. Change the theme to hearts during Valentine’s Day or add an image of fireworks during the 4th of July.

“This could have a positive effect on customer engagement, and in turn conversion,” said Sadan.

5. Capture the visitor source to adapt content. Knowing the original destination source that a visitor has entered a website from should greatly impact the content on the landing page that they see first. This can provide a seamless and consistent experience to the visitor.

According to Sadan, “Visitors that come to your site from an email marketing campaign or as a referral from another site should receive dedicated messaging that is aligned with the messaging they saw in the email or the referring site. Offering a coupon at this point could also be a good idea.”

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

Don't Make These Customer Review Monitoring Mistakes

It seems these days like everyone has an opinion. And thanks to digital tools, they have countless ways of sharing them. For business owners, this means that word of mouth, both positive and negative, can spread across social media and the Internet, coloring a particular brand or business in an instant. It’s something every business owner should watch carefully and these tricks, tips and tactics will make managing the positive, negative and useless reviews that much easier.

1. Make it a priority. While larger businesses can afford to hire a team to watch online reviews and reactions 24/7, new business owners need take matters into the their own hands. Create a schedule that’s consistent, but manageable, say our experts. This might be daily or weekly depending on the volume of reviews and mentions you receive.

Just make sure you have some plan in place. Says Jayson DeMers, founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, "The biggest mistake is simply failing to monitor reviews in the first place," he says.

2. Know your tools. Marketing consultant Brian Honigman highly recommends digital tool Mention which alerts you to all of your recent mentions across platforms like Twitter and Facebook as well as the web. "It allows you to react quickly and take feedback into consideration and point your team on the right course of action and continue to analyze this data and react from there," Honigman says.

Tools such as Google Alerts and Talkwalker can also help you track web mentions, notifying you whenever select keywords related to your organization are used online. Honigman likes to use Talkwalker to keep on eye on the competition. "If you want to do research on one of your competitors, you can enter keywords relevant to them and see where they're popping up on the web," he says.

For more specific needs, Siu recommends Hootsuite to monitor Twitter and Newsle to keep an eye on major news publications. Since you're most likely a team of one, automate your processes as much as possible. For this, Siu suggests Zapier, a service which ties various disparate tools together, helping to eliminate extra steps and platforms to check.

3. Engage carefully. Should a negative comment emerge, find a way to turn it into a positive. "It's really important to respond to the negative stuff as a sympathetic, real human," Honigman says. "Say, 'I'm sorry you're upset, how can we fix this’?"

DeMers concurs, saying that a particularly negative review can do massive damage to your brand if left unchecked. "Negative reviews can spread like wild fire on the internet," he says. He suggests you reach out with the aim to win that customer back. "[A big mistake] is to ignore negative reviews or respond defensively or insultingly to them," he adds.

Although negative feedback should require the bulk of your attention, don't be afraid to respond to positive word of mouth. "It's fine to ignore positive reviews, but it's even better to replay them with a sincere thank you," DeMers says. Honigman suggests personally reaching out to blogs or sites who write personal reviews and form a relationship. Networking like this opens you up to not only potential business opportunities, but better SEO practices as you share each other's work.

"Let it be known that you're grateful for the time that person or organization took for bringing your business a little visibility," Honigman says.

But most importantly, make sure you know how to separate actual negative criticism from online noise. Use common sense to discern if you're just being "trolled" or are simply dealing with an irrational person. "If it is unconstructive, rude, abusive or just someone talking for the sake of talking, use your better judgment," Honigman says. In this case, attempting to please someone who won't be pleased can make you look desperate and damage a young brand. It's better to move forward.

4. Keep your focus. Although it's vital to monitor reviews and respond as professionally as possible, Siu says that business owners in their early stages shouldn't let online reviews distract them from the real work of running their business. Says Siu, "You have much bigger fish to fry, like bringing in new revenue. You need to be focused on growth." And by concentrating on quality customer service, you’ll prevent many negative reviews before they occur. 

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine