It used to be that a website was a brochure or a glorified business card, or even just a way to show you are a legitimate established company.

Companies would build a website, leave it static and then do a redesign every 4 years. Which would often cost a fortune. It does not need to be that way.

With today's modern tools and emerging tech, it is easier than ever for a business owner or manager to be able to edit and test their website. Tools like Webflow, Square Space, Wix, Lead pages, Hotjar, Google Optimise, and others empower you to do that.

But.. And this is a big but, please don't underestimate the skill and expertise required to design and build a website, you should engage a professional to get you set up but then have a digital strategy in place on how you can be empowered to test, learn and evolve your digital experience.

This used to be a strategy reserved for large corporates and big product teams, but with easy non-code editing tools, A/B testing, and user feedback tools this can now be a reality for any size business.

The most important part of your website is the user experience, so you need to continually test and refine it. To do that effectively you must have a deep understanding of your customers and also understand your customer journey through your digital and physical experience.

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How do I evolve my website or digital experience? 

You do this by having a marketing strategy, how are you reaching out to your customers or potential customers, getting emails and giving updates, using social media and other channels. Then mix that with a digital strategy that understands your target customer personas and helps you test and learn on your website so you can always be improving and evolving your experience.

For a good customer experience you should also be looking past your digital experience into your real-world experience, how does it work when your customer interfaces with your product, service, or company pre and post the digital experience. It is all the touch points the customer has that shape their perceived view of your brand.

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What can you do today?

Start by getting feedback directly from your customers, tools like Hot Jar or Crazy Egg are affordable and with a simple bit of code pasted into your website header, you can gather user feedback immediately and watch users interact with your website. You can also conduct A/B tests to check different variations on the same design to see which performs better.

This will give you an immediate understanding of pain points and where you need to improve. Couple that with real word interviews, Offer your customer database a $100 voucher to participate in a web user test and interview. Talk to your customers get them to walk through some scenarios on your website and learn where it needs help.

The other critical part of this is your data collection, Google analytics should be capturing all that for you and makes it super easy. What are your conversion rates? Where are people bouncing from your website? How long are they staying on-site? What device are they using? Record this then focus on improving it with improved experiences on your website.

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In summary

If you are looking at your website and digital experiences make sure you have a framework in place that allows you to test and learn, make sure you have a solid marketing plan and a digital strategy that has success metrics attached to it.

Don’t be stranded In the 90s with an overly complex back end and static website that never changes.

If you need any help with web, product or digital experiences then reach out to us at hello@userxd.co

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Written by Daniel Birch

CEO at UserXD

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