3 must-dos for an effortless customer journey
What do you want when you're visiting a website? Exactly: find what you’ve been looking for quickly. Whether that’s a product, a service or a piece of quality content. This means you have to get at least 3 things right. Here they are.
1. Clever structure and clear navigation
If you want to ensure clarity at the front of house, everything has to be done perfectly behind the scenes. Only once you know what you want to say and which pages you need for this, you can ensure these pages interconnect in a logical way. Look at it this way: you can only be a good guide if you know the routes.
Which site structure works for you and your visitors, depends on what you offer. But always make sure that you:
- Place the most important information first in your hierarchy
- Cluster content that belongs together
- Highlight user actions, such as buying a subscription
If you follow these rules, a decent navigation pane, a good set of filter options or a clear hamburger menu are quickly created.
2. A good search function
There are people who ‘browse’, who navigate a site using its menus, hyperlinks and buttons. And then there are the people who do one thing as soon as they visit a website: open the search field and start typing. This is why ‘search’ deserves as much attention as ‘browse’.
So, how do you set up a good search function? Have a peek at Google. A search needs to lead to a clear overview of pages that contain the search term. You can make it easy for your users if you display their search term in bold in a bit of copy for each hit. This allows your user to immediately see the context in which it is used.
A great nice-to-have is a search bar that provides suggestions. Users immediately see what information is available. If you have many different kinds of pages, such as article or products pages, a filter function is very useful. It allows the user to easily filter their search results according to the type of content they want.
3. Strong copy in an intuitive design
Even if you’ve taken care of the most important features, it’s not a given that your users will find them. This requires the right copy, as well as a design that provides good visual cues. All information aimed at the user has to reach them in the right order and demand their attention, without overwhelming them.
In conclusion: the trick is to combine clear and meaningful copy with colours and shapes that stand out. Like a nice orange button on a blue background, with the words “Try 1 month free” in it. Or a menu with clearly worded categories, with an arrow indicating there’s a drop-down menu hidden there. In short: copy and design should work together in showing users the way. That’s when you get it right.